Chapter 51: The Ultimate Mindscape

{A big shout-out to my new pátron 'Sebastian Vasquez' for joining the Divine Eminence tier on my Pátreon. Thanks for the support. ≧◠ᴥ◠≦✊}

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"I'll take a potato chip and EAT IT!"

- Light Yagami, (Death Note)

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If I ever manage to get out of the DC multiverse, then I am going to sue all the fanfiction authors out there for making this mind palace thing seem so effortlessly easy.

I mean, I get it, this skill is one of the most important mental skills out there to protect and strengthen your mind, but that does not mean that one can just automatically possess a heaven-defying talent for it and will be able to master it after just a few hours or days of learning it and that too better than the indigenous people who have been practicing the same technique for years or decades.

I myself have a cheat that LITERALLY let me know how stuff works in real life but even with that, I took about an hour to even get the first step of the process done which was to 'look into my own mind' which was just a fancy way of saying 'lucid dreaming'..., sort of.

The basic fundamental on which this technique operated was by dreaming up a world that would be so well thought out, so detailed, and so connected to one's subconsciousness that even if one woke up, it still wouldn't fade away. Instead, it would be the bridge between their conscious thinking and their underlying subconsciousness. A place that would signify one's entire mind itself.

Now, on paper, it sounds like a really easy job without any strict limits to its scale but practically it isn't. Like, I remember reading a certain Harry Potter fanfiction in my previous life where the main character made up an entire planet along with the Sun and the sky as their Mind Palace but the thing is that it is literally impossible unless the person is someone like Azmuth from Ben Ten with a nonillion IQ or something.

This is simply because making your mind palace isn't exactly free. No, just like you need real material resources to construct a real building, you need actual memory and mental energy which is basically your mind's unique processing power to build your own mind palace. Believe me, when a genius like Sherlock Holmes is limited to a library-sized Mind Palace, an average reincarnate having an Earth-sized subconsciousness is questionable.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't possible. It definitely was as long as you were really REALLY smart. I am sure people like Rick Sanchez could have a supercity as their Mind Palace but for me right now, that was just a pipedream..., until I successfully perfect the NZT-48 pill without any side effects that is.

Anyway, as I was saying after I successfully dived into my own mind, I wasn't greeted by white space or something. What I was greeted with instead was the familiar inside of a mansion, the Wayne mansion to be specific. Only this one inside my subconsciousness was a little different. This one looked like it was some kind of weird imperfect combination of a mansion and an average ordinary home that was struggling to even keep itself standing. It looked like a joke to be truthful.

'Seems my mind really is a toxic place to be at.' I thought with a small smirk. It seemed that living two lives had some consequences and one of them was a very ugly-looking psyche. But, I can always change that. After all, that is what the technique is for.

Now, the process that I learned from the scroll is simple. I have to build my mind palace in this space by replacing this hideous mansion-normal-house combo chosen by my psyche on default with someplace that I am comfortable and familiar with.

The scroll advises everyone to use a site that's not only roughly the same size as the place chosen on default by the user's mind but also advised that the place should resonate with their thoughts on their version of safety and comfort.

So, I of course made my choice based on its advice and decided to use a comfortable and harmless... dungeon as my mind palace.

Now, just hear me out, a dungeon would be perfect for me because I would not only be able to increase its floors as my brain becomes better and better over time with the continuous absorption of knowledge and the possible usage of some intelligence-increasing drugs I might develop and perfect later down the line but also, the defense provided by a mind palace in the form of a dungeon would definitely be one of the best in the world.

So after about six or seven hours of meticulous designing, I finally came up with what I thought would be the ultimate 'Mind Dungeon'. 

The first floor through which one would enter was relatively safe with only family-friendly puzzles and trick questions to get passage. It was supposed to make people feel safe and at ease thinking that they had a very good chance to break into my mind vault. Of course, it was all just a ploy to get them to come further. But, giving wrong answers might still land you in the path of dangerous traps like flying poison-lined knives, acid mist, or flesh-eating piranhas. But compared to the floor below it, all this was just childish stuff, nothing too over the top. 

The second floor was the floor of agents, yeah the agents from the Matrix. The floor was full of them on top of being a fully secured military base with state-of-the-art security tech that could detect anyone and efficiently neutralize them if needed. Now, if someone dies inside my mind palace, I do not get their memories or anything, it doesn't work like that. But, that was why I was trying to design a Mr. Anderson-type agent who could act as my virus to clone himself into other people's minds, thus taking over their bodies under my control. But unfortunately, it seems like I have no idea how to effectively do that yet. Maybe, a course from an experienced mind reader like the Martian Manhunter could inspire me later.

Now, the next floor which was the third floor was where the real fun began. The entire floor looked like the inside of a giant pyramid filled with flesh-eating bugs and wait for it... Xenomorphs. These Xenomorphs didn't just have razor-sharp tails, teeth, and claws but also acid saliva to make invading beings feel a world of hurt. Also, they possessed the ability to make chest-busters inside the astral body of the assailant. These chest busters did not only give extreme maddening pain to the ones stupid enough to invade my mind but also naturally added to my growing army by making new improved Xenomorphs as my mind guards, of course, that is until I decide to give the intruder some sweet release from his pain.

The fourth floor on the other hand was different from the rest. It was the exact copy of one of my favorite dungeons ever. It was the Cartenon Temple, the D-rank dungeon from Solo Leveling making this floor the one floor in my Mind Dungeon that was supposed to be unbeatable. 

Only after one completed all the hidden requirements of the fourth floor by figuring out what Sung Jin Woo did the first time he went into the dungeon, could one pass as a result of which he would be allowed to... exit. Yes exit, not entry. 

Even clearing and passing through all four floors would just allow you to exit my Mind Palace, not enter the secret fifth floor hidden right beneath the throne of the Architect statue on the fourth floor. This fifth floor was where my real memories were stored. It was my real Mind Library.

A place that resembled the library and study of the Wayne Mansion and had millions of books stored in it. Each book in the library coated in fireproof covers contained all the knowledge I had learned and the different skills I had perfected over time with a lot of space remaining for the skills that I will master in the future. Hell, there were even multiple copies of each book stored in different sections just to make sure that none of them were ever completely destroyed somehow.

But there was not even a single bit of my personal memory in any of these books. Instead, all my memories about both my current and previous lives except my knowledge about the DC multiverse were stored in a supercomputer the size of a small laptop, one that was designed by yours truly and then hidden in a secret vault made of depleted promethium (hardest fictional metal I actually knew the atomic structure of currently, due to it existing in DC).

As for my limited knowledge about DC, at least what I still remembered from my last life was written in a small red pocket diary and was kept in a secret chamber subtly hidden under the secret vault.

This was the current limit of what I could do about my mental defense. Now, I could go ahead and just release some more dragons and stuff but truthfully I doubt they would be more useful than an entire fudging hive of Xenomorphs prowling about in there.

So for now, I was satisfied. I knew that nothing short of a planetary-level telepath taking his sweet time with breaking apart my defenses brick by brick would be able to access my mind. And, with the addition of my mind-protection pendant, that possibility was even more limited.

So, after I was done with everything, I checked, rechecked, and double-rechecked to make sure that there was not even the tiniest chink in my mental defenses before deciding to approach Ra's Al Ghul. I knew he would be checking my mental defenses thoroughly before teaching me anything else, that was why I wanted to be extra sure. After all, him having the slightest doubt about me not being the original Bruce Wayne would be quite dangerous for me. 

'I guess back to my dashing Tony Stark personality it is.' I thought as an arrogant and confident smile made its way to my lips, signifying my pride in perfecting (kind of, although some features like 'Mr. Anderson' are still under development) the mental discipline so soon.

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