2 days had passed since Damien witnessed the benefits of the Void Heart Sword Law. For the past two days, he had done nothing but sit in a meditative position with his eyes closed.
After expressing his desire to practice the sword law, he was sent back to his real body from the void space he was transported to. The emotionless voice he had heard said nothing else to him.
But it wasn’t without benefit. When his mind returned to his body, he could feel an immense wave of information imprinting itself onto his consciousness.
The Void Heart Sword Law actually wasn’t very difficult to learn in theory. The main caveat of the art was the user’s capability at emptying their mind of all emotion. Without passing this first step, it was impossible to practice the art.
And even in these past 2 days, Damien wasn’t able to complete this step.
‘The first phase of the Void Heart Sword Law is called Mind Prison. The description seems easy enough, but damn is it hard to actually do.’
Mind Prison wasn’t an attack at all. Instead, it was a method to cage the user’s emotions so they could effectively perform their art.
Mana, in most definitions, was considered a form of energy. It could power technology, cleanse the air, and allow beings in contact with it to perform mystical feats. Yet, not everyone believes energy was enough to term mana.
It was something that could do anything. It was theorized that even true creation, creating something out of nothing, or even revival could be made possible through mana. And mere energy shouldn’t be capable of such feats.
Instead, some people theorized that mana was something akin to the fabric of the universe. It was something that created reality itself. And if that was the case, then mana could be used in a much larger variety of ways.
Mind Prison was a concept that capitalized on this theory, and in some sense, proved its truth. Thoughts, emotions, ambition, all of these things were conceptual. There was no way to give them true form, even when taking into account the chemical responses of the brain.
However, Mind Prison was designed to do exactly that. It used mana as a base to cage those illusory concepts like emotions into a specific area, contained until they were released once more by the user.
However, the method to create a mind prison was never mentioned in the information implanted within Damien’s mind. According to it, each individual had different aspirations and created different mind prisons to cater to their goals.
Damien couldn’t even begin to understand how to cage emotions, as that didn’t make any sense to him. So instead, he focused on designing a structure for his mind prison.
At first, he tried to structure it like a jail cell, something he’d actually seen before, but that didn’t work well at all. The things he was trying to contain didn’t have physical form, so bars weren’t ideal.
Next, he tried something similar to a white room. It was a completely solid box with no defining features. If a human was forced to live within such a construct for a prolonged period of time, they’d go insane with 100% certainty.
However, there was a problem with this structure as well. He found that if he used this white room, he’d have a hard time releasing his emotions once again, regaining his full self.
Damien’s view of the Void Heart concept was like he was splitting himself in two. On one side was his rational mind, and the other was his emotional one. He didn’t know what state he would be in once the two separated, and he didn’t want to take any risks.
What if his rational mind refused to release his emotions? What if his emotions, trapped within the white room, become chaotic and self-destructive? He didn’t want to take any chances.
He needed to make sure there was a way for both exit and entry from both sides. He viewed both sides of him once he activated the mind prison as conscious beings.
And so, Damien began experimenting with other shapes. On the second ah, he finally settled for something akin to a soccer ball. Connecting hexagonal panels that created a circular construct.
With this structure, he could effectively seal his emotions, leaving no clear exits for them to seep through without permission, yet he could install a backdoor for emergency situations.
He had learned long ago to be prepared for any situation, which is why he had rarely been surprised by the developments that took place since he left the dungeon.
With a structure in mind, Damien immediately wanted to get to work, but he was still clueless about where to start. Should he crystallize the mana and make a solid structure, or would it be more ethereal like mana circuits?
He was charging forward without knowledge, and although he was aware of its dangers, he didn’t stop. He had gotten so used to simply bulldozing his way through obstacles that it became second nature to him.
Damien focused his awareness into his mind. He was trying to find something like a sea of consciousness that he could use to root the mind prison. But he only saw darkness. After searching tirelessly for what felt like days, he came to a realization.
‘Wait, I’m seeing darkness?’
Logically speaking, he shouldn’t be “seeing” anything. This was inside his mind, the only thing he had ever witnessed here was memories.
But the fact that he was seeing darkness…
‘Could this be my sea of consciousness?’
Rather than that, it was more like a mind space. There wasn’t anything established within it yet, but its existence couldn’t be denied. Damien called forth his mana and led it to the location his awareness was currently at, and it actually appeared in front of him.
Staring at the shining amethyst energy before him, Damien smiled. ‘I finally have a starting point.’ Without delay, he started working. Since he had already thoroughly planned the structure beforehand, the actual creation process wasn’t too difficult.
But the process itself was enlightening to Damien. He was using mana to create an ethereal construct inside a space he didn’t know truly existed. The process made Damien aware of how versatile mana truly was.
Time passed in a flash as Damien continued this process. The single hexagonal panel he created at first multiplied a dozen-fold until it became 64 panels of equal size. Then, he carefully attached them together in a process similar to welding metals.
When the spherical prism finally took root, Damien could feel a specific feeling in his mind that he couldn’t quite place. However, this feeling confirmed the existence of the Mind Prison he had just painstakingly created.
Just this was enough to make him want to leap with joy. Just because he was working without pause didn’t mean he held no doubts about his methods. The entire time, he wondered whether all his hard work would collapse like an illusion once he wasn’t concentrating on it.
But it was there, a fully formed construct that embodied his completion of the Void Heart Sword Law’s first phase.