Alden, Neo, and Owen walked back to their room in complete silence.
Neither Alden nor Neo knew what to say to Owen.
When they arrived before their room, Alden unlocked the door, and they entered inside.
They all got comfortable and sat on their beds.
"Owen, I did not know you were so strong. Why did you not say anything?" Alden decided to break the silence.
But Owen did not say anything.
"Thank you for protecting me," Alden said, hoping to make Owen feel better about what happened.
"Owen, why did you do that?" Neo asked. "You should not have lost control like that. You did not need to go that far."
"I-I don't know." Olden held his head with both hands, tears streaming down his face. "I did not want to do that. Why did I do that?"
Owen started pulling his short black hair apart. "It's always like that. Whenever I fight! I did not want this.
Whenever I fight, I can only remember the beginning of the fight and the end. But always, in the end, my tamed beasts die!
Why is this happening? I did not want this!"
"No, no, no!" Owen started swaying left and right. His eyes widened as tears streamed down.
"I must fight. My father...my father... he will..." Owen stopped. Memories of the past flooded his mind. "Nooooooooo!" He let out an eerie, ear-piercing scream. "Don't kill my friends." Owen jumped from the bed.
"I am sorry!" He fell on his knees. "I will fight! I will be obedient. Please don't hurt my friends!" He stretched his arms in the air as If begging someone. "Noooooo!" He let out another ear-piercing scream and fainted on the floor.
"Owen!" Alden immediately jumped on the floor to check if Owen was okay.
"Neo, why did you say that?" Alden turned to Neo angrily.
"I just wanted to check If my suspicion was correct," Neo replied. "He does indeed have a split personality.
But don't worry. I think he has just fainted from the mental burden of remembering his past. "
Neo walked to Owen and picked him up. He put him on the bed.
"I can not imagine what he had gone through. Only those who had gone through horrible things and severe physical and psychological trauma have split personality." Neo said with pity in his voice. "Let him rest for the night.
When he wakes up, let's not ask him about his past. Just act like nothing happened."
Alden nodded. His anger subdued. "I agree."
"I am tired," Neo said. "I will sleep for a while."
Neo went to bed.
Alden had nothing to do, so he went to bed as well.
Soon, they fell asleep.
...
A few hours later, Alden woke up.
It was dark in the room. The night had fallen, so no light was entering the room through the window.
He stood up from the bed and turned on the lights.
Owen was still sleeping in bed, while Neo was nowhere in the room.
'He must have gone out.' Alden thought. 'Well, this is a perfect opportunity.'
He took the blue book containing the cultivation technique and sat on the bed.
"Finally, I can open it."
Alden opened the book and started reading. The book was only a few pages, so he quickly finished reading.
"Whooo!" He let out a sigh as he closed the book.
He put the book next to him and sat on the bed cross-legged.
'According to the cultivation technique, I need to focus on visualizing and sensing the spiritual energy around me.
When I can sense it, I should imagine the particles of spiritual energy running to me and me absorbing them.
Then, when the spiritual energy enters my body, I should circulate the spiritual energy through my body in the direction and way shown in the cultivation technique.' Alden repeated the important points in the book, making sure to get everything right.
Alden closed his eyes and focused on implementing the cultivation technique.
[Ding!]
Just as Alden focused on implementing the technique, a sudden ringing in his ears made him abruptly open his eyes.
Before him, in the air, hovered a bluish window with text on it.
Alden was shocked. "This again?" He muttered.
[Detected an inferior level cultivation technique]
[The host can not proceed with implementing the inferior cultivation technique]
[Please choose from the following options:]
[Body Cultivation Technique]
[Mental Cultivation Technique]
[Host, please note that once you chose a cultivation technique, you can not practice the other]
"What is this nonsense?" Alden muttered in confusion. But the next moment, a thought came to his mind. "Is it trying to help me?"
He looked at the cultivation technique next to him. "Is it saying the cultivation technique teacher Simon gave us is inferior?
But I understood the teacher that this cultivation technique is even better than the original cultivation technique which Victor Onyx found in the ruins."
Alden focused on the screen once again. "It is telling me to choose between those two cultivation techniques. If I choose one, will it give me a cultivation technique better than the one I have?"
Alden shook his head. "There is no way. What even is this? Can it make things appear out of nowhere?" He smiled. "I must be crazy."
He waved his hand, trying to disperse the system window, but his hand passed through the window as if it were a hologram.
Alden ignored the bluish window and closed his eyes, trying to once again focus on implementing the cultivation technique given by Simon.
Five minutes passed, but Alden could not focus. The curiosity of what would happen if he chose one option was eating him out from the inside.
He opened one eye to see if the bluish window was still before him. When confirmed that the bluish window had not disappeared, he opened his other eye.
"Aghh!" He rubbed his hair. "Whatever. I'll choose an option."
Without thinking, Alden touched the screen. He chose the Mental Cultivation technique.
His heart beat fast, and he waited in expectation.
A few minutes passed, but nothing happened. "I knew it." Alden smiled bitterly. "What was I even expecting? There is no way something like that exi..."
Suddenly, Alden's eyes widened. He felt an immense headache. The pain came out of nowhere, and so suddenly, he did not have time to make even a sound.
His eyes whited out, and he fell back on the bed, unconscious.
...
"What is going on? Where am I?" Alden looked around.
He was in a dark, empty space. All around him, there were white, bright spheres the size of a pea grain. The space around him looked similar to outer space. With the white spheres resembling the stars.
Before Alden, there was a pea sized sphere. But this sphere did not shone in white light, it was empty inside.
"What is this place?" Alden looked around. "What is this!" He exclaimed, looking at his hand. He was completely naked, but most shockingly, he did not have his manly organ, and his whole body was pale as if he was a ghost.
"I remember I chose the mental cultivation technique on that strange screen." Alden desperately tried to make sense of the situation, but he could not think of anything.
Then, an idea came to his mind.
"System, system, are you there?" Alden called out. He remembered the strange thing calling itself a system, and he was the host. So he tried calling it. "Where am I?"
Out of nowhere, golden words appeared before him as if someone was writing in the air.
[Host, this is your mental world]
"This is my mental world?"
[Yes]
"Then this must be my spiritual body?" Alden looked once again at his naked, ghostly body. "And this is my mental world? Teacher Simon did mention everyone has a different mental world, but isn't my mental world a little too desolated?
It's like I am in space. There is nothing except those little white, weakly glowing spheres."
[Host, please start your mental cultivation.]
"Start my mental cultivation? System, how do I start?" Alden asked with a hint of confusion and excitement in his voice. He was finally going to start cultivating and gaining strength. "What should I do?"
However, there was no reply from the system.
"Hello, system?" Alden tried calling for the system, but there was no reply.
"Great, now I am left without my only guide," Alden complained. "What do I do now?"
He tried to sit on the ground, but he was just floating in the air. There was no ground in his mental world. It was indeed as if he was in outer space.
"I have an idea."
He crossed his legs and floated in the air. He closed his eyes and focused. 'If all the cultivation techniques work on the same principle, then this should work.'
It was complete silence, and it helped Alden focus better.
His theory was that the white glowing spheres were something like spiritual energy. So he started imagining how the white spheres got closer to him.
A few minutes passed, and Alden opened his eyes. There were dozens of the white miniature spheres around him.
"Great, it works." He muttered with a smile. He closed his eyes once again, and this time, he would imagine how he absorbed the white spheres.
[Host, you can not absorb them]
The system came back.
Alden opened his eyes abruptly.
"System, what do you mean?" He asked. 'What should I do?"
[Merge the spheres into the empty sphere before you]
"I see." Alden nodded in understanding. "System, I am curious. What are those white spheres? Those are not particles of spiritual energy, right?"
[Host, the white spheres are mental energy. Particles of mental energy]
"Then what about the empty sphere before me?"
[Host, that is your mental core. You store the mental particles in the mental core. The more the host stores, the more the core expands. The mental capacity of the host increases. If the host exhausts his mental energy, the mental core will absorb mental particles till it restores the lost mental energy]
'I did not ask for such a long explanation.' Alden thought. "But thank you system. It was helpful."
Alden immediately closed his eyes and focused on merging the spheres into the mental core.