After his death happened in the dream, it paused, but Villin still couldn’t get out. He tried to wake up but simply couldn’t even now that he knew how important it was.
After trying to wake up for what he experienced as a couple of hours, Ashera grabbed his attention from within his mind.
He closed his eyes and entered his own mind, floating before Ashera who was currently in her Kitsune form.
Realizing that Ashera as a Kitsune probably knew more about than him, he decided to ask her a question, “Ashera, do you know how to get out of a coma? How do I wake up?”
Hearing him ask, Ashera nodded, it was the very reason she called him here after all, “Normally, if a human were to enter a come the only way they could really be helped is by other people healing them using spells or medicine. Luckily, you aren’t entirely human.”
“The Kitsune heart! So, how does it help?”
Faced with this second question, Kitsune got more serious as she began explaining. When I was implanted within you, you got the abilities of a one-tailed Kitsune. You were able to bridge the gap between species to assault the minds of other species.” as she explained, the memories about the ogres moved around them.
“Once I got more comfortable within this body, you should’ve gotten the abilities of a two-tailed Kitsune. This ability is to defend one’s mind. Now, it simply happens to be that you already knew how to do this so it didn’t make much of a difference.”
Hearing her speak, Villin nodded thoughtfully.
“A three-tailed Kitsune gets an entirely different ability. Mental regeneration. They are capable of healing their own minds from damage. Kitsune generally use it after a fight amongst themselves, despite serious mental damage, the winner would generally be completely healing within a week. This is a massive difference when compared to humans who generally don’t heal from mental wounds at all.”
Hearing the explanation, Villin’s mental eyes shone, “So, how do I advance to a three-tailed Kitsune then?” he asked.
It was now that Ashera showed a complicated expression. “Even with just a Kitsune’s heart, I managed to help you advance to a two-tailed kitsune with little to no problems. But this isn’t possible anymore. The problem is that, as you stand, you have little more than a Kitsune bloodline. Of course, my existence is an oddity but still, you are considered human in its purest form.”
Villin frowned as he wasn’t sure where this was going. As for being human in its purest form, even though his heart would disagree, he did get where she was coming from.
“You have to change, you have to stop your mental image of yourself. You aren’t human, you are half-Kitsune. This is something you have to accept and embrace.”
“I see,” Villin said as he thought deeply, “How though, I’ve been a human for so long, it’s not like I can just go and change one of the things I have been thinking for years.”
He looked at Ashera for confirmation but when he looked at her, he saw she was smiling faintly, and then he understood.
“Oh, I suppose it would be possible.”
“Indeed, you need to go within your mind and change something. There is a lot of danger to it but looking at you I think, eventually, you would’ve lost this misconception of yourself anyways, I think you’ll be able to accept the new truth with relative ease if you change it within your mind.”
Even now, Villin didn’t hesitate to agree. He had seen what would happen if he remained asleep, and well, he could believe Ashera’s words when she said that eventually, he would’ve lost these thoughts anyways.
After taking in a deep mental breath, he looked at her again, “Okay then, how do I do it?”
Ashera smiled as she saw how quickly he accepted this, she had to admit that she would also prefer it if Villin thought of himself as half-Kitsune, it would be easier to see him as kin.
“When you try to change something like this, your mind will automatically see it as an attack on itself and try to stop you. The least complicated way would be to attack your own mind from the outside, breach the first two layers of your mental defense and change what needs to be changed.”
Villin frowned as he heard this, “Isn’t there another way? Couldn’t I just go to the required location now and change it before the mind has a way to retaliate?”
Ashera shook her head, “Then how will you get out? No matter what you will need to take a large part of your magic power and consciousness with you to change such a substantial thing. If you change it and then the mind manages to terminate the threat, you may be even more seriously harmed compared to before. Going through each of the defenses gives you a way out as well, it’s the safest way.”
Grasping at straws, Villin asked, “Can I weaken my defenses first then?”
Ashera looked at her with a raised eyebrow, “Can you? Even though destroying is easier than creating, it will take a very long time to make holes in the defenses that took months to create.”
Villin couldn’t do anything but nod. Even though he did have a lot of control over his mind, he did create laws within the defenses. Things like gravity, weight, or temperature were things there. Just like that, you wouldn’t be able to just create a hole inside of the wall by thinking it away, you would have to mentally create cannons or something of the like.
Thinking of all the defenses Ashera and himself had made, Villin clacked his tongue, “Are there any preparations we can make?”
Now, the Kitsune did nod, “yes, for one I will be able to position the sections you will need to change just behind the second layer of defenses, so once you’re through, you’ll practically immediately be able to change the belief and go back out. Secondly, while you move through the defenses I’ll spend some time making a mock-belief where you see yourself as half-human half-Kitsune. This way you’ll be able to switch the beliefs out quickly. Lastly, you can have a good look at your mental defenses now and look for weak points to go through. You can also practice forming your magic power into the items or tools required to go through the two layers.”
Hearing her suggestions to prepare, Villin nodded seriously as he thought about them. They would indeed increase the chances of success by a bit, “This’ll be hard.” he noted.
“Yes.” Ashera agreed, “Previously I thought we had plenty of time for you to get that realization naturally so I never purposefully created weak points within the defenses, you’ll have to fight them head-on.”
After a simple nod, Villin made his way to the two areas he would have to get through and he began inspecting them thoroughly. Even though he already knew what they were, seeing them up close may help when coming up with ways to get through them.
After spending days inspecting his defenses and practicing forming his magic in the right ways to enact his plans, he finally felt ready.
He soon found himself standing outside of his outermost defenses in his life-like form. He had gathered all of his magic power and it swirled around him for now. Since he knew that a few steps forward the laws would start to kick in and magic power lacked form, he began forming it in a temporary fashion for now. The magic power turned into a magic carriage full of goods that were in simple shapes.
He could’ve also used all the magic power on himself and become a giant within the mental world but he knew that the ground was purposefully made unstable, too much weight and you could fall into a sinkhole.
Pulling along the carriage filled with goods was still tough though, it wasn’t so heavy that it would fall through the ground but it was too heavy for himself to pull. And so, some of the apples in one of the crates morphed and after a bit, two horses were standing in front of the carriage.
Villin didn’t put too much importance on the horses and they looked quite sickly. The reason was that the magic power was all extremely condensed within the carriage and horses, this made the carriage and horses worse in quality. It was like using concrete instead of wood to make a roof on a wooden cabin. Even though concrete was stronger, the cabin would most certainly collapse as the walls couldn’t hold it.
Since it was only for a short while though, it’d be fine and soon Villin found himself atop of a carriage moving through what seemed like endless grasslands.
It wasn’t actually that massive though and after just ten minutes, he could spot the defenses in the distance. He first saw a ginormous wall that reached endlessly into the sky. A bit later, he saw legions of stone statues next to it, standing completely still with spears in hand.
As Villin looked at the sight he couldn’t help but be impressed by his own mental defenses, it was certainly intimidating. Still, he moved forward as he prepared himself, he would have to attack his own mind, even though it sounded crazy, he was set on doing it now.
