Well, this might what the grown-ups called a hung-over. Lyren was all dizzy and the more he tried to open his eyes, the further he drifted into the abyss which he kept trying to escape. He could definitely feel the stone he was sleeping on.
He tried to move his head and he could only conclude that it was stuck to the ground. Lyren gave up on trying to open his eyes and let his consciousness drift back on its own but the next moment, he was already out.
Later, his eyes opened naturally and he came face to face with the stone beneath him. At first, there was confusion. This unfamiliar floor… the hard ground he had slept on. Slowly, it all came to him as he registered his surroundings.
'Uh? I fell asleep?'
He supported himself wit his hands as he sat up. He took longer to retract his hands but he ultimately did so. But that was because he was yawning loudly and stretching. That was some comfortable sleep he had on the floor in a while.
Somehow, he felt rejuvenated, as if the stone itself had breathed a bit of life back into his tired limbs while he slept. Even the throbbing in his head had settled into a faint, rhythmic hum that matched the pulse in his right palm.
He recalled what he did before and he looked around and to his dismay, only the dying embers of the glowing patterns remained.
"What the hell!"
Lyren cursed when he saw this. He recalled just how much it cost him to light both of them and now they were already dying out. He wanted to complain, but a cold knot formed in his stomach. This wasn't a one-time puzzle. It was a daily duty. His progress would vanish if he didn't constantly feed it with his will.
Quickly, he went to the first one which was almost dim and placed his palm on the core as he envisioned the patterns in his mind. The pattern quickly lit up and he moved on to the next one and did the same.
Now he wanted to rant at the creator of these patterns. Why were they dying out so quickly? He calmed himself and convinced himself that this was the only thing he could do so he was just going to do his best then.
He did not feel any fatigue in his mind and he moved on to another pattern and started studying it. He marked the tweaked parts and he quickly lit up the third one after around thirty minutes. He did not even think of lighting up another one.
He walked to the stairs and started climbing them step by step. Fifteen steps seemed like a nothing, but as he looked up, the math of the ruins began to change. Climbing these steps, he realized that there probably were a thousan waiting for him. That was impossible because he could clearly see the hall standing before him.
But the more he thought about it, the more this hypothesis became clearer. When he was at the base of the stairs, the hall really seemed close. Almost thirty meters away. But the moment he had climbed the first ten steps, he had found this hypothesis wrong.
The hall was definitely getting further away. He confirmed this by standing at the base and looking at the hall and when he took the first step, he saw it get further away. This was impossible at first thought but the more he contemplated on it, the more it appeared to be real.
What if there was actually a barrier stopping him from climbing the stairs and the same barrier distorted his vision? This thought made him grunt. Were the creators masochists? Why create the illusion that the hall was close yet in the real sense, it was too far away?
Once again, he came to an answer himself. The creators were obviously a group of very powerful individuals. Walking a step for them was skipping around ten steps at once. This led to the stairs being created in that way to give the creators the illusion that they were walking toward the hall.
Maybe in their eyes, they saw it just as a measly 100 steps. When Lyren thought to this point, he could already feel a headache coming up. For him, he was totally going to have to climb all the 1000 steps.
A drag. It was all a drag.
Slowly, he climbed the stairs up to the 15th step and stopped there. He sat on this step and leaned on the barrier that was stopping him from climbing further. He did not stop at his trail of thoughts as he calculated how many patterns he was supposed to activate. That was a total of around 200.
There was not even two hundred patterns on the first row to begin with. This could only mean that he was going to meet a bottle neck very soon. His mind could not help but drift to the second row. It appeared that he was really going to have to study the second row too.
A drag. It was all a drag.
He waited until he felt that his mind was clear once again and he went to light up the fourth pattern.
When he lit up this pattern, his mind slowed down and he could feel sweat beads forming on his forehead. He was glad he had taken the cautious step and waited for a while before activating the fourth pattern. Had he been rash, he probably would have blacked out for sure.
He sat down taking in deep breaths as he waited for his mind to become clear once again. This was really going to take a long time. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was a drag. The more patterns he would light up, the more it was going to demand from him to keep them alive.
Wouldn't he be too exhausted to light up another pattern after he woke up? This was really a paradox. Wouldn't it come a time where all he could do was just keep these patterns alive? That was definitely not a good thing. Slowly, he closed his eyes and took a deep slow breath.
If he kept overthinking, he was going to lose all his motivation early. He retracted his hand and he could not help but look at him palm. It really was doing wonders but his eyes widened in horror as he started cursing again.
His breath hitched. Etched into his palm, faint but unmistakable, was a pattern. It was the same elegant, looping design as the ones on the stone, but this one felt alive under his skin.
Not a burn scar. A brand.
Again, he had been careless. The fact that it had taken him this long to notice filled him with dread. His mind quaked with a single thought;
He had been marked...
He recalled the burning sensation he had felt first and he could only assume that this was when it happened. Why had he not even looked at his palm then? Well, there was no changing the fact that he had been marked.
There was also no way he could tell whether it was going to be a detriment for him or it was actually a good thing. Only time would tell. He could tell that the pattern that had drawn in his hand was the actual real deal. The others had probably been tweaked from the one in his palm.
He memorized it and preferred to call it the base. With it, he was sure he could do several tweaks here and there and have new patterns. Still, a big question remained. What was their function. Opening the barrier to the stair was probably a secondary function.
After all, those who could manage to climb the stairs did not need the patterns at all for the barrier was useless against them. Once again, he was awed. People really had once climbed these stairs and they did it often.
This thought though was slowly discarded as he felt a shiver. These powerful individuals no longer existed and his head could only involuntarily shift to look at the blade marks on the ground.
'A battle took place here…'
Lyren felt his blood freeze. That was a very dangerous thought. He could certainly feel the glare from the hall. As though it was reading his thoughts and he had just reminded it what had happened here. He shivered.
His head involuntarily shifted towards the hall as beads of sweat formed on his forehead…