In the beginning, Jason didn´t feel any kind of pain at all, and he imagined that his teacher was exaggerating the effect of the devilish valkyrie-shield fruit when a small silver shining membrane enveloped him from inside-out.

After he was completely enveloped and everything was sealed-off safely, his body began to itch lightly, which was only a little bit uncomfortable to Jason

This itching became more apparent as only a few seconds passed it suddenly felt more like a knife was stabbed in every cell of his body.

He couldn't focus on refining his brain or splitting it due to the searing pain that became even worse over time.

Not only felt his body as if he was stabbed continuously but also as if he was skinned alive, burned, drowned, his nails torn out, eyes ripped apart, his brain thrown into a mixer and additionally hundred different types of killing methods tortured him.

Jason could have never imagined the pain would be that excessively

"F***KKK" He cried out and bloody crimson tears began to pour out of his eyes, while Till saw everything from the outside worriedly.

"FOCUS ON YOUR TASK!! THE PAIN WILL BE LESS LIKE THAT" but unfortunately, Jason couldn't hear him at all.

Half an hour passed and Jason had still not begun to refine his brain.

Finally, after gathering his thoughts under the unimaginable pain, Jason forced the marginal-sized liquid he tried to control for an unknown time closer enough to his eyes, which he immediately absorbed.

Jason knew that the pain would be extreme, but he imagined nothing like that.

Fortunately, he was prepared.

When he fought Leo, Jason found out that the pain of his earth spiked calves lessened, the moment he poured mana inside his eyes.

It was only a quarter of a second or less, but right now liquefied mana was absorbed by his eye as the bloody tears lessened when a golden light radiated out of them, illuminating the whole magic circle.

Till noticed Jason´s eyes brightening up while the light was illuminating, it seemed like the pain Jason had to endure, was lessened by a large degree, caused him to calm down slightly.

`He can do it!`

Jason´s pain eased up and even if it was still hellish painful, he could think calmy for the moment..

Continuing to absorb mana into his eyes, he only stopped after thinking it was more than enough to supply him for at least 24 hours.

After that, Jason began to follow the Splitting Mind´s first level description carefully.

His calm mind caused Jason to have full focus on the process of refining his mind and splitting it.

Hours passed and the eased pain began to increase once again and Jason couldn't really do anything against it.

However now even with the increased pain, his mind was focusing on the refining process and stability.

The first sunlight shone through the window and Til was still waiting for Jason both patiently and impatiently at the same time.

He decided to tell the other teachers to look out for an instructor in order to teach some martial art techniques to his students over the next two days, without giving a reason for this decision.

Leaving Jason alone would be irresponsible but that didn´t mean it was needed to tell anyone about Jason constructing the first sub-area from the splitting mind technique.

If someone knew that, they would call him a devil, after finding out he gave out the devilish valkyrie-shield fruit to a novice rank, which was crazy.

Maybe he would really be called a devil and hunted if something were to happen to Jason... Who knows, but that wasn't important right now, because Jason was struggling and barely hanging on his focus due to the immense pain he had to endure.

Time passed slowly and to Jason, it felt like he was about to die over and over again while only god could tell him how much time passed as it was an eternity to Jason.

The only thing, Jason lead to hang on was his indestructible will to finish the creation of the first sub-area.

An eternity passed and Jason finally finished refining his brain as he could feel his train of thoughts accelerate by leaps and bounds but more important right now was, that he could finally start the mind-splitting process.

If his mind was a cake, he would now slice apart around 1/100 from it and construct an independent system out of it.

This step was even more difficult than the first one, as the pain was becoming even more horrifying when Jason split apart his own mind.

As he was about to lose his mind, the golden light in his eyes illuminated the magic circle once again, calming him down for a second before the pain reappeared slightly weakened.

He unsure how many times passed but fixing the larger part of his split mind, before he could start constructing the sub-area was done somewhen as he relaxed.

Because Jason relaxed, his tension loosened up and the horrifying pain he endured the whole time in a weakened state, reappeared immediately, causing Jason to cry out in shock and pain.

`Shouldn't it be done???? My task is finished?? HELLO VALKYRIE FRUIT?!?!`

Jason could only lament and endure the pain, while he wasn't sure what was going on.

On the outside, almost 30 hours have passed and Till expected Jason to finish soon, which made him happy when he noticed Jason loosening his tension.

A radiant smile appeared on his face before a horrifying cry could be heard with Jason shuttering in pain.

`What is going on? Hasn´t he finished forming the sub-area??` He was as clueless as Jason, but his knowledge was vaster than Jason´s causing Till to conclude many theories within a short amount of time

Seeing the liquefied mana floating around the mana circle, a bad feeling arose within him.

Jason didn´t know what to do and he had to concentrate really hard in order to think of a solution while enduring the endless pain.

`Is my task not finished, yet?` Was the only solution Jason could think of after some time and concluding the facts, he probably hat had to completely construct his sub-area before the pain would lessen...probably.

He wasn't exactly sure how to instruct his subconscious to practice the passive mana gathering and absorbing technique, because he wanted to do that after forming the sub-area.

This however changed now as he had to experiment with all kinds of possibilities while he was dying a thousand deaths.

An unknown amount of time passed with dozens of failed experiments before Jason finished a rough and crude construction of his passive mana gathering and absorbing technique, which immediately began to work.

While mana was gathering and refined into his mana core, Jason felt the pain lessen by a marginal amount but even so, it was still apparent and tormenting his whole body.

`Why is the pain still apparent?` Jason asked himself, not knowing what was going on.

Did he do something wrong? He was unsure but other than the pain from the devilish valkyrie-shield fruit, there was no pain!

Right now a long time must have passed and Jason had done everything possible to finished the task.

He forced himself to open his eyes, he had forcefully closed after some time as Jason felt it was more easier to endure the pain when a golden light illuminated the room again for a second before it vanished once again.

During this second, Jason could see Till standing right in front of the magic circle, looking at him worriedly.

Jason knew that his teacher couldn´t save him.

If he interrupted his task, the pain he was enduring right now would be permanent and thi was not something someone should endure permanently.

Noticing Jason looking at him, Till´s mind was thinking with an overwhelming speed as he exalted some of his liquefied mana in order to write a word in the air.

Jason could only read the first two letters, before the pain reappeared, forcing him to instinctively shut his eyes once again.

´Ma?` What's that? ARRRGHHH It hurts.

Minutes passed and his sub-area was refining mana diligently while Jason didn´t know what to do right now when he thought for a moment.

Ma? MANA?!

What about the mana? Is that my task??? Why?! I don't get it!

But it didn´t sound unreasonable… the more his passive mana gathering and refining technique absorbed, the less the pain became, even if it was almost not perceptible.

At least he knew a new path to lessen the pain and Jason began to actively absorb the mana greedily while opening all his pores, which caused his pain only to increase.

If that wasn't working, Jason didn´t know what else he could do as he absorbed the mana with all his might, which couldn´t be said to be much.

Hours passed and unknowingly, Jason broke easily through the 7th Novice rank.

Another few hours passed and his mana core was already consolidated but his cultivation was still increasing more and more, while the liquefied mana in his surrounding didn't seem to lessen by much.

He would normally be overjoyed to increase his mana core rank but the pain caused him to almost lose his mind as Jason didn´t know how many thousands of deaths he already endured.

The torture he endured began to slowly kill him from the inside, frightening Jason even more.

It felt as if he was absorbing mana way too slow because he couldn't endure the pain anymore after he broke smoothly into the 8th Novice rank without noticing it.

Suddenly a thought reappeared in his mind when he was about to give up

My EYES!!... With the appearance of his last ray of hope, Jason began to gather his mana inside his eyes, which began to release a golden, calming light inside the magic circle and the pain began to lessen around him.

There was still a lot of mana but the pain was much easier to endure and Jason was about to cry out in joy.

Instead of crying, Jason forced himself to focus on gathering mana inside his eyes which would be more helpful.

The more liquefied mana gathered within his eyes, the less was the pain Jason received as he seemed to go almost crazy.

The golden light cleansed his mind to a certain extent.

While his recently constructed sub-area consolidated his 8th Novice rank mana core, Jason´s eyes greedily absorbed the surroundings mana.

More than 60 hours passed since Jason began with the procedure of constructing his first sub-area when the pain completely vanished.

Without the will to hold onto the lord-ranked mana core anymore, his grip loosened up.

When the mana core fell to the ground, Jason´s wet eyes could only see his teacher running to him.

Jason began to cry… as he gripped his teacher's clothes not letting him go, when his teacher held him into his embrace, with guilt shining in his eyes.