After nearly half an hour,
The familiar bustling streetscape of Copper Rose district gradually came into Colin's view inside the carriage.
Neat and uniform different shops, wide gray stone roads, ceaseless crowds...
In the past ten days, he had come here numerous times to solve the problem with meditation methods.
Once he disembarked from the carriage, Colin made his way to the shops beside the road like he had been there many times before.
Before long, he browsed through every single shop on this street.
After finishing this street, Colin didn't stop but continued to the next street, repeating the same actions.
Just like that.
Perhaps because he had been here several times before, though there were many shops in Copper Rose district, he managed to visit the remaining shops in just over two hours...
But still, he found nothing and didn't find what he wanted.
Colin composed himself, not discouraged, and continued walking toward the next location...
Today's main event wasn't these shops.
Shortly after.
A magnificent building appeared before him.
He slowly looked upwards.
Clearly engraved on the wooden plaque above was "Golden Shell Auction House."
To the right of the door, another semi-transparent white crystal projected two lines of blue text—
"Exotic treasures from a thousand nations, rare finds from a thousand seas."
"The large monthly auction of Golden Shell Auction House will be held on Thursday."
Actually, today was Thursday. It seemed that the slogans had not yet been updated.
Colin gently exhaled a breath, filled with some anticipation, and walked towards the entrance with the golden invitation in his hand.
The invitation was something he received in the past few days when he came to Golden Shell Auction House, showing the nearly ten thousand Magic Stones he still had saved up, also a requisite to participate in the monthly auction of Golden Shell Auction House.
Entering the auction house, he sat in the separated seats of the auction hall, rubbing the bidding crystal on his right hand, feeling his heartbeat inexplicably quicken.
In recent days, he had consulted a multitude of documents, wanting to clarify exactly why his aptitude had fallen... hoping to find a solution.
The logic behind the decline in aptitude was simple.
The problem was that the changes to the body and spirit imparted by previous meditation practices were mostly irreversible.
This irreversibility continued to produce Magic Power originally developed through meditation, thus causing the new meditation Magic Power to be polluted.
The pollution of Magic Power in turn caused irreversible changes, or degradation, of the spirit and body.
This irreversible degradation was the direct cause of the decline in aptitude among other negative effects.
Of course, like in his case, it was even more complicated.
The spirit and body are a finely tuned holistic system, interconnected; his case also involved his own humanity and Spiritual Light.
Hum—
The auction stage began to gradually light up with soft White Light, illuminating the stage and casting a circular highlight in his eyes.
The auction was about to start.
Colin sat up slightly, his eyes fixed on the main stage of the auction.
His idea was quite simple.
Since the changes caused by the original meditation practices were irreversible, he decided not to worry about whether they could be reversed.
Instead, through the Golden Paper, he planned to integrate the Tin Saint Meditation Method with the original Circulation Meditation, thereby encompassing the original changes, and solving the pollution problem from the root.
However, this method presented an unavoidable issue.
Integration required that both the Tin Saint Meditation Method and the Circulation Meditation be broken to a golden level in advance.
But if he practiced the Tin Saint Meditation Method, it would inevitably lead to pollution of Magic Power, causing changes in the spirit and body...
Everything seemed to have fallen into a vicious cycle.
But in fact, predecessors had already tried to find a solution.
Of course, at least from the information he could access now—
This remained an unsolved dilemma.
Nevertheless, after reviewing related documents, he found a glimmer of hope.
He didn't need to permanently solve the pollution; he just needed to prevent it from occurring before the Tin Saint Meditation Method reached gold level.
And indeed, there was a way to temporarily avoid pollution...
"Let's move to the first item now, an unnamed Magic Crystal, tested and categorized as Fire Element Magic, its power equivalent to a Middle Level First Rank Element Magic, of excellent quality."
On the high stage, the kind-faced auctioneer presented the first item.
Colin quietly waited.
The majority of the auction goods were listed on the brochure beforehand, but some items were kept secret to maintain a sense of mystery.
In the promotional list for this auction, the hidden items mentioned a key phrase—"Eliminate Magic Power."
Yes, eliminate Magic Power.
If all Magic Power is eliminated, and no new Magic Power is generated, then there will be no risk of mixed Magic Power pollution.
For other wizards, this wasn't very useful; on one hand, it's hard to precisely eliminate only the original Magic Power.
On the other hand, even if Magic Power is eliminated, it only delays the effects temporarily, and there will always be consequences later.
After all, eliminating Magic Power only addresses the surface; the real root cause—the irreversible changes to spirit and body—cannot be reversed.
But for him, just being able to delay was sufficient.
Moreover, it's worth mentioning that it is indeed possible to completely use up one's Magic Power on their own, but once meditation begins, Magic Power will be produced again.