Taking a deep breath, Silas calmed himself and pushed away every trace of anxiety. He was curious whether practising the technique inside the Time Mind World would produce a different result.

Closing his eyes, he formed the proper hand seals and regulated his breathing. Almost immediately, the experience changed.

The divided vision returned, but this time he focused entirely on the perspective that revealed his body. As he did, the chaotic flood of memories faded into the background.

It was as though one half of the split screen had been minimised, leaving the other to dominate his perception. The confusion that had plagued him before immediately vanished.

For the first time, he could properly observe what lay within. His body appeared as an immense, barren landscape. Previously, he had only caught fragmented glimpses of it. Now he could freely move his perspective, zooming in and out at will.

When he pulled back far enough to see the whole picture, he froze. The landscape was vast beyond imagination. Yet it was utterly lifeless. There were no forests, rivers, or a blade of grass.

What lay ahead was only endless barren land stretching toward the horizon. He tried to rotate and zoom in at some places, yet all he saw was just endless barren land.

For a reason, this felt quite wrong to him. He didn’t know why, and strangely enough, the idea that greenery should exist there felt perfectly natural. He tried to understand why this felt very wrong. He tried to get a clue as to why life should have existed here and why it didn’t. But he gained nothing.

If any, he felt a vague impression, one that once appeared vanished at once. He felt for a brief moment that this stretch of land had something holding it back, or was waiting for something.

’Waiting for what exactly?’

’For the light?’

Getting such a fleeting thought, his gaze shifted toward the brilliant star that illuminated the wasteland. It looked as brightly lit as ever. He felt the same familiar warmth, the same majesty, the same sense of intimacy.

For a moment there, he was mesmerised by that white star. Then, in the next, he felt like this was what his barren land was waiting for.

Driven by such a thought, he focused on the star. This time, he noticed something new; the star was not floating above the land. It was embedded within it.

When he moved his perspective high above, it resembled less a celestial body and more a gigantic well filled with radiant white light. Curious, Silas descended. As the landscape expanded around him, he drew closer until he hovered dozens of meters above the shining sphere. And his suspicion proved correct.

It was indeed a well, a vast circular reservoir of pure white light that seemed to run deeper into the barren rocks. Its radiance spread through the surrounding land, sending warmth deep into the barren earth.

Examining it more carefully, Silas estimated its size. The well possessed a radius of nearly a mile. Around it, several thin canals extended outward before abruptly ending after only a few meters.

Then a strange desire emerged within him; he wanted to expand them. The desire felt irresistible, as if there was a calling coming deep within his body, claiming for this to happen. Silas looked again at the narrow and short-lived canals... He wanted the white light to reach farther into the barren land.

At first, he tried encouraging the barren land itself to absorb more of the light. He tried to feel the barren land as if he were feeling his body, and tried to push it to embrace the bright white light. Yet nothing happened.

Then another idea surfaced. It began as a vague feeling before connecting itself to an old educational film he had once watched at the orphanage.

Farmers had transformed a desert by digging canals from a well. As water flowed outward, the barren land gradually turned green.

For some reason, the comparison felt strangely appropriate. And Silas decided to give it a try. Instead of forcing the land to absorb the light, he imagined himself digging a new canal.

The moment he did, a trench appeared. Unlike the existing canals, this one was broad and deep. Almost instantaneously, the white light immediately surged into it, the same way water would do.

Encouraged by the result, Silas continued. One canal became two, then three. Each carried more of the white light through the barren land, and with each completed circuit, the strange warmth inside him deepened.

When the first canal curved back toward the well and completed a loop, he felt a subtle sense of perfection. By the time the third canal was finished, exhaustion crashed into him.

For the first time since entering the meditation, he felt genuinely drained. When he attempted to create a fourth canal, it was like trying to move a mountain. No matter how hard he tried, the land refused to respond.

Eventually, he gave up. Yet when he looked at the final result, he felt a sense of pride, of achievement. Three broad canals now surrounded the well, each stretched for miles before curving back toward its source.

Viewed from above, the formation resembled the petals of a flower, a flower drawn with light. And somehow, it appeared more beautiful than anything Silas had ever seen. For a reason, he felt more connection now to the barren land than before; he felt more warmth passing from the shining well.

Yet when he stole a glance at the well, somehow, it felt a little dimmer. He wanted to come closer and inspect it, to check if what he saw was right or wrong, but he never had a chance to do so.

Just as he was about to draw closer, the meditation abruptly ended. This time he didn’t willingly end the meditation; he was thrown out of the experience without warning.

’Damn it! You scared me, bastard!’

The moment he opened his eyes, a familiar sight greeted him. Two large crimson eyes stared directly into his own. The Shadowheart stood inches away, leaning over him and watching in silence.

Then, before Silas would do anything, the Shadowheart’s lips curved slightly up, forming the most vicious smile Silas had ever seen in his entire life.