Ch11. Magics of the Mind

A month passed since Tony arrived in Kamar Taj and he already had to return home.

At least, his month was quite productive though he couldn't believe how bothersome abracadabra was.

Just creating a portal with the help of a device took him two days! He felt inadequate looking at all the people around him who just conjured portals on spot without breaking a sweat so he decided to bury his nose into the book describing how to do so.

Fortunately, he connected the dots after a few hours of studying it and found out what he was doing wrong. It wasn't particularly hard to form a portal after that and Tony felt a bit dumb that it took him so long.

So... yeah, magic was apparently not his forte.

At least it came naturally after he finally found out how to do it. He even tried to replicate the feat and form a second portal but no such luck. Even after a week of on and off attempts, Tony only managed to create a second portal as big as his torso.

That's where he decided that his abysmal talent in magic will need more practice but he didn't have the time for that now.

What changed was that after his first week, Pepper called him after she and Happy returned from their vacation and found the house empty and her employer who was supposed to be quietly and obediently staying at home was away.

Needless to say, Tony had to weather through hours of Pepper screaming into the phone. Heck, even the other sorcerer apprentices were looking at him weird after that day!

She was like a mum that did her best to embarrass her kid during a parents' meeting in school!

It took Tony hours to persuade Pepper everything was okay and he just decided to go on a holiday somewhere she would be unable to find him.

Women...

Sure, he escaped kidnappers who held him a prisoner for three whole months just a few days ago but was him disappearing again really something that would draw such as strong reaction?

In the end, he did as any man would when dealing with a wrathful woman and... sincerely admitted his mistake.

That at least calmed her a bit before he pissed her off again when he told her to take the rest of the month off too because he wouldn't be returning for some weeks yet.

After several usual demands of telling her where he was in first angry, then worried, and lastly pleading voice, Tony genuinely felt like a first-grade asshole and spent some more time persuading Pepper he was REALLY fine and that no, he would not be telling her where he was nor was she allowed to come looking for him.

It took calling Happy with his secondary phone and explaining to him in a man-to-man conversation that Tony needed some time alone for himself so he should take Pepper and enjoy their paid month off.

Tony was not sure if Happy understood him correctly... because he had a gnawing bad feeling that Happy heard something like, 'I need time to get laid with as many women as possible for my head to be set straight and am too embarrassed to tell that to Pepper!', rather than what Tony was really telling him. But he couldn't just go and tell the guy, 'Hey! I need time to learn magic!', could he now?

No matter what Happy understood or not, Tony bought himself until the end of the month until concerned Pepper mother hen started hounding him again. Which meant, he had three weeks and he intended to make use of them the best he could.

Unfortunately, that meant the end of his experimentation with portals.

These following weeks Tony spent on something that he felt he really needed. Namely, mental barriers.

His little run-in with Wanda showed him how dangerous magics that affected the mind could be and he did not want to feel like that ever again. He scoured the Kamar Taj's library for any mention of anything that could shield his mind from being influenced by others and fortunately for him, there was an abundance of such knowledge.

And alongside it, were also techniques that would make his mind work more efficiently which was a very welcome surprise for Tony. He knew he was a genius of the millennium but he was not arrogant enough to say no to something that could make his mind work better.

These techniques kind of reminded him of Occlumency from the Harry Potter series except there was no 'discipline your mind Potter' in the instructions nor did it require a dungeon bat with a crooked nose to rape your mind.

In fact, mental barriers and magics to improve mental functions were two different things but could be studied together because there were enough similarities.

Tony first created a Mind Palace for himself. It was nothing extraordinary at first. Just his mansion in Malibu where he placed his memories deep underground where JARVIS's real servers were placed in the real world. This was the organized and focused part of his mind. The core of it. The part that needed to be accessed if someone wanted to control or influence his mind.

Hiding it underground was such a cliche but Tony this was just a start for Tony and as much as he didn't like it, he had to start slow and small like anyone else.

He then started creating decoy memories all over his mind in visible places that were easily accessible to anyone who decided to pay him a visit. Nothing too dangerous.

Tony even asked The Ancient One, or as he liked to call her, Tao, to try his defenses... which he admitted might have been a bit of an overkill for him but he at least made her blush.

She told him that placing the memories of his sexual exploits as decoys was a good idea because it would force the mind reader to look through them all-

"And God was there a lot of them. I had no idea the human body could bend that way..." She muttered in a quiet and slightly embarrassed voice Tony barely managed to hear.

-before anyone wanting to read his mind could access the core of Tony's mind.

Sadly, Tao found his core all too fast. Tony's basic mind protections were not enough and she managed to get to it under ten seconds flat after she was done with rewatching Tony's sexual exploits. Apparently, she could have skipped them just as easily but she wanted Tony to learn a lesson that even an amateur still could get access to his mind core right now.

Tony wasn't sure he believed her reasons for looking through all that mental porn though...

Fortunately, it was not all for naught. She, with a mysteriously mischievous smile, gave Tony two books.

The first one was 'Reality of Mind.' and it described ways to create fake memories and make them seem real for the most part but the real treasure trove was the knowledge of how to force the mind invader to relive the defender's memories from an angle the defender wanted.

For example, if the defender was ever tortured, he could make the invader feel and relive the torture as he shifted through these memories. Or, if the defender ever tortured someone, he could create fake memories that would fit the role of the guy who was tortured and once someone invaded, the defender could just shove him into said role, making him feel the torture.

Now, the second part was way harder and would take a lot of time to accomplish but Tony was determined to create fake memories for all the girls he screwed in the past no matter how embarrassing it would be for him. Especially because these fake memories would not have any effect on his mind whatsoever and it was perfectly safe.

Anyone who wanted to mind-rape him can't really complain about getting fucked in his mind...

A brief glance at Tao's expression and Tony knew they were on the same page.

Normally, Tony would have some reservations about such a thing but he was fed up with mind readers. He decided on a brutal no-mercy policy when it came to people who invaded his mind without asking for permission first.

The second book was called 'Mind Fortress' and contained knowledge about advanced mind protections. It was an interesting book but its value was more in the basics it described that could be later on developed as the reader wished.

Tony appreciated being given this book. Unlike the generalized mind protections described in most books in the Kamar Taj's library, this book held a massive potential for flexibility. Tony never really intended to use the generalized protections and was slowly working on improving them... he was an inventor at his core, after all... so getting a book that would help him and show him how others have done it in the past was an immense help.

At the end of his month, Tony had passable mind barriers for a beginner, according to Tao, and his mind became two times as efficient as before thanks to the enhancements of mind magics.

He even gained very minor emphatic abilities so that was nice! Even though he usually didn't use them, finding them uncomfortable.