Swallowing the Stars: Starting with Optimizing the Five Hearts Towards the Sky

Chapter 37 Entering Meditation

"What a huge change." Chen Yuan stared at the attribute panel, a hint of joy on his face. "My strength has increased by about 38000 kilograms, more than doubling."

"Huh, how come my consciousness strength has reached the peak of the planetary level, and my brain capacity has also increased by 2 points?"

Consciousness strength is generally linked to one's realm. For example, if one's realm increases by one level, then the consciousness strength will also increase by one level based on the original level.

When Chen Yuan was a mid-level warrior, his consciousness strength was at the first level of the planetary level. After ten days of cultivation after consuming jade marrow, he broke through to the high-level warrior level, and his consciousness strength naturally increased as well, reaching the second level of the planetary level.

"Normally, when I broke through to the War God level, my consciousness strength should be at the third level of the Planetary level." Chen Yuan stared at the data with curiosity. "But now it has actually increased to the peak of the Planetary level. The difference between these two is more than a hundred times."

"And the increase in brain capacity, could it all be related to meditation?" Chen Yuan recalled the situation when he meditated in excruciating pain. "I remember that at that time, under extreme pain, I unexpectedly entered a deep sleep state."

His gaze shifted downwards, and when he saw the latest state of the meditation technique, Chen Yuan's pupils suddenly contracted: "This is... a state of deep meditation?!"

"I've broken through the limits of meditation!" Chen Yuan couldn't hide his surprise, while also noticing the explanation after the meditation technique was perfected. "So, the changes in my consciousness intensity and brain capacity are all due to the breakthrough in meditation."

Chen Yuan immediately consulted the system for detailed data on his progress before and after the breakthrough in meditation techniques.

[Hibernation Technique - Crystal Meditation Completed: Brainwave breadth +1, increased consciousness intensity.]

[Successfully subdued mental anguish, achieving a state of "clear skies and no distracting thoughts," breaking through to the meditative state: brain capacity +1, consciousness intensity significantly increased.]

"I see. The two points of brain capacity expansion come from the perfection of meditation and the breakthrough in entering a meditative state, respectively." Chen Yuan understood. "The same applies to the increase in the intensity of consciousness, but the main increase comes from the breakthrough in the meditative state."

The transition from deep sleep to meditative absorption represents a significant breakthrough in the Star River Emperor universe, while the spiritual realm in the Swallowed Stars universe signifies the intensity of consciousness.

Therefore, Chen Yuan broke through the meditative state, achieving a qualitative leap in his spiritual level, and his consciousness intensity naturally increased, reaching the peak of the planetary level in one fell swoop.

"It seems that this is the biggest gain from this breakthrough: 2 points of brain capacity expansion and more than a hundred times the increase in consciousness intensity." Chen Yuan closed his eyes, feeling the changes in his mental power. "Moreover, after entering meditation, his mental power seems to have undergone a fundamental transformation."

Before entering a meditative state, his mental power is ethereal and difficult to control. Only after reaching the third stage of deep sleep can it be slightly mobilized to influence others, which is the origin of "hypnosis".

But after breaking through to a state of deep meditation, in addition to the leap in his spiritual level, he also truly mastered this power.

Through repeated experiments, Chen Yuan discovered that this mental power has two applications: internal and external.

Internally, he can perceive the state of his body through his mind, similar to the effect of 'inner vision', but much more refined—because he can even sense the state of individual cells!

"I remember a similar case was recorded in 'Cosmic Pro Player,' where someone achieved complete control over their entire body through powerful telepathic cells!" Chen Yuan sensed the omnipresent cells within his body and tried to control them, but the cells remained unmoved.

So he pondered, "It seems that I am still in the perception stage and cannot master it yet, but this is a clear direction. If I continue to work hard, one day I will be able to control the cells, and at that time my power will definitely be greatly improved."

After studying his introspection ability, Chen Yuan began to explore the second application of his mental power—external projection.

"Sending one's mind outward has an effect similar to divine sense, allowing one to perceive things within a certain range."

"But unlike divine sense, I can also perform remote hypnosis within the range of mental radiation." Chen Yuan carefully sensed the range of mental radiation. "A 500-meter radius around me is within the range of perception."

"This power is terrifying." Chen Yuan opened his eyes, a hint of shock still lingering in his pupils. "Through remote hypnosis, I can directly hypnotize people whose consciousness strength is below the fifth level of the planetary stage, without any physical contact."

"Theoretically, I could even make all the trainees in the training camp kill each other." Chen Yuan took a deep breath, suppressing his inner turmoil. "Be careful! This ability must never be abused. The ability itself is not wrong; the wrong lies in the person who abuses it."

The force was so strong that Chen Yuan was somewhat afraid just now, but after overcoming the fear, he fell into deep thought.

"Therefore, the best application of this ability is on the battlefield! Through mental radiation, it can cause enemies within a certain range to kill each other." Chen Yuan pondered. "For me, it's best to use it during a beast tide, so that while killing a large number of enemies, I can also accumulate a huge amount of kill points."

Unfortunately, in this day and age, monster tides are rare, because almost all the high-end combat power among the monsters has been wiped out.

Those that survived almost all hid in the depths of the ocean, daring not to surface again.

Nowadays, it is very difficult to find traces of King-level monsters in the wilderness. The most powerful monsters are only Commander-level—those are targets that the Earth's higher-ups have deliberately left for martial artists to use in actual combat.

Otherwise, with Earth's current military strength, conquering both land and sea would not be difficult.

Even so, the number of monsters in the wilderness continues to decrease. Chen Yuan estimates that in a few years, when the monsters become so scarce that they lose their practical value in combat, it will be time for humans to reclaim the wilderness.

Pulling his thoughts back, Chen Yuan focused his attention on the panel again, specifically on the meditation section.

"While the Hibernation Technique is good, it's only an introductory-level meditation technique, and the system only rates it as a B-level." Chen Yuan pondered, "Since one can reach the state of deep meditation in this world, then a meditation technique that has reached the deep meditation level should also be able to be optimized."

System optimization is not a panacea; any optimization must conform to the fundamental laws of this world.

Abilities like mental states and hypnosis also have counterparts in this world—consciousness and illusion. This is why Chen Yuan was able to optimize a deep sleep cultivation method with similar effects.

But that was merely deep sleep, a level too low to prove that all the realms in "Star River Emperor" could be realized in this world.

This breakthrough in mental state proves the feasibility of the meditation practice and points the way for system optimization.

Although Chen Yuan had long planned to try to optimize the next stage of cultivation after perfecting his meditation method, he had already collected a large number of ancient books from Earth for this purpose. These materials were publicly available online, and Chen Yuan downloaded them all without spending a penny.

Since these ancient books were all written in classical Chinese and were not long, Chen Yuan had already finished browsing them in his spare time, since the task of understanding them could be left to the system.

Breaking through to the meditative state ahead of schedule is tantamount to illuminating the path ahead; everything is ready.

So Chen Yuan immediately made an attempt: "System, optimize the Hibernation Method, optimize it to be a cultivation method that conforms to the state of meditation, and improve the mental state and consciousness intensity."

"Optimization task creation failed. Reason: Meditation method lacks corresponding meditation material."

"Failed?" Chen Yuan's heart tightened, thinking that the meditation method for entering a meditative state did not conform to the worldview of this world.

Fortunately, after seeing the reason for the failure, he breathed a sigh of relief: "It turns out it was because I lacked meditation materials."

Just like the meditation object in crystal meditation is a crystal ball, this object is very ordinary, so the threshold is low and it meets the needs of beginners in meditation.

However, the method of entering samadhi is different. This state has extraordinary characteristics and requires the use of powerful meditation objects to achieve it.

"So, I now need to choose a meditation object, preferably powerful enough, to serve as the core of my meditation method." Chen Yuan paced back and forth in the room, deep in thought. "What object should I use as my meditation object?"

"It's a pity that the object of meditation can't be a person, otherwise it would become a kind of worship, and I would unconsciously become the other party's soul slave. Otherwise, I would really like to try meditating on Luo Feng." A trace of regret flashed in Chen Yuan's eyes. Luo Feng is the most precious treasure in this world.

"If we have to limit it to objects, what is the most precious thing on Earth..." Chen Yuan pondered for a long time, considering insect nests, ancient relics, and all kinds of rare and precious materials, but none of them quite met his expectations.

"Wait, I've got it." Chen Yuan suddenly stopped, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.

Because he suddenly realized that the most precious treasures on Earth were not those rare and precious natural materials at all...

"...It's the Earth itself!"