From the beginning, Avery had considered his time in solitude a constant fight against himself. His stupid mortal body was absurdly high maintenance, needing to eat every few hours. It was his deficient muscles and skills that were preventing him from simply climbing the smooth vertical walls, smoothly obtaining freedom.

  It was his lack of knowledge and imagination that slowed down his research so much. If he had spent his time in the sect asking around about cultivation, he would surely have learned a great deal about intent, instead of foolishly pinning all of his hopes on a useless system.

  More significantly, was it not his stupidity and cowardice that made him rashly make his senseless escape, instead of honestly facing the consequences of his actions? If he had wanted to spend eternity in hell, would it not have been quicker and more efficient to simply commit suicide? Or was he too afraid he would end up in heaven instead?

  He was one big bundle of inadequacies, not brave enough to either wholeheartedly believe in a better future, or resign himself to reality, give up and let it end. No, the best option was unquestionably to continue on in constant self-loathing and doubt.

  Now even his greatest hope of escape, mastering mana, was spoiled by his brain’s inexcusable incompetence. It did not matter if reason told him it wasn’t his fault, that it was best to let go of his insecurities and strive to move past them. Avery was fed up with his incompetence, and he resented the world for trying to wrench this victory out of his hands.

  He had set up with the goal of producing the very best rune his knowledge of intent allowed, and nothing, not even his own ineptitude would stop him. He had an eternity in front of him, so time was not an issue. He would force his mind to grow until it was able to accommodate this vast setting in excruciating detail. Eventually he would triumph, it was inevitable.

  While his mind had undeniably been very affected by his recent life, and not always in a positive way, it was not all bad. Avery felt his thought process had become much steadier, perhaps losing in flexibility and speed, but gaining in overall strength and stability. After all, he had managed to imagine a complete city in acceptable detail, something he was certain he would not have been capable of back on earth, and doubted was even humanly possible.

  Avery was amazed at his power to handle so much data. Admittedly, now that he was looking back at his work, it wasn’t very impressive or aesthetically pleasing, and the still intact water world could hardly be considered art. It more resembled a crude clay sculpture made by a 10 year-old, but despite the poor quality of his work, the amount of information he had been able to process at the same time was incredible.

  Evidently, the last year had already caused a huge growth in his concentration, so his brain could develop to eventually assimilate such a huge scene. He only needed a little practice, and he would train until he could bear in mind his entire dreamland in its full glory.

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  To do so, he would use his most fearsome weapon : relentless repetitions. He had gained an incredible stubbornness over the last year, so he would continue trying until he succeeded, no matter how long it took.

  Avery immediately took action, returning to the fire planet, and redesigning it back to its former questionable splendor. Now that he knew what he was doing, it went much faster, as he could skip deciding what he would create, and directly make it, sometimes even improving over the previous version.

  However, doing so caused him to overlook the water world, jeopardizing its integrity, and by the time he had completely repaired the fire city, the visualization had not really improved, it’s focal point had only been flipped.

  He then attempted to keep all four elemental planets intact at the same time. He was testing if focusing on all of them at the same time was more effective than working on them one after the other.

  Unfortunately, this approach had much poorer results, and in the end he only got a mediocre product devoid of any details. After trying out a few different methods, he couldn’t find any shortcuts so he could only helplessly cycle back and forth between all aspects of his projection until he became so familiar with everything that it took very little brain power to maintain.

  Slowly but surely, he painted everything again and again, painting everything once, twice, ten times or a hundred times, each time getting a little faster, a little more precise, the picture lasting a little longer.

  This back and forth was certainly repetitive, but it wasn’t really boring like carving runes had been. Not only did he have a lot more liberty, being able to add and modify his design according to his whims, he also finally had a clear way to improve.

  More importantly, it was his self-deprecating anger that kept him going. He needed to prove to himself and the universe that he was capable of defying reality, and achieving the impossible. If he couldn't do something simple like dreaming up a simple fantasy land, what qualifications did he have to one day obtain an immortal item?

  Unfortunately, using self-contempt as a motivation created a vicious circle. While he was making overall progress in holding everything together, which would normally be enough to satisfy him, he also became increasingly frustrated each time he saw all his hard work go to waste due to his own inadequacy.

  It wasn't just that he was failing at what he was trying to do; he knew that learning to multitask and to think of multiple things at once would be difficult, bordering on impossible. It was the feeling of fighting against himself, of constantly undermining his own achievements, that drove him insane. He would then get unbelievably frustrated by his self-inflicted setback, which only further fueled his anger, and his need to prove himself.

  Avery became a maniac, groaning and screaming at each mishap, but it never occurred to him to stop or do something else. He knew in the back of his mind loneliness and disappointment was making him more and more unhinged, and that he was ruining all of his previous efforts in managing his mental health. He was in it for the long haul, so mindless perseverance was not the way to go, but it was too late, and he was way past the point of calming down.

  At least frustration was something different, an escape from the crushing depression. It might be painful and eventually become unbearable, but at least it was a real feeling, something that made him feel alive.