Mental Entity

Biodata

Power Progression

Luo Ruzhuo’s Mental Entity

Luo Xi’s Mental Entity

Nature and Development

Awakening and Maturation

• Spiritual power normally awakens around age twelve, when the brain finishes developing; a Mental Entity then hatches 2.
• Instrument testing determines whether the awakened spiritual power has a destructive or healing tendency, establishing differentiation as a sentinel or guide 2.
• Mental Entities usually mature gradually before adulthood, while their owners’ Mental Domains form 2.
• The Federation distributes specially formulated growth potions to assist development and stabilize Mental Domains 2.
• Failure to hatch, or incomplete development that prevents a Mental Domain from forming, is collectively called Mental Entity underdevelopment 2.
• A tester estimates that Luo Ruzhuo’s juvenile naked sea butterfly should mature within a month with growth solution; an adult normally measures approximately three to five centimeters 8.

Physical Form and Behavior

• Manifested entities can be touched. The prison guard’s mouse feels soft, furry, and almost indistinguishable from a real animal 1.
• Entities can appear outside their owners and return inside them, including retreating inward to defend against mental intrusion 1.
• Their behavior can resemble their owners’ temperament: Ping Tian and his honey badger are both notably hostile and defiant 15.
• They can also express emotions independently of an owner’s immediate intentions. Chiya’s lion approaches Luo Ruzhuo affectionately despite his attempt to restrain it 13.
• Luo Ruzhuo’s sea angel communicates attachment, insists on being released, and comforts both Zhu Rongtian and her scorpion 21 49.

Connection to Mental Domains

• A sentinel’s Mental Domain is described as a tangible manifestation of the Mental Entity, commonly taking the form of a place where the sentinel feels safe 4.
• Entities can move within those domains. Heisha Draven’s black-footed cat hunts mice in his desert, while Lin Sheng’s crane carries Luo Ruzhuo through his snowy mountains 4 5.
• The mental barrier is another manifestation of the Mental Entity within the domain; ordinary barriers vary in strength and thickness 28.

Abilities and Functions

Mental Defense

Mental Entities can respond directly to attacks on their owners’ minds 1.

• The prison guard’s entity retreats into him to confront Luo Ruzhuo’s invading psychic power 1.
• Luo Ruzhuo’s immature sea butterfly flares with light when contamination draws her into distressing memories, helping her regain awareness 24.
• These defenses are not absolute: Luo Ruzhuo separates the guard from his entity, leaving him unable to sense it 1.

Purification and Compatibility

Mental Entities participate in establishing contact between guides and sentinels 6 15.

• Touching Ping Tian’s honey badger allows Luo Ruzhuo’s spiritual power to enter his Mental Domain 15.
• High compatibility makes crossing mental barriers and purifying contamination easier 6.
• Low compatibility causes entities to repel one another. Forced purification can collapse a sentinel’s Mental Domain or cause backlash against the guide 6.
• Small size can be advantageous: Anna envies Luo Ruzhuo’s tiny entity because it should make passing through sentinels’ barriers easier 8.
• An underdeveloped entity does not entirely prevent treatment. A highly compatible guide’s presence alone can reduce contamination inside a sentinel’s domain 4.
• Guide Element, a glandular secretion serving as a physical medium for mental links, can soothe a sentinel’s entity and purify contamination without rank restrictions 15.

Combat and Scouting

Mental Entities provide specialized battlefield capabilities 24 26.

• Xiao Xue’s snowy owl supports reconnaissance through its excellent eyesight and searches for a contaminant’s core 24 26.
• Cang Yun’s goshawk attacks with its talons, exploiting openings created by her gunfire 26.
• You Ling’s peregrine falcon supports the goshawk, while Wu Lu’s secretary bird covers the rear 24.
• Mental Entities possess a natural advantage against contaminants, but powerful contaminants can restrain and corrupt them 26.

Spirit Body Manifestation

Spirit Body Manifestation turns a Mental Entity into a weapon and is described as an ability available only to sentinels of SS rank or above 28.

• Liu Qing’s black swan becomes a long black saber with a vermilion cutting edge 28.
• He uses the manifested weapon to expose and destroy an S-rank contaminant’s core 28.
• The saber also serves as a physical weapon when he kills the assassin attacking Luo Ruzhuo 30.

Growth Resources

Contamination and Injury

• Contamination can erode either the Mental Domain or the entity itself. Heisha Draven’s desert is contaminated while his cat remains healthy; Luo Xi’s training room remains intact while shadowy figures attack his Siamese cat 11 12.
• Raising an entity’s rank through repeated confrontations with contamination carries a cost: Luo Xi’s cat becomes the most severely eroded part of his domain 13.
• Injury to a Mental Entity directly affects its sentinel. Injury to the sentinel, in turn, worsens the entity’s contamination 27.
• Cang Yun’s simultaneous physical injury and goshawk contamination rapidly increase her aberration; purification restores both her condition and the bird’s ability to fight 26 27.
• Contamination-related aberration can give owners features resembling their entities, including Ping Tian’s honey-badger tail and Cang Yun’s feathers 15 27.
• A guide can normally recall a contaminated entity to their own domain to soothe it. Zhu Rongtian’s failure to protect her eroding scorpion alerts Luo Ruzhuo that her behavior is abnormal 43.

Artificial Alteration and Control

Ankang Pharmaceuticals’ Chips

Suppression of Offensive-Type Guides

• According to Zhu Rongtian, every commercially available Mental Entity growth potion contains added energy that can provoke entities into going berserk, making offensive-type guides easier to identify 49.
• The Black Tower imprisons detected offensive-type guides for life under the stated purpose of “intervention and correction” 49.
• Prisoners’ entities undergo repeated removal of claws, fangs, and other offensive traits; the removed tissue is sent to laboratories 48.
• These traits regrow after the guides recover mental power, leading to repeated mutilation rather than successful alteration 48.
• Zhu Rongtian’s scorpion has its venom sac removed on her first day in prison 48.
• Some prisoners die by suicide or destroy their own Mental Domains after enduring the process 48.

Known Mental Entities

Exceptional Cases

• Shared entities: Liu Qing and Liu Sui are described as the only twins in the world capable of sharing both a Mental Domain and a Mental Entity 31.
• Two-layer barrier: Observing Liu Qing’s unusual defenses, Luo Ruzhuo speculates that more than one Mental Entity could explain his two mental barriers. At that point, this is her hypothesis rather than a confirmed general rule 28.
• Species is not a fixed ceiling: Luo Xi’s artificially bred Siamese cat attracts ridicule, but its advancement from C-rank to B-rank demonstrates that an entity can grow stronger through later effort 11 13.