Now that the most significant survival crisis had been alleviated, Yvette suddenly relaxed. She had never felt as calm as she did now, to the point where time seemed almost worthless.

In fact, considering that the original owner had lived for at least three hundred years, time might truly be the least significant thing for her.

Of course, that was under the premise that she could genuinely be immortal and not just exhibit hunger resistance.

Finding a somewhat sturdy metal chair, she sat down, looking at a pile of unknown, mysterious monster remains on the ground, and fell into contemplation.

“Based on the clues provided by the dream, the original owner was indeed a patient of the Metamorphosis Project. This can be confirmed by many details in her life during those six months…”

“Later, the original owner developed characteristics suggesting immortality. Does this mean her special abilities stem from the Metamorphosis Project or perhaps from some of Black Tower Pharmaceuticals’ experimental programs?”

“What is puzzling, however, is that in such a long time, even with the meditation method, she should have accumulated a significant amount of magic power. Why does she seem to be just like an ordinary person, aside from her immortality and hunger resistance?”

“Could it be that there were restrictions from the experiments, fearing the original owner would break free from their control? Perhaps that’s why they deliberately prohibited her from gaining power, and when the apocalypse erupted suddenly, the base was destroyed, leading to her current state…”

Unable to figure it all out and having gathered no relevant clues, Yvette could only maintain this conclusion for the time being.

Quickly, many details about the meditation method resurfaced in her mind.

Yes, without the concern for survival, with time on her hands and nothing else to do, using the meditation method to enhance her strength was undoubtedly the best plan for escaping the ruined base.

“It may be slow, but at least I have plenty of time,” she murmured, then closed her eyes and entered a meditative state.

The room fell silent, with only the faint glow beneath the surface of the Magic Glow Vines flowing rhythmically, seemingly unchanged forever.

…

In the infinite quiet and darkness, the world outside the ruins experienced day and night cycles, and unconsciously, a year passed.

During this year, Yvette fully adapted to life in the ruined base. Most of her time was spent meditating, absorbing the stray magical elements in the air. During her leisure, she would roam through various levels, tidying up the space, and categorizing the junk she found according to useful, useless, or uncertain criteria.

Sometimes, she would sneakily open the small door to the water platform but wouldn’t approach the lake. She would simply sit quietly at the entrance, gazing at the clear skies or the starry sky, missing her loved ones on Earth.

Other times, she would sit on the steps of the outlet tunnel, reading with the sunlight streaming in. Initially, she read “Detailed Analysis of Internal and External Magic,” and later “The Rune Siphoning Effect”—both textbooks she found in the library related to magic.

“Detailed Analysis of Internal and External Magic” explained that on the planet called “Origin Star,” all magical beings, including humans, possessed two types of magic power: internal magic power stored within their bodies and external magic power drawn from the environment.

Thus, when casting spells, the more internal magic power relied upon, the easier it was to control; conversely, the less available internal magic, the more unstable it became.

“The Rune Siphoning Effect,” on the other hand, discussed something akin to gravitational force on the magic side. It explained why the magical elements on the planet didn’t drift off into the universe by describing the attraction of high-density rune magical fields.

To put it simply, they were both excellent books.

Though for beginners, digesting the material was a bit challenging and took her several months, during which she also learned some relative rare terminology in the Black Tide language.

Once she finished reading “The Rune Siphoning Effect,” it happened to be one afternoon at the end of the first year.

In the chill of winter, fine, delicate snowflakes drifted down like willow catkins, blanketing the originally black water platform in a layer of silver frost. The lake surface in the distance was calm, and the monsters seemed to be asleep, except for a few lonely birds singing, their calls echoing in the desolate and vast mountain basin.

Closing the book, Yvette stood at the door, lost in thought until a snowflake landed on the tip of her nose, causing her to sneeze involuntarily.

…

Due to the wind pressure, cold air often blew through the ventilation ducts in winter. On layer negative ten of the abandoned base, Yvette had gathered all the small debris she could find to create a rudimentary windproof insulation layer.

Having hidden here to escape the cold, she was still wearing the same white dress and white stockings from a year ago.

She noticed that her skin neither produced excess oil nor had any flakes, and her clothes rarely got dirty, so she hardly needed to wash them.

At this moment, after a year of practice, she planned to test her magic power and see how well her training had paid off.

Recalling the data provided by the AI, the standard for an entry-level spellcaster was 10 magic points, which required about seven years of meditation.

So essentially, the normal efficiency of meditation was about one-and-a-half points per year, right?

Was that too slow?

But…

Even so, Yvette couldn’t help but feel a flicker of excess hope.

After all, according to the calculation, one-and-a-half points a year was right, but that’s ordinary people’s meditation efficiency, and was she an ordinary person? Certainly not! Maybe she was even the Chosen One!

Could the inefficient meditation method, which was so tedious for others, be different for her?

Then…

Reciting the entry-level spell she read from “Fundamentals of Magic,” specifically for self-testing her magic power, after waiting for a bit, she was shocked to discover that her test result was only slightly over two points—considering her lack of food, work, and her extensive training time, her actual efficiency was entirely on par with that of an ordinary person.

“So I’m just an ordinary person…”

After all that anticipation, to end up with such a result left Yvette feeling utterly heartbroken, as if her world had turned gray.

But thankfully, she could still endure. The rightful source is n0velfire.net

For someone suspected of being immortal, there was nothing she couldn’t endure! What talent she couldn’t attain, she would make up for with hard work!

And so it was.

As spring turned to autumn, time flowed on, and through day-to-day meditation and study, five years passed quietly.

During these five years, aside from boosting her magic power through meditation, Yvette also organized a collection of professional books related to magic that she had gathered from various floors. Although most of the books ventured into high-end fields, their specialized content often left her bewildered, she still managed to glean some insights while tackling them.

For instance, she learned some simple rune arrangements from a case template or understood basic frameworks, deducing simple rune formulas from them.

It’s worth noting that reciting incantations was not a necessity for casting spells, and invocations were not equivalent to runes.

In the research of the human civilization of Origin Star—abbreviated as the “Origin Civilization”—the number of known runes already exceeded ten thousand. These runes could be combined to create materials and elements that were vastly different in nature.

Thus, for a beginner, distinguishing among these thousands of runes was already a monumental task.

To ensure spells could still be cast without remembering the runes, “incantations” were born.

They served a purpose similar to encrypting and translating the runes, adding slight embellishments to make the incantations smooth and easy to remember. If one understood the forms of the runes, they could mentally recite them and cast spells without chants. However, if one was unfamiliar with the runes, reciting the translated phonetics and employing mental power would also allow them to cast magic.

For an aspiring beginner like Yvette, using incantations was undoubtedly easier than memorizing those thousands of abstract symbols.

“Breath of Frost, Spirits weep, Blizzard Bind, Mind as guide, Niflheim, heed my command!”

Standing on the water platform, Yvette recited the incantation, extending her fair palm forward, and soon after, an ice crystal approximately one meter in diameter began to coalesce on the metal wall in front of her.

After casting the spell, estimating the magic power consumption within her, Yvette roughly determined that this simple “Frost Spell” used up 3 points of her magic power—and now, her total magic power amounted to about 9 points. This single small spell accounted for one-third of her magic capacity.

“Magic power is just too low…” she sighed.

After six years of mage training, she could exert herself only to use four small spells, which left her feeling somewhat defeated.

Fortunately, she was a resilient person; otherwise, an average individual would have probably given up by now.

With no further thoughts, Yvette turned to leave.

But in the instant she turned, a glance at the ice crystal she had just created caused her to pause slightly.

Not knowing if it was an illusion, she felt that her reflection in the ice crystal seemed to show that she had grown a little older.