"Well, if it's normal, why don't you bring us both inside and create something for us to sit on? You can do that, can't you" I said, my smile becoming more charming, from my perspective, that is.
"Fine, come, let me show you," she said as she reached out her hands to hold mine and draw me into her mindscape, but then, nothing happened.
"Well, that was anti-climatic..."
...
After what seemed like minutes passed, Hinami finally opened her eyes but looked away in embarrassment as her cheeks took on a red hue due to her embarrassment. I couldn't handle how cute she was and pinched her cheeks while laughing at her failure.
She pouted and pushed my hands away from her face and walked angrily to the side while muttering, "Hmph, Shun is being mean to me, I'm not talking to you anymore" and then sat down beside Ria.
I knew she wasn't angry but merely embarrassed by her failure after bragging about it. I stopped laughing and came to her side and hugged her. I then said in a low voice, "don't mind me, Nami-chan, I was just messing with you, how about I make it up to you, ask me anything and I will do it, as far as it is within my abilities"
I didn't need to promise her anything, but I couldn't help myself from pampering her a little, at least now that we have a little time to ourselves.
"Hmm, if you say so then" she then paused for some time to think of what she should ask.
After a while, she then said, "Bring me to your mindscape and show me anything I ask for"
"As you wish my lady," I said. I was thinking she would ask for something impossible which will lead to me having to crack my brain to accomplish the task.
With a thought, I brought her into my mindscape and she looked at it in awe.
"Wow, this place really is beautiful, how do you do it," she asked.
"Well, your mindscape depicts how you feel or how you think. It's all about the mind and your deepest desires. If someone has a deep desire for peace, your mindscape will look as calm as what you think is peaceful"
"If you are always happy, then it will also affect your mindscape, this my mindscape can turn gloomy as soon as I feel sad or it could turn into a world-ending apocalyptic scene if I feel a deep sense of anger, like this" with a thought, the mindscape suddenly turned gloomy and the next moment turned sunny with a pink hue in the air.
At that moment I had thought of my past life and then thought of Hinami, which led to changes in my mindscape.
"Woe, Shun, what did you do and how did you do it?" Hinami asked in amazement.
"Haha, this is nothing, after my training, I'm sure you will be able to do so as well. This is just a small illustration, look at this"
With a thought, I turned the area we were in into one of the most beautiful places I have seen in any anime in my past life.
The ocean in my mindscape started undulating and moments later, it turned into the flower capital of Wano Country in One Piece.
When the place calmed down, what greeted our sight was a beautiful city with paved roads surrounded by buildings, and lots of Sakura trees mixed with other flowers of different colors to give the place a unique vibe. It wasn't the whole Flower capital of Wano Country, just the area that could give the place the beauty I want.
There was a moment of silence between us as even I was stunned at the beauty of the place. I have seen this place in the anime and have a deep impression of the place, but seeing it as an anime and seeing it coming to life albeit an illusion, is also another sight to behold.
When I came to my senses once more, I looked at Hinami who was still entranced by the beauty in front of us. Her expression was one of pure amazement, mixed with desire and love. I could tell the reason for those as well. It is also the reason her mindscape is filled with trees of various types and sizes.
She has been living on the moon her entire life, and one of the things that she desires the most is to be in an environment filled with trees, at least that's what I was able to come up with after observing her for some time.
While I was looking at her, she finally snapped out of her daze and looked at me, and said, "This place really is beautiful," looking at the place once more, she asked, "how did you do this?"
"It's quite simple, you know. It's all in here. As I told you before, it's all about your imagination" I said.
"Hmm, since it's all about your imagination, how did you come up with this? How can your imagination create this" she asked, this time in curiosity.
"Haha, Nami-chan, you are limiting your imagination by asking 'how'. Listen to this and listen well, Your thoughts and Imagination are linked, If you can think anything, you can imagine it, and if you can imagine something, you can create it. That is this works. As for this place, I imagined it while thinking of the place I want us to live our lives together for the rest of our lives. So what do you think?" I asked
I am honestly thinking of creating a version of Wano country in this world in the area where the Land of Hotsprings will be in the future and making it as beautiful and peaceful as possible.
Hinami blushed when she heard me say this, after all, I had just indirectly asked her to marry me.
"It's a beautiful place, I hope you really create it," she said after blushing for a while, then looking at me with determination, she then asked, "Can you teach me how to use my mindscape more proficiently as you do?"
I was honestly surprised at the amount of determination I felt from her. Seems like this place moved her a bit.
"Of course, Nami-chan, all you have to do is ask and as you have asked, I will teach you to the fullest of my ability," I said, and then I brought us out of my landscape where we were still hugging while sitting on the floor.
As I was about to stand up, I felt a minute spiritual outburst from the side, it was so small that anyone could have missed It if they are not paying attention, I looked to the side and saw Ria opening her eyes, it seems like she succeeded, truly a genius, the evening hasn't even reached and she has succeeded.
"Big brother, I did it, I did it," Ria said in excitement as she came toward us and joined our hug.
"I'm sure you did, I felt it as soon as you succeeded, but it seems you didn't form up the space properly in your excitement" I chuckled and said while receiving her hug and patting her head.
"Ahh? But I entered a place and saw a big building with many holes around it, I didn't know what it means so I came out" she said sounding a little aggrieved. After all, she just achieved something deserving of praise.
I chuckled seeing the look on her face and said: "You didn't do anything wrong, in fact, you did very well, come here let me take a look" tapping her head, we entered her mindscape.
Unlike Hinami's wide landscape with trees in her mindscape, Ria's mindscape had a smaller landscape with a tall building as tall as a standard three-story floor house.
"Hmm? It's not bad, but why is it so small?" I asked.
"I don't know, this is what I saw when I came in here" she answered in confusion.
"Is there a problem, big brother?" she asked.
Now, this raises a lot of questions. My mindscape was never small when I first entered it, Hinami's was as large as an island while Ria' is as small as a village.
I could assume that mine was largely due to my knowledge of the world here and the earth before coupled with all the places I've seen in anime and the ridiculous size of planets in cultivation novels I've read, so naturally, my mindscape won't be small.
Hinami, on the other hand, has seen the earth from the moon a lot of times and knows how large the world is so her mindscape was naturally formed large.
If I follow this assumption, Ria's would then be a result of taking this small village as her entire world, thereby making her mindscape as small as this.
This is one assumption. Another could be as a result of how large our spiritual energy is. Mine is humongous, Hinami's should be huge as a result of a parental heritage, and Ria's would be small due to her normal human gene.
Both assumptions could be right and considering I am the first to teach this, I would have to give a proper reason. On that note, I would pick the third option which is to avoid it entirely.
"Hmm, not bad, it's good for a start, we just have to train properly and the rest will fall into place, let go," I said with a straight face.
"Ah-" before she could understand what was going on, I brought us out of her mindscape.
When we came out, Ria wanted to ask what that was about but before she could say anything, I clapped and said, "Good, now we all have access to our mindscape which is the first stage of this training exercise. We still have three more steps to complete this exercise we will be reviewing the second step now"
Ria grumbled at the side but I don't pay her any attention this time around.
Hinami, on the other hand, was paying close attention which made me relieved a little bit, at least I have someone to use as a shield should she ask any unnecessary questions.
"Yes, Nami-Kun," I said, imitating a certain teacher in a classroom full of assassins, as I noticed Hinami raising her hands to call my attention.
"What are the three other stages of this training?" she asked.
"Good question, Nami-Kun," I said continuing my imitation.
"The first stage was accessing your mindscape which we have all done, the other three stages are: stabilizing your mindscape, perfecting it, and then domain creation."
"Let me explain, as we all know, your mindscape is where everything that goes on in your head is placed, it shows our mental state at all times, but what we don't know is, what you have all seen is just the surface area of your mindscapes."
"In the deeper part of mindscape, our memories and emotions lie. Everything we have seen, heard, felt, smelt, and even tasted is being recorded in the innermost parts of our mind and to gain access to that place, we have to first stabilize our surface area"
"We can't possibly expect to gain access to what makes us humans if we can't even properly take care of the little things that we can see in our mindscape."
"What makes us humans is not the fact that we call ourselves human, no, what makes us human beings, is our experiences and those experiences are what makes us into what we are and that is humanity for your
"As we are now, our body and mind are linked together, allowing us to make conscious actions and even have conscious thoughts, but what of when we sleep and dream or daydream? These are all part of our subconscious."
"Now why am I saying all these? The reason is simple when someone enters your mind and wants to read your memory or even change your personality, they first have to pass your surface area, if your surface area is weak, it becomes easy for someone to pry into your mind and do whatever they want with you"
"But in a situation whereby they enter and are unable to even pass through this area, you could easily retaliate and defend yourself."
"Now, this stage is where we properly stabilize and transform, if possible, our mindscape, and the best way to do that is through active meditation. For the coming period of time, we will be focusing on meditation, and individually, you will both transform your mindscape to any form you see fit but before that, take this and read it thoroughly" I said.
This stage is just made up, I call this, mindscape because anyone can access this should they desire it, but what I didn't tell them, is that the mindscape is the gateway to their soul.
I have understood that in this world, the concept of the soul is similar to most cultivation world descriptions of the soul. What I told them about what makes us human, that is memories and emotions, are actually your soul. In most Xianxia worlds, once the soul leaves the body and flees before dying, no information could be acquired from the brain, and that is similar to how this world works, at least from the anime.
If what I have now is similar to Divine sense{Upgraded version of Spiritual Sense} then what Hinami and Ria will develop after perfecting their mindscape will be the Spiritual sense, because, at that time, they won't need to focus to sense things like those sensory ninjas, instead, they will be like Naruto in his Sage mode, not Kurama mode.
Naruto in his Kurama mode would be similar to Half-step Divine Sense of sorts because unlike his, I could live in my soul form, but he only has that ability due to Kurama who is a Nine Tail Fox, the only tailed beast close to actual divinity if put in a cultivation world.
Combining the Fox ability with his Sage mode, he could reach the Half-step Divine sense, able to even sense deaths and malice from miles away.
Indra and Ashura would be another example, but in their case, they would be initial Divine Sense, the reason being that they are able to reincarnate for generations albeit not regaining their past life memories, only the emotions and thought process.
Snapping out of my thought, I looked at both girls looking at me with confusion written all over their faces. I know what was confusing them and knew how to answer their confusion, but I felt it would be better to make use of my entire library of fiction and educate them.
I am going to have to show them my Library of Heaven Path. Any Serious Otaku would probably kill to have access to this, alas...
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Heya. Thanks for the support y'all, I appreciate it.
I have just recently put my discord link on the synopsis, so y'alll can go there and tell me your views on this novel.
Thanks