The trip back to the Academy was silent. Amanda was plotting on how to best exploit the passage while Robert was working on his new tame monster's mental patterns to make it more sociable and amenable to commands. Despite the excitement of the morning and afternoon, by the time they reached the campus, both were too tired to admire the setting sun. Their uniforms were enchanted to self-clean, an effort to maintain the image every Imperial student should strive to keep but they craved a good bath.
The bus stopped in front of the female dorm to let Amanda out. She glanced at Robert. "I'll be busy all night talking to corporate but you can call me if you have any problems."
"Sure," Robert replied.
The doors closed behind her and the bus hovered onward.
"I couldn't help but notice you are working on the monster's mental patterns," Andronicus said as he approached and sat on the seat across Robert.
"Yes, I am trying to cut off its natural aggression toward humans entirely," Robert said. "If it ever gets out of my control, I don't want it going on a killing spree."
"A wise choice. I see it is one of the drawbacks of the Mind version of beast bond. While faster, it really doesn't do much to make the monsters friendly. You need to work on it after the fact, while other tamers befriend first, then bond later."
Robert nodded. "Yes, It is a forced bond. I feel it's just a few steps down from total domination."
Noah approached. "You should tell Andronicus about your unique spell," he suggested. "Because I see you kept that little tidbit to yourself."
Otherwise, he wouldn't go around the subject. Andronicus leaned closer.
"I have a unique spell I call mind blackout. The Mental affinity came along with it."
"I see," Andronicus said. "And it grants you total domination of your subject."
"I can use it to stun too. But yes. Of course the stronger and more complex the mind is, the shorter and weaker the effect is. I used it on humans only once and I could only issue a single command, to sleep. But on the puffblooms, it worked very well. It was as easy as pouring water from one container into another. This guy here is giving me a bit more trouble but not only it's a two-star he also has a stronger intellect. I think their society is in the early tribal stages."
"Interesting. What approach are you taking regarding changing its mental patterns and predispositions?"
"I'm working on altering its memories, to make it seem like we've been bonded for longer. It worked really well on the puffblooms."
"And did you copy its mental patterns before you started making changes?"
Andronicus' question startled Robert. "No. How?"
"You have a mental palace, don't you?" Robert nodded. "Have you chosen what bastion to build?"
"I already have both," Robert replied, drawing a surprised look from the wizened teacher. "Tit–Mrs. Samson made the same expression. It's my talent, it gives me a lot of time. Ninety-nine extra days every time this planet spins around itself.
"I see... Your progress with the mental palace would go ninety-nine times faster... no, wait. You said body functions are halted. You could work on the palace twenty-four hours. That's three hundred times faster. In a single month, you'd have gained twenty-five years' worth of progress with your mental palace."
"Robert's talent is pure bullshit," Noah said with a chuckle.
Andronicus continued. "If you have the intellect fortress, you can learn how to make avatars. You can copy a mental pattern you can study into your mind palace. It will stay there and you can even interact with it."
"I think Mrs. Samson said something about making a copy of myself If I recall correctly," Robert said.
"Yes, the easiest mental pattern to copy is your own. It's good to prevent others from messing with your memories. Not that they will have much choice with a mind palace as developed as yours. Here's a hint: Keep developing it. Expand your territory, expand your bastions, and add more floors to your tower of iron will. If you add around fifty years more of development, you can set one of the two passive defenses. We'll talk about them later. The gist of it is, don't slack off with any of your tempering techniques."
"I'll keep it in mind, professor. But I'm afraid this is my stop." The bus stopped in front of the male dorm. Robert stood up, brushed his hand against Freddy's fur to wake him up, and commanded his creatures to follow him.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He got off the bus. Freddy jumped after him and the hulking fish-man came out last. The students in the male dorm were all paying close attention and pointing at the fish monster. Robert ignored them. He walked into the lobby with Freddy by his side and a puffbloom on each shoulder, as usual. The two furballs were ignored, either because the fish guy was more impressive or because they mistook Cotton and Coal as some weird accessory even though modifications to the uniform were forbidden.
Nobody made any movement to attack his tame monster, which was a plus in Robert's book.
"Hey, everyone. This is a monster I tamed recently. He won't attack anyone," Robert announced, making the creature wave its clawed arm. He didn't try to make it smile because it would reveal the serrated teeth inside its mouth.
"Dude, I thought tamers were lame," a guy said to his classmate.
"Hey, if you had to fight that fish man, would you lose?" Another asked the first one.
"Nah, I'd win."
The second guy nudged the first as if to say he didn't believe that bullshit. "It's a two-star monster, dude. Can't you sense it?"
"I can run faster than it."
"What about the dog?" Second guy asked.
"Dude, that's a Taulusian. They are just big pets. These alien dogs can't hurt a fly."
"Huh."
Robert entered his apartment. He was glad, for the first time, that it was the first one in the hallway. Once his creatures were all inside, he shut the door and engaged the privacy wards.
*
*
He moved some furniture with the help of his storage rings to make room for the puffblooms' habitat. It was actually made for birds, with lots of perches, hidey-holes, and toys to push around. The two went to explore their new place merrily. He placed some food and fresh water for Freddy. After every creature under his care was accounted for, he sat on the living room couch in front of the fish man.
"I guess you need a name," he said to himself. "Your whole species needs a name. I think I'll call you the Gurglocks. Because you gurgle a lot. Damn. Do they have a language?"
He tried to make the creature say something. He got some gurgles and used his comprehend language spell to find out what it was saying. He got nothing. A quick scan of the creature's mental patterns showed a problem.
"Did I screw up your language centers?" Robert gasped.
He had, indeed, screwed up. When he erased the memories of the tribal life to replace them with memories of living among humans, he screwed up. Because the language was learned and not something that came built-in with the base creature. And its brain wasn't developed enough to learn human languages.
A deeper analysis showed places where his roughshod approach also caused some damage to its thought patterns. He removed too much of its aggression and the whole mind looked, now that he was paying attention to it, a house of cards ready to crumble down. Robert had messed up too much with this creature's brain. He tried to take a psychotic berserker and turn it into a gentle warrior. Its mental patterns were orders of magnitude more complex than the puffblooms'.
With that, he realized that it would be less work to go back to that passage and dominate another creature than to try and fix this guy. He decided to use this monster for another purpose. Robert put his hand on the fishman's shoulder and took it to the liminal void.
Tying a rope around both of their waists, Robert held onto the monster's wrist as he dove deeper into the true void. The creature showed no signs of damage from exposure to the void, proving that his talent was enough to keep the void from killing trespassers. He let go of the wrist, letting only the silk rope tether connect them both. The moment he did, the monster started to leak Time and Space wisps, which rushed toward Robert. The monster's body started to crumble and dissolve into Ether, most of it vanishing into the void. But something flowed back to Robert. A piece of the monster's soul entered his.
Robert likened that to a reward for sacrificing the creature to the void. His second star ticked less than a percent point upward. As he checked, the fight at the passage earned him two percentile points of advancement. it would be three if he didn't have one unique ability shell. But he would trade this loss of advancement for an extra affinity any time of the day.
Dismayed, he returned to reality. He could take creatures to the true void but it would require constant physical contact. What really unnerved him was that piece of soul he absorbed.
*
*
Robert didn't go back to the passage to get another Gurglock. Instead, he dove into his mental palace and brought forth all books on the Mental affinity. In this imaginary space, the books flew out of the shelves and hovered in front of him. Another thought warped space until he was at a comfortable study, with a leather chair and a mug of steaming coffee waiting for him. He walked and the books followed. As he sat, the books lined up one after another, waiting to be read.
He spent two months reading them and taking notes. Comparing insights between authors, searching for what Andronicus hinted at. He found it. The description of a spell to copy mental patterns to the mental palace. It was a slow spell that required constant physical contact with the subject. It worked better with a willing subject, or at least one with a subjugated mind. The author specifically advised against copying the mind of an enemy or someone who harbored hatred or animosity toward the caster.
The advice was sound. Because this mental palace was the inner sanctum of his psyche. If he took an enemy here, the imprint would act and behave like its original and it could, in extreme cases, harm Robert or even cause irreparable damage to his mind.
That was why they recommended that the first pattern to be copied should be the caster's. This pattern should be hidden deep inside the basement of the tower of iron will. But due to the complexity of the very mental palace, this copy required one-tenth of the time invested into the palace. And every time it was updated, another one-tenth of the extra time was needed.
The benefit was that if the caster's copy was complete, Robert would have an avatar of himself permanently inside the palace. This avatar could defend against attackers, discipline other patterns he would eventually add to his mental palace, and increase the efficiency of development and mental spells.
Robert sat down and started to trace the runic bands that would form the pattern for this spell. Then he would spend four or five years of liminal void time to create his imprint.
It would take him several weeks of real life time, though. It was better to start now.