Conquering The Mind

"What a day." Sitting on my bed, I looked outside. 29 days... no, 28 days until I can return to my role of a knight. This break seemed to be what I needed. I fell backward on my bed, just sighing at how I rushed things.

Upon regaining my memory of my past life, I wasted no time in training. Upon coming back to life thanks to Zeref, I wasted no time in training, upon finding out not all dragons were bad, I became a knight.

I rushed and gave myself little time to truly think. I was a normal teen from Earth, traumatized by the loss of everything. I wanted something to hold on to after losing everything I had, that was the main reason I willingly became Irene's knight. Something told me she was worth following, it was fate.

I touched my face, remembering how I smiled today. When was the last time I smiled? It has been so long, good thing it didn't come off as creepy. But on that note, I had to remember Zeref. I couldn't forget him, it was because of me he was cursed, I had to break his curse. I will kill the god who dared to curse him... No, I can't jump to killing without even knowing what would happen after.

What would it mean if I killed a god? What would the side effect be? What would happen if people stop valuing life and death? I have to find other ways, as Irene always said, there were other ways... this wasn't like the dragons who refused to accept humans and dragons could coexist. 

"Tomorrow I will go buy books on meditation, I will work on training the mind," I said while getting up and heading off to take a shower before I jumped in bed where I fell asleep...

The next morning, I headed off to a bookstore where I searched for books on training the mind. Irene was a book nerd when she was young and had pushed for knowledge to be free to the public, another reason she was so loved by many.

"What are you searching for?" I dragon with a white beard asked seeing me unable to pick a book from the countless roles of books before me.

"I'm searching for books on the topic of gaining inner peace, clearing the soul, or even other's journey on self-forgiveness," I said to which the Dragon nodded while rubbing his beard in thought for some time, after he breathed out softly, where using his magic to mentally take hold of the books, and hold them before me. This was a Mind Dragon, it left me wondering what type of Dragon Slayer a Mind Dragon Slayer would be.

"That book holds the story of a demi-god, who had in a state of madness killed his whole family. It talks about his journey where he sought forgiveness. That other book talks about how to conquer the mind. it was created by a student of one of the war gods, it teaches that one can't conquer the world, without conquering themselves. Another is on the topic of enlightenment, freeing the mind from the body, and entering a state where the soul is free of all worldly desires." He said while I looked at the 3 books,

"I sense great chains in your mind son, my ears are opened if you wish to speak." The dragon said in a soft and gentle voice.

"I let my hatred control me, leading me to kill without understanding that I'm taking the lives of others. the past weeks, I couldn't sleep as souls of those I killed would appear to hunt me, and now they hunt me in my dreams... but as long as I could sleep, I could endure." I said lightly, now I could sleep, but in my dreams, it was torture.

"I see... in the thousands of years I have lived, I have seen how you humans can go from valuing life to seeing life as cheap as copper. From my understanding, all life is valuable, from the ants to the dragons. We all come together to paint the bigger picture that we know of today." He said while sitting back, crossing his huge dragon arms.

"But that doesn't mean I don't kill, just because I see life is valuable, I still eat meat, and I still kill those I see as enemies. but what I don't do is pointless killing, for that is devaluing life." He said to which I nodded, making sure to remember his words.

"Then, I will take all of these... by the way, I always wondered. Is it possible for a dragon to teach a human magic? I think it's cool to use your mind to manipulate the world around you." I said to which the dragon laughed lightly.

"It is cool, but it would make you lazy... in your case, I do think this magic would suit you. You have a dragon body, but a weak mind. It's impressive that even though your mind is at its breaking point, your magic remains strong. Your spirit is anything but weak." He said sizing me up using his magic, 

"Really?" I asked, realizing that even when I was at my breaking point, my magic never disappeared, and I was still able to use it. That was indeed strange, 

"Yes, come back after reading those books, and you think you're ready to train. I would like to study your mind even more." The dragon said to which I nodded lightly, before heading off. I returned home, where Tom who was looking after his garden noticed me.

"Neighbor, looking better," He called out, to which I smiled lightly at him, before going inside where I began reading the books. I started with the story of the man who slaughtered his family in a state of madness. I was locked in, instantly relating to the main character of the story. A man with a family, which was suddenly taken away from him. In his case, he was cursed, in my case, the world took them away from me.

His journey was filled with him going steps and above to sacrifice himself to make up for his sins. He endured the hate of the world, he endured so much before in the end when he died, he was reincarnated by Ankhseram the god of life and death, to join them as a god.

I closed the book, trying my best not to let my hatred toward Ankhseram judge my thinking. I looked at the main teaching of the story, how the main character endured so much, no matter the challenges and pain he went through, he never lost sight of his goal, which was redemption. The story made note of how he knew that nothing would ever make up for his sins, but even so, he kept pushing forward, as it was better than doing nothing.

What was my goal? To change this world, and to free my brother from his curse. I will change the world so long as I follow Irene, I fully believe that she could change this world. As for my brother, I needed power. So, I needed to grow up and adapt to this new world.

I put the book to the side, I will read it later. Well, I went on to look at the book on how to conquer the mind. But before we could conquer the body, we had to know the connection between the body and mind, the difference between the soul, mind, and spirit.

The book was long, going into deep detail on how the soul was the spiritual body. The mind is the recording of your experience, while the spirit is the power. Without the spirit, the soul and mind were nothing, without the mind, the soul would lose all power to take in information and react to it. Without the soul, the mind and spirit can't exist.

'Interesting...' I thought looking at the study on how the mind could affect the body. There were studies on how people who believed they drank alcohol would act drunk, believing that they were drunk. The studies go for being sick, for those who believed they were affected by an illness would become sick. Those who believe they got medication would also be healed, even if all they got was candy or something else.

As the mind is stored in the brain, and the brain tells the body how to react... well, mastering your mind means making your body a living weapon. It was like having magic, without the need for magical energy. So yes... this was interesting. 

2 days later, in a lake, one would find me sitting at the bottom of the lake, my legs crossed, with my eyes closed. I was in touch with my body, feeling my beating heart, which was no longer beating automatically, I was instead taking control of the heartbeat, telling it when to beat, and when not to beat.

This was conquering the body, well, not all of it. It was just the beginning part of conquering the body, although it looked like I conquered my heartbeat, my control was limited, for I couldn't beat my heart too fast, or too slowly. But these were good baby steps, and one day I would be able to do something like tell my hair to grow a different color, gain the power to breathe underwater by mimicking how a fish breaths underwater, and so on.

My eyes slowly opened as I looked up ahead, it was far deep in the lake, and little water reached this deep. Even so, as part devil, phoenix, and dragon, my eyesight was anything but normal as I could see perfectly fine.

I looked at the huge Eel which was swimming towards me at high speed, hunger burning in its eyes. I stood up stabbing my feet into the ground and looked at Eel straight in the eyes, while my eyes exploded with black flames.

"Repent!" My voice boomed, sending such strong vibrations through the water that one would still be able to hear it even out of the water. The Eel which was looking me in the eyes suddenly froze,

This was the spell that Irene feared. By looking into a target's eyes, I could burn a target's soul. After all, the soul was the window to a person's soul. Those who stare into my eyes would see and feel every bit of pain they have ever inflicted on anyone in their entire lifetime. If the sins they have committed are great enough, they shall form into black flames that would swallow them, turning them into ashes.

There are 2 weaknesses to this. the first weakness is why Irene believed that those of the Holy Light Empire would be immune to this ability. This is because as long as the person truly believes what they did was for the greater good, then they are free.

The second was those who had no memory of what they did, I can't punish someone for the sins they don't know of.

There were other weaknesses such as blind people, those who don't care for the wrongdoing they did, and those who take a strange pleasure from it. But it was my first created spell, and I held it deeply to my heart.

Also, beasts that lack intelligence would be immune to this, as they have little concept of wrong and good. But the ill before me had some intelligence of wrong and good. So, it exploded into flames, shaking around from the huge amount of pain it felt. from every fish it had eaten, to every human it had killed, it felt it all, and the pain was hundreds of times worse thanks to the black flames.

"There is nothing wrong with hunting, but to hunt and kill for sport, losing the value of life... I gift to you death." I said walking forward as the black flames disappeared to my will. Yes, the flames now listen to me. Although all I could do was have them disappear and appear, this was still better than in the past when I couldn't even have them disappear.

I looked at the badly burnt Eel, it was dead, its soul burnt to ashes. Such an evil soul... I judged it not worthy of reincarnation.