For a psychic, the resurrection after each meditation is more like rebirth than awakening.
This has always been like this. After a trance, Melissa Springer always allows subtle perceptions and concepts to be freed from her attention and move her thinking from the inner realm to the outer world, that is, the traditional realm of perception and thought.
She returned to her physical self, like an eagle returning to her nest, breathing in the fragrance of honey, enjoying the slow trickle of the body's perception, feeling like blood flowing through hungry arteries.
In the Psychological Academy, she learned to call it the Father’s Gift: a brief warmth and satisfaction after the meditation of divination, like a personal reward from the Emperor.
She lets it inject into each limb, bent her toes and arched her back.
The acolytes teacher taught - enjoy every moment of it.
After all, there is only one side of psychic sensing that can confirm the word "talent", and all other aspects are more equivalent to curse.
The Father’s gift will not last long, it will disappear in a very short time, and in that unpleasant moment, all the strong memories of trance will rush into the heart and drown her.
Afterwards, she opened her eyes and focused on a dim candle in the center of the divination ring, breaking through the mud of memories.
Her first thought was this: something came out from one end of the curtain.
The meditation room is very simple.
Four rock walls arched above their heads, forming a rough dome together, with a bronze needle in the center: the conduction point of the astral body.
But this was not the case in her past meditation chamber, but the verses drawn in gold and silver and marble on each wall disappeared, the spells on the abstract star map and the dome pattern of the fortune teller disappeared, and the huge twisted shelf of the buzzing incense skulls disappeared.
She had been very moisturized on Terra, and this humble cube was far from what she expected, considering the indifference her new owner showed to her, she thought she should be grateful for everything, but still... to limit.
A shriveled servant poked her shoulder with a maldeveloped limb, while a pale eye trembled in spasm.
It tried to speak, but the nails with runes engraved on its lips and chin made him make a wet giggle, while a long string of saliva swayed from its chin.
On Terra, her meditation awakening was taken care of by living servants. Although the tongues of those smooth-skinned subordinates had been removed and each eye had their ownership marks were nailed, they were still living people, knowing that when she was tired, she quickly wiped her sweat, massaged her shoulders, and caringly recorded any insights brought by meditation on the fragrant parchment paper.
In Terra, her meditation room was filled with locust-like automatons, her eyes were emerald green, her chin was ruby, and her colorful streamers of psychoactive pheromones dripped behind them like musk.
In Terra, there are more than a dozen contemplators who only explain her hallucinations.
In Terra, the majesty of her residence matches the scenery of the central loft, and in the gaps of the mission, she could spend hours gazing at the mountains in the distance.
In Terra, her family was able to demonstrate their influence by relying on art and money.
So, her current situation is a bit uncomfortable.
Here, the one-armed man, the machine with a technical pen and a nose-stuck stuffy one is the best machine the judge can provide.
It poked her again, leaving a stupid strip of ink on her bare skin, then looked away and rolled her eyes.
Above it, a faulty servo drone was moving around the ceiling, emitting a cheap scent, and then it hit the wall frustratingly, Melissa found herself counting unconsciously—just, second, second… like a plastic heart beating.
Here, anything can distract her from her memories.
The gift of the father had passed, and there was nothing to stay in this dull little room, and the increasing pressure behind her eyes could not be cured forever.
Melissa sighed, draped a simple robe over her shoulders, clenched her chin, snatched out the candle, and focused on the details of meditation, and her mind still shone in the sky.
"Record."
She waved her hand and ordered, and the servant immediately straightened her body, and the stylus stopped on a swaying divination stone slab, making a prepared sound.
“Then is the narrative.”
She rolled her eyes, ignoring the whispers of the servant's joints.
"In the name of the Emperor, the chief foreshadowing of the judge Leonard Meyerstus, who was in the Imperial World, served the most blessed judgement and remained faithful to the Golden Throne. I prove the origin of this account with my soul and swear it to be true--or may my master verdict me."
After saying that, she took a deep breath and shivered in the slightly cold air.
"Bless his throne and rule, and praise the Emperor!"
She watched the servant scribbling the inscription with mechanical twitching, and rolled the data board onto a clean line.
She took a moment to calm herself down, pursed her lips, and continued to talk.
“The third time, referring to previous records, meditation begins with…a high degree of perception.”
She closed her eyes and remembered the cold, the abyss that was spreading from all directions, the dizziness of nothingness, and the frost condensed on her skin.
As a trained psychic, her power is called the "Eye of Vision", a prophecy that tends to be precise in the short term. This power is usually used in the Astral Army to support the strategic deployment of the generals.
She was immersed in memories, continued to speak, using techniques she had been taught since childhood.
"I... I feel like I'm standing in a very high place... The ground around me collapsed, like on a lonely peak. Except... a mountain made of metal, I can't see anything, there are too many colors, but I know if I go too far in any direction, I will fall... I will fall, never stop, and fall all the way to... the bottomless darkness, where it is dim and light, I can't see anything, but... I know there is something there, I can feel, a moment of fear, but..."
She smiled dryly, with some kind of pride.
“…Although today, I didn’t vomit for the first time.”
Then, she continued to narrate in a formal tone.
"Something is approaching, passing through the curtain and the ice. Although I am scared, I still stand in place..."
She bit her lip and her eyes were wet.
"Maybe I'm more afraid of falling than being close to being, I...I don't know, in the previous meditation state, I've woken up at this time, and my efforts to know more details were frustrated, today I... persevered, and I'm sure I've glimpsed...the existence in the shadow, and until now I've discovered that it seems to be myself."
She looked up and realized how ridiculous it sounded.
No matter how insightful the servant has, he will not reveal it, and he will wait for her next sentence as always.