Chapter 757: Valuing and Reclaiming Meditation

"How did you know? No High Mage came down from the ship just now, did they!" Niya frowned, appearing somewhat puzzled.

Compared to low-rank Mages, or even ordinary people, it is actually very difficult to see the difference in High Mages if you only look at them themselves.

But from the perspectives of bearing, clothing, accessories, and so on, one can still see clues.

Mages did indeed come down from the ship just now, but Niya was very certain that there were absolutely no High Mages among those people; perhaps they were just those sent by the Sevonton Chamber of Commerce to speak with the Elves.

She told Xia Duo her views and judgment, and Xia Duo smiled and said, "You only paid attention to the Mages, but you didn't notice the ordinary people. I just saw Saituosi of the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce; he bowed to a patch of air and then took that patch of air away. If he weren't an Advanced Mage, would an ordinary Mage keep a Huiwei Tanshi Spell active at all times?"

"Hmm?"

Niya tried hard to recall the scene of people disembarking that she had just seen from the projection, but she could not recall many details and could only sigh inwardly that she had not saved the real-time projection information in time.

Wanting to peek again would seem rude for the Tower of Time, so Niya could only give up and said, "If it really is a High Mage, then the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce certainly values the Tower of Time quite a bit!"

"That should be expected; after all, you are a student of the Princess!"

Xia Duo was quite open-minded about this. Although a High Mage had come, which might leave the Tower of Time with little room for bargaining, when facing a large chamber of commerce like the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce, even if an ordinary person had come, the Tower of Time could not have set the conditions too outrageously.

Besides, High Mages are not cabbages that can sprout up anywhere, and they are also Identifiers; such a person will surely have a certain amount of say within the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce, and perhaps they might even make the negotiations go more smoothly.

Of course, no matter what the Tower of Time thinks, the people from that side have already come, so one cannot exactly make them return the way they came!

The Tower of Time is currently counting on mass-producing Communication Magic Tools to recover some of its capital!

Just as Xia Duo and Niya were chatting, the External Affairs Mage stationed in the East District of the Tower of Time sent word that they had received a formal visit notification from the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce.

The time was set for the afternoon.

Time was still a bit tight, with only a few hours left, so Xia Duo hurriedly notified Dailike and Aiboke.

Dailike was indifferent and could be called over at any time, but Aiboke was different; he had to be notified in advance, otherwise, if he happened to be busy with something temporary, Xia Duo would have to step forward himself.

It was just that Xia Duo could not be as calculating as a professional Merchant.

As for others, like Niya, she was not skilled in business; Depake might be skilled, but he was currently busy adapting to his new state as a High Mage and had already given word that he could not get away.

Aiboke was the only one most suitable to appear on behalf of the Tower of Time; as for letting an Intermediate Rank or low-rank Mage step forward, Xia Duo had never even considered it.

……

After lunch, Xia Duo and Niya returned to the Study again, preparing to observe the business negotiation between Aiboke, Dailike, and the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce.

Although they might not necessarily see that Advanced Mage from the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce, they could still understand the situation indirectly through the reactions of others.

And if one completely disregarded etiquette, forcibly breaking through the other party's Huiwei Tanshi Spell would also be feasible; after all, how could an outside Mage entering the interior of the Tower of Time compete with the Tower of Time!

At this time, there was still a while before the negotiation, so Niya took out a book to read, while Xia Duo brewed a cup of tea for both of them and then began to close his eyes and rest his mind.

Of course, this was just an appearance; in fact, Xia Duo was also "reading."

Memory Retrospection is indeed very useful, but after using it a lot, Xia Duo discovered that there is still a very brief process involved; that is to say, these memories seem to be completely remembered by him with "photographic memory," but in fact, they do not yet completely belong to him.

It is similar to an external Ziliaoku; whenever Xia Duo wants to look up certain information, the first step is always to search for relevant records and load them into his current consciousness before he can process them.

It is conceivable that as he receives more and more memories, the searching and loading process will become more time-consuming, so it is necessary to be able to process memories directly.

Similar to incorporating memories directly into the management of the processing system that is his consciousness.

In this regard, Xia Duo is currently working in two directions simultaneously. On one hand, almost every time he has free time, he will perform Memory Retrospection to transform memories that were originally like an external Ziliaoku into "internal memory."

On the other hand, an external Ziliaoku is ultimately just a metaphor; those memories are ultimately stored in his brain or Soul, and his consciousness can certainly process them directly.

So he picked up the 【Meditation Training】 that he had abandoned after becoming an Advanced Arcanist.

The "Empire Meditation Third Edition" obtained from the 【Projection Plane: Arcane Empire】 played an important role in promoting Xia Duo's process of advancing to an Advanced Arcanist in the past.

Although it is not that one cannot advance without a Meditation Method, the time saved is not to be ignored.

Meditation is actually a "Weak Spellcasting State" used to organize and order the Subconscious of a Spellcaster to achieve the effect of improving focus.

At the same time, it also has an effect that other Focus Training finds difficult to achieve, which is raising the lower limit of the degree of focus.

Xia Duo speculates that the ultimate achievement of 【Meditation】 is the integration of the Subconscious and the Conscious Mind, equivalent to an upgrade of consciousness; perhaps by then, his consciousness will be able to cover all memories, rather than having a retrospection process when using them.

Moreover, with the experience of Memory Retrospection, Xia Duo even speculates that once someone can integrate the Subconscious and the Conscious Mind, they will also possess the ability to perform Memory Retrospection.

And this kind of ability is even stronger than Memory Retrospection; that would be true photographic memory!

Xia Duo's current Memory Retrospection is only equivalent to a low-spec version, a kind of early-experience ability brought about by a brand-new Soul State, which of course will need to continue to be upgraded later.

Proceeding in both directions simultaneously does not take much effort; constant Memory Retrospection does not require any special state, it is just using the gaps of resting, daydreaming, drinking tea, or walking to recall, which fits almost perfectly, utilizing free time to the extreme.

As for 【Meditation】, he only performs it once after waking up, and only once; its impact on daily life is minimal, almost imperceptible.

……

Now Xia Duo is recalling his experiences in the 【Projection Plane: Arcane Empire】; after all, he still cannot fully control all his memories, and perhaps some key information has been overlooked by him.

Recently, besides revising and perfecting the "Principles" book, learning knowledge related to Plane Scholars, and conducting Plane Exploration, the thing he has done the most is performing Memory Retrospection on past memories.

Through repeated retrospection, he has indeed found quite a bit of information that was overlooked in the past, such as a conversation between passersby mixed into the background noise on the street in his Earth memories, a fleeting page while browsing the web, or the content of a book page flipped through casually in a library.

Perhaps he did not hear or see it at all at the time, or was not even aware of it, so in Xia Duo's subsequent memories, there would be almost no trace left, and there would be no concept of it at all, so if he wanted to retrospect it, there would be no way to start.

Only by re-retrospecting the past can those overlooked pieces of information be discovered.

The only pity is that the memories on Earth cannot be fully retrospectively accessed; for example, some web pages are blurry when retrospectively accessed, but some can be seen clearly.

It is as if his memories on Earth have been frozen since the moment he transmigrated; perhaps only after truly integrating the Subconscious and Conscious Mind will there be a breakthrough.