Now that he had successfully sensed the "starry sky" through meditation even as an apprentice magic apprentice, Lucian immediately suppressed his various doubts and began searching for his own "Ruling Star of Destiny" using the astrology meditation method.
The starry sky was vast and boundless, countless stars stretching into infinity, but after blending his soul with his spiritual power and extending outward, Lucian quickly sensed a familiar flavor among the innumerable stars — one that belonged to him. So he modulated his spiritual power's oscillations and slowly drew closer to that still-faint star.
He didn't know how much time passed before the spiritual power, woven together with his soul's perception, finally touched that seemingly illusory star. Following the meditation method, Lucian gradually merged his spiritual power with the star, connecting them bit by bit.
Suddenly, Lucian's spiritual power vibrated violently, like a harp string being struck, and his soul began to resonate along with it.
He knew this was a necessary process and a critical moment, so he kept extending his remaining spiritual power outward, stabilizing the strand of spiritual power whose oscillations had grown so wide it nearly snapped.
This strand of spiritual power gradually took on a layer of brilliant starlight and slowly stabilized. Lucian's soul shuddered, and within it appeared the reflection of a star.
He greedily absorbed "star" power from the thin, starlight-like strand of spiritual power to temper his soul and spiritual force, immersing himself in the astrology meditation method. He didn't stop until his soul produced a sensation of fullness, at which point he switched to the elemental meditation method.
This time, Lucian didn't use the surrounding forces of "earth, fire, wind, and water" to temper his soul and spiritual power. Instead, through the meditation method, he simply strengthened his spiritual power's resonance with the "elements." The stronger this resonance, the faster he could cast elemental magic in the future. Even for spells where he had already constructed the imprint model, it could shorten the spell cooldown period.
When Lucian felt a weariness emanating from the depths of his soul, he ended his first meditation session and opened his eyes. His deep black pupils brimmed with excitement and joy.
"Even in a normal state, I can sense the reflection of the Ruling Star of Destiny within my soul. If I concentrate, I can even faintly perceive a mysterious, inexplicable connection to a star in the distant sky — I can borrow the tiniest fraction of its power. As for that strand of spiritual power, it seems to exist nowhere, as if it were in another dimension of space and time."
Lucian thought happily, but soon he noticed something strange. "Wait — I crossed over from another world. Why does this world have my 'Ruling Star of Destiny'? According to astrology theory, if the previous Lucian had died, his Ruling Star of Destiny would have dimmed, fallen, or vanished entirely. And that sense of familiarity I felt just now — it really was my own, Xia Feng's, flavor. How is this possible? What's the reason?"
Unable to think of an explanation, Lucian could only set the doubt aside for the time being.
At the same time, through this meditation session and having thoroughly decoded the Witch's magic notes, Lucian understood that to sense someone else's spiritual power state, one had to use a corresponding spell. The only exception was shortly after a breakthrough, when spiritual power was still unstable — then it could be directly detected. Back then, Benjamin must have determined that his spiritual power was slightly above normal by his ability to hear the weeping sound, not because, as he had claimed, the Witch's magical trap specifically targeted only a few individuals.
Of course, there were also corresponding spells for concealing or hiding one's spiritual power.
After resting for only a short time, the excited Lucian opened the Witch's magic notes, ready to see which apprentice-level informal spells he could currently learn.
With his "Ruling Star of Destiny," Lucian could now learn all three of the astrology system's apprentice-level spells. They were spells the Witch had only learned after becoming a high-level magic apprentice. Among apprentice-level spells, they were considered quite powerful, though due to insufficient spiritual power, the effects when Lucian cast them would be somewhat weaker, and after two or three uses, his spiritual power would be completely drained.
Apprentice magic users were categorized by how many informal apprentice-level spells they could cast in one session before their spiritual power went from full to completely depleted. A novice could cast five, a formal apprentice ten, and a high-level apprentice twenty. In other words, Lucian could currently only cast five apprentice-level spells in succession. To cast more, he would need to rest or consume a magic potion to restore his spiritual power. If he used astrology-system apprentice spells, he could likely only manage three in a row.
Those three astrology-system apprentice spells were: "Beginner Astrology," "Eye of Stars," and "Ring of Chaos."
Among these, Astrology was the signature magic of the astrology system. According to the Witch, even at the beginner level, it required a great deal of knowledge — the movement patterns of certain stars, how to properly select additional stars to complement the Ruling Star during divination, and so on. It was extremely complex, and she had spent several years before she could barely use it. However, because her knowledge was insufficient, the divination results were almost always inaccurate.
In Lucian's eyes, the most headache-inducing aspect of Beginner Astrology was that it required a magic crystal ball made of rare, pure, flawless dawn crystal for assistance. He had no idea where to find one — after all, even the Witch's family, which had passed it down for generations, had possessed only one. Unfortunately, she had carried it on her person, and the Church had confiscated it.
As for the knowledge related to Beginner Astrology that the Witch had found complex, troublesome, and difficult to grasp, Lucian actually found it relatively easy. A large portion of it was a haphazard description of celestial mechanics at a high-school level, along with star charts committed to memory, one hand-drawn map at a time.
Of course, regarding the selection of complementary stars to pair with the Ruling Star, Lucian still had much to learn — this was the part his existing knowledge couldn't explain, just as he couldn't understand why stars were supposed to represent destiny.