BXBX NOVEL Chapter 269: Bound Beast
Chapter 269: Bound Beast
"What's visualization?" Diana asked instead of answering Sadou's question.
"Visualization is... Come with me..."
Sadou exited the psychic world as he spoke, and Diana immediately followed suit.
In the real world, the two of them were situated in an underground chamber.
"Come with me."
Sadou led Diana deeper into the underground chamber before arriving at a door.
The room that the door was attached to was clearly no ordinary room. Both the door and the walls were constructed from metal, and Sadou's fingerprints and pupils both had to be scanned before entry was granted.
"This is my visualization chamber. Visualization requires an extremely high level of concentration, so you need to take measures not to be disrupted during the process."
After the metal doors opened, Sadou made his way into the room while wearing a set of strange Tom and Jerry pajamas.
Inside was an enormous portrait of a mage wearing a Taoist robe.
Around the portrait were some old photographs, videotapes, and a collection of strange spell-casting instruments.
"What are... these things for? And who's that... in the portrait?"
In the real world, Diana's stutter had become even worse. The psychological trauma sustained by psychic mutants always reflected itself in the real world.
"He is the number one eastern mage of the contemporary era, Lin Ying."
"Is he... a real... person?"
Sadou could see that Diana was struggling with her speech impediment, so he took over the conversation and provided her with a thorough explanation of everything that they were about to discuss.
"He isn't a real person. He's a fictitious character, and he's my visualization subject. In reality, the vast majority of visualization subjects employed by adapters are fictitious entities. In fact, most visualization subjects are deities. The concept of visualization was invented by the founder of the Psychic Church. At the time, he was the most powerful adapter in the world, wielding extraordinary psychic power. He... Forget it, let's not stray off-topic.
“After visualization was invented, it was discovered that it could be used as a method of advancement once an adapter reached a certain level of power. As I'm sure you're aware, adapters can only grow more powerful by enhancing their psychic power. Confidence, courage, mental endurance, intelligence... All of these mental qualities contribute to the power of one's psychic body.
"I can tell that you're a psychic mutant, so for you, all types of negative emotions like anger and lust can also enhance the power of your psychic body. However, regardless of whether you derive your power from rage or confidence, after reaching a certain threshold, it becomes quite difficult to continue to enhance your powers through those means.
“After all, one's confidence is limited, and there's also a limit to how furious a person can become. Once that threshold is reached, visualization is often used as a means for someone to further refine their psychic body."
Sadou turned to point at the portrait in the room, then continued, "Visualization sounds like a very profound and mysterious concept, but essentially, it's just a process of self-hypnotism. You imagine yourself as a certain powerful entity with similar properties to yourself, and through visualization, you hypnotize yourself into obtaining some of the abilities possessed by your visualization subject.
“This is not just a very effective mental training method for enhancing one's psychic body, but also for enhancing the confidence of a wide variety of athletes. If they can use visualization effectively, they often perform better at their sport. However, the rewards that ordinary people reap from visualization naturally won't be as significant as what adapters can stand to gain. I..."
"Can... Yamata no Orochi... be visualized?" Diana interjected.
"Yes, Yamata no Orochi is also an entity that can be visualized. I hear that you've participated in the Shadow City battle royale before. Do you know why the psychic bodies of many powerful adapters are related to mythical beings, such as Medusa and Yamata no Orochi? Also, why does it seem like certain psychic bodies stem from the same origins, like those three monks, or Medusa's team?"
Diana was just about to reply, but she was cut off by Sadou.
"It's because all of them use the same training system and the same visualization subject. The method of visualization is a secret among adapters, but among high-end adapters, it can only really be considered to be an open secret, at best. Aside from rare cases like yourself, the majority of powerful adapters have their own psychic inheritances."
"Then what... should I do now?"
"Your top priority right now is to select a visualization subject. Theoretically speaking, the more powerful your visualization subject, the higher your ceiling will be. In visualization, the idea is that you can become whoever you want to be, as long as certain requirements are met, so it's natural to try and visualize the most powerful subject possible. However, you have to ensure that you have a high level of compatibility with your visualization subject."
"What does... that mean?"
"How do I explain this? I'll use you as an example. Right now, you've completely mutated, and your heart is full of rage. If you choose an entity like the kind and all-forgiving bodhisattva as your visualization subject, you most likely won't be able to make any progress even if you visualize conscientiously every day for the rest of your life. In fact, due to how conflicted such a visualization subject is with your current mental state, it could even make you weaker.
“Hence, it's very important for you to choose the right visualization subject, one that is ideally highly compatible with both your mental state and your psychic body. I chose Mage Lin Ying, you have to choose your own subject. That is always the best way to go.
“However, I do have a suggestion. There should be some very powerful dragons in western mythology that are renowned for their fury, so I think that's a direction that's worth exploring for you. Take your time and have a good think, I'm going to go have some sweets."
Sadou promptly departed from the visualization chamber in his pajamas as he spoke.
……
While Diana was selecting a visualization subject, Adam and Shae had already tracked down Dwight's anomaly.
Never had this process been this smooth!
They had managed to find the anomaly in a very short time, and Dwight's personality was a major factor in why the process had gone so smoothly.
It's so good to finally have an anomaly that just charges out like a brainless wild beast instead of hiding and running all the time!
Not long after they entered the psychic world, they found the psychic module in which Dwight had committed the bar shooting, and the beastly anomaly had been right behind him.
In contrast with some of the cunning anomalies that Adam had dealt with in the past, this anomaly was an embodiment of all of the violent tendencies stemming from Dwight's bipolar disorder. It was forcibly controlled by being bound behind Dwight by countless psychic threads, but whenever Dwight flew into a rage, those threads would completely vanish, unleashing the beastly anomaly that they bound.
"What an unfortunate story. His condition could've been easily cured if he had gone to an adapter psychotherapist earlier," Adam remarked. "This anomaly doesn't look very strong. I think you can handle it on your own, Shae. It'll be a good training exercise."