The night wore on and for the first time in a long time, he had the most comfortable sleep he could remember.
A single teardrop slipped out from between Hao Xuan's eyelids and fell down the side of his face.
Perhaps it was the memories attached to this place or maybe it was just his own imagination, but it felt like home, it felt like a place he could come back to.
In the Martial World where cultivators had lifespans in the thousands to even tens of thousands of years, in a universe that went on endlessly and where the only limitation was your own imagination, a place to call home was not a bad thing to have by one's side.
Everyone needs somewhere to belong. Somewhere to rest during the long and perhaps everlasting journey through this world. Somewhere they can come to forget all their worries and concerns.
Hao Xuan didn't realize this but he had been under a lot of stress recently. Everything that had been happening with the kingdom, the appearance of new enemies and the uncertainty of the future, perhaps it was an amalgamation of all these factors that made him return here.
He didn't have any blood relatives here, didn't even knew where his own mother was, so this place was the closest thing to a home.
That night he had the same dream again.
Two paths lay before him. One of light, and one of darkness.
At the end of each path, a silhouette waited for him with open arms, calling for him without stopping.
He opened his eyes and saw the dark wooden ceiling of the room. The rain had gotten even heavier and felt more like a biblical punishment than a simple shower.
Other than the sound of his two hearts and the non-stop rain, there was no other sound in the surroundings. Well, not including the light snoring coming from the rolled-up octopus beside his pillow.
He wiped the side of his face and sat up.
"I thought u were gonna keep an eye out," he whispered looking at Fortis who was fast asleep.
He checked the time and it was only around 11 p.m. He had slept a little more than 4 hours but it felt like an entire lifetime.
He looked out the window but could barely see anything because of the torrential downpour.
'A good a time as any I guess,' he told himself and closed his eyes.
Above his head appeared a faint silhouette of a structure. This was his Mind Palace projecting in the outer world for the first time.
Every person was born with at least one Mind Palace because it was a place through which one could access the soul. And as long as a being had a soul or something resembling one, they would have something like a Mind Palace inside them as well.
There were a few exceptions to this, of course, but those were few and far in between.
For the next three hours, he visualized every single part of the Mind Palace. From the smallest nook and crannies to the biggest imperfections, he had to use his Qi to bring the Palace to the world.
Slowly but surely, it materialized above his head. It looked exactly like how it was in his mind, with the only difference being its size. (Author's note for pic)
The one floating above him was like a miniature model of the real thing standing at 1 meter in width and around 2 meters in length.
It was shimmering and shining with different lights looking very much like a hologram. But as soon as it completely appeared in the room, a heavy pressure came down waking even Fortis up.
He rubbed his drowsy eyes and looked at the glowing structure for a couple of seconds before falling lifelessly back to sleep with a plop.
Hao Xuan's back was caked with sweat. It was not an easy thing to do, especially the first time. It put a lot of strain on one's mind and consumed a lot of energy.
But still, he did not stop here.
He continued visualizing and a second vague silhouette slowly started taking shape.
This was going to be his second mind palace. He already had the 'object' in mind as he had spent a lot of time near it.
The Mind Place's could be based on anything. As long as a person was able to imagine it, visualize it, and then connect to it in an emotional or spiritual way, it could become their mind palace.
Then all they would have to do was to materialize it, which was the easy part.
Hao Xuan had been visualizing his second mind palace for a long time now. It was a place that held special meaning for him, a place he had good memories of with the people he liked, so it wasn't a hard thing to do.
This went on for another 7 hours, this time taking more than twice as long it did to materialize the first one.
At around 9 in the morning, the second Mind Palace completely solidified in the room.
His Qi and spiritual power received a jump boost and started circulating on their own. For just a few seconds, he floated off of the bed he had been meditating on by the sudden influx of spiritual energy.
There wasn't much spiritual energy in the surroundings but whatever was there, every last bit of it was being absorbed into Hao Xuan's body at the moment.
If one were to look down from above, a 5-kilometer wide vortex of spiritual energy could be seen with the Khan family's residence in the middle of it.
Every ounce of energy within a radius of 2.5km was absorbed by Hao Xuan.
When he opened his eyes they shone and glistened like two emerald stones, casting green light in front of him.
*Inhale*
He took in a deep breath through his nose and felt the power circulating inside of him. He looked down at his hands.
He could see the pores of his skin and the blemishes from holding the glaive like looking through a microscope.
As he clenched his fists, the air escaping from the sides sounded like a firecracker. He looked at the wall in front and while sitting, threw out a punch.
*Bamn*
The air itself shook slightly as a very faint fist mark appeared on the wooden wall.
"Hahaha, now that's what I'm talking about!"
This was done through pure raw power. Just now he threw out a fist with such speed and force that the air carried over the residual energy and impacted with the wall hard enough to leave a mark.
It was something out of a movie.
While Hao Xuan was sitting on the bed admiring his 'handy' work, the watch shook. It was a call from First.
"Hm? First brother?!"