The lesson continued for another hour, filled with more diagrams, more explanations, and more of Artheon's dry, emotionless tone. Morena kept her attention focused throughout, even though every detail was stored in the AI, she still wanted to also absorb as much as she could through her own focus.

By the time he finally dismissed them for a short break, the room exhaled collectively, as if everyone had been holding their breath; the lesson had been stressful, and no one dared to speak.

Morena leaned back in her seat for a moment in order to digest the thoughts in her mind.

To say that her mind was buzzing would be an understatement; so many things filled her mind, but none of them were from confusion; in fact, it was from the sheer amount of useful information she had received in just one class.

This was the kind of knowledge she'd wanted for so long. Not hints, not scraps, not rumors, but real, structured direction. So much so that she could start training right away if she wanted to, but she didn't.

Ren let out a shaky breath beside her.

"I swear he was about to kill us with words alone."

Elara smoothed her uniform neatly.

"He is strict, but what he said was correct. Wizards are supposed to be like this."

Liri nodded faintly, still looking like she was overwhelmed.

Morena didn't comment and simply nodded in agreement, preparing her things to leave. The next free class wasn't until the evening, and it took place in another room, so she wanted to return to her own room and begin the meditation she had been shown.

After modifying it, of course.

"I'm going to go back to my room and practice."

With that, she stood up and made her way out of the room; she could notice that Ren wanted to say something, but his body was too nervous to say it.

No one bothered stopping her, and some even agreed that it was the best thing they could do. After all, this place wasn't meant for socializing; every single person here wanted to become a Wizard, some more than others, but it was the end goal.

Like the old man had said, wasting time was just waiting for death. Talent, dedication, and aptitude didn't mean anything unless someone had all three and put in effort.

Morena didn't have talent, and while her aptitude for one thing was high, her aptitude for the other wasn't; plus, she didn't know what they meant just yet.

The next class would cover that, but for now, since she was lacking, she had to make up for it with effort, lots of effort.

Thankfully, she was unbothered on her way back to her room. When she was returning, she had noticed some others like her returning to their rooms as well. The odd part, however, was the ones who were just leaving their rooms.

Had they overslept? Morena didn't know, but she didn't think that missing the first class, such an important one, was a good idea.

But who was she to bother with what others did? Less competition on the field for her was good; let them keep wasting time.

'AI, did you record and store everything properly?'

As she stepped into her room and locked the door behind her, she immediately got to work.

[All prior scenes have been recorded and transcribed into both video and text-based storage; would you like to access them?]

Sitting on her bed, she nodded to herself; she didn't even need to ask the AI to do that, and yet it had already done so. For a while now, she had noticed that the AI was getting more proactive in her needs; it wasn't doing things she didn't want, but rather, doing things she wanted without her needing to say it.

She didn't know what had brought about this change, but it was useful.

'No need. Using this information, first run a comparison between the Wizard meditation method and the methods of a Warrior. Use all stored methods as comparisons.'

[Understood. Run comparison.]

She tapped her fingers on the bed as she waited for the AI to finish, and it took no more than a few minutes.

[Comparison complete; would you like to display results?]

'Yes.'

Still a bit slow, it seems; obviously, she would want the results if she asked for them.

[The Wizard Meditation method is found to be 19% similar to all known Warrior Methods. Please note that while they all equal roughly 19% in similarities, these similarities are not the same between different methods.]

The AI then went on to display a long sheet of information. It pointed out which parts of which method overlapped with the Wizard Meditation method and which parts didn't.

Once Morena had finished going over it all, she had come to a conclusion.

'While inspired, it's not the same.'

Yeah, it was pretty obvious that while the methods used by the Warriors were somewhat inspired, or maybe even branched off from the meditation method of a Wizard, they were vastly different.

Some methods had parts from one section, while others had parts from other sections. The methods used by a Warrior were a lot more mismatched than the methods of a Wizard.

Perhaps it was the only way they could adapt the method to work for people without aptitude or talents, and they instead replaced that need with the need for a core.

Morena didn't understand the full scope of it, but that wasn't very important right now. She didn't plan to dive deeper into the method of a Warrior for the time being; her concerns were with the Meditation method.

The main reason she asked the AI to even compare them was to see if they could be used as a basis to make a refined meditation method suited to her. The Wizard's words from earlier stuck with her; while meditation methods could be changed, some of them weren't always compatible and could do more harm than good.

She wanted a method that was 100% compatible with her; one she could keep improving as time goes on, so that she is never behind because of a lacking method.

After all, she had the AI; unlike others who had to make do with what they had, she didn't. She could collect a bunch of useless methods, ones that contradict, ones that are good, and use all of them to refine and create an even better version made just for her.

'AI, would it be possible to use all stored information to improve the current Wizard Meditation method we have? The goal is to optimize it for me, while still keeping or even improving effectiveness.'

[Would you like me to run a simulation?]

'Yes.'

The AI went silent for a moment as it ran through thousands of simulations in mere minutes; it cross-referenced everything in its database, not just other methods but even stored information, history, or just general knowledge it had.

After all, such things could come in useful in various ways when put together in a grander scheme.

After a full hour of Morena simply sitting around and waiting, she was finally replied to.

[Simulations concluded. A total of 10393 simulations were conducted, and of them, 2 versions were found to match your requirements.]

'Only 2? Well, that's not terrible, I guess.'

She had some hope that she would get more options to choose from, but it seemed that the information she currently had wasn't very useful for improving the method.

In the future, she would expand her knowledge on Wizards, especially when she visited the library, but for now, she wanted to see what the AI had come up with.

'Display results.'

The AI displayed the results in front of her, and she went over them in great detail.

The first method it had shown was very straightforward; it was basically the same meditation method, but refined to fit her. It didn't improve the effectiveness of the method, but it also didn't dampen it in the slightest.

This was the perfect basis and why the AI had suggested it the most; it came with no side effects and had no unforeseeable issues that may arise from it.

The second method, however, was less so.

The AI did not recommend the second method, but still showed it because it suited her needs. Not only did it refine the method to fit her perfectly, just like the first one, but it had also improved the rate at which it could absorb elemental energy and refine mana.

It wasn't a simple double in effectiveness, but triple. It would make up for her lack of talent and allow her to keep up with her peers, maybe even surpass them.

The issue with it was the likelihood of side effects and unforeseen issues arising in the future.

The AI had run various simulations using it as the basis. It had simulated her training in it and various situations she could find herself in throughout life.

In over half of these situations, the simulation concluded that something, likely negative, had happened because of the method. However, none of these negative outcomes were conclusive enough for the AI to rule the method out.

It was a theory; the entire method was a big theory.

'Tempting, truly tempting.'

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