Meditation and Spirit Vision

"Strange. Why do I feel this inexplicable sense of relief?"

Despite his irritation, Lorne suddenly felt a sense of ease that ran counter to his mood.

Great for relieving boredom. Super useful.

Did transmigrating give me a nervous breakdown?

Could all this stress have actually turned me into a "Monster"...? Lorne wondered uncertainly, clutching his head with both hands.

No, there's nothing wrong with me. It's this world that's wrong.

This is just the fictional world of a novel. I'm not a monster. This world just makes me seem strange.

"This world is too barbaric, too backward. It's perfectly normal for me to think that..."

To distract himself, Lorne began leafing through the mysticism materials again.

Ritual magic...

Making charms...

"It all sounds like such a hassle..."

Sitting on a speeding train, he had no way to experiment with any of it.

Lorne could not even talk to himself too loudly now. It was early morning, and sleeping passengers were all around him.

As he continued flipping through the materials, he came across a familiar term.

Meditation.

It's pretty similar to meditation in my old world... Lorne read through the explanation.

"Let's give it a try." Lorne glanced around, and after finding nothing unusual, he began meditating according to the instructions.

"First, picture an object in your mind." Lorne imagined the revolver he had just bought.

Putting his current situation as a fugitive out of his mind for a moment, he finally began to concentrate. His scattered thoughts gradually faded until only the black revolver remained in his mind.

"Then forget it, and replace it with something that doesn't exist in this world."

Lorne remembered the materials saying that this was a crucial step. Only by following this rule could he gradually become one with the transcendent "self," the infinite "self," and the cosmic "self," gaining insight into and revelations of the truth.

Although Lorne did not really understand those terms, he still followed the materials.

Imagine... what should I imagine?

Come to think of it, would something from my old world count? Lorne began recalling the object he had used most often in his previous world-his phone.

But no matter how he recalled or imagined it, he could not deepen his concentration.

"Strange. Why isn't it working? Don't tell me this world has phones too." Lorne was puzzled. After all, mysticism was real in this world, so some things were hard to rule out.

"Could there be something similar to a phone? Or does a phone look too much like a little mirror to count as something that doesn't exist in this world?"

Left with no choice, Lorne had to put his imagination to work. Using a liquid-metal robot from a science fiction film he had once watched as a model, he imagined a twisted humanoid shape, like layers upon layers of shadows gathered together.

Before long, he felt both his mind and body settle down. A hazy sense of overlapping layers appeared before his eyes again, just as it had when he first drank the potion.

His spirituality extended little by little, unfolding inch by inch. Lorne quietly observed it and felt it.

Feeling that his mind and body had calmed down, Lorne slowly opened his eyes.

"What's this?"

Strange colors appeared before him. Lorne reached out to touch them, only to find that his hand passed straight through.

It was as though everything before him had been covered with a strange filter. He turned to look at the other passengers and saw that their bodies were not only filled with all sorts of colors.

There were also strange, unidentified things resembling vortices, clustered together yet constantly moving.

"What on earth is going on?" Lorne rubbed his eyes. Only after he spent a few minutes calming himself did his vision gradually return to normal.

He leafed through the materials beside him, trying to find something that could explain what he had just seen.

"Spirit Vision."

Lorne came across another term.

He quickly began reading through the information on Spirit Vision.

The nonphysical part of every person was divided into four layers. The innermost was called the "spirit body." Outside the spirit body was the "astral body," which served as the former's means of communicating with the Spirit World and the starry sky, and was its outward manifestation.

Certain colors were often outward characteristics of the ether body. Areas involved in movement, such as the hands and feet, appeared red, while the surface of the head and brain appeared purple...

In addition, Spirit Vision allowed one to see certain spirits, ghosts, and wraiths directly...

"So that's what those colors mean."

"Simply put, Spirit Vision lets you see other people's souls directly with your eyes? No, I suppose it would be more accurate to say their auras."

"But what are those strange little vortices? The materials don't say anything about them."

"Could they be restless ghosts? But how could everyone have one above their head?"

As he pondered this, Lorne suddenly remembered the information he had received when he drank the "Monster" potion.

A "Monster" could see things others could not.

"Could these be things only someone on the 'Monster' pathway can see? But what exactly are they?"

The knowledge from the potion offered no detailed explanation, and Lorne could not figure it out right away.

So he closed his eyes again and tried meditating a few more times. When he opened them again, he discovered that the strange little vortices did not appear every time, but he could always see the colors of the auras clearly.

After several more attempts, Lorne had learned to find the state needed to activate Spirit Vision. Although he was still some way from being able to activate it at will, he was getting close.

Whooo!

A deafening whistle sounded. The huge steam train gradually quieted its roar and slowly came to a stop.

We're at the station already? Has time really passed that quickly?

Having spent the whole time practicing Spirit Vision and studying various aspects of mysticism, Lorne was a little surprised. He had not expected time to pass so quickly.

"The last time I studied this seriously was in high school," Lorne said with a self-deprecating smile.

"Mrow..."

Feeling movement inside his bag, Lorne opened the satchel and let the orange cat poke its head out.

Back in the light at last, the orange cat wore an almost human expression of grievance, then turned its head away and refused to look at Lorne.

"Uh..."

Unsure what to do in the face of that expression, Lorne simply gave it a couple of gentle strokes. Then he packed away the materials in front of him, slung on his bag, picked up his suitcase, and got off the train.

"So this is Tingen." Lorne surveyed his surroundings.

"The air really is a little fresher than in Backlund."

Unlike Back-

lund, which always felt gray and hazy, Tingen felt much fresher. At least it lacked the heavy smell of tar and the dust filling the air.

"I remember Tingen being known as a university town. There are supposed to be a lot of universities here."

"And outsiders tend to think people from Tingen are clever. I think that has something to do with some universal education program an earl here introduced long ago..."

The original owner of his body had not known much about history, so Lorne had no further impressions of Tingen to draw upon. Still, that supposed universal education gave him a favorable impression.

"Universal education-that sounds like something a transmigrator would do! Could it have been Roselle? No, he was from Intis. Could there have been other transmigrators?"

But I can't rule out that earl simply having foresight and exceptional ideas. Still, would someone like that really have existed several hundred years ago? Lorne wondered uncertainly.