When the Kitsune and Villin became one, Villin’s control of his mental space and the magic power within it increased exponentially. It was also one of the things he never slacked on. Let’s say the Kitsune had actually been an enemy, she was able to easily get through his defenses and destroy his mind, similar to what he did to the ogres.

Since he didn’t want this, he was often busy increasing his defenses, and with increased control, he managed to do certain things that were previously impossible.

The rules of the mind weren’t exactly the same as those outside of it. To some extent, one can form their own mind, it can be changed using your imagination and the control you have over magic.

When Elder Tian entered Villin’s mind, he felt shocked. Using his magic power to sense the surroundings, he could feel the grass beneath him, an occasional bush could also be found. Even though the plain was mostly empty, it wasn’t of much importance. When Elder Tian moved further up, only then did he feel what was truly going on.

On the edge of these grasslands was a massive black wall. As he watched he could see the wall become more detailed, as if every second it became stronger. He didn’t realize this was actually caused by the Kitsune who shared this mind, she often worked on the mind while Villin was doing other things.

But even then, the wall wasn’t truly the most impressive thing to Elder Tian currently. After all, he couldn’t feel how far the wall went, even though he could see it reached extremely high into the sky.

In front of the wall was something else. Legions of stone statues stood there unmovingly. Each of them held an identical spear, they lacked faces but Elder Tian could feel the threat they caused.

At first, Elder Tian figured he could simply fly over this barricade using his magic power, bt he found it impossible to make his magic power rise.

This was the purpose of the grasslands, and the visual wall. Within his mind, Villin had created his own world. This world had laws, people entering it, would have to keep them to it.

One of the laws applicable here was gravity, you couldn’t simply rise as a mind would generally allow you too.

Then again, these laws went both ways, Villin’s magical power would also have to keep to these laws. Other than preparation, the biggest advantage Villin would have was that it was possible to change these laws, and he could reconstruct his magical power.

For example, if Elder Tian would be able to change his mental power into the shape of a bird, similar to how the Kitsune had changed her form when attacking Villin, in return, Villin’s walls could shift and swat him down. He could also try and have some of his own troops get wings. An attacker would have to be extremely quick and powerful, try to outrun the actions the owner of the mind could take.

Even though Elder Tian was skilled in the mind, it was mostly when it came to healing, he was only capable of stretching his magic power out or having it take shape into his own body.

And so he did, his magic power shifted and reflected himself, then he took a few steps forward.

When he got a hundred meters away from the wall. All of the troops grabbed their spears and pointed them forward as if they were one and the same. This caused Elder Tian to halt once more. He could feel they would attack him when he got closer.

Luckily, at that moment, a large number of troops stepped aside forming a path for Elder Tian to move through. Elder Tian went ahead and walked past the statues, he was incredibly intrigued by the defenses of this mind, it was absolutely stunning to see.

When he got to the wall, that too parted, it moved towards both ways, letting Elder Tian through. He wanted to touch the wall and see what it was made out of but when he got close, he could feel a threat coming from the soldiers and he simply walked through without doing anything.

‘I have to remember I am here to diagnose this boy and heal him, not to inspect his defenses for my own benefit.’ he reminded himself as he walked past.

When he got past the first wall, he properly entered the mind. He was capable of freely moving again and flew through the mind. As he had promised Villin he wouldn’t look into his memories. He expected he would have to change his path quite often not to meet any. Yet, instead, the memories made a path for him. They moved aside letting him pass by uninterrupted. 

Even though it was extremely intriguing, he reminded himself of his mission and ignored this anomaly.

When he got close to the second area of the mind, Elder Tian felt his surroundings change once more.

He soon found himself in a rather odd location. The stone beneath his feet was black with red lave streaming through the creases. The gravity was much higher than before causing him to fall to his knees for a moment as he hadn’t expected it. 

The lava wasn’t quite as realistic as the other things he had seen thus far. This made him think that Villin probably wasn’t all that familiar with lava making the representation flawed. Despite this, it was still quite hot here and the gravity didn’t help either.

Looking forwards Elder Tian could see a massive chasm with more of the lava far beneath them. The only way to pass seemed to be the ropebridge leading to the other side.

On the other side was, once more, a wall. Even from this distance, Elder Tian could still recognize the wall had the familiar shine of an enchanted object. That said, it seemed unfinished, this mental defense was still being worked on.

Elder Tian didn’t hesitate to get on the ropebridge and begin moving. Even if he fell and this bit of magic power was lost, it wouldn’t really matter, he hadn’t sent much in anyways as they had agreed.

It was exhausting to cross the 100-meter ropebridge but Elder Tian kept going. The existence of exhaustion and pain were clearly also some of the laws Villin set up in his defenses.

When he finally got over the ropebridge, Elder Tian saw heaps of stone lying all over the place. It seemed like unformed elements. The elements had already been created but it still had to be formed into the actual product. Likely more stone or metal soldiers.

Elder Tian couldn’t help but sweat a little more when he thought about how one would breach this place when it was finished.

As you crossed the bridge it was likely these stone troops would attack you one-by-one. You would get more and more exhausted while the soldiers, since they were made out of stone, wouldn’t have this issue. With gravity and soldiers constantly fighting you, it would be extremely hard to pass through. And even if you did, you would meet with a powerfully enchanted wall that would stop you.

He also figured that this place would become even more threatening when Villin actually found lava in the real world and experienced its heat and texture by himself. The heat in this place would go up immensely making it so much harder.

When the wall once more split in two, Elder Tian quickly went ahead and passed, making it into the area of Villin’s brain that took care of emotion.

‘Thank God’ he couldn’t help but think, it was not pleasant passing the defenses even when they didn’t stop him.

In Elder Tian’s eyes, the layer of emotions was full of colors. Each color was a different emotion.

This was the most familiar to him, the colors floated around freely and Elder Tian could spectate them properly.

Soon, he found the problem with Villin’s mind. Many of his emotions were shackled to other ones. He found happiness and sadness which were represented by yellow and blue, were often linked to the black color that represented ‘apathy’, the lack of emotion.

Black was seen in many places, keeping other emotions within its clutches. 

Luckily, there were some exceptions. Intrigue was the emotion that was seen alone the most and other emotions would also occasionally come up normally, even if it was in a small amount.

When looking closer, he found that most of the black he found was linked extremely closely to the outer layer that represented memories. Normally all emotions were somewhat linked to memory but not to such an extent.

This wasn’t the first time Elder Tian had seen this, but it was very tough to deal with. The one thing he might be able to do is destroying the memories that are fueling this continued apathy but the complications this would cause didn’t quite make that worth it.

The best news was that there seemed to be no real damage, his mind seemed to be completely intact which was extremely good news. 

After affirming it, he retracted his magical power and opened his eyes. He was met with the slightly nervous gaze of Villin and the inquisitive one coming from Silver.