Within the massive Temple of Origin, the Temple Guard had a sour expression on his face. What he had feared had already happened.
"That guy!" he said lividly. Annoyed at the trial guardian's impulsiveness,
"Although that guy is the guardian of intellect, he sure doesn't think before he acts."
The Temple Guard was helpless as although he had massive authority within the temple, the trial realms were entirely out of his arms. There was nothing he could do to stop the occurrences within the trial realm. To prevent the worst outcome he could only pray that the prodigy could work out his own miracles.
*******************************************************
Alex was dumbfounded. Observing the strange surroundings and not knowing what to do he picked a random corridor and walked down it in his dumbfounded state. Only to waste hours in it to end up in a dead end.
Stunned he stared at the cave wall before him before retracing his steps back to the larger cavern.
Looking down at the various passageways, he could only rely on his gut feelings as all his understanding of the caves had been reset.
And so Alex began to go through the 8 corridors one after the other until he made it to a small cavern. Frustrated at the clear lack of progress, he retraced his steps however the passageway back had turned into a dead end.
Now trapped in the small cavern, he was forced to compare the passageways thoroughly. Tracing the path of access and the differences between the passageways.
This brought him once again to notice the unique nature of the glyphs and like a magnet, the thoughts that were stolen from his mind were reformed within his mind and he quickly began to apply them.
Knowing that the thought-stealing winds would be back at any time, he made gaining more info from the glyphs his priority. He plotted hard, tracking the very nature of each glyph and trying to understand the true meaning of the glyph directly.
After hours of memorising and exploring each pathway, Alex escaped the cave and advanced safely to the next one.
Using only the light from the glowing crystals on the walls of the caves, he explored and made many memories. The number of corridors increased exponentially from eighteen to thirty-six and from fifty-two to one hundred and four.
Finally, after multiple rounds and various sets of glyphs had been cracked, Alex stood in the largest cavern he had ever seen so far.
Standing at above thirty meters in height, the cavern was filled with as many as one hundred and eighty passageways. Some went upwards into the ceiling of the cavern, some spread out like the tracks of a railway station.
All of them were likely passageways that would lead to the next floor of the labyrinth. Alex took a deep breath looking at the massive tunnel system before him that resembled the inside of a bee hive, with grids in every direction.
Alex began from the corridors on the top and carved the glyphs into his memory preparing to observe when the next changes would happen and to his dismay, after eight hours the glyphs changed.
'I got you now,' Alex thought and he at inhuman speed began to trace each glyph to its origin tracking down their results tenaciously. Soon the glyphs seemed to give up their secrets entirely as he began to deduce the outcomes of each glyph based on experience without needing to get to the end of the tunnel.
Step by step he memorised the glyphs as he anticipated the arrival of the most likely glyph to send him out of the first floor soon a cryptic glyph manifested before him leading him up into the final corridor of the first floor.
At this moment a mist-cloaked crimson figure looked down from its perch high up above the clouds and appeared to smile from within the mist in derision as it looked down through layers of clouds.
"Just because that incompetent prick Babyface could not protect its Origin treasure, does not mean you can waltz into my trial realm without facing any consequences."
After observing the clouds below its feet, as though peering into the heart of something far below, it stretched out its palm.
From the tip of its finger, a cut appeared and out came a tiny droplet of what seemed to be blood. However, this 'blood' was repulsed by the clouds and even the light in the sky.
Slowly as though defying the rules of acceleration due to gravity, it dropped down and down, vanishing beneath the clouds devouring all around it as it passed down.
"Let's see how you handle this." The crimson figure chuckled and crossed its hands in satisfaction.
And the next moment, far below, within what looked like a massive conical planet, a relentless devouring force appeared. Growing steadily aiming to engulf all the matter within its immediate surroundings.
Drawn especially to the crystal lights around it, it grew larger. Multiplying like ants, growing on their own like wildfires. Engulfing all the structures and turning them into nothingness, it grew faster and faster. Drawing step by step to creep closer and engulf Alex.
At this moment Alex had risen up onto the next floor, the second floor of the labyrinth. Having decrypted the final glyphs on the first floor and navigated through them, he had obtained full mastery of the first stage of the glyphs, allowing him to ascend into the higher space of the second floor.
"Well this is new," he said looking at the passageway before him that now had a slightly stronger encryption glyph. However, due to his comparatively little experience with working on such glyphs, Alex had to analyse them all over again unable to translate their outcomes again
Sighing, he stood up from the tile turned to examine the two tunnels before him and began to contemplate his next step.
He ventured into the leftmost pathway going down the corridor while examining them for any changes.
Thankfully there were none yet, simply ending at a dead end. However, Alex was stunned as walking back he discovered that the path branched out towards the left, heading in a different direction than before.
Intrigued Alex went down the intersection and found himself coming out of the right tunnel into the first cavern he entered previously.
"Interesting that the passages intersect with each other at varying points."
Looking at the familiar cavern thoughts and deductions filled his mind.
Memorising the glyphs again, he continued down the path and within the same hour, he saw the next intersection. This time leading him out into the second cavern which now had four corridors.
Taking into consideration that some of these tunnels may intersect at some point as well as result in deadends he began by memorizing these grade 2 glyphs and making out their relations and similarities with the grade 1 glyphs.
Quickly he resumed exploring the passageways till he found the next cavern, but he did not press on and decided to wait for the glyphs to swap again. After they did it was three hours later. Adding on the time it took him to record and explore each glyph the rate of swapping had increased by one hour.
Alex took note of this so as not to be stuck in the tunnels when they did. After getting the timing for swapping, he continued his research into the outcomes of the new glyphs, gaining more grade two glyphs for reference.
On investigating the last glyph, he noticed that he came out into the cavern that had sixteen tunnels instead of that which had eight, skipping over one stage of caverns.
"How complex." Alex stood within the passageway and contemplated taking the shortcut. However, he was hesitant as jumping the steps may cause him more difficulty decrypting the grade two glyphs.
"Should I carry on in this corridor knowing that I would miss the glyphs of the third stage, or retrace my steps and wait until the tunnels swap back so I can get to the third stage?"
Alex contemplated briefly for a while as he stood still while making his decision. He was about to step back into the previous passageway. However, the moment he tried to return, there was a sudden mysterious wind that sneakily blew past him.
Drawing all his thoughts and deductions away, leaving him stunned and confused once again.
Staring into space for a while, Alex walked into the 16 passage cavern and again picked a random corridor. The effects of the Thought Stilling Winds were immense, taking away all thoughts at that moment whether vital or redundant and stilling the mind instantly.
Alex walked down this random pathway and met an intersection midway. Following this new path, he continued for hours his thoughts still stilled by the wind, not thinking of anything until suddenly. The pathway was gone giving way to a massive chasm with its bottom nowhere in sight.