Following the roadmap created by Cal and me, I sat in a pure white room in a deep recess of my mindscape. The vast space of the room was comforting. I existed alone here. This was my realm. As I fell into a trance, I opened my spirit and body, allowing water mana to cycle through me. When I reached a natural rhythm, I shifted my attention to my mind.

The first step of the process was to collect my mind. Thankfully, that had already been accomplished when I set up my mental barriers. With a thought, I summoned the dome encapsulating my mind. The dome was at least thirty feet tall and wide and covered in a dense layer of black ice. I knew inside that dome was a vast ocean that surrounded more protective domes and barriers. Inside the core of my protection was a heavily guarded fortification. I had a defensive palace inside the walls, and deep in the palace were the pillars of my mind.

I examined my protective shell with a hint of satisfaction. It was an excellent start to keeping my mind safe. However, it was time to tear my defenses apart. Like a god, I focused on the world I created and dismantled it layer by layer. The thick walls put up some resistance, initially refusing to yield to my tug with mana. It took an exerted will in order to bring the wall down. After which, raging water that was ice cold filled the space I was in. Fortunately, the room was limitless, and the water washed away. After the initial layer, the process became a battle of will and mana.

It brought me comfort knowing that even though I created the barriers, they resisted my call to break. The dense ice had one purpose—defend. Each layer took more will and mana to break down. Water flooded and dispersed. It took nearly five days to break through my defenses until I reached my fortification.

I prepared to battle my guards. Instead, I was met with bows and fists held to the chest. I returned the honored salute to the thousands of warriors as I walked down the halls, collapsing the world behind me. If my soldiers cared that their service was coming to an end, they didn’t show it. Most looked eager for the future, as if they believed in what I was doing entirely. Did they know what I was doing? For a second, I considered giving a speech. The terrible idea faded fast, and my pace quickened.

The vaults were the last to fall. Standing in the secure room, I gathered the pillars of my mind and the copies of my memories into an orb of water I held in my palm. The walls crashed down like glass and rushed away as it turned to water.

I stood alone in a pure white room with the entirety of my mind held in my hand. Memories. Beliefs. Personality. Preferences. All of which was woven together with threads of mind pathways—a balanced mixture of wisdom, knowledge, and survival.

There was so much to the orb that I held, my hand shouldn’t be able to bear the weight of it at all, and yet there it was in my hand, so exposed and vulnerable. I placed the delicate mind on a raised ice platform, took a deep breath, and started pulling out the threads. With each tug, my mind unraveled, losing its cohesive bond. As pillars of my mind fell off, I collected them into a new orb of water.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Days passed as I pulled through the thread, and the pool of my mind grew larger with each drip. At the end of the week, I had wholly separated my pillars from the threads. The water orb was about the same size as me, and inside of it was an ocean of my being. To the side of the orb was a massive pile of thread. I would need to purify both of them before I could reforge them.

I summoned a furnace with a thought, turned the heat to an unrealistic level, and tossed the thread inside. The impurities would burn off, and the threads would begin to change. To purify the pillars of my mind, I needed to sort through all of them and remove what I felt hindered my progression.

The removal of impurities is where I practiced the most in my trial runs. It required taking an introspective look and judging what should stay and what should be removed. This was the most intense part of the entire process and the most time-consuming. I was sculpting who I wanted to be.

Cal shared a bunch of theories about reshaping pillars. Most scholars agreed memories should remain untouched unless gruesome memories limited a cultivator’s progression. Everything else was heavily debated. A popular theory was that cultivators should pursue perfection at all costs. Remove anything that limited growth or was a setback. Others believed the forger should stay as true to self as possible—reforging was meant to refine rather than remove.

In my initial test runs, I simulated both. I cut out all of my imperfections, turning myself into a complete ass, and I refined all of my flaws which led to being half an ass but still an ass. Both results were unsatisfactory. After trial and error, I discovered I was already perfect—a very asinine thought. However, the more I thought about it, the less I felt like an a-hole.

Sure, I had my faults. My charisma was a two at best, I was inconsistently stubborn and prone to quit, and I relied on others for strength. Even as I struggled through the recursions, my motivation was to save my friends—arguments could be made between loyalty and dependency, but in my case, it was a healthy dose of both.

I lacked confidence, liked to procrastinate, hated sticking to plans, and had a host of fears.

My faults were a part of me; removing them so quickly would discredit my character and prohibit natural growth.

More than creating opportunity—who’s to say what was perfect—especially when it came to individual introspection? Should I judge myself based on another’s perception? Am I supposed to accept what some declare was better simply because they declared so? The idea rattled my nerves.

To Sog’s moldy pits with the imposed standards.

I considered myself perfect because I was being who I chose to be. My strengths and weaknesses were my choice. I had forged myself through years of challenges, hardships, and success. With my own hands, I shaped my character. I was the master, and I’d be damned if I let myself think any less of who I was.

So, instead of removing weaknesses and blemishes, I focused on my desires. Just because I was perfect now didn’t mean I couldn’t be more perfect. I would become the best version of myself. To do that, I needed to accept who I was, know who I wanted to be, and prepare to become my ideals.

One by one, I examined my wants and desires, checking them against my purpose—the one thing I desired most. I was going to conquer death for myself and my friends.