Taking a deep breath as he entered the next hallway, Alex had only one goal in mind: to be faster.
He could still feel a strange sense of urgency when he moved into the next hallway.
It seemed he was not expected to clear the previous challenge at the trial.
The very fact that he had seemed to trigger the trial to make the tests harder.
Taking a look in the hallway Alex noticed to his surprise, that the doorways were still two in number, again just like in the previous hallway. However, when he walked closer to inspect them he noticed the hexes were not just on separate doors but on both doors, there were four hexes each.
A scary notion entered his mind taking him down from his high horse.
It was clear that, unlike the labyrinth with open passageways and glyphs, this challenge was more direct in its sinister nature.
"I'll likely need to activate all the hexes on each doorway before I can open it".
The sheer lack of progress in the face of the unknown danger was one that would make anyone anxious to make fast progress on the path forward.
Taking this into account Alex restrained his impulsive and rash thoughts in an instant.
The level of control he had over his thoughts was astonishing, to say the least.
Taking a careful look at each glyph on the first door he noticed that among the four of them, two of them looked really familiar, while the other two although bearing a slight resemblance to the others were clearly entirely different from them.
Taking his time, Alex inspected the hexes on both doors and noticed there were some traces of similarity between all of them.
However, unlike glyphs even though all the hexes looked the same they could potentially affect entirely different Frequencies of Origin.
With that in mind, Alex began with those that appeared most familiar and tried to resonate with them.
Training his mind to quickly concentrate on the individual hex he wanted to sense
He pressed his intent onto the surface of the hex and instantly captured the free particles around it.
Applying his full strength he began to sense the frequency the particles produced and using his wild imagination aided by the high level of control he had over his mind, Alex tried to draw a direct connection from the sphere of intent he manifested to assist him in resonating with the particles.
This connection was like a simple cup telephone, he drew a thin string formed from his intent extending from his conscious mind all the way to the resonance sphere.
However, he failed due to the particles floating freely in the air between him and the target, Alex noticed that when his string of will touched the nearby particles, it would be immediately weighed down by them and due to their density in space around him Alex's string could barely extend 3 centimetres from his forehead.
Stunned at the sudden crash landing of the string on his skin, Alex's resonance sphere was broken.
However, though he failed on his first attempt an idea began to form within his mind.
Alex returned his attention to the previous method of sensing the frequencies of origin with the intent sphere, while he straightened out the kinks in his new idea.
Although it was slow progress it was enough to train his intent and strengthen his interaction with the sands of reality.
With his foundation in the previous hallway, Alex soon began to resonate with the particles around the hex.
Although these were basic hexes with very little complexity their mysterious nature was not to be underestimated.
While training, Alex began resonating with the hex.
He still failed to notice that on the membrane encasing his Sea of Consciousness, a shadow had manifested into a corporeal seal at a slightly lower position than the first hex seal.
With the appearance of this seal the speed at which Alex began resonating with this hex instantly sped up and a short while later, the hex on the door and the seal on the sea membrane flashed with a white light.
The hex was activated.
Alex closed his eyes for a moment and a strange expression crossed his face.
He had understood the function of that hex.
It was a basic strength hex and it allowed whoever it was applied to with the aid of very little force to enhance their physical strength by a small margin in exchange.
It seemed to be a more direct enhancement than the previous Strengthen hex.
With this, he could understand where the feeling of familiarity came from.
With that in mind, Alex moved on to the next hex on the same door.
It is of worthy note that Alex had only spent a total of 30 minutes to resonate with the basic strength hex.
Alex was training hard on clearing each hallway in as little time as possible.
Meanwhile, far down below Alex, the all-devouring darkness released into the tower was climbing higher and higher, drawing its menacing aura up towards the tower's higher floors and steadily creeping closer to the unsuspecting prey ahead.
The area consumed by the darkness seemed unharmed, however, the ever-present aura of vitality in the tower was completely eradicated leaving nothing but eerie silence.
Alex knew that sharpening the axe would not delay the work of chopping down the tree as he steadily enhanced his knowledge of hexes, and built up his foundation in them by reinforcing and training his intent.
Alex quickly built a steady intent sphere he could control even without needing to maintain 100% concentration.
Slowly, Alex completed the hexes on the first door while training his control of intent.
The moment the door opened Alex came to the clear realization that intent was to a hex master what a brush was to a painter. They could not exist without each other.
Alex drawing on this understanding faced the hexes on the second door with a new perspective.
Focusing on the first hex with the intent sphere he gathered all his strength into his intent.
And while he captured the rhythm of the particles, Alex began to change the shape of his intent sphere elongating the sphere in a single direction towards his forehead and trying to link the sphere to his mind to achieve instant resonance.
Due to the single-minded method of shaping the sphere without breaking the rhythm, Alex needed to exert a colossal amount of effort with his mind, thereby straining his body.
His facial veins began throbbing visibly, while beads of sweat streamed down his brow. Slowly, the sphere elongated considerably growing into a tube shape in Alex's sight.
While his intent was in this shape, the frequency he sensed became even clearer echoing loudly in his mind and the speed of his resonance increased.
However, Alex's intent was on the verge of shattering under the pressure from the surrounding free particles between the resonating particles along the way to his body.
Slowing down his progress, Alex continued to temper his intent against the free particles taking it slowly and moving forward slightly once the tube was stabilized.
With the resonance being completed under such a strenuous training pattern.
Alex closed his eyes again to recover his strength and will as he digested the meaning of the first hex on the second door.
Sloth- a basic negative hex that with a little amount of force can moderately reduce the speed of whatever it was applied to.
Shock filled Alex's mind as he thought about the implications of this.
He finally knew why hex masters were so highly respected.
As no matter how weak they were, they could easily defeat any other experts with a minimal amount of force through the use of hexes.
However unknown to Alex due to his inexperience, not many hex masters had grasped the frequency of origin for a vast range of hexes.
And the vast majority of them only had mastery of basic hexes of one branch.
The tower was really a fortuitous opportunity for him.
Moving on to the next hex, Alex continued to train his mental intent while taking his time to resonate with the Frequency of Origin of the hex.
Slowly, the rate of completion picked up again and the more the intent resonated with the various hexes the easier it became to resonate with the next ones.
Drawing inspiration from his previous attempt at creating a string for the intent to connect directly to his mind, Alex tried to narrow and solidify the tube-shaped intent and draw it further closer to his mind.
With that in mind, the sphere instantly disappeared and Alex's intent shape became similar to a glass rod elongating towards his forehead.
The resonance within the rod became more solid both in feeling and nature.
Meanwhile, on the membrane of his Sea of consciousness, multiple shadows appeared and vanished as he resonated with each unique hex. They appeared in all directions around it wrapping up the membrane like an arcane sphere, even as it remained floating within his mind.