During the rest of summer break, Theo spent his time at his father's shop helping out during the day and learning about cars. Peter joined him most of the time and Milly would show up about half the time. The rest of the time Milly would go on playdates with her friends from school or spend time with her mother or May.

At night Theo spent his time training and working on rebuilding his mind palace with the help of Tao and Agatha. It was a slow process since Tao easily crushed his last one. At least both of them gave him pointers on how to build up his new foundation and different ways to protect it.

vvvvv

Theo was seated in his training room with his eyes closed as he focused on his mind palace. The endless expanse was back in place with its blue sky and lazy clouds.

Around him was a group of people watching as he started to build up the new place they would call home. Mountains appeared first, followed by valleys and plains. Lakes of different sizes were next, with small rivers that slowly snaked out from them to create waterways. Some rivers joined together to make massive waterways that ended at a large sea, which was filled with island chains. Then came trees, small plants, animals and insects. It didn’t stop till Theo created an entire ecosystem in his mind.

Next Theo moved everyone with him to a large valley. The valley was surrounded by mountains on the northern side, with one cliff face near the middle being almost completely flat. In the middle of the valley, running down from some mountains far to the east was a river that snaked through the valley and ended in a massive lake on the western side.

Theo started near the lake and removed a chunk of trees. He then began to make buildings and formed a village. The town was a mix of normal and fiction inspired buildings. Once that was completed, he created a simple wall around the outside of the village with watch towers and a main gate. When Theo finished he turned to everyone with him and said, “I think it's done, but go and check it out for yourselves. If you find any issues let me know and I'll fix it right away.”

People started to move into the village as Theo exited out of his mind palace. He glanced over at Tao as he said, “The main foundation is complete, I am letting everyone double check the village I made for any issues now.”

“Good. Once they’re finished, you’ll need to condense your memories down using the meditation technique Agatha taught you.”

Tao pointed over to a meditation mat as she said, “That is enchanted to help you concentrate, use that during your meditation. Once you’re finished, I’ll teach you the next step.”

“Yes, Master.” Theo nodded before he moved over to a mat and sat down in the lotus position. He placed his arms upon his knees and closed his eyes.

Slowly Theo inhaled a deep breath and held it. His fingers moved in patterns as orange colored lines appeared above his head.

Over a minute passed by as a massive and complex pattern formed over Theo’s head. When lines from the pattern connected to his head, he finally released his breath.

His next inhale was short, followed by a quick exhale. His breathing quickly settled into a pattern as the magic formula started to pulse in time with his inhales. The pulse started in the middle and moved out to each ring of the formula. With each move to a new ring section the pulse would brighten.

It took almost five minutes for the pulses to reach the last ring of the formula. The pulse settled into the last ring and slowly filtered down the lines connected to Theo's head.

This process continued for most of the night until Tao broke Theo out of his meditation trance. Over the next week Theo continued to use the technique each night. It climaxed with the formation shrinking down to just over six inches in diameter with small lines still anchored to Theo's head. Next the formation began to curl around the edges until the formation turned into a ball. The ball was then pulled inside Theo’s head by the small anchors and a few minutes after it disappeared from view, Theo’s breathing settled and returned to normal.

When Theo opened his eyes, Tao and Agatha were standing in front of him. They each wore a proud smile as Tao said, “Congratulations. Are you ready for the next step?”

Theo nodded and said, “Let's start tomorrow, I need to check in on Tony.”

Tao let out a sigh as she said, “Fine go play with your little friend instead of practicing.”

Agatha chuckled and said, “You're just upset you can't torture the poor boy.”

“It's not torture, it's training for the real world.” Tao said.

Theo shook his head as both of them started to argue. He stood up and made a hand seal. His form changed into Ezekiel and he said, “I'll be back later. Let me know if you want me to bring back anything to eat.”

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Tao and Agatha stopped arguing as they turned to look at Ezekiel and Agatha said, “Have fun on your little play date.”

“It's not a play date. We are working on the cell phone project.”

Agatha patted Ezekiel's head and said, “Sure you are. Now go have fun.”

Tao smirked the tiniest bit as Ezekiel made a portal and stepped through it. Ezekiel spent the rest of the night hanging out with Tony and stress testing the prototype cellular transmitter Tony made. Ezekiel also kept dropping small hints that maybe Tony should find a decent woman and settle down, but Tony chose to ignore those comments as he went out later that night with a pair of models.

The next night it was back to practice for Theo, since his masters didn’t like him slacking off. The first part was easy, Tao and Agatha entered his mind palace with him. Then they showed him the proper way to anchor the memory compression spell into his new mind palace.

After that Theo needed to make and train a defensive shield. The smile Tao made when she explained she would be testing his mental shield for weaknesses made Theo’s back break out in a cold sweat and made him second guess ever wanting to learn magic. Theo still moved forward though, since he couldn’t really stop what was coming.

The first part wasn’t hard, Theo only needed to create a defensive shield. It was something that most beginners could easily learn. Training it and making it better was the issue. You needed to be probed by someone stronger than you, repeatedly. Tao on the other hand didn't like that approach. She said it was too slow to learn that way and started Theo on her advanced learning course.

Tao first sat down on a meditation mat and began to build a simple spell formula in front of her. Once it was finished she said, “This is the mental shield spell matrix. Study it and commit it to your memory. In half an hour I want you to make your own.”

Theo nodded as he studied the relatively simple spell matrix. Within five minutes he already memorized the complete matrix and asked, “Why is this so simple? Shouldn’t it be more complicated?”

Tao smiled as she said, “I'm glad you realized the issue so quickly. This is just the base so you can understand how the spell should work. Your goal is to build one yourself, completely from scratch.”

“Build my own? But didn't someone already perfect this skill?”

“If someone made this and other people used it. What do you think would happen?” Tao asked with a smirk.

It only took a few moments for Theo to understand what Tao was hinting at and he asked, “Anyone who knows it can easily break it?”

“Exactly. That's why you’ll need to make your own. But first you need to make this one as practice and make it without errors. Since you've memorized it, you may start when you're ready.”

“Yes, master.” Theo said as he took a seat on another mat and began to weave his fingers in a pattern.

A little while later, Tao was still seated across from Theo and sipped her tea as she watched Theo as he finished the mind defense spell. When the spell formula disappeared Tao said, “Now you need to focus on the spell. Make sure it has sealed your mind palace completely.”

“As you check it over, make sure to probe it for weak spots. Think of the spell like the shell of an egg. If that shell has a type of defect, it will easily crack.”

As Theo scanned the spell he found minor issues all throughout the completed spell matrix. After almost an hour, he opened his eyes as he said, “I've found a few dozen minor issues within the completed spell.”

“Good, now I want you to study the spell while I break it. It will help give you a better idea on how to fix the issues.”

Sweat started to form on Theo’s forehead as he quickly glanced towards the exit of the room. He knew this next part wouldn't be fun. As Theo thought about possibly making a run for it, his mind exploded in agony.

Theo let out a groan as he gripped his head and leaned forward. After about a minute he sat back up and turned to glare at Tao. Tao smiled as she handed him a handkerchief and pointed at his nose.

Theo reached up and felt wetness as he touched his top lip. Pulling his hand away revealed his finger covered in blood. He quickly took the offered handkerchief and began to clean his face with it.

“You were distracted and didn't watch the spell matrix during my attack.”

Theo finished wiping his face and was going to place the handkerchief to the side when he noticed it was completely clean. He looked up at Tao with a questioning look. She smiled as she said, “I prepared it specifically for this training. Now make another spell matrix.”

Theo glanced over to Agatha for help but as he did Tao said, “You have twenty minutes before I attack again. Whether or not your mind defense spell is in place.”

Theo shot a glare at Tao before he quickly started to form a new spell matrix. He rushed through it and when he was almost done Tao attacked. Theo doubled over from the attack, with blood flowing from his nose and ears. It took a few minutes for him to recover and when he did Tao said, “You have twenty minutes.”

“You're some kinda sadomasochist, you know that right?” Theo said as he wiped the blood from his nose.

“Nineteen minutes.” Tao said with a calm look.

Theo threw the handkerchief down and started to rush through the spell formula faster this time. He barely finished it as Tao launched her next attack. He held his head in pain for a few moments before he started to make another spell formula.

Tao smiled as she said, “Good, you're learning. You have eighteen minutes now. Hopefully you’ll be able to finish it and study it for flaws this time.”

Theo held back his retort as he rushed to make the spell formula faster. The rest of the night and the following few weeks were filled with the same routine until Theo could complete the full spell matrix with perfect accuracy in about a minute. At that point Tao was satisfied with Theo’s progress and said they could move onto the next step. Theo would now need to create his own spell matrix for the mind defense spell.