Waking up was a rather uncomfortable ordeal this morning. Ryuu felt the same splitting headache he did, when he first arrived in this world. Getting himself in a meditative position he found himself in his mindspace.
Going into the library in his mindpalace, he could see it was a mess. Shelves were mostly destroyed, books and pages were laying everywhere. The only good saving grace is that nothing seems to be damaged or missing. It's just chaotic in here.
It also explains his enormous headache. For the past ten years Ryuu made it his duty to maintain a clean and organised mind, even before his ritual. Now for the first time in years, there is no order or structure to his thoughts and memories leading to his discomfort.
Knowing the task at hand would be a tedious and arduous one he sighed and thought, 'maybe there is a way to make this easier'.
With enough control and knowledge one can easily become a god in their own mindscape. Given Ryuu's unrelented effort in his studies, he does have enough theoretical knowledge to do more advanced stuff than building inorganic defenses.
His idea was to basically use the Shadow Clone jutsu in his mind and creating a permanent librarian to keep this from happening again. What he didn't realise is, that the technique he's about to attempt is elsewhere known as 'mind partitioning'.
By splitting your mind and into two equal parts and healing both of them back to their full state, you essentially gain a second "core" or "cpu" for your brain. The process is a rather delicate one, after all messing with one's mind will always lead to permanent issues if you aren't careful enough.
Feeling his headache growing Ryuu didn't waste anymore time. Making the clone seal with his hands he resolutely said: [Shadow Clone].
What followed was the release of white smoke, a puff and the worst pain he has every experienced. It was also the first time in his many years that Ryuu found himself shrieking and rolling down the ground uncontrollably.
Due to the pain he didn't realize the changes happening around him. His mindscape was shaking as if an earthquake was hitting it. His mindpalace was also taking damage due to the shaking.
It was then that the seal he placed onto himself during the mind cleansing ritual opened itself up. The energy that was then realised was trying to help the process of splitting. Whatever would be left would then be used to help healing the damage.
Sadly all of this did nothing to soothe the pain he was going through. The process of splitting the mind itself was a rather fast one due to the mental image he always assosicates with the shadow clone: imbuing it with part of his consciousness.
The issue stems from the fact that this one was a permanent imbuing. The pain itself was comparable to having a limb suddenly cut off.
While all of this seemed to be going on for an eternity, in reality it hasn't even been ten minutes since he woke up. In order to protect itself from going insane, the mind decided to kick out Ryuu making him fall unconcious onto his bed.
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"I'm an idiot, a fool, f*cking moron," Ryuu kept on mummering. After waking up after God knows how long he came to the realisation of just how reckless he was.
Partioning his mind was definitely on his agenda, but not this early. It was only dumb luck that things worked out the way they did.
He could still feel the pain vividely but at the same time he felt the soothing of the sealed energy that is currently nourishing his mind. He could feel his rudementary second partiton or "concsiousness" starting to clear out some of the mess in the library.
The only problem was the damage to the mindscape itself. It wasn't going to fix itself and Ryuu wouldn't be able to fix it overnight. Thankfully the damage done to the mindscape itself could be healed through natural resources. There was no need to fear any consequences unlike with the mind iself.
All in all though Ryuu managed to pull of something incredible with nothing more than dumb luck which made him realise once more that he's a shitty "isekai mc".
Jokes aside, he took a few deep breathes and tried to communicate with his clone in the manor. Luckily for him it was still there making Ryuu sigh in relief. He was worried that whatever process he was going through would've put him out of it for a long time.
Serafall and his mother would've definitely blown a gasket if he was gone for too long. They have long since become accostumed to the presence of the clone and the absence of Ryuu, but that didn't mean they were happy with it.
He had to promise them that the main body would be present whenever they invited Ryuu for tea. And God help him if he tried sending a clone. Serafall made it her mission to "freeze first, ask later".
Since Ryuu didn't want to be frozen he'd dodge, but the clone wasn't so lucky. Just thinking back at the first and only time this happened makes a shiver run down his spine.
Since his newly born second "core" was doing a cleanup of his Mindpalace, Ryuu decided on how to accelerate the healing of his mindscape. The only problem is the required materials weren't something he could acquire on his own, he'd need Serafall's help which in turn would mean telling her the truth about what he just did.
Sadly there was no other way and all he could do was pray she wouldn't tell on him. He started dragging his exhausted self towards Serafall's office, making sure to be as stealthily as possible.
After knocking he received permission to come one. He saw an exhausted Serafall dealing with a shit ton of paperwork. He decided not to hurry her and silently wait for her to finish. After twenty minutes she eventually looked up to see who it was. Her eyes seemed to light up and she tackeled him with a beaming smile, "Ryuu-tan!"
This in turn made Ryuu smile wryly. He knew that Serafall's cheerful behavior wasn't faked or altered by her previous experiences in the war.
"M'lad-," before he could finish Serafall cut him off. With a pout she demanded, "call me Sera-tan!"
This in turn made Ryuu sigh in exhaustion. He really didn't have the mental capacity to deal with his demanding master. "Sera-tan," he said with a smile that seemed to twitch from time to time.
Feeling as though she just won something Serafall gave him a smug smile. "What brings you here, Ryuu-tan," she asked with a curious expression. She had no delusion that this was a courtesy visit.
While Ryuu never shied away from interacting with other's neither did he take the initative. The only exception would be him needing something, making him seem rather shameless from time to time. Serafall knew he wasn't trying to be malicious or manipulative behaving this way.
He had a goal and was giving it his all. Until he reached it everything else would play second fiddle in his life.
She looked in his eyes and immediately saw the exhaustion and pain making turning her smile upside down. It wasn't the first time he appeared like this before her so she quickly asked, "what was it this time? What do you need?"
Serafall didn't like seeing Ryuu in pain and therefore took the initative to help him. But make no mistake, Serafall was not happy right now. And once Ryuu was back at a hundred she would make sure to punish him for his recklessness.
Ryuu knew all of this so he just gave her a awkward smile and gave her a list with things he'd need to fully recover. Serafall just rolled her eyes and mummered, "what a demanding little servant."
Giving the list a quick glance she saw that most of the things written on it deal with injuries to the mind. This made her gaze sharpen and Ryuu flinch.
"Ryuu-tan, just what did you do this time," she ask-, no demanded, with a very sweet smile on her face. It was at this moment that Ryuu knew, he f*cked up big time.