Bruno felt like there were needles on his back.
What's going on?
Why are they looking at me like that?
Then he stopped talking.
Someone said, "A pro just showed up. He's sitting in the front row."
"Looks like not," another person said.
At that moment, a man in the second row patted Bruno on the shoulder and said, "Hey, you're new here, right?"
"Yes," Bruno nodded. When he turned around, he saw a bald, big guy. The man had kind eyes and a smiling face. He looked friendly.
They introduced themselves.
The bald guy was Tursos Dillon, an old student.
Tursos knew Bruno was new and warned him, "You should change seats. I'm afraid you can't handle it later."
"Can't handle it?" Bruno frowned. "What do you mean?"
Tursos was about to explain when a middle-aged man walked in from the door. He was also bald, fat, with thin eyebrows. He looked kind and approachable.
The fat man sat down and smiled, "Hello everyone. I'm Nell Gaston. I come every three days to teach you the basics of the Meditation Technique. Pay attention and learn well."
Bruno narrowed his eyes. This was Nell?
A 12-stage warrior. Nell Gaston was a man who had gone beyond the 12th stage. He might be an [Arcane Power Master]. He had a lot of power in Sunset.
Even Lord Stanford, the biggest earl in Bloom City, had to respect Nell.
"Tursos, you start by explaining the basics," Nell said softly.
Bruno's bald friend stood up and looked at all the students. "We practice The Ten Thousand Hells. Meditation stands in an endless sea of blood. Bones float, ghosts cry, and they wrap around you. The Hell of Skin Peeling, the Mountain of Knives, the Sea of Fire..."
"...In the Hell, you see your true self. You refine your spirit. That is The Ten Thousand Hells!"
Tursos stopped for a moment and continued, "Practicing The Ten Thousand Hells is very dangerous. You have to be careful step by step. After you enter, you need to rest for three months. After Low Rank, you must train your mind. After High Rank, you must stop for three years and quietly practice. When you are complete, you must not keep going. You need a master to help you control it..."
He hadn't finished speaking when Nell interrupted, "Enough. Don't talk so far. Out of every two people here, only one can reach completion."
Bruno's eye twitched. He didn't expect Nell to look so kind, but his words were not gentle at all.
Tursos smiled awkwardly and said, "Everyone, get ready."
Nell waited for Tursos to finish, then asked, "Any new students?"
Bruno raised his hand.
"Have you practiced the Meditation Technique before?" Nell looked at Bruno.
"No," Bruno answered honestly.
"Never practiced but sits in the front row. That's great," Nell said, his voice as gentle as a spring breeze. Bruno felt warm.
But the next second,
Bruno suddenly felt the world change around him!
He felt like he had fallen into an endless hell. His feet were in thick, hot blood. Countless pale arms reached up and grabbed his ankles.
Around him, twisted, screaming ghosts with huge anger rushed toward him.
Knives and mountains of swords, fire burning his body. The pain of skin peeling and muscle pulling was clear and strong in his nerves!
The air was full of a terrible smell of blood and burning.
Behind him, an apprentice couldn't take it anymore. He let out a scream, foamed at the mouth, and fainted. He was quickly dragged away by a helper from the academy.
Nell's voice was low and rough, like metal rubbing together. He said, "Today, I'll show you the first step. How much you understand depends on your luck."
Bruno was also shaking all over. His face turned pale instantly.
The power of The Ten Thousand Hells was far worse than he had imagined!
His mind was shaking in this terrifying illusion. It felt like he could be torn apart and turned into a lost ghost in the hell.
Bruno screamed in his mind: "This is a test of my mind. It's just an illusion. Stay calm..."
At this moment, he was like a small boat on the sea, blown by the wind wherever it went.
"Use time. Practice Meditation Technique," Bruno hadn't forgotten that the contract had Ignaz's time.
He thought about it, and a pure white light suddenly turned into a flash and disappeared in his mind. A flood of information rushed through his brain.
A memory of practicing The Ten Thousand Hells appeared.
[The first year, I started to learn The Ten Thousand Hells. When I practiced Meditation Technique, I felt like a rotten corpse, a skeleton, a ghost. I could feel a huge amount of Enchantment Element moving around me.]
[Two and a half years later, I had some understanding. I realized that the outside of Meditation Technique didn't matter. I had to find the real meaning inside.]
[Seven years later, I used Meditation Technique, and the hell scene appeared in my mind exactly. In the eighteen layers of hell, fire never stopped burning. Ghosts cried out in pain. Thousands of bones, only death.]
[Twelve years later, I finally understood. The Ten Thousand Hells wasn't just about death. It also had life. Starting from hell was life, ending in hell was death. This cycle, I reached Low Rank of Meditation Technique, and I could see the 'inner view'.]
[Because of this breakthrough, Enchantment Element became clear in my senses. When I practiced The Ten Thousand Hells, others looked at me and actually felt a little scared.]
[Seventeen years later, I fully stabilized the 'inner view', but I wasn't satisfied with just Low Rank. I had to move to High Rank.]
[How to reach High Rank? I didn't know.]
[The eighteenth year, no understanding.]
[The nineteenth year, no understanding.]
[The twentieth year...]
[...]
[The forty-sixth year, I had a sudden idea. I had some understanding.]
[The forty-seventh year, another idea hit me. I grabbed it, but it wasn't enough.]
[The forty-ninth year, a burst of ideas filled my mind. The door to High Rank of The Ten Thousand Hells opened to me.]
[The fifty-first year, after nearly thirty years of effort, I broke through. I reached High Rank of The Ten Thousand Hells. I no longer cared about living or dying, strong or weak. Everything was just a cycle. The world was just a prison, and the body was just a chain.]
[I meditated and my body rotted, turning into bones. Then I meditated and the bones turned into blood and flesh, remaking my body. I was the King of Bones, able to hear the cries of the dead, and I could become one of them.]
[I found that my bones glowed, and my spirit shone brightly.]
[The fifty-ninth year, High Rank of The Ten Thousand Hells was hard to keep stable. There were always some problems, but I could handle them.]
[The sixty-first year, High Rank of The Ten Thousand Hells finally stabilized. I had to move forward again.]
[The sixty-second year, the Meditation Technique used up all my effort. I made no more progress.]
Sixty-two years of training memories hit Bruno like a wave.
The Ten Thousand Hells from the beginning, to Low Rank, all the way to High Rank.
Pain was still there, fear still remained, but his core of consciousness was like iron that had been forged a thousand times. Instead of being burned away in this hellfire, it began to absorb the "atmosphere" of the environment!
He was no longer the victim being chased by ghosts. Instead, he gradually merged with this terrifying hell.
His point of view kept rising, moving up until he was looking down at the whole hell.
The blood sea calmed under his feet. The mountains of knives and seas of fire became decorations around him. The ghosts and skeletons became his most loyal warriors, guarding him on both sides.
Time passed. He didn't know how long it had been.
The training was over long ago. Other students had already left. Even Nell and Tursos had gone.
Only Bruno remained, still deep in that strange "King of Ghosts" perspective, constantly strengthening and digesting The Ten Thousand Hells.
Late at night.
The academy did regular checks every day.
Staff checked each training room. Finally, they came to Room 2.
Standing in front of the door, he suddenly felt a cold chill. Without knowing why, he felt like crawling up to the window to look in.
Inside the training room.
Bruno was surrounded by black fog. At this moment, he was not a student, but a ghost king sitting on a throne made of countless skulls.
His side was a sea of blood, and around him were ghosts. Even more terrifying was the fact that his empty eye sockets were burning with blue flames, staring directly at the staff!
"Ghost... ghost king!" The staff member screamed in fear, his things falling to the ground with a loud crash.
His eyes rolled back, he scrambled backward, hit the door frame with a loud bang, and fainted.