In the cave, which felt damp and cold at night, only a little pale moonlight managed to illuminate the room. Fine dust danced in the narrow pillar of light. Rian performed the recovery spell again, little by little, for his wounds. Day after day passed. With his limited healing magic, aided by complete rest in a safe place, his wounds slowly closed and finally healed perfectly.
Okay, now what? My wounds are all healed.
Breathing practice, right? Actually, what is the normal, good standard for holding one's breath for a mage in this world?
I don't know. That "Jampe Jampe" book only said 'the longer, the better'.
Also, I now know why my body got tired so quickly when putting things into the Storage. It turns out Storage also requires mana, or magic energy.
The more things I put in, the more mana it consumes. Coincidentally, I also realized that any item with a large shape exceeding the Storage's diameter can't fit.
The maximum diameter of this Storage is only 1 meter, so I can't insert anything larger than that. And the amount of mana used is also large if the item is big.
That's just my speculation, though.
And after I investigated and observed again, the mana vessel in my body, or a human's body, can be trained with breath meditation. The longer, the better.
Actually, back in school, I could hold my breath and became the champion of a breath-holding contest.
Back then, I could hold my breath for over 2 minutes.
But physically, my endurance seems stronger here. For example, when I fought the troll, my whole body was covered in wounds, my head hit the stone wall hard, and why didn't I die instantly?
Maybe because I'm indeed stronger than when I died back on Earth. My physique is different in this world.
Okay, now back to Mana. I want to try holding my breath. What's my maximum limit?
How do I count it? There's no clock here.
The sun? But that can't confirm time in minutes. Alright, I'll just make a benchmark.
Rian went to the front of the cave. The small area in front of the secret entrance was slightly open, a narrow yard at the base of the cave's chasm, which allowed the morning sunlight to penetrate the ground, unobstructed by the forest canopy above. The air felt clear and cool, carrying the scent of damp earth.
Rian stuck a straight wooden stick into the somewhat hard ground. In the morning, the stick stood upright. The shadow looked long and clear on the dusty ground, almost twice its original length.
The benchmark: sunrise means 6 AM. Then, when the stick's shadow disappears, that marks midday.
Then, when the shadow is long in the opposite direction of the morning, and the sun sets, that marks 6 PM.
6 hours from morning to noon, and 6 hours from noon to night. Half the shadow's length, when it's shorter than the sunrise shadow, marks 9 AM. The same applies in reverse for the afternoon, at 3 PM.
Rian marked each shadow position throughout the day. He scratched the hard ground with his dagger. Each mark was given a number like a clock, but the clock face was just a straight line: 6 - 7- 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15 -16 -17 - 18. The number 12 was exactly where the stick stood.
Even if it's not accurate, at least this can be my benchmark for calculating time. Let's try it.
Right now, it's still 6 AM. Because yesterday, I spent the whole day just monitoring the sun.
Now, let's focus on breathing practice.
Rian sat cross-legged in front of his sundial. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fantasy world's air, which felt fresher, and then began to hold his breath. In this world, he could hold it for over two hours. In the first hour, Rian held his breath. The stick's shadow slowly shifted from the '6' mark to the '7'.
It's been an hour, but why don't I feel suffocated? I feel like I can still hold it much longer.
Is my time calculation still inaccurate?
Rian could still hold on for 2 hours.
It's at the eight mark now, and I can still hold my breath, but it's starting to feel a little tight.
Not long after, Rian couldn't hold his breath any longer. He gasped, inhaling and exhaling deeply, his chest feeling hot.
I think this time calculation is wrong. The mark shows I held my breath for two hours, but how can a normal human hold their breath for that long?
Back on Earth, my maximum was only two minutes.
Rian chuckled, still unsatisfied with his clock's expectation, feeling his homemade clock was inaccurate. He continued to train his breathing day after day.
A week later, Rian had trained to hold his breath even longer.
I've been doing this every morning and evening. Inhaling deeply, exhaling, over and over.
Isn't it boring?
Of course, it's boring. Besides that, I also hunt, like hunting wild boar or other small animals for food. And I put a lot of my hunts into my Storage to relieve the monotony of my training.
Why not just train magic? Because I have to confirm how long my breathing strength is.
And I want to expand its potential as long as possible because the book explains that the size of the mana vessel is strongly connected to the respiratory system.
So the mana vessel can be linked to the amount of time we can hold our breath. At first, I thought it didn't make sense, but hey, this is a fantasy world. I'm just following what's in the book.
As the sun began to rise, Rian started to hold his breath again while sitting cross-legged on a rock. He ignored the sounds of the forest around him. Minute by minute, hour by hour. Midday passed. Rian still didn't feel short of breath.
How long can I last? It's already midday. I'm so bored.
This is annoying; holding my breath is boring. I want to practice magic, but I want to confirm my maximum limit for holding my breath.
Every day I practice breathing, and every day, the amount of time I can hold my breath increases.
The stick's shadow showed three o'clock. Rian began to feel tight-chested again, so he released his breath and gasped for air.
There's still improvement today. So how long will I train my breathing?
Until I really can't improve anymore. I want to build a perfect foundation for my magic.
So if my training results stop improving, or my breath-holding time stops increasing, then I'll stop. Even though it's boring, I have to do this.
Day after day passed, week after week, month after month. Four months later. The cave environment now felt like home. The smell of dry straw had mixed with the faint aroma of roasted meat. Rian's clothes had lost their shape. His pants were ragged, torn in many places, and dirty with soil. Rian's hair was long, hanging dirtily past his shoulders. He realized his appearance when he looked at his reflection in the river water.
My appearance now is no longer that of a cool, handsome playboy. Now I'm like a jungle man who's become primitive.
Eating meat every day, eating fish, and eating fruits. It's been 4 months, and my job is just breathing.
Yeah, just breathing, I'm not lying. After hunting, I go back to breathing, in and out, always like that. It feels so incredibly boring.
Tomorrow is the last day. Because for the last 2 weeks, every 3 days I tried holding my breath, there was no improvement.
So now, if there's still no improvement, it means this is my maximum limit for holding my breath.
The next day, the sun rose. The morning air felt bitingly cold. Rian was already sitting cross-legged in his spot, in front of his simple sundial. Then he began to hold his breath. Slowly, the stick's shadow began to shorten and then disappeared. The sky above was clear. Then the shadow reappeared in the opposite direction, growing longer and longer, right until sunset.
It's starting to get dark, and I can still hold my breath longer than this, just like yesterday. But I'm really impatient, this is boring!
Grumble after grumble echoed in his mind. The darkness deepened that night. Strange noises from the forest outside the cave became clearer: the rustling of leaves, the distant call of a night bird. His breath was still held. He didn't know what time it was when the complaints in his mind began to surge.
This isn't boredom anymore, not tiredness, I'm hungry!
I'm so hungry, I'm thirsty. From morning until now, I've been holding my breath, holding off on eating, holding off on drinking. Is this self-torture?
But I can still hold my breath. I just hope nothing disturbs me while I'm doing it.
A few weeks ago, when I was testing my breath and sitting like this, I was almost charged by a boar. Did that boar hold a grudge because I killed its wife? Maybe.
Rian kept himself busy with the grumbling in his mind, thinking about whatever crossed his mind to distract from the hunger, thirst, and boredom. All the grumbling in his mind suddenly stopped when a streak of orange light appeared on the eastern horizon. The sun was beginning to rise again.
Huh, it's morning?? Which means I've been holding my breath for 24 hours?
Not long after that, Rian couldn't hold his breath any longer. It wasn't because he was out of breath, but because the hunger and thirst were torturing him. So Rian decided to stop training after the sun rose.
I have to eat and drink, immediately.
After Rian finished eating and drinking, he returned to the room in the cave and fell into a deep sleep. His sleep was so sound, he slept from that morning until the next morning, when he woke up.
Ahh... My body feels so refreshed. I can't believe I really held my breath for a full day yesterday.
So what should I do now?
Well, practice magic, duh. Why even ask?
This is what I've been waiting for over the past 4 months. Those were such boring, super boring days.
Rian stood up. On the damp stone wall of the cave, scratches marking days and weeks were visible. The rows of scratches marked the number of days he had trained, proof of his monotonous diligence for the past four months.