(Rodova Military Academy, Leo’s Dorm, 12:30 AM)
At around 12:30 midnight, Leo finally gave up on meditation for the day, after spending five and a half frustrating hours making little to no progress.
His head ached, his focus was strained, and his patience with the entire process had worn thin.
So, instead of continuing down that fruitless path, he turned his attention to something new—the Absolute Vision skill scroll.
A challenge, yes.
But hopefully, one that wasn’t as painfully tedious as meditation.
Whirrrr—
The holographic scroll activated, flickering to life in the dim room, hovering before his eyes just as the meditation manual had.
But unlike the silent hum of the meditation guide, this one made a low mechanical whirring sound, like an old, worn-out engine sputtering to life.
Then, the first set of instructions appeared, glowing faintly.
[Mastering Absolute Vision requires mastering Mana Perception first.]
[Until you can visualize the flow of mana around you with your eyes closed, it is fruitless to attempt this method.]
Leo exhaled sharply, closing his eyes without hesitation.
And immediately, he felt it.
The subtle pull of mana in the air, swirling in unseen currents.
It wasn’t visible, but it was there—an invisible tide that he was unconsciously drawing into his body, like a whirlpool slowly siphoning water from its surroundings.
When he opened his eyes again, the warning label was gone.
The text on the scroll had already updated, shifting to the next phase of instruction.
[Please circulate mana within your body, following the path in the diagram before you.]
The hologram shifted, revealing an anatomical diagram of the human body, tracing the specific mana circulation route he needed to follow.
The path began near the base of his skull, running down his spine, branching through his legs, all the way to his toes—before looping back up in a continuous cycle.
Unlike the Meditation Manual, which required distributing mana into delicate micro-pathways, this technique was far more straightforward.
It didn’t require complex branching. No intricate detours. Just one clean, fluid cycle.
Three attempts. That’s how long it took him to memorize the pattern.
As after only three repetitions, he had engraved the process into muscle memory, circulating the mana through his body smoothly and without error.
[Step complete.]
[Please close your eyes and circulate the mana once more.]
Leo complied instantly, closing his eyes and performing the circulation from memory.
He expected nothing different.
Yet—
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The moment he completed the cycle—
His world changed.
A three-dimensional map of his surroundings exploded into his mind.
Not a blurry impression. Not some vague awareness.
But a detailed, spatially accurate reconstruction of the entire room.
He could feel the outline of his bed, the slight unevenness of his desk, the soft ripple of the air as it brushed against his skin.
The world around him had shifted, no longer defined by sight but by pure perception.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—whoa…."
Leo staggered, nearly losing his balance.
It was too real. Too overwhelming.
His brain struggled to process the sudden flood of information, adjusting to a completely new way of perceiving reality.
For a brief moment—
He wasn’t using his eyes.
Yet, he could still see everything.
[Congratulations, you have successfully mastered the first stage of (Absolute Vision), you inherently understand the concept behind 3D imaging and have a robust subconscious brain capable of interpreting the information in real time.]
The skill scroll said, as Leo frowned deeply upon reading this.
He felt perplexed as to why he could master such a difficult technique with such ease, however, apparently he already had an inherent understanding of how to sense mana around his body, and a robust enough brain to compile the information he collected.
[The next step is to learn how to perform one circulation of this method with each breath that you take.
The focus is on speed with precision]
The skill scroll instructed, as Leo closed his eyes once again and took in a deep breath, trying to sync one cycle of mana rotation alongside it.
However, as he tried to cycle the mana down the memorized path, he realized that he needed at least 3.5 seconds to complete one cycle.
Whereas the mental image created after each cycle lasted for only 1 second.
This meant that, if he wanted to learn how to maintain this skill continuously, he needed to shorten the mana circulation time from 3.5 seconds to unde one, and then sync it with his breathing, so that his brain linked performing this method Sub-Consciously with breathing, doing it every passing moment without Leo needing to focus on it.
*Sigh–*
Leo exhaled sharply, closing his eyes once more.
Again.
He pushed the mana through the path, forcing himself to move faster while maintaining the same precision.
This time he improved very slightly, pushing his circulation time to 3.4 seconds, but it was still too slow.
’Again–’ He thought, as he hastened the process even more, repeating the circulation path, as he tried adjusting his control and trimming unnecessary hesitation.
The result?
He trimmed down his time to 3.2 seconds, which was a great improvement over 3.5, but still a far-cry from where he needed to be.
Leo exhaled, rubbing his temple as the strain on his mind began creeping in.
A quick glance at the clock told him that it was 3:00 AM already, meaning that there was only 1.5 hour left before the morning alarms blared and the next academic day began.
’I need to take some rest, pushing anymore will only be counterproductive, I guess I will work on this again tomorrow–’ Leo concluded, as he shut down the holographic scroll, and climbed onto his bunk bed.
’I have a long way to go–’ Leo realized, as at that thought, his brain drifted asleep, shutting down in almost an instant after the exhaustion that it had undergone today.
It was a challenge to learn both the meditation method and the perception skill simultaneously, however, Leo had faith in his ability to keep-up regardless.