Learning Magic

Meditation meant calming the mind and entering a state of emptiness, where one's thoughts could spread without limit.

For ordinary people, their mental strength would gradually grow in this state. They would feel more energetic, healthier, hungrier, able to digest better, and sleep more soundly.

But after Astral Projection, entering a meditative state allowed one's spirit to undergo a deeper sublimation, letting one sense the Multidimensional Realm!

Bai Jing spent half the night comparing the Book of Maxim with the Sanskrit Dictionary. As for things like New Astronomy and Book of Illusions, he abandoned them after flipping through two pages.

As someone who often read Xianxia Novels, did he need to cultivate mystical thinking?

As someone who had received a modern scientific education, did he need to read four-hundred-year-old popular science literature?

For the latter half of the night, Bai Jing began trying to meditate.

At first, entering meditation was difficult, but he eventually came up with a method.

Weren't all the random thoughts in his head simply because his brain cells were too active?

Bai Jing directly used gravity to control his nerve cells, suppressing whichever areas were active. After half an hour of this, his mind finally calmed down!

Then, he easily sensed an Alternate Dimension!

It was an incredibly wondrous feeling, as though an invisible, intangible layer of mist had appeared in the air, overlapping with their universe while existing on a different plane.

The mist was blazing red, drifting gently through the air.

"Is this the energy mages use?" Bai Jing curiously stirred it with his mind, then opened his eyes.

It truly was the dimension closest to the universe. Even after leaving meditation, as long as he kept his mind focused, he could still sense this power!

No wonder mages always raised their hands and used this energy. It was simply too easy to sense!

Bai Jing also understood why mages did not use spells like ice arrows or Earth Evasion. This energy could not produce them!

What this energy excelled at most was shaping itself into things like shields and protractors. Bai Jing could not do that yet; specific forms required specific incantations, and he had not begun learning them.

"Come to think of it, can gravity control this energy?" Bai Jing curiously manipulated the surrounding gravity to stir the Mars, then discovered in surprise that it could!

"It clearly isn't from the same dimension. But no one knows gravity's true nature. Scientific theory considers it a higher-dimensional force, so there's nothing strange about it being able to stir energy across dimensions!" With that thought, Bai Jing continued experimenting.

His purpose in learning magic was to make better use of his eyes. Now that he could sense so much energy, he naturally had to see whether he could absorb it!

"Devour!" Bai Jing slightly unleashed his Devouring Power. In an instant, all the blazing red energy within the Gravity Field vanished into it.

Bai Jing only felt his eyes heat up briefly. Then, he saw that alternate dimension!

He saw it with his eyes, rather than sensing it with his mind!

He saw an orange-red world, vast and boundless, filling the heavens. In an instant, the entire world had turned orange-red!

That blazing red energy drifted freely through this world. It was as common there as air on Earth, and Bai Jing even saw creatures like swimming fish and flying birds flash past within it.

There was life in this dimension too!

"I seem to..." Bai Jing's face darkened, then he quickly grew excited. "Am I some kind of super genius??"

He could see dimensional energy with his naked eyes! While other mages still had to comprehend it with their minds, he could see it directly!

What did that mean?

It meant that other mages had to concentrate completely during battle to sustain their magic, but Bai Jing did not.

Therefore, he could use magic more casually and freely.

The only problem was that this energy was like mist. Its density was too low, and there was too little of it.

Casting a single spell might require drawing energy from a fairly large area.

Bai Jing had thought he had found a portable power source from which he could draw energy at will, but after seeing this world, he realized he had celebrated too soon.

Still, that was only normal. If this dimension's energy were absurdly abundant, Ancient One could simply draw power from it. Why would she need to draw from the Dark Dimension?

"But in that case, does the Dark Dimension have a lot of energy?" He could absorb energy from this commonly used dimension, so theoretically, he should be able to absorb energy from the Dark Dimension as well.

But that was uncertain. After all, when ordinary mages absorbed energy from the Dark Dimension, they only attracted Dormammu. Yet when Ancient One absorbed the Dark Dimension's power, Dormammu did not dare utter a single word.

The night passed without incident.

The next day, Bai Jing went to find Wang.

"I've already finished the books, and I sensed that dimension's energy too. Does that mean I can proceed to the next stage of training?" Bai Jing asked.

"Hm?" Wang blankly looked at the sky, wondering whether he had overslept or remembered the time wrong.

"Come with me!" Wang hesitated, then decided not to ask too many questions.

What if Bai Jing really had sensed it? Wouldn't that make Wang look foolish?

And if Bai Jing had not sensed it, then he was only deceiving himself.

They were still in the study.

"This is the Complete Collection of Basic Incantations!" Wang said. "Energy from alternate dimensions is like an electric current. Our minds draw it out, but to control it like an arm, we need incantations to work with it!"

It was another book. Bai Jing opened it and found incantations for all kinds of weapons recorded inside.

The first was a shield, the second a whip, and the third a blade—the protractors mages often used...

"Since weapons formed by magic are mostly for close combat, you also need to learn some self-defense techniques." As Wang spoke, he handed Bai Jing several more books.

Compendium of Various Fist Styles.

"Are there no bows and arrows?" Bai Jing flipped through all the incantations, then looked at Wang curiously.

If I still needed close combat after becoming a mage, why wouldn't I just carry a Vibranium sword?

"Uh... there aren't?" Wang scratched his head, took the book of incantations, and flipped through it. There really were none.

"Maybe no mages liked archery, so no one created an incantation for it!" Wang thought for a moment, then said, "If you really want to use one, you can create it yourself!"

"Is it difficult to create one?" Bai Jing asked.

"It probably isn't too difficult!" Wang considered it, then said, "After all, every spell here was created by those who came before us. But if you ask whether it's easy, it probably isn't. It's been many years since a new spell was created!"

"Oh!" Bai Jing nodded and began reading the incantations.

The incantations were not complicated. What was complicated were the requirements when casting them: the pronunciation had to be accurate, and the posture had to be precise.

Since language had only been standardized for roughly a century, mages over the past several thousand years had spoken with all sorts of accents and created all kinds of spells. Their contemporaries had found them easy to learn, but later generations found them headache-inducing.

But once a spell became familiar, it did not need to be so troublesome. One could try altering the syllables and gestures, casting it in whichever way one was most proficient with.

In fact, over the past century, Ancient One had already changed most ancient spells to English—Ancient One was Celtic and used English—which had greatly reduced the difficulty of casting many spells.

Most of what remained had been created by mages over the past century. Since the sanctum was in Nepal and Sanskrit had been widely used there over the past century, there were still many Sanskrit spells.

As for whether there were Chinese spells, there were some, but very few. China had its own inherited sects and traditions, so few people from there came here to study under a master.