The token's warmth did not fade, even as Lakshya left the banyan's shadow behind.
The jungle's noise — chittering insects, rustling leaves, distant bird calls — followed him until it suddenly stopped.
All at once, the world went silent.
Not quiet. Silent.
No wind. No footsteps. Even his own heartbeat seemed gone.
Lakshya slowed his pace, scanning the trees. The air felt thick, pressing against his ears. Then he saw it — a circle etched into the forest floor ahead, so large it could have been a clearing.
From above, the pattern would have looked like a spiraling lotus of geometric lines, each petal curling into a tighter curve. At the center was a black stone pedestal holding an empty bowl.
Something about it pulled at him — not with magic, but with thought.
A voice, not spoken but imprinted inside his mind, whispered:
"To enter, you must think without speaking, feel without hearing."
Lakshya stepped forward, and the moment his foot crossed the mandala's edge, the world changed. The trees vanished. The ground became an endless white plain. The sky… there was no sky, only infinite space filled with floating shapes — spheres, cubes, shards of crystal — spinning in slow arcs.
He realized quickly:
Every step in this place wasn't guided by muscle, but will. When he thought of moving forward, the space shifted beneath him.
And yet, something else moved here.
A ripple passed across the plain. A figure emerged from nothing — a man draped in robes of shifting symbols, his face covered by a smooth mask. The mask's surface mirrored Lakshya's own face for a moment, then went blank again.
The man's voice rang inside Lakshya's head:
"Your noise is too loud. You cannot reach the center while clinging to the chaos of sound."
Lakshya frowned but didn't speak — partly because he couldn't. Instead, he formed his thought:
"What is the center?"
The masked figure tilted its head.
"The center is you, without the world's noise. If you wish to claim the bowl's gift, silence yourself."
In that instant, dozens of illusions swirled into existence around him — memories, fears, half-formed visions. The clang of steel from his old battles, the chants of his enemies, the cries of his allies… they were not heard, but they pressed against his mind like storm winds.
It was overwhelming.
Lakshya planted his feet.
Noise didn't only come from the outside — it lived in his thoughts, in the constant weight of his purpose, his questions, his hunger for power and understanding. The challenge wasn't to fight it… it was to let it dissolve.
So, he did not attack the illusions. He stopped acknowledging them at all.
One by one, the visions lost their grip. The battlefield faded. The masked figure's outline dimmed. Even the vast white plain fell away.
Lakshya now stood in a void so complete that even his own body felt distant. Yet, in that void, a single sound bloomed — a drop of water falling into the bowl.
The moment he focused on it, the silence cracked.
The mandala returned. The bowl atop the pedestal now held shimmering liquid — silver, like distilled moonlight.
Lakshya stepped forward and touched it.
The liquid surged up his arm, not wet but like cold lightning, and lodged itself in his forehead near the Trinetra's mark. A fresh layer of awareness settled over him — he could feel thoughts moving in the air around him, unspoken but alive.
The masked figure appeared once more, now standing outside the mandala.
"The Silent Mandala has accepted you. But remember… hearing thought is not the same as understanding it. The gift can poison as easily as it can heal."
Lakshya gave a short nod. This was not a power to be used carelessly.
As he stepped out of the circle, sound slowly returned — the wind, the rustle of the jungle, his heartbeat. But now, woven faintly among them, were whispers from beyond sight. Some were near, some impossibly far.
The token from the banyan pulsed in his pocket, as if sensing its new companion. Two trials passed. Many more to go.
And somewhere beyond the trees, a shadow stirred — a shadow that had been listening to him in silence for a long time.
To be continued....