The thick fog that the steam was forming was much denser than she had anticipated. The moment she had stepped into it, it had swallowed her whole. She couldn't see anything, her vision completely obscured. She held up her hand in front of her face and frowned when even that was hidden from her despite the meagre distance. The smell hit her a moment later. It was an unfamiliar scent, but strangely pleasant, yet at the same time a part of her rebelled against it, even if she could not say why. She hesitated to call it magical, even though it felt that way, but given that it was quite common knowledge that the teacher was a freak of nature since he never used magic, unlike virtually every other living creature. It was unnatural though and given the teacher's flair for drama and his other plentitude of unnatural abilities...

With every step she took she grew more hesitant as the fog became thicker. She had to push her way forward now, as if the steam itself was trying to keep her from advancing. She was vaguely aware of her teacher was waiting for her somewhere ahead. She could somehow feel his presence. She didn't doubt that it was his doing. He had been showing off similar, damnable tricks all day long. Probably with the intent of giving her some insight into what it meant to wield 'spirit', whatever that would turn out to be.Possibly something similar to magic, but yet vastly different if she had to guess.

As she took another step she let out a loud gasp, as the steam had suddenly become a physical barrier. A cloud that clung to her naked body and hindered her movement. It felt frightening. No longer was she just stepping through an inanimate mist of water vapour. It acted as if it was a living entity. It swirled around her, grabbed hold of her and tried pulling her deeper into itself. She struggled and managed to pull back a few steps, to where she knew it was safe. Except it was safe no longer. It lurched after her, grabbed hold of her once more and pulled her forward again. She resisted as best as she could. The touch was no longer pleasant. Instead, it felt offensive, dirty, touching her in all the right places to make her recall all the wrong memories.

She opened her mouth to scream and the mist rolled into her open orifice. It acted like a ball of cloth, muffling her shouts and keeping her quiet. She tried to pull her arms back, only to discover that the mist, which had been holding on to just her wrist before now was reaching down on the entire length of her forearm and pulling her in deeper, tolerating no resistance. She felt herself panic. First one part of her mind. Then another as the mist kept dragging her deeper into the unknown and she felt water hit her feet as the floor tilted downwards. With every step that she was dragged forward, the mist encased her further, growing ever more solid as it went, but never losing its disgusting feeling of being an unstable substance.

Within moments, it was wrapped tightly around her limbs, but tendrils of it started embracing the rest of her. Deeper into the water she was pulled and she tried biting into the steam blocking her mouth when the solid clouds reached her breasts, encasing those as well. Next to be covered was her nose. She could still breath, but that was the extent of her freedom of movement. Her eyes widened as a feeling of numbness was slowly stretching out from where the fog held her and she realised that it was slowly depriving her of all her senses. Somewhere in the back of her head, she felt a modicum of pride that it wasn't until she was numbed all the way up to her neck, while the steam started covering her ears, that the last part of her panicked as well.

She was about to accept her fate, immobilised and deprived of all her senses, when it all came to a sudden stop. The mist didn't withdraw, but it ceased being solid. Melena went from being completely encased to being fully free without any warning. She lost her footing and fell into the water. If it is water she thought to herself, rapidly resurfacing as she coughed loudly to clear her lungs, delighting in the noise she heard.

The liquid, as she no longer dared think of it as water, was impossible to see through, much akin to its vapourised cousin that was still swirling in the room. A pang of worry struck her when she remembered the lesson involving lungs and the effect gasses could have on them. She wished she had paid more attention to that class, because then she might have been able to put her worries as to whether the steam would slowly fill her lungs with water to rest.

When her teacher spoke, she jumped up and screamed, her mind redirecting its worries from drowning above the water to the very, very strange man in front of her.

"Did I not tell you to leave your mind bare?"

She stammered loose words, unable to calm down her frightened mind enough to form a coherent sentence.

"If you had discarded your worry and stopped focusing on everything else, you wouldn't have felt it when I used the steam to pull you in. Let alone have to drag you in while you choose to put up a fight instead."

That broke through her fear and her eyes widened in rage as pure anger set her blood aflame. "You!" she accused, pointing a finger out of habit even though she couldn't see where he was and was guessing for his location at best. "You did all that!"

"I did," came the far too smooth answer.

Life itself be damned, she could feel the smugness radiating from him. "Do you have any idea how that felt to me? What it reminded me of!" she shouted, taking a step forward and trying to use the way the water splashed to get an idea of where he was. Given how close his voice had sounded, he couldn't be that far off.

"I might have a suspicion what it reminded you of, yes." Again he spoke with that smarmy tone. Usually she translated it as confidence, but now it just further enraged her.

She half stepped, half swam through the water, getting closer to his voice. "You utter bastard! You don't know what it feels like! Being used as a toy! Not even being seen as a human being! Only existing to serve for someone's fucking pleasure!"

She jumped when she felt his large arms grab her from behind, only to freeze in place a moment later as she was instantly reminded how strong he was. They gently slid down from her shoulders, just aside her chest, over her belly, before the hands rested tenderly on her hips. She felt her teacher's chest press against her back and was surprised she didn't register the touch as repulsive. It was somehow... pleasant? she realised, taken off guard by that.

"Oh, I think I might know how that feels," he whispered into her ear, his voice laden with emotions she oculd not place. She felt her mind spin. His sudden appearance from behind her had been surprising enough, but combine it with his touch that was more visceral than anything else and he had sent the three parts of her mind spinning in a single act. Emotions warred for supremacy while her body felt the need to consistently point out that his touch felt incredibly pleasant in a myriad of ways.

Were his barriers down again and was he subtly influencing her? The lack of certainty further fuelled her anger and she moved her leg back, searching for his feet. When she found it, she raised her foot and brought her heel down onto his toes, as hard as she could manage, to which he reacted by lightening the hold Pulling herself loose, she struggled slightly to bring her hand up above the water. She turned around, somehow knew exactly where he was and brought her hand down with all the force she could muster, squarely in his face.

The next moment she launched herself at him the best she could, ignoring the stinging of her hand. Without hesitation she threw her arms and legs around him, clinging as tightly to him as her meagre strength allowed. She had tried to get high enough to properly kiss him on the lips, but the water had kept her from jumping that high and she had to settle for planting her lips in his neck, her thoughts completely overruled as the three fragments of her mind were carried along on her raging emotions.

When she felt the hands that she had shaken free a moment earlier land on her backside, she tightened her hold on him, using every ounce of strength she had to pull herself up. She made use of his arms as they slid upwards across her back, his fingers setting her body aflame as they progressed, to push herself further up. She felt a desperate heat building up inside her body as she neared his lips. A desire that was stronger than anything she had ever felt before ran from her head to her toes. It excited her, intoxicated her. She no longer cared whether this was his doing or not. All that mattered to her was that it wouldn't end! She'd beg him if she had to, just let it continue! To let it spiral further down, to let it escalate until she'd explode from passion! Never before had she had the chance to actually enjoy it, always having to obey, always having to provide!

Then his arms tightened around her back, his hands finally having reached her shoulders and she found herself pinned in place, causing her to howl with pure want, her nails digging into his skin. One of his hands remained in place as the other slid further upwards until it reached the back of her neck and grabbed hold of it, before forcing her to take her lips off his neck. She felt his lips near her ear —actually felt it!— and arched her back in ecstasy, pressing her breasts harder into his chest, further enhancing the pleasure she felt.

She became aware how his mouth opened, could make out the details on his lips, the line of his teeth and his tongue laying behind them without being able to see them and she ached for them to touch her, it didn't matter how!

Then he finally whispered to her.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The effect of those simple words was instant. Had she spend her entire life living in a desert only to be suddenly teleported to an icy wasteland, the shock could not have been greater. She lost all strength in her limbs and fell off him. He caught her, but even the return of his touch did not diminish the sudden loss and shock that was wrecking her body. It felt no longer pleasant and she tried to pull herself away from him.

He didn't approve of that.

Before she knew what was happening the mist started swirling around her again. It wasn't like earlier when it remained in place, only the solidity of it changing. Now it was actually swirling, like a great hurricane that raged all around her. It pulled on her hair and nearly tore her out of the teacher's arms. She could see again and what she saw terrified her. She was staring into his blood-red eyes from up close, his massive frame mere inches away from her. She saw anger and annoyance behind those eyes and his presence thundered around her like an apocalyptic storm. He assaulted her with it. His presence crashed against her fragments and the meagre defence they put up was overwhelmed in an instant. It was a sensation unlike anything she had ever witnessed. She couldn't even describe it, barely able to remain aware of how it overpowered her every sense. She felt how he reached into her mind and shut off every connection it had to her physical body, preventing her from drowning in the flood of sensations that he conjured deep within her. She used the freed up mental power to thicken her mental defences.

It immediately was proven to be a fruitless effort. He smashed through her barriers and filled every corner of her mind, her very best not even slowing him. She felt her fragments pull together in a far corner and put up a desperate, final resistance. Then that too was snuffed out.

"To start things off, I'd like you to know that nothing of all the things you did just now was because of my influence. Everything you felt, did, saw and believed was all of your own doing. The steam is made up with a lot of herbs and powders that strongly enhance any emotion roiling around in a person's head. There is a fair number of hallucinogens in there as well. Still, I didn't expect you to off on that tangent. Still, if you had listened to me and actually left your mind bare... Oh well, what's done is done."

His voice was inside of her and — hang on— Inside of her? Where was she anyway? For that matter, where was anything? Everything was... white? Black? What was going on?

"Aye, pretty confusing isn't it?" came his voice, forcing the colours to solidify into a pure white nothingness. "Welcome to the inside of your own mind. Don't worry if this place doesn't make sense, you'll get used to it as you spend more time here."

She tried to talk, then realised she lacked a mouth. Or a face. Or a body! Then she felt a stab of panic when she became aware that all of her senses weren't there! She still had an awareness, but she couldn't tie it down to anything. And where was his voice coming from and —

"Calm. Down."

It soothed her. It shouldn't have as she was still quite angry from the avalanche of emotions he had unleashed on her, which she only just now remembered, but it did and she realised, a tad late, that his voice had changed. Not the tone, not the words, just... something about it. Was that the spirit thing he mentioned earlier? Lord above, what was spirit that it required such a roundabout way of explaining?

"Don't try to talk. Think. I can hear you just fine. This is your mind, I merely invaded it, in order to make you calm down a bit and talk about spirit in a more efficient way. It's a rather complicated concept, as you have correctly guessed by now.

She felt torrents of emotions pour through her and she felt how he immediately intercepted them neutralised those feelings and reducing them to mere shadows of themselves, leaving her with nothing but pure intellect

.

"Is this what you meant earlier?" she guessed. "About abandoning all and leaving my mind free?"

"Correct. That's precisely it. No emotions, no feelings. Just you and your rational mind."

"Then why don't you use this from the start?" It was strange. With her emotions mostly out of the picture, it was so easy to think. She couldn't fragment her mind though, which was slightly unnerving as she couldn't fall back on that alien security that a fragmented mind brought.

"Your mind is fragmented," he interrupted. "It just doesn't feel that way in here because this is the sum of all your fragments, acting and thinking all at the same time in such close conjunction that it is impossible to tell them apart."

She saw him. Not with her eyes, but she saw him. Inaccurate description. She felt him? No, that was no good either. She felt? Heard? Smelled? Then he laughed, interrupting her train of though.

"Stop that. People have gone mad trying to describe how senses work in here. It's easier to accept that, or if you really insist on using a word that can actually be applied, then use lactiobe. Don't try to define things here. It doesn't work. Trust me, I would know."

"And what does lactiobe mean?"

He grinned. "Well trying to translate it really defeats the purpose of giving it a word in the first place."

"Oh," she said numbly. That made sense. She felt strangely stupid. Wait, he grinned. How did he grin?

"Basically our minds work a lot faster than our thoughts do. In the same way we often do things that we would struggle to describe. Try describing every step your body goes through when opening a door. Your mind makes your body do it, but try to make it a conscious action and you'll be at it for much longer. So when we're in here your conscious mind tries to make sense of it by creating images and feelings you can relate to and it does so instinctively. If we dealt in pure information the way our mind did, pretty much nobody would survive entering this state with their psyche intact. This is where the different parts of our conscious and unconscious mind meet and they're not mutually compatible, so they create this space as an intermediary. You'll automatically translate certain impulses, but the how of it will be different for each person and the one with the strongest mind usually ends up overruling certain parts of the other one's mind. It's why you can tell my facial expressions even if they don't exist on this level of existence as I'm pure thought and therefore very much lacking a face."

She pondered on that for a while and he gave her the time. It made sort of sense, but only in the way that everything else he had said made sort of sense so far. Which translated to her accepting that it was utterly beyond her current skill set, trusting her teacher to speak the truth, and moving on.

"To answer your earlier question," he interrupted her, "this is about the biggest invasion of privacy that you can imagine. For a mind as strong as mine? I see everything that's in here the moment I enter it."

She felt a strong blush. Apparently her emotions hadn't been numbed down that much. "Everything?" It wasn't a spoken word, but she felt how she struggled to utter it. Think it. Whatever! The part of her mind that she had assigned to be busy being smitten with him had been very active.

He brushed her concerns aside by simply moving on to a different subject and it brought her great relief. Now that she was fully sane again, she was taken aback just how strongly her urges and desire had been. Not unjustified, mind you. He was strong, smart, handsome, maybe a bit of a jerk —alright, a lot of a jerk— but he was kind in the end. Wealthy too. There were worse people to feel attracted to and fantasize about. And that a— no, no, no! She was doing it again! Dammit, didn't he say he had disabled her emotions?

"You came to that conclusion on your own. I never said I did. Besides, they're not disabled, merely numbed down."

Damn. So he heard that too.

"Emotions are pivotal," he continued, ignoring her. "They provide us with a drive after all and without that you'd be lost in thought. Quite literally when you're fooling about in the mindscape. You aren't nearly disciplined enough to come in here while maintaining your own psyche. Rely on emotions too much and they'll tear you apart in a heartbeat. Come in without and you'll fade away, stretched out over countless thoughts."

"Anyway, how about we return to the original topic at hand? You've given it a fair amount of thought. Your mind still works in its usual three-ways even if it feels like one, and with me being pretty much all over your mind, you've gleamed a fair bit from my own thoughts as well. Not consciously though. You're far too much of an unblooded welp to do so knowingly. The end result is the same though, the foundation of it all is now yours. So," he said, lacing his fingers together as he sat down in the empty air. "Tell me what you've concluded so far."

She sat up straighter. Or didn't. Mindscape, confusing place. Right, question. Answering it. "The spirit works as a way to use your mind as a weapon or tool. It lets you project your own thoughts towards the outside. Even influence physical things. It's how you punished Feng. You used his own mind against him. How... I don't quite fathom that, but I reckon you'll point out that it's a 'you'll learn it as you go' thing."

She felt him nod warmly at her, clearly impressed.

"And the reason you wait with this until people can split their mind in three parts is because that's the bare minimum needed to wield your mind that way. One part to function normally. One part to think. One part to project. And the reason you are so utterly confusing about all of this is to keep people from overthinking it, because overthinking it will make you realise that you can't ground this into the reality we... Into the reality I know. It doesn't make sense, but it's no less true for that. So you distract and annoy and dance around the subject and confuse us, but at the same time you're prodding us towards the starting line all the same. Because that's where I'm at now, isn't it? The very beginning of it all?"

He whistled as he hopped back to his feet, applauding her with a slightly maniacal glint in his eyes. "See, if I could just invade the mind of all my prospective students like that and have a proper heart to heart, it'd make my life so much easier! And putting up with me knowing your every secret is a pretty small price to pay in exchange I reckon."

She tilted her head, not quite agreeing with that.

.He turned towards her, suddenly looking and feeling incredibly thoughtful, as if he was pondering a difficult question. His eyes turned clear again and his face took on a thoughtful, serious look. "Do you really think I have a sweet ass?" he asked.

She felt oh so glad when she managed to smack him both planes of existance at the same time.