Mind’s eye technique

Mortal tier technique. No cultivation requirements

Sight technique, need I say more?

Fine, looks like I will. There are multiple ways to see beyond the realm of standard vision, and different methods will allow for different forms of sight. However, in general these techniques can all be classed into magical and non-magical visions. Infrared vision is non-magical, Qi sense is magical. We like sight techniques for obvious reasons, but some people really disdain training in dozens of them over the years. My advice to them is to suck it up.

I still use 12 different sight techniques as needed. ‘Why?’ you ask perfunctorily. Simple, there is no such thing as a perfect or ultimate technique. And at my level every technique is so overwhelmingly specialised that you need several to fill all the gaps. Just train the technique, it builds discipline.

Activation and requirements Have a soul

That’s right, a technique that can be taught to all your mortal slaves as we­–…

Right, we don’t do that stuff here.

Anyway, anyone with a soul can learn this technique. This includes artificial and broken souls, so it’s a really lenient thing as you can see. Unfortunately, it’s pretty time consuming to train instead so it makes sense that its requirements are so minimalistic. The average training time is 4 weeks for mortals, but still a week at the natural gathering stage. Having a higher cultivation only poses the question of why you’d bother learning this technique.

At the very least the method itself is extremely simple which makes up for the rather high time commitment. Please do note that competency with this technique will still take several more weeks if not months, so prepare for a rather long haul. Although since the experience will aid in using other sight techniques I don’t really see the problem.

To begin training you must isolate your mind. This is easily done by trapping yourself in a cave or such, but do make sure it is uninhabited in advance. Way too many people die every year from wandering into unknown caves, some for treasure and others for protection. Just… don’t be like them.

Ideally you want to go so far in that it becomes pitch black. This can be easily identified by being completely unable to see anything, even faint outlines. Because this training takes a while you will need a source of food and water which should be prepared in advance. You will only have access to dry rations during this time, but that shouldn’t really be a problem for a cultivator.

To begin training this technique you must visualise everything within 2 metres of you in all directions, or until you hit a wall in any direction. This must be done by touching your surroundings and gaining a physical understanding of the surrounding space. Like the prior visualisations, this asks for a proper degree of precision. In general this technique doesn’t ask for you to go as far as grains of dust or whatnot, but rocks and pebbles should be included. You will know if your visualisation is precise enough through a slight eidetic effect. The scene will remain in your mind for roughly half a minute.

Repeat this 500 times and you’re done… normally. Some people may have to do it as many as 1000 times, and some lucky bastards finish within 5. This step is entirely dependent on your mind’s original power, meaning people with inherently strong minds will finish faster. Please note that the range given is only the known min/max, and it depends on someone submitting their own lower/higher counts for us to change the record. The exact highest number is 978 times, it’s quite frustratingly close to 1000, isn’t it?

And there you go. At some point you will realise that you no longer need to visualise your surroundings, instead you can directly ‘see’ things in greyscale. This is due to being in complete darkness for this training, but it also makes things easier as trying to visualise colour is generally a lot more difficult. And honestly, there are less troublesome ways to gain coloured sight techniques. Just settle with this until you reach natural gathering stage.

Usage

A sight technique that provides you complete greyscale vision within 5 metres of your soul. Why does the mind technique use your soul? Because this technique really only focuses on strengthening that link between the two. One ‘sees’ while the other interprets, that is the conjunction of soul and mind.

Your vision within 5 metres is unimpeded by regular darkness, but you cannot see through solid objects. Naturally, this means that you voyeurs do not get a field day with this technique, I swear the girls would have our heads if it worked like that…

Activation is decided on an individual basis, but the default most pick out is simply closing their eyes and thinking about ‘seeing’. With a bit of effort you can change the activation to almost any action or thought. Just get used to having two sources of vision before using this technique everywhere. Most people get horribly sick and disoriented when using their eyes and soul to look about, which is why closing your eyes at first is so popular.