Part I: In the Quiet Before the Foundation
The Tower stood still.
Three floors now rose above the land like an obsidian spear aimed at the heavens — each floor a reflection, a crucible, a mirror of the soul. From a distance, it looked almost peaceful. To the trained eye, however, it shimmered with tension — like a breath held in a battlefield before the first blow.
Aeon stood atop the unfinished structure, robes fluttering beneath a soft morning wind. He had not moved in hours.
To the artisans below, it looked like meditation. But it wasn't.
It was listening.
Not with ears — but with meaning. Listening to the third floor below, which still echoed with the lives of those who failed, and those who emerged changed. Listening to the faint remnants of choices made in desperation, virtue, or selfishness.
He heard them all.
The tower did not forget.
And neither did he.
The Need for the Fourth
"Survival," Aeon murmured, eyes closed. "Revelation. Burden. Now... choice."
He sat slowly, crossing his legs atop the raw foundation stone where the Fourth Floor would take form. The foundation array was incomplete — a skeletal halo of formation lines waiting to be filled with intent and principle.
Behind him, a ghostly figure coalesced.
It was Ancestor Veiled Mirror, one of the White Palace's ancient protectors — called forth not by force, but resonance. Her face was featureless, a shimmer of silk and moonlight.
"Your thoughts disturb the realm, Aeon," she said softly. "They reach deeper than a mortal's lifespan should allow."
"Perhaps I have borrowed against my future clarity," Aeon replied. "But I must keep building. Before the world wakes."
Veiled Mirror tilted her head, unreadable.
"And what will this floor hold?"
"Choice," Aeon answered. "True choice. Not between illusions of failure and victory — but between paths that demand authenticity."
The Philosophy of Choice
Aeon descended into the partially completed hall beneath the Fourth Floor's scaffold. The chamber was lined with semi-formed illusion matrices — reflections of things not yet born. The Tower did not just contain architecture. It dreamed.
"Most trials bind choice within frames," Aeon thought aloud. "Right and wrong. Virtue and vice. But the deepest test is not choosing what is good. It is choosing why, when neither path offers comfort."
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a scroll — worn, filled with the calligraphy of his own thoughts. It was not a cultivation manual, but a book of meaning.
He opened to a passage written months ago:
"Freedom is not the absence of constraint, but the presence of conscience."
He underlined it slowly.
"This floor," Aeon whispered, "will ask each climber not what they can endure, but what they will become, when no one defines the path but themselves."
Constructing the Trial
It began with a choice.
The Fourth Floor would not be one illusion — but many.
Each climber would arrive in a central hall — vast, echoing, and unmarked. At its center would sit a single mirror. When they looked into it, it would show a possibility. A life.
Not a lie. Not a dream. A real possible life — shaped from the climber's own karma, intentions, and regrets. And then, six doors would appear around them.
Each door a different path.
Each leading to a world forged from the consequences of accepting that version of themselves.
The savior, loved but burdened.The tyrant, feared but immortal.The hermit, wise but forgotten.The scholar, eternal but sterile.The martyr, righteous but doomed.The wanderer, free but rootless.
Once a door was chosen, the climber would live out that path — days or decades in a heartbeat — and return, either broken, enlightened, or lost.
Aeon did not smile as he etched the runic frameworks with his fingers. His hand trembled slightly.
"Even I… do not know which door I would take," he admitted.
The Weight of Freedom
He stood alone in the central chamber, where no illusion had yet taken shape, but where the seed of choice had been planted.
He spoke softly — not to anyone, but to the Tower itself.
"I was born with legacy in my blood. The Empire expects of me. The Ancestors dream through me. I wear titles not of my choosing. And yet…"
He paused.
"What would I become without any of it? No Empire. No Tower. No gaze of Ancestors watching from behind memory's veil."
His breath caught.
"Would I still seek the Dao? Or would I be content to be human?"
The silence did not answer. But Aeon smiled faintly.
"That is what this floor must be. A place where every climber, no matter how grand or wretched, is asked one question: Would you choose to remain you?"
Visions of Forthcoming Trials
As he finished aligning the final structure — six massive illusion pillars forming the edges of the trial — a surge of spiritual pressure rolled across the Tower.
The Fourth Floor's foundation had accepted the concept. The Tower approved.
Illusion cultivators from the Mirrored Vale nearby awoke from meditation in awe — they had felt the Tower's recognition. Even their dreams were reshaped by the concept.
The design was not yet fully refined, but it had begun.
From below, whispers passed among disciples and elders alike.
"The Fourth Floor stirs…"
"I felt it in my core… like the moment before a choice I can never undo."
Aeon returned to his solitude.
For now, none would climb it. Not until it was perfect. Not until he, too, had faced it.
Because Aeon knew — if he were to survive the Seventh Floor, he must pass through each of the others not as creator, but as climber.
And this one — the Floor of Choice — would be the hardest for him.
Because he already suspected which door the mirror would show him.
And he feared… he would not have the strength to refuse it.