Not wanting to burn herself out, Jen decided to switch directions. She felt like she had made large strides in improving her understanding of Chronos’ Heart, and was ready to move around for a bit. Sitting still and concentrating might help her out the most, but Jen could only do so much of it before wanting a change in pace. Also, she had yet to explore her surroundings since earning Infrared Vision and was eager to see what else she could learn about her cave system.

That wasn’t to say that Jen was done Meditating for the day. Practicing with Chronos’ Heart had taught Jen not to add more restrictions onto a skill than were listed in the description. Meditation’s description was abstract.

Align your body, mind, and soul. Relieves mental stress and improves mana regeneration by 12%

Jen had a pre-existing image of what Meditation was. Aligning one’s body and mind spoke heavily of eastern mysticism to her, and she had incorporated that concept of passive meditation into her understanding of the skill. More than that, oftentimes she was using the focus granted by Meditation to gain a better understanding of her body and Mana Pool, and sitting down helped remove additional distractions. But there was nothing in the skill that required her to do so, and Jen knew of multiple styles of meditation that weren’t as passive. Most were fictional, such as the Battle Meditation practiced by Jedi or the Flame and Void technique from the Wheel of Time. Others were less so, and one Jen even had some experience with. Yoga was a skill and a Skill that Jen had dabbled in, and she was eager to see if she could practice it while maintaining Meditation.

It was surprisingly difficult at first, trying to enter Meditation while holding a Yoga pose. Fortunately, the problem wasn’t with either Meditation or Yoga, but with another skill Jen had active. It turned out that Chronos’ Heart was regulating her heartbeat to keep time, while both Yoga and Meditation had their own demands put on her body that conflicted with that regulation. Without that interference, things became much easier.

It still took work to make it happen. Yoga had Jen breathing in and out as she shifted between forms, moving and holding her body in uneven intervals. Meditation normally followed a more regular rhythm, one that worked well with the mechanical regularity imposed by Chronos’ Heart. Jen found herself having to focus on the other parts of Meditation, of letting her body and mind relax, while letting her lungs do what was needed. It was a different rhythm, but soon Jen found herself holding a downwards dog pose while enjoying the benefits of Meditation.

A few more poses were moved in and out of, but it did nothing to disrupt Jen’s meditative state. Trying to get up and walk around did, but Jen simply kept walking in circles around her house at a steady pace until she was able to find the new rhythm for Meditation to follow; a rhythm that matched her breathing and heartbeat to the steady pace of her steps.

It was a phenomenal success. Not only would it allow Jen to use Meditation for far longer periods of time, but it would also allow her to increase her Skill level rapidly; a compounding effect that would greatly increase the mana available for her to use. Still Meditating, Jen made her way over to the pond before activating Infrared Vision. She was forced out of Meditation while the skill activated, the disruption too much for her to compensate for, but she had no problem activating her Meditation once Infrared Vision was fully active. Chronos’ Heart wasn’t worth adding to the mix, Jen decided, and left it as it was. A little time gained or lost didn’t matter much to her at the moment.

Infrared Vision, while useful, currently wasn’t the exploratory tool Jen had been hoping for. While it did allow her to see things, it had its drawbacks. The largest one was that air was a decent insulator, capable of absorbing or diffusing the weak infrared rays given off by her surroundings. Jen could make out objects around her up to a distance of thirty feet, but past that her surrounding quickly dimmed to black. More than that, every object was its own source of light instead of reflecting light from a singular source, trying to make out details was similar to looking at the filament in a lightbulb. Technically possible, but not something done at a glance.

The skill would still help Jen spot large pits or foreign substances like bodies of water or patches of moss, but Jen had decided she wanted an additional method to help her navigate. Her solution was simple, and relied on an idea she had already utilized once before. While not permanent, it was possible to infuse a mushroom with enough mana to make it glow for a good hour or two. This would give Jen an easy way to locate her base at a distance and orient herself appropriately, something that tied into her net skill. Stone Shaping allowed Jen to alter her surroundings. While she had used it to excavate a single spot, turning it into a small house, Jen was eager to put it to use another way, making a continuous series of markings; a trail of metaphorical breadcrumbs that would always lead her back to her base.

Growing a large mushroom and feeding mana into its cap didn’t take long at all, and Jen was gratified to see it begin to glow brightly, even with Infrared Vision still active. She was worried that she would have to return to seeing in the visible spectrum, but that was not the case. Keeping her eyes fixed on the mushroom, Jen began to back away slowly, looking behind her every few steps to make sure that she wasn’t about to step into anything. At the same time she activated Stone shaping and dipped her right hand down to the ground, extending two fingers. Meditation broke at this point, but Jen ignored it, wanting to find a good rhythm before trying to activate it again. With her outstretched hand she began to drag her fingers in the ground. Her index finger constantly pulled through the stone, while her middle finger dipped in and out, creating a solid line next to a dashed line. By making sure that one side would always be a solid line and the other side not, Jen ensured that she could always orient herself to either head away or towards home.

Jen didn’t manage to activate Meditation, but it didn’t bother her too much. She was trying to do a lot of different things simultaneously, and she knew that she would get her chance soon enough. The direction that Jen had chosen to head out in was roughly towards her starting position. One Jen hit a wall she would be able to switch tactics moving along the wall without having to make a trail and Jen was hopeful that she could use that time to recover some of the mana that she was burning through. Her goal was to find her way back to the giant pillar she had started next to and get a better understanding of what else was in that area.