Under different circumstances, making a single brick would not have seemed like much of a feat. As evidenced by my slowly tapering sobs and the influx of system notifications, though, this was a bit of a special case.

  While a quick skim confirmed that the latter messages spiraled slightly out of control, the first was much closer to what I’d expect.

  You have learned a new skill: Mental Modification

  Though the mind naturally changes with time and experience, you have discovered a more hands-on approach to altering it. This skill encompasses the ability to modify, restructure, and empower your mind. Note, while some modifications may be reversible or temporary, many can be permanent, and mistakes while using this skill can come with dire consequences for the user’s mind. Caution is advised during all modifications.

  More than the unshapely block in my hands, this was proof that I was on the right track. Fixing myself wouldn’t necessarily be easy, and as the skill description advised, the attempt could be harmful in and of itself. Somehow, though, I doubted anything I could do would leave me off worse than I already was.

  From there, things became a bit stranger.

  Note: User’s mind has partially merged with their soul.

  User modified the structure of a Legendary mental domain with direct access to the soul.

  User has a soul-bound tool which can influence and reshape the user’s mind and soul.

  Skill Mental Modification has been consumed to form a new skill.

  Congratulations! You have learned a new Legendary skill.

  For a moment, I panicked, thinking that the system had stripped me of my ability to fix my mind. As it turned out, the truth was the exact opposite.

  You have learned a new skill: Soul Forging

  The average sentient being lives and dies without any real awareness of their soul. Rare are the beings who can sense their soul, and rarer yet are those who can interact with it in any way.

  You have gone one step further, permanently modifying your very being in a fundamental way. With the soul’s notoriety for its resilient and unyielding nature, this is a remarkable achievement, often -- though incorrectly -- considered to be the domain of gods.

  This skill encompasses any alteration of the user’s soul, taking entirely different shapes depending on the specifics of the skill-holder. Based on your method of acquisition, this skill will enhance your ability to build structures in your fused mental-soul domain. Further levels will boost the effects of your buildings, allow you to build more complex structures, enhance your bound soul tool, and grant you more direct access to the underpinnings of your soul.

  Due to your mind’s fusion with your soul and this skill’s consumption of Mental Modification, this skill will level from and encompass all mental modifications, regardless of how much they directly impact your soul.

  The description was far longer than usual, and the achievement was in many ways momentous. Literally so, as the final notification was an actual achievement.

  Achievement Unlocked: Bearer of Legends (Repeatable)

  While most can only dream of gaining a singular Legendary skill, you’ve acquired multiple. Your legend grows long and storied.

  +50 Prestige (+25 Prestige for future Legendary skills)

  At the same time, after confirming that my plan might work, the text felt like a distraction. Perhaps I should have felt some level of hesitance after reading all the bits about irreversibly modifying my fundamental being, but that could wait until I was safe.

  When the last of my tears dried, I swiped the messages away, my hammer already reigniting with flames. With an alacrity born of both desperation and salvation, I attacked the nearest pile of mental fragments, intent on giving my mind a makeover.

  All right. I can’t rebuild the palace. Or the dungeon. And frankly, I’m not sure they would help. As much as I eventually hoped to reshape my mind into something much tidier, right now, the priority was dealing with the reaper.

  Preferably, I would have built some incredible weapon that could pierce his barrier and mortally wound him, but that was out of the question. So far, the best I’d done was a lumpy block. Siege weaponry was out of my league.

  For now, pretty much all I can do is a wall and maybe a small building if I can figure out roofing. The original citadel walls had been a reflection of my Mental Resistance. With any luck, bringing them back would allow the skill to operate at its full strength. In the best-case scenario, that would entirely repel the reaper, but if it didn’t, maybe the extra resistance could still relieve some of the pressure on my mind.

  And if that didn’t work, I’d just need to get more creative. For now, though, it was wall-building time.

  After five days of sloth, dejection, and defeatism, my body rejoiced at the prospect of having something to do. With a single-minded focus bordering on obsession, I took to my task with a great fervor, repurposing the piles of mental refuse into as many bricks as I could make.

  Soon, dozens of blackish purple blocks sat side by side, but despite my productivity, I was dissatisfied. Both in speed and quality, I felt I was lacking. Dexterity and Perception went a long way towards making each brick uniform, but I was no smith, and it showed. Worried that I’d have trouble arranging the bricks into a functioning wall if they didn’t fit together nicely, I reluctantly took a brief break to search for a solution.

  I need a mold, I realized. The real question was what I could make it out of. Initially, I figured making one from the mental fragments wouldn’t work, as it would melt at the same temperature as my bricks.

  Maybe I could carve a rectangle into the floor? I was pretty sure that gouging out the foundation of my mind was a bad idea, but I’d already proven that the ground could repair itself over time, at least to some extent.

  Still, that felt a bit extreme. Was it possible to alter the material I was working with? Hex certainly had -- the Stygian Citadel made good use of dark mana, which meant it was possible to incorporate non-mental mana types into my mind. How exactly did I go about doing it, though?

  I spent some time running a few brief experiments. Just charging my hammer with the relevant mana didn’t seem to do anything, but I supposed that made sense. If it did, I would have expected my existing blocks to be imbued with fire mana. None of my standard spells worked here, so I couldn’t summon pebbles or saltwater or weigh the blocks down with Encumber.

  In the end, the only thing I could think to do was add mana directly, which meant relying on my External Intrinsic Mana Manipulation. My low skill level made me skeptical of my chances, but the next time I forged a brick, I kept one hand close to the “metal,” piercing it with tiny threads of earth mana. The mana heeded my will far more readily than I would have imagined, successfully sinking into the red-hot substance.

  On reflection, I wondered if technically I was using my higher-leveled Advanced Internal Mana Manipulation instead. Technically, my mind was still inside of me, right? That meant I wasn’t actually manipulating any mana outside my body.

  Over time, the metal began to take on a ruddy brownish tone, mixing with and, in some cases, overriding the existing purples and blacks. Despite the flames from the hammer constantly heating the material up, it began to lose its red glow, growing harder to manipulate. By the end of the process, the brick I created was essentially stone.

  Soul Forging has reached level 2!

  Earning a level in a Legendary skill that quickly made me wonder if I’d just done something larger than I’d realized. And maybe I had: I only had a limited amount of mental fragments, and I wasn’t sure there was a way to undo what I’d just done. I supposed, in some sense, I’d just irrevocably transformed a part of my mind and soul into stone.

  It was an interesting avenue to explore, and I was curious to see what would happen with the rest of my mana types, but in that light, I was wary of playing around too much.

  From there, it took a bit longer to make my mold. Without a great option for a chisel, I was forced to get creative, first making the very best, flattest brick I could. Reheating it, I slowly added a bit of earth mana until it was still mostly metal but could withstand heat better than before. From there, I heated up a fresh batch of mental metal and plunged my perfect brick in.

  After adding enough earth mana to the outer casing to turn it entirely to stone, I tapped its back a few times with my hammer, ejecting the original brick. Its removal left a perfect brick-shaped depression in the stone, and voila, my mold was complete.

  I spent a bit more time creating a crude stone crucible, but after that, things sped up considerably. The fragments went into the crucible where they were melted. The melted metal went into the mold. Out came another brick.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Freed of my need to think or be creative, I sank back into my earlier obsessive state. It would take quite the number of bricks to form a decent-sized wall, and the days rolled on as I devoted myself to the repetitive, mind-numbing work. When I had enough, I laid down the first layer of my wall, basing its size off of my memories of the original fortress.

  Construction has reached level 12!

  Without grout, I instead opted to cheaply weld the blocks together by resting my hammer on their shared edges and briefly enhancing it with fire mana. The result would make any true welder weep, and with enough force, I could still pull the two halves apart, but for now, it would do.

  Increasingly, as the time passed, I grew convinced that the reaper must have been keeping me alive much like the mind spawn were. Why, I couldn’t say. Maybe to wait until I cracked? If I died, I was pretty sure my mind would too, which meant it wouldn’t get anything from me. That, more than anything else, was a convincing reason not to let me go to waste.

  Regardless, I no longer was too concerned about dying of thirst or starvation or even sleep deprivation. If it could happen, it would have happened by now.

  The other alternative was that I’d had my subjective sense of time sped up, and all of these days were passing in the blink of an eye in the real world. I would have entertained that notion for longer were it not for the compelling evidence to the contrary. While I didn’t have any system clock, there was one way the system could let me know that time had passed.

  It happened after what felt like weeks of work. Bricks were piled high. The wall was almost taller than me. As far as I was concerned, today was my final day of labor before I considered the structure complete.

  My system notifications had largely died down by this point, the routine task not enough to level either Soul Forging or Construction again. Rather unexpectedly, though, it piped back up once more before I was done.

  Age has reached 28!

  Still stuck in something of a work trance, it took me a while before it registered. I reread the single line of text over and over, mutely, until it finally hit me.

  “Oh. It’s my birthday.”

  I supposed it made sense. Verin had had hers, as had Cal. How long did that make it since we’d gotten stuck here? My last birthday had been at the end of the first semester, and everything had gone to shit maybe a month before the end of the second. I still hadn’t figured out if the system was counting my age in standard Earth years or not, but the difference between year lengths wasn’t so large as to matter much.

  So about eight months? Maybe nine? While not quite there yet, we were slowly making our way towards our dungeon anniversary.

  I wonder who’s had it worse -- me or Cal? Her last birthday had been spent running from monsters of conjured darkness, and this time around, she’d turned 23 while in a temporary coma after getting cursed. By comparison, one year prior, I’d gained the very Stygian Citadel skill I was presently stuck in, resulting in me screaming for three days straight as I relived my most traumatic experiences. Now, I was trapped in my own mind, possibly forever, by a horrific monster.

  Yeah, probably me. But it could be a good bonding topic. As long as we don’t make this into a recurring thing.

  But then again, my birthday wasn’t done yet, and there was still plenty of time for things to get better.

  In fact, it only took me a few more hours before I finished my birthday gift to myself. The final brick fell into place, I joined it to its brothers, and that was that.

  While the verbal confirmation wasn’t entirely necessary for the system, I gave it nonetheless: “I’m done.” I held my breath for a moment, worried that I’d done all of this for nothing, but my notifications stirred to life directly afterwards.

  Structure finalized. Sufficient similarity to the “Citadel Walls” blueprint encoded in your Stygian Citadel skill. Would you like to apply this schematic?

  I wasn’t entirely sure what that would do, but if I recalled from regular construction, buildings weren’t recognized by the system unless you had a schematic for them. If my mind operated on similar principles, then I absolutely wanted to use a blueprint. As such, I confirmed.

  You have constructed Citadel Walls!

  The quality of the building is: Poor.

  Quality Bonuses:

  Initiate Construction skill - 1%

  Initiate Mental Magic skill - 1%

  Apprentice Dark Magic skill - 3%

  Vertical Bonus (Working on own mind) - 3%

  Augment of Active Involvement (Mental Resistance) - 15%

  Total Bonus: 23%

  Building Quality bumped up from a base of Poor to Passable.

  No extra bonuses are applied for constructing a Passable structure.

  Construction has reached level 13!

  Construction has reached level 14!

  Construction has reached level 15!

  Soul Forging has reached level 3!

  The harsh grading of my efforts was a bit of a let down, but it was hard to argue. Compared to the original walls, mine were a cheap copy, and that was being generous. Still, it was a wall, and it counted. Bolstered by the existing schematic somehow already contained within my skill, the wall subtly shifted, both in shape and in color, becoming a bit closer to what I recalled.

  Citadel Walls reactivated. Due to your damaged mind and the quality of your walls, a portion of your Mental Resistance and Soul Resistance are still partially weakened, but the bulk of their functionality has been restored.

  Note, the overall Stygian Citadel skill is still restricted from leveling until more repairs are completed, though some skill effects are still active.

  Current effects:

  Shrouded Barrier - Your mind is hidden from prying eyes.

  Citadel Walls - Strengthens your mental and soul resistances.

  Fused Soul - 10% of your Mental Resistance is added to your Soul Resistance and vice versa.

  (Deactivated) Mindling Defenders - Aids in active defense of your mind.

  (Deactivated) Dungeon of Tragedies - Locks away your trauma to visit at your leisure.

  Instantly, the pressure on my mind practically disappeared, rebuffed by the walls surrounding me. Having gotten used to it by now, I hadn’t even noticed it until it departed, leaving me feeling unexpectedly spry.

  With proof of concept, there were all sorts of routes I could take now. If I forged a bunch of vaguely humanoid bodies, could I reactivate my Mindling Defenders? If I made a passable palace, would the overall skill reactivate and level up? Both were possibly good options for the future, but I was hoping for something far simpler and far more immediate.

  Climbing atop one of the mounds of mental shards I hadn’t used for construction, I got enough height to leap over the walls. A hint of the reaper’s pressure bore down on me, but relative to before, it was laughable.

  Much like last time, the force intensified with each step I took towards the dome. Unlike last time, I was more than a match for it. Halfway there, then three fourths, I fought against the reaper’s insistent pushing.

  I had little doubt that it would have easily rebuffed me had I been invading its mind, but that was exactly the opposite of what I was doing. It was invading mine. All I was trying to do was walk to the edge of my own mental territory, so to speak, which let my resistances do the heavy lifting.

  Even those would have normally failed given the reaper’s level in Mental Magic, but with my augments, boons, and other small boosts I’d picked up along the way, my Mental Resistance was set up to hit far above its weight class. Though the final steps proved to be a struggle, at last, I arrived at the reaper’s barrier.

  “Not to jinx it, but I really hope this works.” With a thought, my hammer reverted to its original state, growing even as I fed it every bit of mental mana I could muster. For good measure, I threw in a little bit of death mana, too. Thankfully, the reaper didn’t seem to notice my preparations. Whether that was because it wasn’t watching, or because of the space’s Stygian Shroud hiding me from sight, I wasn’t sure, but I’d take it either way.

  When at last the hammer was filled with as much mana as it could possibly bear, it was time. Feeling the moment deserved at least some sort of remark, I kept it nice and short.

  “Knock, knock.”

  With all my Strength, the war hammer smashed into the dome, completely atomizing everything it came into contact with.

  All at once, the reaper began to frantically vibrate, tearing up the fabric of the mental space around it as it erratically pulsed in pain and rage. For all that I’d damaged it, there were no signs that my attack was enough.

  But then again, that hadn’t been the point.

  Even now, the barrier was starting to reform, the space I’d carved out slowly filling in. But for the moment, there was a gap, and much as I’d hoped, that gap let me do something rather important.

  No longer entirely blocked off, I escaped from my mental space.

  Sensation crashed into me.

  Even knowing that I only had a brief window before the reaper likely sealed me in my mind once more, I couldn’t help but waste a second getting my bearings. On shaky limbs which hadn’t moved in weeks, I rose from the ground. I didn’t need to search for my adversary: He was directly in front of me.

  In one smooth motion, I lifted my arms above my head and summoned my hammer, overloading it with mana while swinging it down.

  It was funny, in a way. While I was trapped in my mind, the reaper was nigh unbeatable. The very best I’d been able to do was defend myself and proverbially stub its toe now and then.

  Here, outside of its domain, however, it was an entirely separate matter.

  The head of the hammer connected with its wispy shell. With next to no resistance, it continued on. And with a great finality -- splat. In one fell swoop, the fearsome reaper was no more.

  You have defeated a Mind Reaper! +1280xp

  And with that last bit of experience, I received one more birthday gift, long overdue from the work I’d been putting in.

  Congratulations! You have reached level 17!

  Rather than read through my notifications, I first bent down to tend to Cal and Verin, relieved to find them still alive and breathing. As quickly as I could, I popped every last mind spawn that clung to them. When their cries summoned more, I popped those too, until there were either none left, or simply none dumb enough to try me. Neither immediately awoke, but from what I’d read, they eventually should, now that the spawns were gone.

  And from there, I just took a moment. Flopped to the ground. Spread my limbs out. And despite it all, I began to laugh.

  “What a fucking awful time.” Filled with giant holes from being bitten by a hydra. Pumped full of poison. Attacked by a mind reaper. Trapped in my own mind. Forced into weeks of manual labor with nothing else to do.

  Truly, by any stretch of the imagination and by any standard of measurement, the last few weeks had sucked. Massively, wildly, epicly, sucked.

  And yet.

  I survived. I’d won! I was alive, and I’d discovered a way to heal my mind with my own two hands. Cal and Verin were safe. We had a chest full of loot waiting for us in my storage. I’d leveled. And even more than that, the first of the four mana collection sites was only a stone’s throw away.

  For once, it felt like things were finally looking up.

  As I lay there laughing to myself, one thought rose to the surface.

  Yeah. All in all, maybe this birthday won’t be so bad after all.

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