Lord: Starting with Summoning the Regular Army of Earth

boom!

Matthew was awakened from his sleep by the heavy magic book. He opened his eyes groggily and felt that it was very bright around him, so he subconsciously thought it was dawn.

But he soon realized something was wrong. Outside the window, the night was still dark, but the room was shrouded in a strange, soft halo that seemed to have its own light source.

The halo of light was small, only covering his bed and the desk next to it. Beyond the halo was a deep, thick, seemingly solidified darkness.

To his even greater surprise, a fair-skinned, beautiful girl with black hair and long legs was sitting on his desk.

She wore a uniquely tailored black dress that accentuated her curvaceous figure, and her long, straight black hair cascaded down her back, its strands shimmering like silk in the light.

He crossed his arms over his chest, supporting the heavy weight, yet with a touch of pride in his posture.

Almost instantly, the three words "long, straight black hair" popped into Matthew's mind.

"Is this a dream? Or..." Countless thoughts flashed through Matthew's mind in an instant, after all, everything that was happening before his eyes was too bizarre.

However, at this moment, my thoughts and perceptions are too clear. It doesn't feel like a dream, but rather like I've been taken into some unknown realm or space.

Could it be... the legendary "golden-finger grandpa"? No, it's the "long-haired black-haired lady".

He forced himself to calm down quickly, propped himself up to sit up, and his gaze swept warily across the eerie, clearly defined halo of light around him, finally settling on the girl's exquisite, almost unreal face.

Her eyes were large and round, with dark purple pupils that made her look mysterious and alluring. Beneath her pert nose were two thin, moist cherry lips, with the corners of her lips slightly pursed, exuding an innate arrogance and aloofness.

"Who are you?" Matthew remained relatively calm, looking at the other person with a steady and powerful voice.

"Didn't you want to sense magic? I can help you." The girl didn't answer, but went straight to the point.

"Who exactly are you?" Matthew asked again, his eyes filled with a hint of wariness.

"Does it matter?" The girl looked at Matthew with a hint of arrogance, her round buttocks lifted off the table, her bare feet stepping on the ground formed by the halo of light, and she approached Matthew step by step, but in the end she still maintained a relatively polite distance.

"At least I need to know how to address you, miss?" Matthew put on his clothes and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Night Song." Too lazy to beat around the bush, she gave her name directly.

"Miss Night Song, you just said you'd help me?" Matthew got out of bed, his gaze fixed on the long, straight black hair of the girl before him, whose height barely reached the tip of his nose. Looking down at her, her face appeared even smaller and more delicate, but Matthew didn't lower his guard because of her appearance: "Why do you want to help me? What's the price?"

"The price?" Ye Ge chuckled lightly, with a hint of disdain, but she also thought about the question carefully. In the past, she rarely seemed to think about the "why" when she did things.

"Just consider it... an investment."

This answer reassured Matthew a lot, since it's more worrying when a stranger gives to you selflessly.

"Then, Miss Night Song, do you have any good ideas?" Matthew decided to listen first.

"There's a shortcut right in front of you, yet you insist on groping around in the air like a blind man!" She stretched out her slender finger and pointed directly at the pendant on Matthew's chest: "That magic pendant contains the purest mana. Instead of aimlessly searching for unfamiliar things in the dark, why not use it as a guiding light?"

Matthew was taken aback. Will had mentioned a similar point, but since Will was also a theorist, he naturally couldn't offer the clearest and most precise advice: "How exactly should we do it?"

"Since you can control its power, you can naturally sense the mana it contains. You just need to understand it as you understand yourself, become familiar with it, and then when you search for mana floating in the air, it will no longer be aimless, but you will have a more precise target, which will make your efforts twice as effective!"

Night Song's words made Matthew fall into deep thought, because they did indeed make sense.

"Not only that, you can even use that magic pendant to connect with the mana in the outside world, and even the mana hidden in a deeper level, which is far more efficient than relying on your own mental power to establish communication."

Matthew closed his eyes and, following the method Night Song had just described, focused his mind on the pendant to sense the magic within.

Matthew could also sense the magic in the pendant before, but that perception was like seeing a bucket of transparent, unknown liquid in front of him.

You can see how much of it there is, see it flowing away and being consumed, but you have no idea whether it contains water, ethanol, or some other liquid.

I don't know if it's cold or hot, sour or salty.

What he needs to do now is to transform his mental energy into a keen hand to carefully sense and understand what the liquid in the bucket is, and even understand its molecular structure and elemental composition.

Only in this way can one truly understand Mana and have a thorough grasp of it.

Only when one's spiritual power spreads to the surrounding space can one identify and find the mana one needs in that vast energy field.

But while everyone understands the theory, putting it into practice is not easy.

Even though Matthew tried his best to insert his mental energy into the liquid as a "hand," it felt as if he was wearing a glove, lacking a sense of realism.

"How is it? Can you feel it?" Ye Ge's voice rang in my ears.

Matthew shook his head and truthfully explained the problems he was facing.

"It seems your mental vision hasn't fully opened yet—I'll give you another hand!" As Night Song spoke, Matthew suddenly felt the other's finger touch his brow.

In an instant, a faint yet incredibly clear sensation of coolness, like the finest spider silk, spread rapidly along his consciousness, instantly activating his neural network and giving him a feeling of sudden enlightenment, as if breaking free from shackles.

It was as if a completely new "sense" had been opened up in his mind.

He "saw" it!

It is not something seen with the naked eye, but a mysterious and profound vision.

It was as if the pendant on her chest was no longer a physical object, but had transformed into a gentle yet powerful ball of light, like a liquid sapphire, pulsating slowly with an ancient and lingering rhythm.

Around this ball of light, countless tiny, dust-like specks of various colors filled the air. As if drawn by gravity, they slowly converged toward the pendant, and then, in a pulsating rhythm, they were absorbed by the pendant, like breathing. The mana particles within merged into the gem-like ball of light, while the remaining particles were pushed away again.

"How's it going? Do you feel anything this time?" Night Song's voice rang out again.

"I feel it, I really feel it," Matthew said excitedly, a huge joy welling up inside him, as if he had seen a whole new world.

"Very good. Remember this feeling, this rhythm. In the future, when you meditate, you can anchor yourself to it directly, and you'll achieve twice the results with half the effort."

"OK."

Following Night Song's instructions, Matthew began to focus on "observing," "distinguishing," "recognizing," and "understanding" those wondrous mana particles. Time passed quietly, and before he knew it, dawn had broken.

Matthew awoke from his strange sensation when Will knocked on the door to call him for breakfast.

I opened my eyes and found myself still lying in bed, with the book "Introduction to the Fundamentals of Magic" on my chest.

There was nothing unusual in the room, and the girl with long, straight black hair seemed to have never been there.

But he was certain that he wasn't dreaming.

"Could that girl be the spirit inside this magical pendant?" Matthew thought to himself, touching the pendant on his chest.

……