Chapter XVIII: Mind Net

Shizukana Gake, The Great Plateau

Month of the Garuda 33, 172 ,328 DE

With the sun barely over the horizon, thick shadows cloak the training hall, but with the acuity of my darkness vision, they prove no obstacle to my training.

Thud! Clank! Thud! Clank!

With every punch, kick or palm strike, I send the hardwood log flying through the air, only to have the thick chain arrest its momentum and send it swinging back toward me. When I was younger, I used heavy leather bags filled with sand or rice, but now, the force of my blows tends to split the stitching of such bags in just a few minutes. Hardwood logs proved to be a better option, and they serve as a better tool for conditioning my hands and feet, anyway.

This particular log was cut from the bole of an Ironwood tree, one of the hardest and most durable trees to grow on or around the great plateau. A sword carved from an Ironwood branch is several times more flexible that one made from steel, while being able to take nearly as much punishment. According to some of the texts in Jones' collection, a number of small, mineral poor countries in the southern forests of the Great Plateau carve both weapons and armor from Ironwood, including patterned weapons for Cultivators.

Despite going all out for more than ten minutes, I have yet to break a sweat. Since touching on that silvery-grey Power, my strength and endurance have grown steadily over the past few days. The pace of my growth exceeds the best I could previously accomplish by a rate of twenty times, perhaps a bit more.

Less than an hour after sunrise, with more light spilling in through the high window of the training hall, the door opens, and Mika-chan sticks her head in. She has a strange expression on her face, and her scent reeks of confusion. "Raymon-san, a rather strange little girl and her older sister are here. The little girl is wants her 'Pervert Master to use her hard'.

I laugh. "Aoi. She has more loose screws than one of old Minami's steamer cars. Send her here."

Mika-chan hesitates for a moment. "Raymon-san, the older sister is Sato Maki. She is rather well-known in the Trade Quarter. She is somewhat of a prodigy at blacksmithing, and with her aggressive personality, she tends to bully her way around."

I give Mika-chan a smirk. "Do you think a girl is gonna bully me?"

Mika-chan frowns. "You need to think of you reputation. That girl won't hesitate to besmirch your good name, and that would inconvenience Jones-san."

"Ha! My reputation can't get any worse. And Old Man Jones loves trouble. He's a bigger troublemaker that I could ever be. Have you ever wondered why Takahashi and Miura's shops closed down? They pissed off Old Man Jones."

Mika-chan shakes her head in a scolding manner but leaves without saying anything more.

Our compound is not exactly tiny, but it is not so big that it takes almost five minutes to walk from the training hall to the residence or shop and back again. Still, almost five minutes pass before the door opens, and Mika-chan shows the Sato sisters in.

I catch the singing Ironwood log with one hand, arresting its swing.

Despite the similarities in their facial feature, I just cannot easily see the two as sisters. Sato Maki stands a full head taller than Aoi, and her body borders on voluptuous. On the other hand, Aoi is decidedly short and underdeveloped for her age. Considering her father is a big man, bigger than the average man of the Heian Kingdom, I would expect her to be taller, like her sister.

"Pervert Master, Aoi is ready to be used hard!" With a brilliant smile never seen in the Academy, Aoi runs over to me.

As Mika-chan closes the door, Sato Maki coldly appraises my scarred body. While her face remains coldly impassive, her scent gives away her rising nervousness. Last night, she did not get a clear look at me in the dark, but with the morning light, the training is much brighter. Having only a loincloth wrapped around nether regions, little remains hidden. My heavily muscled build and numerous scars do not fit her image of one of her sister's classmates.

I stare into Sato Maki's eyes. "What are you here for?"

Sato Maki frowns. "You have one of the worst reputations in the city. I don't trust you. I want to see what you plan to do with my little sister."

Aoi glares at her sister. "Maki's reputation is worse than Beast's! Everyone knows you sleep around with married men and blackmail them!"

Sato Maki glares right back at Aoi. "You shouldn't listen to the rumors! And I'm only worried about you. The bitch doesn't care about you, and your father is so obsessed with researching new medicines, he has no time for you. We only have each other!"

I suppose Sato Maki loves her sister. But while Aoi might be strange and a bit annoying, Sato Maki seems like a bitch.

"Aoi. If you two are going to fight, go home! I don't have time to deal with you family squabbles." My voice words come out as an irritated snarl.

"Aoi wants to learn from Pervert Master!" Prancing on the balls of her feet, Aoi runs over to me and grabs my wrist. Her hands are so small, she cannot quite encircle my wrist with both hands.

"We're going to be training in the Mind Net, and I only have two connection crowns."

Sato Maki scowls at me. "What is the Mind Net?"

"Have you heard of the Dream World?"

Sato Maki scoffs. "Who hasn't?"

I keep my face expressionless but cold. "The Mind Net is the proper name for the Dream World. It was built who knows how many years ago, and the Ward Towers maintain it."

With her scowl becoming more intense, suspicion and fear fill Sato Maki's scent. "That's heresy. The Temple Priests teach that the Dream World is a gift from the Celestial Court to the humans of the Great Plateau."

I display my well-practiced, condescending smirk. "There are hundred-thousand-year-old tomes that describe the nature and function of the Mind Net. The City Lord has one. The Academy's Principal has a fragment of another."

Sato Maki's scowl gives way to fear. "A hundred thousand years ago was the time of the Demonic War Masters."

I shrug. "What's your point?"

"The Temple will kill you, if they hear what you just said."

"They'll kill Aoi, too."

I change my smirk into a grin. "If you believe that, what do you think they'll do to you, if you run to the Temple Priests and repeat what I just said?"

I laugh. "I'm not in any real danger. I don't have any of those tomes. The Temple should already about the City Lord's tome and the Principal's fragment. As long as you don't run around screaming about it on the street corners, they mostly ignore the existence of that kind of information. Knowledge for most branches of Engineering, Alchemy, and Smithing derives from tomes dating back to the time of the War Masters. It's what you could call an open secret. Your blacksmithing is the bastard child of Smithing. If you become a Master ranked blacksmith, you might hear about it too."

Sato Maki's scowl returns. "You're no Master. How do you know about this?"

I laugh, again. "Just who do you think taught me? Old Man Jones knows more about Engineering and its origins than all the Engineers in the Heian Kingdom and the Sengoku Empire put together."

Aoi pulls on my wrist. "Aoi has never been in the Dream World. What is it like?"

Feeling a bit surprise, I look at Aoi. "You never entered the Mind Net at the Academy?"

Aoi pouts. "Aoi was never allowed to join the Martial classes that used the Dream World for training. Only Nobles and Beast are allowed to take those classes."

No matter how much potential Aoi has as an Alchemist, she is still a commoner. The entirety of the Heian Kingdom caters to the nobility. If a commoner does not have the strength to slay the kingdom's army single-handed, they will never receive the same treatment as a nobility. The Academy's administration does not particularly care if she gets into a Cultivation College. If she does not, she will probably have to become an instructor to reimburse the Academy for her tuition.

"It looks and feels just like a part of the real world. The main difference is that you can't die under normal circumstances. You still suffer pain, but as long as you can handle it, you can fight to your heart's content. Cultivators from all over the Great Plateau can be found in the cities, and monsters modeled on all kinds of Ferocious Beasts can be found outside of them. Also, you practice Martial techniques without expending your Yuan Qi."

With Aoi still clinging to my arm, I move to the box I left next to the door. Pulling my arm out of Aoi's clutches, I open the box and take out two nets made from an alloy of Star Silver and common silver, the connection crowns. The threads making up the net are barely five millimeters in diameter, and each one is covered in runes that channel Psi. One net was made by Old Man Jones, and the other was made by me.

I point at the wall a few feet from the door. "Sit down with your back against the wall."

Aoi sits down, and I drape a connection crown over her head. They were both made big enough for a large adult male to use them. On a girl as small as Aoi, the net hangs down to her shoulders.

I look at Sato Maki. "Are you going to complain about this?"

Sato Maki frowns, but without saying anything, she shakes her head.

Sitting next to Aoi, I drape the other connection crown over my own head. Before my Psi was completely fused with my Mind, I could enter the Mind Net without relying on a connection crown. If I can attain full control over Trinity, I should be able to do so again.

"Once you enter the Mind Net, you will appear in a set of loose white clothes, with a blank white mask covering your face. You can consciously remove the mask, but I don't advise it. The mask is your anonymity in the Mind Net. As long as no one does not know what your mask looks like, you cannot be targeted. Like I said, you won't die, but you still feel pain. You can be tortured in the Mind Net, and there are people who do it for thrills."

Staring intently at me, Aoi repeatedly nods, along with my words. But considering her personality, I have no way of telling how much she is remembering.

"When you enter the Mind Net, you stay there for a full day. The only way to leave early is to use the central circle in a city. Those are the access points. If you are inside a city, you will be forcible ejected after a full day. If you are outside a city, you will be trapped until you can return to a city. If you stay in the Mind Net too long, your will die."

What I tell Aoi is not the entire truth. There are other places you can enter and leave, but not many, if anyone, know about them. At least, anyone besides Old Man Jones and myself. And if the Body dies, the Mind will become a ghost inside the Mind Net. There are some of them running around outside the cities. The Mind Net is just as vast as the Great Plateau. There should not be many people alive today, other than Old Man Jones and myself, who have explored very far outside the cities.

"Are you ready?"

Aoi nods. "Aoi's ready!"

"Aoi, don't you leave the city! No matter what that man tells you, don't leave the city!"

With a frown, Aoi rolls her eyes.

"Do you feel the pull on your consciousness?"

Squinting her eyes, Aoi nods. "Yes."

"Just will yourself to go along with it, and you'll enter the Mind Net."

Aoi closes her eyes and scrunches up her face. After just a few seconds, her face goes slack. She entered the Mind Net faster than anyone I have seen do so at the Academy.

Closing my eyes, I follow the pull of the Mind Net, and another world appears before me. Whit marble paves the more than a kilometer diameter central circle of the city. Outside the central circle, white marble palaces reach for the sky. The smallest palace in sight rises more than five hundred meters, and the tallest stands at least three kilometers. Most of the palaces are sealed, but a few allow people to enter.

Hidden from view to the south, a massive gladiatorial arena is the main focus of the city. Inside the cities, the only places you can fight are the gladiatorial arenas or open palaces that allow for combat.

Perhaps a half a kilometer away, I see Aoi in her newbie white mask. A dozen people already surround her tiny form, and dozens more head in her direction.

"Little girl, are you looking for me?" My voice resounds in the central circle like thunder.

At the sound of my voice, Aoi turns to look at me. "You aren't wearing a mask!"

I laugh. "The few strong enough in here to hunt me have no reason to. The noble trash from our city are too weak for me to care about them."

Most of the new meat hunters, who surround Aoi, back off. Several of them bristle at my words, hostility evident in their postures. They probably number among the noble trash from Shizukana Gake, and they know better than to cross me in the Mind Net. In the Mind Net, the strength of the Mind is what matters. They do little to nothing to strengthen their Minds. They are no match for me.

"Beast, why waste time intimidating the trash? I'm bored. Come, fight me in the arena." The voice belongs to Hatchet. Whatever his real might be, he is not from the Heian Kingdom. He is the student of Cultivation Sect based on the western slopes of the Kami Kaze Mountains. He is one of the few people in this city that can fight me on more or less even terms.

There are only twenty cities in the Mind Net, and they do not correspond to the location of the kingdoms and empires of the Great Plateau. Each of the cities contains Cultivators from multiple polities and sects. The first time anyone enters the Mind Net, the nearest city becomes their home city. If they accumulate enough points in the Mind Net's merit system, they can travel to other cities through the teleportation gates But if they do not accumulate enough points, they will be trapped in their home city forever or be forced to cross the wilderness between cities, a near impossibility for anyone who cannot accumulate enough points to access the teleportation gates. They can also move to the range of a new city in the real world, but no matter the city, most losers will just continue to have the same problem accumulating points.

"Hatchet. Coming or going?"

"I was going, but I'll stay to fight with you."

I gesture toward Aoi. "I'm here to train the little girl. I can't break her in the real world, and she needs to learn to fight. The test for the Cultivation Colleges are coming up in a few months."

Skidding to a stop, Aoi grabs my arm. "Pervert Master is the strongest. He will be hard on Aoi."

I smack Aoi on the top of her head.

"Ow! That hurt!" Aoi releases my to rub her head.

"I told you your mask gives you anonymity. If you just blurt out your name, the idiots from school will know who you are. You'll still feel pain. What do you plan to do if the noble trash recognize you and trap in the arena or an open palace that allows combat?"

Aoi lowers her head. She might be pouting, but from her scent, she is angry. The Mind Net reproduces the characteristics of the real world to such a perfect degree, it is hard to tell that this is just a construct in the Eidos.

"Aoi won't come here without Beast."

I shake my head. "You can't always be with me. We won't necessarily go to the same Cultivation College."

"Go to the same Cultivation College? How old are you?" As Hatchet blurts out his questions, his scent reeks of surprise.

I shift my gaze back to Hatchet. "Fourteen. Why?"