Hearing him, Lucy asked, "How do we do meditation?"

​Night replied, "Meditation is not something that you can do."

​Lucy:

(-_-)

​Night asked them, "What do you think meditation is?"

​Death immediately sat cross-legged on the nearest chair, closed her eyes and waited.

​Night sighed, "No, it’s not about the way you sit and it’s not an action you perform."

​Death looked at him in confusion. She had seen him meditate and that was exactly what he did. The only difference was that he had his eyes closed, while she didn’t exactly have eyelids to close.

​Eve and Lilith simply shook their mechanical heads, indicating they had no clue.

​Night explained, "Meditation is not an act you perform - it is a quality you acquire. You cannot do meditation, but you can become meditative."

​"I heard this from my Guru in my previous life. He was the one who initiated me into meditation."

​Lucy tilted her head. "Guru?"

​Night nodded. "It’s a Sanskrit word which means ’The One who dispels the Darkness.’"

​"He is kind of like a teacher, but not really. A teacher is someone who teaches us stuff. A Guru is someone who makes us forget the nonsense we are taught and helps us to just be Human, not a walking collection of learnings and conclusions."

​Lucy: "I don’t understand."

​Others: (・◇・) ?

​Night smiled sympathetically. "I understand how you feel. I was with him for 12 years but still couldn’t understand it fully. In the end, I just gave up trying to understand."

​"Let’s just focus on what can be done."

​He then started explaining the practical steps. "While sitting in a particular posture is not strictly related to meditation, for beginners, it is of great support and helps build a solid foundation."

​Feeling that the ambiance in the hall wasn’t quite right for focus, they relocated to the empty training room.

​They grabbed a large mat they had found earlier in the small storage room beside the kitchen when they were putting the extra chairs away. They all sat down on the mat together.

​Posture-wise, it was incredibly easy for Lilith, Eve, and Death. However, Night didn’t know how to guide Lucy’s canine form, so he just told her to sit in whatever posture felt the most comfortable.

​He guided them using whatever knowledge he understood, and soon they began meditating. At least, they tried.

​Every two or three minutes, Lucy would move. She twisted and turned, struggling to understand how it was supposed to work. Then, getting bored, she would open her eyes and look around. Seeing the others still at it, she would close her eyes and try again.

​While Eve and Lilith were diligently following the instructions, everything was so new to their mechanical minds that it was taking a lot of time for them to truly become meditative.

​Surprisingly, Death was the only one getting the hang of it right away.

​Night checked his status to see how much energy he currently had.

​[Energy Value (EV): 526]

​He noticed the energy expenditure to keep them manifested had drastically reduced since he awakened his [Summoner] Class. He had only lost 2 EV since morning and it was already afternoon.

​They continued trying to meditate while he constantly kept an eye on his EV.

​Finally, after thirty minutes, it happened.

​[Energy Value (EV): 527]

​It had increased by one EV!

​"Woohoo!" he jumped up in excitement.

​Night:

(ง Ò﹏Ó)ง

​"It worked!"

​...Only to completely disrupt their meditation.

​They shot him a look that was a mix of annoyance and happiness.

Happiness because they were glad the method worked but heavy annoyance because he had disturbed them right when they had spent so much time just trying to become meditative.

​The difficulty of the process also made them admire Night a lot more. They had seen him slip into this peaceful state so effortlessly and maintain it for hours on end.

​Lucy was the most impressed, as she was the one struggling with it the most.

Although it wasn’t really her fault; since most of the instructions Night gave were tailored strictly to humans; but it also made her realize that what he did was far from simple, since it even worked for her.

​Though Death, Eve, and Lilith were not exactly human either, they had the distinct advantage of being humanoid in shape, making the physical process much easier for them.

​He quickly apologized, knowing firsthand how jarring it was to have a meditation session disrupted, especially when you were brand new to it.

​This time Night decided to sit and meditate with them. But before starting, he went to the kitchen, found a small lamp and some oil, brought it back and lit it.

​He did this purely out of habit from his past life. Not that it was meaningless; when meditating indoors, lit lamps helped improve the ambiance and made centering oneself much easier.

​In his old world, it also helped gather the Akashic (Aether/Space) element. But that was in the past now, he didn’t know how much help a simple lamp would be in a world overflowing with mana.

​But as they sat back down, they felt the improvements immediately.

​Night joining them seemed to have triggered the [Pack] skill for some reason, creating a strange synergy that helped them all slip into the meditative state much more easily.

​Soon, even Lucy got the hang of it. She started loving it, in fact. It felt so calming and soothing, like she was asleep but completely awake at the same time.

​( ◡‿◡ )

​Death, Eve, and Lilith became absolutely still. They felt themselves floating, even though they were firmly seated on the ground. It felt like they were sitting in a rocket launching into the quiet expanse of space.

( ˘ω˘ )

​After about an hour, they all ended their meditation with reluctance when they sensed someone approach the room.

​Opening her eyes, Lucy looked back and saw Blade staring at them in puzzlement. Seeing their slightly annoyed expressions at the interruption, Blade didn’t know what she had done wrong.

​Night got up to clear her confusion. "We were meditating."

​Blade looked curious. "Meditating? What is that?"

​Blade:

(・_・ ) ?

​Hearing this, Night realized that not everyone these days knew what meditation was, given all the apocalyptic chaos.

​"Come sit here, I’ll tell you what it is," Night offered kindly.

​Seeing Blade sit down with eager curiosity, he explained the concept to her. While he watched her close her eyes to try it out, he checked his status.

He realized the System hadn’t disturbed him while he was actively meditating but the moment he broke his focus, he felt the notification.

​Checking the EV:

​[Energy Value (EV): 576]

​He was amazed. They had generated 50 EV in just one hour of group meditation! This was just as fast as digesting a corpse and it didn’t require them to risk their lives in a dungeon.

However, it also meant they had to remain completely stationary and couldn’t do anything else.

​Then he checked the other notification.

​[Ding!]

[A skill has been upgraded.]

[Pack (Rare) (Lvl. 2 -> 4)]

​He hadn’t expected his crazy idea of group meditation to actually upgrade his skill. And one had to remember, this was a Rare tier skill. Upgrading one of those using EV literally cost an arm and a leg!

​He checked one more skill, hoping it had also improved.

​[Nightmare Domain]

[Bond]

​Lucy – 45%

​Death – 30%

​Eve – 26%

​Lilith – 26%

​An increase of 5% in synchronicity from just one meditation session!

​This made him so excited he wanted to scream again, but he hurriedly stopped himself upon noticing Blade deep in focus.

​Night: (^_^;)

​He didn’t know how she might react to being disturbed and he really didn’t want to find out.

I mean, her name was literally "Blade." If that wasn’t a massive hint on what her favorite mode of resolving a situation was then he didn’t know what was.

​Seeing the others looking at him in amusement, he quickly gestured for them to resume meditating as well. He joined them aswell.

​And just like that, hours passed in absolute tranquility.

​At night, around 7 PM, Blade finally opened her eyes. Since they were all so much in sync after meditating together for so long, the others naturally opened their eyes as well.

​Lucy was the first to speak up. "If I keep doing this for a few days, I feel like I wouldn’t ever want to do anything else."

​Blade nodded in agreement. "It was my first time and I really enjoyed it."

​She then looked at Night and thanked him. "Thank you for showing me such a wonderful thing. I wouldn’t have felt so alone guarding that chamber all those years if I had known how to meditate."

​Seeing her look so genuinely grateful, he felt a bit embarrassed. After all, he had just plagiarized the exact words his Guru had used when guiding him.

​Night:

(^_^;)

​Blade then smiled a sharp, mischievous smile and announced, "As a token of my gratitude, I shall take you guys out on a stroll."

​Blade:

(≖‿≖)✧

​But Night couldn’t receive such a "huge" token of gratitude. Looking out the window, he saw it was already pitch dark outside meaning nighttime had officially fallen.

​Before he could politely turn her down, he felt the space in the room split open, as if someone had sliced the very fabric of reality with terrifying precision.

Before he knew what was happening, he saw himself, Eve, Lilith, Death, and Lucy being forcibly dragged toward the rift.

​All he could see was Blade’s scheming smile as they were sucked into the spatial tear.

Blade:

(◣_◢)

​Night suddenly found himself standing in a dark alley. He looked up and saw the moon’s faint light falling upon the earth, failing to illuminate the oppressive shadows of the city.

​A cold wind blew past, rustling Night’s jacket as he stood completely dumbfounded at the sudden situation he was in.

​Night:

( 0 _ 0 )

​All he could think about was the grim warning Lucy had given him when he first entered the city walls.

​"Devils roam at night."

​Night:

(╥﹏╥)

I thought we were friends...