Quin sighed. “It seems that teaching really is the best way to learn.”

“Oh, you also gained something, teacher?”, Nayda asked.

“I have indeed. I have finally found the method to make large-scale changes, so I’ll start experimenting on the outer region of my dungeon first to not disturb our upcoming meditation session, but once the outer region has a layout that I’m satisfied with, there will be lots of things I want to change in here.”, he answered.

He then returned the land on the other side of the island to its original appearance and exited his inner world with his spiritual body. When he connected with the outer dungeon, the contrast to his inner world was quite jarring.

Instead of the well-lit, large, and lush island he now only held dominion over a dark, barren, thin strip of tunnel. At roughly a meter from the tunnel walls out into the mountain, his perception had vanished completely.

Thankfully, as he dug an experimental tunnel at an angle from the topside, his perception advanced with the tunnel. Slowly at first, and then, as his confidence grew, faster and faster, he carved out a winding tunnel that connected to the portal room. As soon as the tunnel was finished a worked at collapsing the original one.

Having a straight shot at his inner world while he hadn’t had the time to build some defenses was unacceptable to him and thus the old tunnel had to go. In its stead, he carved out a second tunnel which was similarly winding to his second one.

This time though, he connected a second large spiritual sense to the ground and tried excavating from both sides. To his surprise, he found no difficulty in doing so. His mind naturally split between the two senses and he didn’t even lose any speed in excavating.

In hindsight, he should have expected this development since his crystal and incorporeal bodies were also operating independently without problems, but that had become second nature at that point, and he hadn’t even thought about it.

When the second tunnel was fully constructed he began weaving in branching tunnels which would either lead to dead ends or converge with the main tunnel at a later point. When there were enough branching tunnels, he filled in some sections from the main two tunnels to create a true labyrinth.

At certain sections though, all tunnels converged before larger rooms and then split up again. These rooms would later contain the prisoners which would arrive in the coming weeks. He would have to ask Nayda to commune with the Great Will for more detailed instructions on what to do with them, so he had to leave it at that for the time being.

Unlike his inner world, plants and wildlife didn’t magically appear from thin air, and so he had the tedious task of transplanting fitting specimens from the inner world via two of his large spiritual senses. Thankfully, by using intent the suction and expulsion process became a teleportation one, reducing the possibility of accidents.

When he scoured his inner world though, he barely found any plants and animals suitable for permanent cave inhabitation, particularly those at the bottom of the food chain. He briefly contemplated abducting species from the outside world, but finding and catching them would be a major hassle.

He had neither the time nor the inclination to do such a thing, but thankfully he soon realized that he had a very easy solution for his problem. He began excavating a small cave system at the back end of the island, and its inherent magic did the rest, populating the new habitat with suitable species.

The first species that appeared was a softly glowing moss that was ubiquitous throughout the whole world. Wherever there was spiritual energy in mostly dark places, this moss would appear after a certain time.

It had been theorized that its spores were somehow being transported by the flow of spiritual energy since no other possible way of transmission had ever been found. Next, vines sprouted from the sheer stone, circling the different patches of moss.

Then, all manner of insects that fed on both the plants or each other appeared one after the other. Those were followed by patches of mushrooms, which in turn were followed by bats and small amphibians. Quin was careful to only pluck out plants and animals at their approximate replacement rate so that the ecosystem could remain stable for the moment and even grow in the future through reproduction.

Due to its lacking size compared to its outer region counterpart, the plants and animals taken from the inner world cave system only filled a very small part of his labyrinth. It would take a while for the labyrinth to fill up completely, but since his active time investment for this was minimal he didn’t mind too much.

Besides, the high spiritual energy density in his inner world would soon trigger the plants and animals to evolve into spiritual beast and plant variants. It was only those that would provide a suitable challenge and incentive to come for cultivators, the mundane animals and plants would soon be replaced or relegated to the bottom of the food chain.

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. . .

At the same time that his spiritual body had exited the inner world through the portal to start the construction of his labyrinth, his crystal body sat down cross-legged on the grass next to the fire pit. Nayda, Seylin, and Rafir followed his example and sat down in a half-circle facing him.

“Now that you are acquainted with the basics and have glimpsed at your inner world, I will guide you through a meditation session and we’ll see how it compares to your blind ones.

I will start with a water-based visualization since that is one of the easiest and most common mental images. In the coming days and weeks, we will test out a variety of different ones. When you find an image that speaks to you, we will see about slowly refining it so that it fits the way you want to cultivate as well as possible.”

Suddenly, Quin’s voice had an additional hypnotic effect which made the trio fixate on his every word.

“Now, close your eyes and follow my voice. You feel the outside world slowly fading from your senses.

You smell the smoke from the fire and the fresh air of the forest.

You acknowledge it and then let it fade into the background.”

He paused for a while.

“You feel the grass and the earth beneath you are sitting on, the tiny mounds and indentations that are strewn across its surface.

You let it go.”

Another pause.

“You feel the clothes you are wearing rub against your skin. You feel your body being supported by solid, dependable ground.

You let it go.”

The last pause. Quin’s voice had drawn his audience into an illusory world for him to construct.

“You are on a boat now. You feel the grain of the wood on your naked feet and hands, you feel the comfortable linen robe covering you from the elbows to the knees, and you feel the wind softly caressing your face and exposed limbs.

You feel the wooden plank you are sitting on and the gentle swaying of the boat on the tiny waves. As you draw in your first breath, you smell the watery atmosphere of the lake. The wind is strengthening with every breath. And so are you.

You feel energy suffusing your being, and you know you are strong. The boat isn’t a long one, just a few meters, but enough for a wooden mast with a sail. The lake stretches to the horizon and there is no land in sight.

You start breathing in the familiar rhythm of your cultivation method, and you feel the wind responding to your breath, pushing you ever further. As you float above the vast expanse you notice that there is a large school of silvery fish frolicking next to your boat.

You grab the net from beneath your bench and cast it out. In only moments you have a good haul. You flex your muscles and will. Bit by bit you reel in the net and heave it over the railing and into the boat.

As the net hits the wooden planks the fishes dissolve into motes of energy, which your powerful breath absorbs into your body. You feel your energy swelling and your muscles tightening. You ready your net and throw it out again.”

The meditation session continued the whole night, and Quin led his students to many schools of fish, catching them until nothing remained.

When the outside world began to slowly brighten, so did his inner world. This was the signal for him to bring the meditation to a close and to start remodeling the island. The central mountain and the spiritual energy vent were fixtures he would only be able to modify slightly, but everything else was completely malleable.

During the meditation session, he had also been experimenting with his singular thin spiritual sense and found out that it had a different function compared to the three large ones. With it, he could only affect a very small area compared to his large ones, but as a tradeoff, his changes could also be much more in-depth or intricate.

He could carve tiny, almost invisible runes and arrays for various effects, but he could also alter materials, plants, and animals on a very deep level. One rabbit’s offspring in the forest would from now on grow to the size of a dog, while a particular oak deep in the forest could now slowly attract blood in a mile radius around itself and absorb extra nutrients from it.

These were only the first of many changes to come, and he felt excited about the many ways in which he could push the species in different directions. Once a regular stream of cultivators frequented his inner world, it would be up to them and his creations to find out who was favored by the law of natural selection.

He would of course have to create environments that played to the strengths of the by-then spirit beasts since the humans had almost every other advantage.

His musings were interrupted when his three guests were beginning to stir. After such a long meditation session it took a while for their minds to wake up again. Luckily meditating in such a way rested the mind and body just as much as sleeping, so they would all be full of energy they once had roused themselves.

While Rafir was the first to fully wake up, he stayed silent and waited for Nayda to get her bearings.

“That was amazing, teacher. I’ve never made that much progress in one session.” She beamed at him and both Seylin and Rafir nodded at her statement. While he hadn’t minded their reluctance to engage with him until now very much, it was becoming clear to him that this would be a problem in the future.

He had no accurate read on either of them and if he was to teach them so that they could better protect their charge, that was unacceptable in the long run. Not that he knew that much more about Nayda, but he had at least a read on her general disposition and her willingness to talk with him would do the rest.

He’d try to pry something out of them when Nayda communed with the Great Will next time and see if he could make inroads that way. For now, he just smiled at them and reiterated that this would be a daily, or in this case nightly, occurrence until they all had a suitable image.