Light music was playing in the room. The lights were also a bit dimmed to match the ambience. Ryan was lost in thoughts as he didn't notice when everyone in the room became a victim to sleep. The bartender and Olivia for some reason had their heads on his lap.
"Fight me you bitch!" Elijah muttered in his sleep which brought back Ryan to the real world.
"Hmm…what happened here?" He said when he saw Joe and Otto were hanging upside down while Vincenzo was snoring soundly.
He quickly brought back Otto and Joe to the couch. How they were hanging upside down was still a mystery to Ryan.
Half of Paityn's body was hanging down the couch. He quickly checked his mind space and saw that Umbra was sleeping so he didn't disturb her sleep.
Ryan looked down and saw two heads on his laps. He felt the warm breathing of Olivia and slowly caressed her head.
"It's quite nice to be defenceless sometimes. It makes you look like a normal young woman and not a mafia boss." Ryan said with an extremely gentle voice.
"Mario, I don't like your moustache." Elijah spoke again but this time in a really loud tone.
"Well, time to move you guys to a more comfortable place." Ryan used wind magic to make them float towards the room which surprisingly had 5 king sized beds.
"Enough for everyone." He muttered.
He made sure to hide his mana signatures as it may alert them which will ruin their sleep.
He put Olivia, Paityn and Lynda on the same bed as they were all women and it would not lead to disasters if one of them woke up.
While the boys were put down on a bed of their own but of course they had to share it.
Ryan looked around and was definitely satisfied with the arrangement. Suddenly an idea popped in his mind and he took out two mana purifying rings from his personal mind space. He crouched towards Elijah and made him wear it on his pinky finger.
He smiled slightly and took the other one and did the same with Olivia and made her wear it on her pinky finger but it was a bit loose for a second but a moment later the ring adapted to her finger size.
"And now the only thing missing is a defence formation." He said as the mana moved inside his body in a particular pattern and he drew a magic circuit in the air.
Faint green light covered the room which was infused with very low frequency sounds which can enhance one's sleeping experience but the main use of this formation was protection which cannot be broken by Ryan if he does not know the exact patterns to break it.
The formation was set to disappear when the sun rises and anyone among the group wakes up.
Ryan left the room with light steps and closed the door behind him.
Hearing him leave, Olivia opened her eyes slowly and looked at her finger and saw the Amethyst ring which was continuously purifying mana in her body. She stared at the ring for a few minutes before shifting it to the finger beside the original one.
She drifted off to dreamland really fast because she was restraining herself from falling asleep.
As for why she didn't sleep, it was because she had some doubts about Ryan and could not leave her brother and subordinates under his watch without checking his character when they were at their most vulnerable state.
But he passed in many subjects without even knowing about it. Some of them are more desirable than others.
Anyways after leaving the bedroom he stood before the bartender who got dead drunk after Paityn invited her to join them. Ryan was sure that if he complained to that manager, that guy would surely eat away her job but there's nothing to gain from it.
"A woman like her should beware of men but she's doing the exact opposite." Ryan took a careful look at her and found that she was smiling slightly.
"What's happening now?" Ryan saw that the smile on her face turned into a frown and then after some time it turned into an expression of fear. Ryan felt something click in his head.
"Popular place, hub for S rankers. Best place to manipulate people." Ryan muttered as he felt some dots connecting in his head.
Ryan saw that the bartender started weeping in her sleep. He quickly decided to enter her dream without any delay.
Ryan felt an immense rejection from the subconscious part of her brain.
"Something wrong is going inside her body." Ryan had to carefully pry through the walls of the subconscious mind because even a single mistake can permanently scar the subject.
Ryan's view changed as before him lay a world devoid of colours, he felt that the air here was very thin for consciousness to bloom and it was suffocating.
"I can't use mana here." Ryan said as he started walking forward in the colourless world.
The world seemed oddly normal other than the fact it lacked colours. As Ryan walked forward without much of a clue what was wrong here. He heard light splashes of water beneath his feet. Suddenly the scene changed. He felt a slight ache in his head signifying that he was reaching his limit.
"Please leave me alone. It hurts." He heard the screaming voice of the bartender who was on the ground being kicked by an entity repeatedly.
'Wow that's a very bad way to take control, they are nothing but brutes.' Ryan moved forward and stood behind the entity which was still having no mercy on her. His skin was red and his head had a single giant black horn.
'Should I kill it?' Ryan was contemplating on whether he should just watch in silence or take off the Red midget which was barely a metre tall.
'He can't even sense me, I wonder if they are just rejected beings from their own species and are now being used. This is a failure no matter how I look at it.
The red skinned being had skeletal arms and a protruding rib cage but the most noticeable trait of him was that he had stick-like legs. He looked extremely malnutritioned.
'Nasty mf is attacking her soul.' Ryan thought as he finally revealed his presence and grabbed the midget's head and crushed it with his hands.
No scream came out of the midget as its malnutritioned body was not capable of reacting to sudden changes.
The bartender was on the ground heaving as she sighed in relief, her whole chest heaving and she remained silent for a while.
She opened her eyes and saw a light blue sky with many white clouds floating in the sky. The bartender sat up from the ground and looked around to find something but even after many tries she couldn't do it.
She looked down and saw a piece of paper on top of the grass. She picked it up with haste and opened it to see a short message written on it.
"Being alive and eating your favourite ice cream while watching a new interesting show is quite a privilege, you know. Don't throw it away."
-Vanilla Man
"I won't." She muttered as she held the piece of paper in her hands while she had a genuine smile on her pretty face, a smile that was completely different from the one she had to put on while working.
Ryan left the room with a cruel smile on his face.
"Ryan! Why is a midget inside the rogue memory plane?" Umbra woke up in anger when she felt someone else inside her home, which was Ryan's soul.
"I'll kill it." Umbra darted off in anger but was stopped before she could cross the invisible wall that separates his mind space and the memory plane.
"This midget entered that place without permission. Let him be, he'll die from the voices anyway." Ryan appeared inside his mind space and patted Umbra who had already jumped on his head, claiming her position.
"It looks like a demon that came out of horror stories on Earth but I am sure that it's not a demon. It's more like a hybrid of demon and dwarf. That's why it is so short." Ryan explained his reasoning to Unbra who looked at him weirdly.
"And how do you know dwarfs?" Umbra asked with narrowed eyes.
"Kai told me about them and how they are very technologically advanced and do not rely on mana alone to increase their power." Ryan was trying hard to not laugh because Umbra's upside down head was near his eyes.
"What are you trying to do?" Ryan asked with a calm tone.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing." She said while yawning.
"Sleep for some time. You'll have work to do later." Ryan said while he left the mind space.
Some you might be confused about the mind space. It is actually divided into three parts. First one is the void space where Umbra resides. Next is the memory plane where the memory orbs are kept and finally we have the section where Ryan keeps his alchemy pills and artefacts.
People on Earth had something similar they can get from the labyrinths and they call it spatial rings. It works just like Ryan's mind space and can store anything the wearer wants but it also has its limit because you cannot store infinite items inside the spatial rings because they have a definite size.
While on the other hand Ryan can store anything he wants without any issue until he decides to put living beings inside just like he did in the labyrinth.
Each sentient being increases the burden on his soul and if he does not keep it under wraps his soul can be damaged. A very dangerous outcome for a mage or any sentient being at that.
The backlashes range from a temporary comatose state to something horrifying like death.
The memory plane was something unique to Ryan as he never figured out why he had memories of unknown people inside his soul.
He once tried to go through the invisible wall that separates the memory plane from the other parts of mind space but he was locked away by the wall.
The only one who can pass through that wall with much difficulty is Umbra. Umbra who is fearless almost every time got scared when she entered that place.
Voices of the unknown haunting the known for who knows how long were sheltering themselves inside his soul. But why?
But how can that midget bypass the protective layer without any difficulty?
It was a mystery to how the midget got in but the fact that it was on its way to die was not a surprising thing.
Currently that midget was walking inside the memory plane where many orbs floated, some bigger than the other. Some, despite being small, released a mystical glow.
His screams did not bother the orbs as they kept releasing many parts of their memories at once. Random memories kept replaying as he was getting pushed to insanity.
Insane, as we know, is a term given to people who are in a state of mind which prevents normal perception, behaviour, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill.
But that can't be said for a mind which never had such capabilities to begin with. The midget from the start lacked individual perception or unique behaviour and let's not even talk about social interactions. It was just a string puppet performing a certain set of commands given to it by its creator.
So, turning something that cannot be turned insane into such a miserable state proved how dangerous the memory plane was.
The moment you enter that place you'll be receiving an overflow of memories which are not related to you even by the farthest horizon.
Umbra's short temper was a "gift" from the memory plane. Although she recovered from the scars, some of that violent attitude remained deep inside her subconscious mind.
That's the reason she got along with Tia who was the queen of short tempered attitude.
"Women are troublesome." Ryan shook his head in disappointment.
_________Thanks for reading__________
So, you guys may already know that this is my first official work. I actually had no prior experience of writing, so I dare not call myself an author.
During the start of this book I was trying to keep the info dump as little as possible but that fear of too much information led me to not give out necessary information. Some of you might be confused but trust me when I say that I'll slowly recover the damage.
I won't ask you to wait until I fix the story because it's your precious time that you are spending on this book. So you have the right to leave this at any point you want.
That's what I had to say. Hope you guys understand.
Peace.