CHAPTER 260: CHAMBER OF UNBECOMING

Professor Seren was a leading figure in Chromomancy. As a result, what Eleanor learned from her was the strategic application of colour in combat. Chromomancy transforms the battlefield from a physical plane into a psychological landscape. To defeat an opponent, a true expert of the mental arts can orchestrate perception, emotion, and even physiology through a carefully composed chromatic assault.

The initial phase of chromatic combat is Sensory Disruption and Overload. An opponent reliant on sharp senses and steady focus is vulnerable to a chaotic palette. A skilled practitioner of the mental arts can project a rapid, strobing sequence of clashing hues... Neon Pink against Acid Green, or Electric Orange against Vivid Violet. This creates immediate visual dissonance, causing eye strain, headaches, and disorientation. The brain, overwhelmed by conflicting signals, struggles to process environmental data, slowing reaction times and breaking concentration.

Once the opponent’s senses are compromised, the next phase is Emotional and Psychological Manipulation. Here, the expert becomes a painter of mood, crafting an emotional state that serves their strategy.

Surprisingly, the Department of Mental Arts produces sensory bombs with these colour combinations in collaboration with the Department of Alchemy. These bombs bear unique names... ’Dissonance Prime’ for the Pink-Green and Orange-Violet variants.

The next is ’Red Frenzy’. This bomb floods an opponent’s perception with a pulsating, saturated crimson that induces a state of uncontrollable rage. While red increases raw physical power, it does so at the cost of rational thought. An enraged opponent becomes predictable, reckless, and easy to ensnare... they lunge with brute force but lack finesse, leaving themselves open to counterattack.

’Yellow Panic’ creates a sudden wash of harsh, acidic lemon light that erodes confidence and induces anxiety. Yellow, in its negative aspect, is associated with fear, caution, and deceit. An opponent bathed in this light may second-guess every action, grow hesitant, and feel a creeping sense of impending doom... faltering precisely when they can least afford to.

’Blue Despair’ surrounds an opponent with a deep, cold navy blue that drains their will to fight. The colour evokes feelings of isolation, sadness, and futility. An opponent who believes the battle is already lost will never commit fully to their strikes... their spirit broken long before their body is touched.

’Violet Muddle’ creates a field of deep royal purple around the opponent and targets higher cognitive functions. Purple’s association with introspection and the mystical can be weaponised to force an opponent into a state of over-analysis. They become ensnared within their own mind, questioning every move, paralysed by indecision... effectively trapped in a mental stasis.

To prevent self-inflicted harm from colour exposure, students of the Department of Mental Arts must train in the Chamber of Unbecoming... a virtual chamber comprising four progressive stages. Each stage lasts for half an hour before advancing to the next.

Stage one is Sensory Distortion. The grey walls begin to pulse with a faint, arrhythmic light. A low-frequency hum rises, felt in the bones more than heard by the ears. The floor subtly shifts, creating the unsettling sensation of walking on gelatine. The air fluctuates rapidly between heat and cold.

This stage severs the student’s basic connection to physical reality. It targets the vestibular system, inducing primal disorientation and forcing the student to expend mental energy simply to remain upright and coherent.

Stage two is Chromatic Emotional Warfare. A wave of seething crimson floods the room, accompanied by a psychic scream of pure rage, goading the student into lashing out in futile anger. The hue then shifts to a claustrophobic, despairing navy blue, pressing a suffocating sense of isolation and hopelessness... whispering that resistance is meaningless. Finally comes a nauseating, anxious lemon yellow that scrambles coherent thought and breeds paranoia.

This stage triggers and amplifies negative emotions, forcing the student to spend immense reserves of willpower on emotional regulation rather than on constructing defensive mental walls.

Stage three is Memory and Identity Erosion. The room now projects illusions and psychic whispers. The student might see the faces of loved ones, distorted by disappointment. They might relive their greatest failures in vivid, merciless detail. The walls themselves may whisper their deepest insecurities in a voice that sounds unmistakably their own, like... "You don’t belong here." "You are weak." "They’re all laughing at you."

This stage attacks the very core of the student’s psyche... their sense of self and worth. Defending against it requires the deepest reserves of mental fortitude. It is the most psychologically draining phase of all.

The fourth and final stage is the Void of Unbeing. If a student endures the first three phases, the Chamber unleashes its ultimate test. All sensory input ceases... no light, no sound, no temperature, no feeling of the floor beneath their feet. It becomes a perfect sensory vacuum. Deprived of all external stimuli, the mind turns inward in a terrifying way, forced to confront the sheer emptiness of its own existence. The primal fear of non-being becomes almost unbearable.

This stage tests the student’s ability to create stability from within. Can they hold onto their sense of self when there is literally nothing else? Can they generate their own light, their own thoughts, their own reality in the void? This is the purest trial of mental strength.

The process operates on the principle of progressive overload, much like strengthening a muscle. The Chamber deliberately drains a student’s mental energy to its absolute limit. A student may end the process at any point, or, if the AI senses that they can no longer endure it, they are automatically ejected from the pod.

Once outside, they recover through rest and meditation. During this period, the mind repairs itself... rebuilding its capacity slightly larger than before, preparing for the next onslaught. Repeated exposure to emotional and psychological assault forms what the professors call mental calluses. The student becomes increasingly resilient to rage, despair, and fear... not because they cease to feel them, but because they learn to observe those emotions without being ruled by them.

The ultimate goal of training within the Chamber of Unbecoming is to reach a state where the outer world... with all its chaos, pain, and sensory noise becomes no more disturbing or distracting to the practitioner of the mental arts than a ripple upon still water.

After several days of relentless practice, Eleanor’s current limit remains at Stage Two, Chromatic Emotional Warfare. She passes the first stage with ease, but by the second, her mental energy is completely spent.

Professor Seren was now teaching Eleanor the discipline of Mind Magic, a branch of Mental Arts devoted to the manipulation of thoughts, emotions, memories, senses, and perceptions. These spells targeted the mind directly, shaping reality through will alone.

Unlike most forms of magic, Mind Magic placed far greater emphasis on casting precision than on energy reserves. Thus, even an ascendant of modest power could wield formidable mental spells, provided their mind was strong enough. However, to cast such magic required an exceptional mental constitution. Only those possessing a mind-related bloodline, or born with innate mental strength, could hope to study this demanding art. Its use was also limited, for it proved effective only against intelligent beings. As a result, true specialists in Mind Magic were exceedingly rare.

Elemental practitioners, by contrast, regarded Mind Magic with open hostility. A powerful elemental could still fall to a simple mental spell if their mind lacked strength. This threat bred resentment and fear among those who prided themselves on raw elemental might.

The academy itself operated under a three-tiered system... Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced terms. The Primary term prepared cadets for Ascendance... the rite through which they became ascendant. Once ascended, they could continue their studies in the Intermediate and Advanced terms. All Advanced term cadets were granted access to the Chamber of Unbecoming, to strengthen their mental fortitude. However, they were denied the privilege of learning actual spells or accessing departmental facilities reserved for full students of the Mental Arts.

Through her bloodline inheritance, Eleanor already possessed three innate spells. Two were active abilities... Mental Lock and Memory Erasure, which required deliberate casting. The third was passive... Clarity Veil, a protective field granting limited immunity to illusion, mind control, and memory tampering.

According to Professor Seren, all her mental spells would grow stronger as her mind did. She had already begun teaching Eleanor the fundamentals of basic mental incantations. Yet, to use any of them effectively, Eleanor first had to achieve Ascendance. Still, she persisted in studying these intricate spells, knowing that every art within the realm of the mind demanded complexity far beyond the physical disciplines.

She was studying several new spells under the guidance of the professor. One of these was ’Empathy’, the ability to sense the emotions of a mind unshielded against such intrusion. Another was ’Danger Sense’: if someone looked at her with murderous intent, she would receive a sudden intuition to avoid the threat. According to the professor, this skill would eventually merge with and strengthen her passive ability, Predator’s Awareness, once she could cast it proficiently.

She was also learning ’Telepathy’, a skill that would grant her the ability to communicate silently with another practitioner of the Mental Arts. She could also project her thoughts into the minds of nearby beings, though conversation was impossible if the other party did not possess the same skill.

Professor Seren explained that Eleanor would acquire several other abilities in the future. Mind Reading would allow her to access the thoughts of sentient beings. Suggestion would enable her to subtly encourage a being to act in a certain way... not against their will, but not entirely in accordance with it either. Illusion would give her the power to manipulate what an opponent perceived. However, she could only learn these skills once she became an ascendant and completed level four in the Chamber of Unbecoming.