After Linus left the hundred mysteries tower, he left the Pet cultivator association branch and went to a place he hadn't visited before. He went to the Pet teacher association to consult for the best possible mental defence skill suitable for Nyx and learn how to train it the most efficiëntly. Normally he would have done all the research himself to save money, but he and Nyx didn't have the luxury of time.

When he arrived at the Pet teacher association branch, it was almost empty of clients due to the late hour, but they would remain open for another hour. His first destination was the reception. The receptionist politely asked for his reason for coming to the association and Linus answered:

"I am here to consult a pet teacher about which mental defence skill would be the most suitable for my pet, an iron rank dark rose, to learn and how I should train her to learn the skill in the most comprehensive and fastest way. My budget is 8000 FD and I do not require the pet teacher's services during the training."

The receptionist nodded at his request before responding:

"When taking into consideration your request and budget, I recommend you to consult an apprentice pet teacher who specializes either in darkness elemental skills or illusion type skills. Your budget is a bit more generous than what an ordinary skill consultation would cost for consulting an apprentice, this will motivate the apprentice to fully invest all their skills into helping you. I have posted your request in the task hall while also notifying some apprentices who could be interested and belong to a related specialisation. You can wait at the side in the waiting room and will be notified when someone will see you."

Linus nodded and followed her instructions. While waiting he already did some preliminary reading and understood that many types of mental defence skills existed, but finding one that suited Nyx's needs would require a lot of time and energy for him.

Twenty minutes later, he received a message that two apprentice pet teachers were willing to take up his request the first one specialising in illusion type skills and the second person in darkness elemental skills. When he arrived back at the reception, he saw a man in his mid-twenties confronting a boy who was of the same age as him.

After hearing them speak he learned that these two were the ones who wanted to accept his request with the boy specializing in illusion type skills and an older man in darkness with elemental skills. He arrived before them and introduced himself as the person who had made the request. This made the older man stop confronting the boy before the man responded to Linus:

"Boy, you can call me teacher Harkinson and I advise you to choose me as your consultant. I easily know multiple suitable skills for a weak pet like a dark rose that can make your pet at least a bit stronger, I will even throw another suitable skill suggestion and training plan for your pet for the entire sum you will pay me as an extra. That boy on the other hand has only passed his exam a month ago and hasn't had any clients yet while I have already more than 3 years' experience."

The man then stopped talking and when Linus looked at the boy, the boy shied away a bit in shame. The boy, however, did open his mouth and spoke:

"I may not have much experience but I know a lot about skills that affect the minds of pets and which skills to learn to defend against influences on the mind. I will, however, require some time to inspect and learn about your pet. Specifically its strength and how it trains together with your specific needs."

When Linus heard both offers, he didn't even need to think about who to consult and responded to the two: "Mr Harkinson, I am sorry but I will have to decline your offer and good intentions as I will be consulting your colleague."

Linus then approached the boy and asked him where they could sit and talk. Mr Harkinson became angry and shouted at Linus for being ignorant and stupid, which woke the stupefied boy up, who then reacted to Linus's words and took him towards a consultation room.

When they entered both sat down and the boy started speaking: "Mister, you can call Thomas as we seem to be of the same age. Can you explain why you choose me instead of Mr Harkinson as I am both inexperienced and didn't offer you more even though your pay is above average by quite a bit?"

Linus smiled before answering: "Thomas, my name is Linus and you can call me as such. The reason I choose you was that you required information and details to give a suitable recommendation which is what I need while Mr Harkinson wanted to quickly deal with me and earn my money which isn't why I issued this request."

Thomas nodded in understanding and started doing his job. He asked Linus to summon his pet which Linus did and when Nyx appeared, Thomas was astonished as he noticed that she wasn't normal as he noticed that her petals and physique were of a higher quality than common dark roses which indicated high quality nurturing and high skill mastery. He also noticed that she seemed to be always battle-ready except when interacting with Linus which was when she acted a bit cute.

He determined that she was both incredibly well trained and cultivated while also very well treated. She had to have also learned and sufficiently mastered multiple external skills or her thorns and body shouldn't have been so refined and strong.

Thomas then asked about why Nyx needed to learn a mental defensive skill, how she trained and how much her current skill mastery was together with all the skills learned. When Linus told him about what Nyx would have to defend against together with their daily training schedule and her current skill mastery, Thomas became shocked by how abnormal Nyx was compared to other dark roses and even other iron rank pets.

The boy took some time to note some details down before he started scouring some texts and books while muttering some incomprehensible gibberish. Occasionally a specific question was asked in regards to Nyx's body strength, energy control or intelligence. After half an hour the boy was done and offered three options to Linus.

The first option was a universal mental defence skill that pets could learn regardless of their race and element. This skill was called elemental mind tower and was a skill that required the pet to consciously use their elemental energy to protect their mind by forming a tower-like structure which can defend against any influence of the mind as long as the tower isn't broken. It has great active mental defence but its flaws are that it's very difficult to learn to form the tower and that it requires preparation and conscious effort.

The second option was a darkness elemental skill which strengthens a plant pet's mind and forms a passive mental defence. The skill is called darkness seed which tempers the mind with darkness energy through the condensation of a darkness seed in the mind which will passively absorb mental influences which are less powerful than it. This skill is easily trained as it requires only darkness energy and the condensation of the darkness seed but the strength and training speed of the skill depends on the quantity and quantity of the used darkness energy together with the time spent practising. This skill also changes upon reaching transcendent mastery as the seed will then bloom into a copy of the plant pet which will no longer absorb the influences but actively defend and destroy them. Its main shortcoming is the minor effect of the mind tempering and weakness of needing the seed to be stronger than the seed or it will be entirely useless.

The third option is another universal mental defence skill called the mind mirror which tempers the mind to be capable of resisting mental influences. The skill requires the pet to temper the mind using external mind influences and resist and escape them using the initially condensed mind mirror to comprehend how the mind is being influenced. The skill is more auxiliary but when trained under high intensity, it can swiftly temper the mind as long as the pet has fast comprehension speed and specific kinds of mental influences can be trained to develop resistances which are specifically required. When influenced the skill can be used as an aide like during training to escape and resist a certain or multiple mental influences.

After Linus learned about the three skills, he was divided. He had immediately discarded the first skill as it wasn't suitable and its uses were also limited. The second and third skills, however, were incredibly suitable for Nyx's evolution. The problem, however, is if the second skill could be mastered fast enough and develop enough strength to be of use against the abyss energy or can the third skill help train Nyx's mind to be strong enough to resist the Abyss energy or use the mirror to resist the negative influences of the abyss energy.

The best course of action would be to learn both skills as that was possible according to Thomas, but this would slow down the learning time making the two skills obsolete to Linus as they didn't have a lot of time. Linus could eventually not decide between the two skills and asked Nyx's opinion.

When she was asked this question, she asked Linus if the second skill and third skills would still be useful if she evolved and became stronger. Linus asked this question to Thomas who responded that the skill darkness seed was only useful for pets below the silver rank even when trained to transcendent mastery and at higher ranks, another similar skill called darkness avatar could be learned. The skill mind mirror is useful even for mythical pets but more training, experience and talent will be required to temper the mind to a sufficiently high degree at every rank. The skill mastery of this skill doesn't reflect the skill's power except for the tempering speed and capability of using the mirror to resist stronger mental influences.

When Nyx learned this information, she immediately informed Linus that she wanted to learn the skill of mind mirror and so he choose this option. Thomas was happy that Linus was satisfied with his offers and chose one. He then made a guide on how to learn the skill and how it can be trained, before sending it to Linus.

When Linus received it he transferred 8000 FD to Thomas before leaving the Pet teacher association contently. He was, however, broke now with only a couple hundred FD left.

When Linus returned to his home, he summoned Nyx and he started reading the information given by Thomas while teaching Nyx so that she comprehends the skills and intricacies of her own in the contract space. He had done the same with the other three skills and it had certainly sped up her speed in mastering the skills.

The skill mind mirror required the pet to record the state of its entire mind before completely remembering it before using this recording as a mirror to reflect their current state of mind compared to the recording and resist the differences between the two brought by mental influences.

The kinds of state of mind recordings are divided into three levels called emotional level, thought level and memory level. The emotional level is used to record the normal state of emotions and use those as a mirror against mental influences that work on the mind's emotions. The thought level which is more complex records the normal state of thought and the most common thought patterns which can be used as a mirror against mental influences that birth special kinds of thoughts or are more subtle than affecting the emotions of the mind directly. The memory level is the most complex and records all the mind's memories and experiences and uses those as a mirror to resist mental influences that affect memories like strong dreams, illusions or memory manipulation skills.

To effectively use the skill of mind mirror would mean to be capable of using the three types of mirrors at the same time to resist any kind of mental influence. This, however, is very hard and thus the skill mastery is divided according to proficiency in using the mirrors to reflect the mind.

Novice mastery means being capable of condensing all three types of mirrors and using each mirror separately before confirming the mental influences and resisting or escaping those. Proficient mastery means quickly recognising the type of mirror required to pinpoint the mental influence and resist or escape it, only effective against one type of mental influence at a time. Expert mastery means being capable of using two mirrors at once. Perfect mastery means being capable of using three mirrors at once and transcendence means being capable of always reflecting the mind in the three mirrors and keeping it the same as its reflection for as long as it is needed while becoming capable of using the reflection as a substitute against mental influences and mind attacks.

After reaching novice mastery and becoming capable of reflecting the state of mind and condensing the there types of mirrors, the mind can begin to be tempered by actively resisting mental influences like illusions or more subtle kinds.

Thomas advised that Nyx first trained the skill by using her charming petals against herself before training the skill actively in combat against other pets. The skill charming petals will help train against commonly used skills to dull the mind and disorient or distract the opponent. Then training Nyx to resist mental influences like the absorption of abyss energy brings will require Nyx to either train by absorbing the energy, resist similar skills or experience illusions that both affect the mind and senses.

Linus knew that the first kind of training would be simple as she can train using either herself or her shadow avatar, but training for the abyss energy will not be possible by absorbing the energy due to abyss energy-requiring money and training against such special skills require a pet or beast which he hasn't met during combat class.

The best thing he can do is ask Ms Winter for help or a suggestion as he doesn't know how Nyx could train that part. After teaching Nyx, he had her return to his contract space where she would try and record her mind to condense the three types of mirrors while absorbing the dark shadow energy which has become an instinct to her by now.