Chương 20: Meditation with ADHD

So I go back to the statue that I've been slowly burning a hole into and start shooting it with balls of flame, summoning them and throwing them as fast as I can. I do my best to aim for the same spot, hoping that maybe I'll ruin the statue and leave a permanent scorch mark there to remind everyone that I'd been there. Is that something I need to worry about? Do I care about leaving a legacy behind?

The tutorial period is going to end in a little less than 27 hours now, and presumably I'll be leaving this world behind and going to a new one. Do I want to leave a mark that I was here, that those who are still here will be able to see? Do I want to leave some kind of message behind to the survivors, or to whoever comes here next, to prove that I mattered, that I was here? I'm not sure that's something I care about, yet here I am, throwing flame balls at the same spot over and over again.

I'm not even satisfied with a large scorch mark; I'm trying to throw the balls of flame at exactly the same spot every time. I'm trying to heat up the metal of the statue with the bursts of flame, and the only way to do that is to hit the exact same part of the statue every time. The balls of flame only take 5 MP each time, and I have 195 MP to start with. That's 39 shots. 40 if it takes me five minutes to do the first 39. And maybe those 40 shots will be enough to get the spell to increase in level again.

And it would be nice if my spellcraft goes up too. Not that surprisingly, spellcraft does go from 8 to 9. What is surprising is that throwing goes from 7 to 8. I guess that makes sense; I am literally throwing the balls of fire, and I'm taking aim in the same way as I would with a throwing knife. So it makes sense that my throwing would increase while I'm at it. It also makes sense that the spell itself increases. It now does 300% of my awareness in fire damage. That's 36 points of damage. Not bad.

Still not as good as an arrow, but not a bad secondary attack during a sword fight. And at this rate, when I get it up to level five it'll do five times my awareness damage. That'll be 70 points, and that will definitely be worth it. I sit down to meditate, closing my eyes and trying to feel the world around me and the mana flowing through it. Something about the mana feels off, wrong. Not different from what it felt before; this is definitely the same mana feeling that I had the last time I meditated.

It's more like I can taste it better, and now that I have a better understanding of it I can tell that there's something off. Something that was always off, but that I just couldn't notice before. It still refills my MP, and I don't think there's anything that will hurt me in it. It just feels like it doesn't belong. I guess that makes sense. This is the real world, and there isn't magic here. Or at least, there didn't used to be. There also didn't used to be giants or shadow wolves or spiders the size of a horse.

Maybe it's just that my awareness is now high enough that I can tell the mana doesn't belong here. Maybe there's something else. It's hard to say. I keep focusing on the flavor of the mana, trying to pay attention and figure it out, letting everything else fall away. Focusing on one thing at a time isn't easy for me, but it's easier than focusing on nothing at all.

Meditation doesn't usually work for me at all, and now is only working because I can pick one thing to focus on, one thing that will let me shut out all other distractions. I can feel my meditation increase, but I stick with it, trying to find the source of the mana, or rather the source of its impurity. If I can find where the mana is coming from, then I figure I can justify that we're in the right park. Wherever we end the tutorial is going to lead us to the new world.

Which means that wherever we're supposed to be will be connected to the new world. The new world is going to be a magical world, which means it has mana a plenty already. Logically, the mana infusing its way into our world is coming from the new world. So if I can find where the mana is coming from, I'll find the new world. If I can find the entrance to the new world, I'll find the park where we're supposed to be.

If it's this park, and I really think it is, then that means the entrance will be near to where I physically am now. Which should, in theory, make it easier to find. I keep searching for as long as I can. Long after my MP has refilled, long after my meditation has increased. Long enough that it qualifies as a hyper focus. I can focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. It's one of the reasons that meditation like this, ironically, comes easily to me.

If I can get my attention to focus on just one thing, I can exclude everything else, including the feeling of my own body. I can project my mind onto whatever it is I'm thinking about or doing, and forget about what my body is doing. I've done it while reading, getting so into a book that I've forgotten to eat and haven't noticed that I have to go to the bathroom. I've done it while playing video games to the point where I've forgotten to blink for minutes at a time.

There are a lot of people who think they know what I mean. They say "oh, I get into the zone sometimes too." but this isn't that. The zone, as they call it, is a state of heightened focus. It's an ability to pay really close attention to whatever you're doing, and a lot of people enjoy that feeling because it helps them get things done quickly and efficiently, and they aren't easily distracted by what's going on around them. That's a great thing, and a fun feeling, but that's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is forgetting that I have arms and legs. I no longer notice if the position I'm sitting in is comfortable because I don't know that I have a body anymore. I could be starving. I could be bleeding. I have absolutely no idea, and no care, what my body is doing. My vision, if my eyes were open, would be blurred at the edges, like the world was literally out of focus. Because it is. I'm focusing on the mana so hard that I'm almost leaving my body behind and following the trails of it.

I'm paying so much attention to what I'm doing that I don't see the little clock that's counting down the tutorial period anymore. I don't feel my sword across my lap. I don't hear anyone else moving around. I have no idea that I can even hear things right now. It's like I've completely shut off my senses of sight and of hearing. I don't see anything, not even darkness. To see darkness would be to pay more attention to my eyes than I need to right now.

Right now, all of my attention, every iota of it, is on the mana. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. And I can feel it. I feel it flowing through me and through the world. And I feel its current. That current seems to be flowing in one direction, though that may just be because of where I'm sitting. But it seems to be flowing outward, away from the center of the sculpture garden. I think I'm right. I think we're in the right place.

I come out of my meditation and discover that I was so focused that I spent about three hours doing it. I feel rested as if I've gotten a full night's sleep, and I've garnered a couple of notifications from it. First off, my meditation increased not to five, but to seven. Second, my awareness increased again, all the way to fourteen. I haven't been spending points on awareness, but have gained at least four points in it just tonight. I guess that makes sense.

Everything makes sense, as long as I start from the point of view that this is a game. I live in a game now. I don't know if someone else is playing my avatar or if I'm just playing in as immersive a game as it is possible to play in, but this is a game. It's real life, too. But it's a game. I look around to see what the others are doing. Looks like Vinny is meditating, El is sleeping, Gigi is practicing with the bow, and Ashley is working out. I go over to Ashley first.

"The way I figure it," she says as I get close, "our bodies are in a state of flux right now. Everything is easier to improve than it's ever been before. I mean, I've gained a point of strength just from doing push ups. I've never improved this much this quickly. I don't know if it's going to last outside the tutorial period, so I'm taking advantage."

"That's a good way of thinking," I say.

"And I think you're right. How many push ups did you have to do to get that increase in strength?" She laughs at me, going down for another set of them. I join her, and soon we're doing deep and agonizingly slow push ups. After about ten, I can feel the muscle twitching, the fibers individuating themselves, breaking apart and reforming stronger. After twenty I'm surprised that I can already do this many.

I mean, my strength is pretty high compared to where it started, and so is my vigor, but I don't think I could've done this many super clean deep push ups just a week ago. I feel like there's a drill instructor critiquing my form, and somehow finding nothing wrong with it. Thirty push ups in, and I can feel the pressure of it on my shoulders and my chest.

Forty in and I'm again surprised at how many I can do, and the fact that I haven't felt the need to pick up the pace, to bounce myself back up, or to let gravity pull me down. I'm doing each movement intentionally, and it seems to be showing. Fifty push ups in, and Ashley starts laughing.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" she asks. Her voice isn't even strained.

"I couldn't have done this two days ago."

"Me either," I say. There's more strain in my voice than there is in hers, but it feels good. The workout feels good, like my muscles are getting stronger. We get to sixty and I'm not yet feeling like I could pass out. We get to seventy, and my arms are just starting to shake. Seventy five and I'm starting to really feel it. Eighty and I can feel each push up and the effort it takes to complete it. Ashley is still going, and is soon several ahead of me as I slow down to really push myself through the last few.

She hits a hundred before I hit ninety, hits a hundred and ten before I hit a hundred. I decide to stop with that even hundred, my arms shaking and my whole body demanding that I stop. I'm gasping for breath, something I wouldn't expect to have happen just from doing simple push ups. I fall to the ground and watch, amazed, as Ashley does another forty of them before coming to rest. She doesn't seem as winded as I am. Your strength has increased to 18. A point of strength for just one hundred push ups?

Definitely worth it. But running around the sculpture garden doesn't sound like fun, and that's Ashley's next step. So I leave her to it and go over to see how Gigi is doing.

"My bow skill is getting really high," she says.

"I even qualified for an Archer class. Have you qualified for that one?"

"I haven't been offered that one," I say. Which is surprising.

"What do you need to get it?"

"Bow at eight, dodge at eight, shield at five, and strength at twenty."

"I'd just need two more levels of shield and two more points of strength," I say.

"I'm guessing this class comes off your squire class?"

"Is there a class tree? I haven't seen that."

"I think there is," I say.

"It certainly seems that some classes lead to others. I'm following a path down one set right now. It's more agility based than strength based, though."

"Oh, your agility must be pretty high then."

"It's twenty seven," I tell her, shrugging.

"Probably not as high as your strength."

"My strength is only twenty five," she says.

"But my agility is only twenty. The real beast is El. I think her strength is over thirty at this point." I start aiming my shots at the target so that instead of grouping with themselves, they hit near whatever Gigi hits. She's shooting from a nice distance, but is still managing to get all her shots within the blue ring or closer. No more shots in the black or the white. Good enough to hit center mass. I'm finding that I can put all my shots into the yellow if I want to, or I can try to hit near to her arrows.

I'm not trying to split her arrows – that just means fewer arrows for all of us – but rather trying to nestle mine close to hers, to get the same score if we were keeping track. I don't know why I'm trying to do that, other than it feels like more of a challenge. We're far enough away that we have to arch our shots a bit, and that adds a significant challenge to the way we aim. I can't just look down the arrow at the target and aim that way. If I do, the shot will drop too far and it won't hit what I'm aiming at.

I have to aim high, adjusting for the drop of the arrow, and I have to make sure that the arrow is arching at the same time. It's a challenge, but it's fun. She notices that I'm matching her hits, and starts focusing more and more on getting her shots in the center ring, as if daring me to split hers. It's just a friendly competition, though; we both know that I'm the better archer, and it's not just one of those things where you claim to be better and can't prove it. I can prove it.

The number on my sheet is higher than hers. It's not just that I have a better bow. I'm actually better at using it than she is. It's not something I hold over her. I know she's better with a sword than I am. Again, it's not a competition to see who's better. It's more a competition to see who can improve more. We shoot that way for about an hour, until the sky starts to lighten.

It's still only about four in the morning, but Gigi doesn't need to keep a torch on the target anymore to see it, and I'm starting to see color again. I was talking about the yellow and the blue rings, but they were really all just shades of gray for me until about the time we stop shooting. My agility goes up to 28, and my bow skill goes up to 13. I'm very happy with the practice, and with the fact that my defense is now a whopping 63. But, truth be told, I'm tired of practicing. I want to go do something.