The courtyard before the Tower had grown quiet since Aeon's descent.
Word had spread that the First Scion of the White Palace had personally entered the Second Floor of the Tower of Existence and emerged intact — more than intact. He had spoken little afterward, but those who knew how to listen could hear what he did not say: the Tower worked. It reflected. It judged. And it changed those who dared enter.
And now, another would try.
His name was Lu Fei — a disciple of the Eastern Fractal School of Sword Dao, a minor branch sect that traced a dusty lineage back to one of the ancient sword-bearing dynasties. He was not a core scion, not a famed prodigy or heaven-ordained physique. But he had something far more dangerous than birthright.
He had resolve.
Aeon watched from the balcony of the observation chamber, surrounded by projection mirrors and monitors woven from reflective essence. His hands were clasped behind his back, sleeves fluttering in the slow wind generated by the Tower's humming structure.
Lady Huayin stood beside him.
"Why him?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly as Lu Fei stepped to the gate.
"He requested it."
"That's it?"
"He was the only one who didn't ask if he could pass. He only asked what might be changed if he did."
Huayin tilted her head. "Interesting."
Below, Lu Fei bowed once before the Tower. No flourish. No prayer. Just a motion of recognition. And then he pressed his palm to the glyph at the gate.
"Name," the Tower intoned.
"Lu Fei."
"Burden."
A pause. Then:
"My burden is that I survived."
The door opened.
The Tower did not take Lu Fei to a desert, nor a mirrorfield. It gave him something far more cruel.
It gave him home.
He stood at the entrance of a great temple — the last remnant of his destroyed sect.
The Fractal Hall of Endless Return.
But this one… was whole.
The banners still flew, untouched by fire. The training fields were filled with disciples practicing the thousandfold steps of Infinite Sword Logic. He heard laughter. The clang of sparring blades. The scent of rain on wood.
For a moment, he thought the Tower had malfunctioned.
But then he saw them.
His friends. His teachers. His brother. His sister.
All of them alive.
All of them exactly as they had been before the massacre.
And all of them looked at him — with warmth. With love.
"Lu Fei! Back from patrol already?" called Elder Nian, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Come spar! You still owe me a match!" grinned little Jun, sword too large for his frame.
"Mother's making pepper stew," said his sister, Lu Yao. "She'll want help in the kitchen."
Lu Fei trembled.
This isn't real. This isn't real.
He stepped forward. The illusion did not crack.
Instead, it invited him deeper.
Lu Fei walked the temple in silence. Everyone greeted him as if nothing had happened. No one questioned the scar that split his eyebrow. No one asked why his eyes looked like storm-dragons had slept behind them.
He entered the central hall.
There, his master — Daoist Gentle Wind, the man who had taught him everything — stood meditating before a circular altar filled with sand and stone carvings.
Lu Fei swallowed.
"Master."
The man opened his eyes and smiled.
"My foolish disciple. Still so grim. Sit."
He did.
They meditated in silence for a long time.
Then the master spoke again.
"Why do you walk like a man carrying swords in his lungs?"
Lu Fei flinched.
"I—"
"You look at us as if we are already ghosts. You speak as if your throat remembers a scream it did not finish."
The air shimmered slightly. The illusion — no, the projection — pulsed with deeper rhythm. It was no longer simply recreating the past. It was engaging him.
Testing him.
"This place… it's gone," Lu Fei whispered. "You're all dead. They burned the temple. I watched them gut you like animals."
His master frowned.
"And yet here we are."
"You're not real."
"And you are?"
Lu Fei looked down at his hands.
"I don't know anymore."
The master rose and touched his shoulder.
"Then come. Let's remind you."
The sky grew darker as the projection began to turn.
The temple flickered.
The faces of the disciples began to blur.
Voices repeated themselves in loops. Laughing too long. Holding smiles too wide.
And then — silence.
All at once.
He turned and found himself alone.
No — not alone.
Surrounded.
A circle of figures emerged from the dark.
All of them were Lu Fei.
One was young and naïve, blade shining and eyes bright.
One was bloodied, screaming, blade embedded in a comrade's chest.
One was smiling — softly, cruelly — as fire raged behind him.
And one knelt in chains, whispering, "I should have died instead."
The Tower does not test the past, Aeon murmured from the observation room, voice low. It tests the relationship to the past.
Lady Huayin nodded slowly.
"He's entering the conflict phase."
"Watch the edges of the projection. They're… blurring."
"That's not a flaw," she said. "That's emotion."
Back inside the illusion, the Lu Feis had drawn their swords.
Only the real one remained unarmed.
The bloodied Lu Fei stepped forward, blade dragging.
"You hesitated. They died."
"I was fourteen."
"You were ready. And you froze."
The smiling Lu Fei spoke next.
"But you enjoyed it, later. After the second kill. After the third."
"No."
"Yes. Don't lie. We remember. The blade gives you peace because it simplifies things. You turned guilt into momentum."
Lu Fei staggered back.
"I had to. I couldn't carry all of it."
The chained Lu Fei whispered:
"You shouldn't have survived. You were never the best. You were just the last."
Lu Fei fell to his knees.
Then the original temple reappeared.
His sister stood in the doorway.
She looked at him — and said nothing.
Only held out a sword.
And smiled.
But it was not her smile.
It was the Tower's.
Lu Fei stood.
He reached for the blade.
It was heavier than it should have been.
Made of glass.
Or was it memory?
He walked forward, back into the circle of his mirrored selves.
And without a word, he sheathed the blade.
"I don't need to prove I was right."
He looked at each version of himself.
"I don't need to kill you to be me. I need to remember you. All of you."
He walked to the bloodied self.
Kneeling, he placed a hand on the figure's shoulder.
"You did what you had to. And I still love you."
The smile faltered.
The chained one looked up.
Lu Fei nodded.
"You're wrong. I should have survived. Because I'm still building."
One by one, the figures dissolved.
And at last, his sister spoke.
"Then go. And carry us well."
Lu Fei collapsed just outside the Tower's gate as it slid open.
He was drenched in sweat. His clothes were scorched — though no fire had touched them. His hands trembled.
Aeon moved to meet him personally.
He knelt.
Lu Fei did not speak for a long time.
When he did, his voice was low.
"That wasn't a test."
"No," Aeon said. "It was a reflection."
"It didn't ask if I was strong. It asked if I was whole."
"And?"
Lu Fei smiled — ragged, honest.
"I'm getting there."
Aeon helped him to his feet.
Behind them, the Tower shimmered.
On the stone wall of the Second Floor, a sigil glowed — etched by the Tower itself, not by hand. It was the symbol of a sword crossing its reflection.
It remembers those who pass.
Huayin approached.
"The Tower is learning. It's adapting to each climber."
Aeon nodded.
"It feels."
"That was your intention?"
"No," he said. "That was its choice."
Later that night, Aeon stood before the architects and builders in the Circle of Glyphs.
He unrolled a new scroll.
"The Third Floor will not merely reflect the self," he said. "It will test the cost of staying true to it."
A murmur passed through the room.
"Some will fail."
"They must."
He looked up.
Eyes filled with that same still-fire glow from the desert vision.
"The Tower is not a monument to strength. It is a crucible of continuity."
"And we build on."