Soren furiously stood to his feet as he began pacing back and forth, continuing his self-reprimand.
"What are instincts?
They are biological responses designed for survival...
Innately fixed patterns of behavior....
Automatic and involuntary responses to environmental stimuli....
Then,
What is intuition?
Intuition is the cognitive process that helps make decisions based on experiences and subconscious trance.
A form of knowledge that isn't based on rational analysis or conscious thought."
Soren began to unlearn, learn, and relearn from the memories of his life as an Imperial Scholar.
"Instincts are raw, primal and straightforward...
They are fight or flight responses to external threats...
They should have led me through this maze.
Intuition is more flexible...
The quiet guide that only responds to internal threats...
I should have listened when it was whispering the truth of my situation to me.
But I- I let them tangle, become indistinct, and nearly jumped myself to death."
Soren stopped in his tracks, taking a deep breath.
He knew that berating himself wouldn't change the past, but perhaps it could help forge a sharper mind for the next illusion.
"Next time," he vowed; "I will listen, and I will never be deceived, ever again!"
With that, Soren gathered his composure; the first test of the trial of perception had doled him a harsh lesson, and it was one he would never forget.
Soren would then go on to encounter multiple series of illusions, each of them threatening to shatter his newfound resolve and plunge him to an eternal darkness.
In some illusions, phantom figures beckoned at him from the shadows.
Some appearing as allies, offering false guidance and support during his test.
In fact, even those he was meant to truly listen to were disguised as adversaries seeking to lead him astray.
The deeper he ventured, the more the illusions grew insidious; playing upon his deepest fears and insecurities; forcing him to question the motives behind the illusions themselves.
They tested his discernment; looking to braid his six senses into knots that would never be unraveled.
However, with each test he overcame his perception sharpened, honed by illusions that tested him with the memories of the ten lives he had just been gifted.
Gradually, he gained insights into the innermost workings of his own mind and was able to lessen the time it took him to distinguish truth from falsehood within each trial.
Almost an entire day later, Soren finally arrived at the heart of the maze.
Here, he was confronted with the greatest illusion of all; one that tested his perception of reality itself.
The very fabric of space and time seemed to warp and twist around him, creating a kaleidoscope of shifting patterns and colors intent on sending his mind spinning into an irrecoverable vertigo.
Seeing such a scene, Soren's curiosity, which had previously told him to try opening his eyes during a teleportation took hold of him, and he peered even deeper, looking to unravel it.
And then it happened...
Soren's 3D Vision which had just shattered past another limiter began to map out the energy signature of the illusion, and a pulse of energy suddenly surged out of the ambient warping and flooded into Soren's eyes.
It was like the famous overreactive imagination some people have where a character in a movie seems to step out of a scene, and through one's TV screen to actually appear before them.
Only that with Soren, it was a pulse of energy flooding in, through his eyes.
The energy pulse carried an aura that that embodied an aura that reminded one about the sheer number of changes "creation" had undergone before reaching its current "wider existence", and its inclination towards its fated "Oblivion."
The energy pulse surged in through Soren's vision, washing over his mind, and then seeping deep into the core of his soul body, where his very consciousness called home.
However, a spark suddenly lit through Soren's mind like lightning, prompting him to severe the connection between his vision, his mind, and his soul body.
And it was only upon doing so, that Soren regained control of his mind, causing him to break out in cold sweat.
The subtle energy pulse still continued its attempt to seep its way onto his consciousness, but Soren kept the connection severed.
Then as if realizing its intent had been successfully defended against, the energy and the intent within it then slowly retreated back through Soren's mind and stored in his eyes.
Soren's mood sank at a sudden realization.
'To think the real trial would be the reward itself.' He gravely thought to himself.
He had felt it.
That energy pulse had been intent on wiping out his own consciousness and he had carelessly opened the windows of his own soul to it.
If he hadn't severed his vision-mind-soul connection, he would have given that energy pulse an opportunity to rewrite, or even worse, wipe out his own consciousness.
Then, he would have just been a soul body with no consciousness; a Lost Soul.
Soren kept his eyes shut, calming his tremoring emotions and derailing train of thoughts.
Then after a few moments, he let out a sigh of relief and attained a palpable state of calm.
Now that he understood the nature of the reward, he realized that he only needed to be absolutely careful when claiming it.
Soren then reconnected his Vision-Mind-Soul connection but kept the Mind and Soul connections severed.
As such, this time, as the ocular energy began to stream in, they gathered and collected within his eyeballs.
The process was akin to moving water from one tank into another through a narrow pipe; after all, there was only so much room for the energy to flood through.
However, even as it continued to flood into Soren's eyes, the ocular energy kept rewriting the very narratives behind Soren's ocular perception, shattering its limiters of this 3D Energy Vision and evolving it into a higher state.
Then came the next roadblock.
There was only so much room in Soren's eyeballs for the energy, and as such, his eyes began to thrum and ache, having been filled to the brim.
Soren was then forced to make one of two decisions; restore the connection to the mind and let the energy flood in, or severe the connection, exit the trial, and let the rest go to waste.
Soren's new ambitious nature however, wouldn't allow him severe the connection; after all, compared to the amount of energy left within ambient atmosphere, he had barely absorbed a tenth of it.
Also, if he would be obtaining everything he needed to help the Cosmic Vagrant achieve its aims, then he needed to take as much as he possibly can; and right now, he knew he was nowhere near doing that.
Thus, Soren unlocked the window into his mind, and just like a broken dam, the Ocular energy suddenly found a larger void to fill up and as a result, flooded in like violent tides.
However, it didn't take long for Soren to realize that he had miscalculated the situation, and that he might have bitten more than he could chew.
The sheer volume of the incoming ocular energy felt like a tsunami from the deepest of oceans, and is mind was like a garden fence.
Though in dire straits, Soren remained undeterred; he already knew by now that miscalculating becomes a certainty when one is dealing with an unknown.
Then just as the energy was about to drown his mind, the Origin Codex, which had been hovering quietly within his mind suddenly sent out a pulse of energy.
This pulse of energy pushed back the momentum of the incoming energy, encasing Soren's mind in an impenetrable spherical barrier.
Soren was stunned speechless.
This was another outlier in his calculations, however, a very much welcomed one.
The lightning thought-spark fired once again, severing the connection to Soren's mind and restoring his mental clarity.
Soren sighed in defeat, thinking he might actually be unable to make full use of the opportunity after all.
But just as he was about to concede, the Codex sent out another pulse, but this time, the energy gathered at the spot between Soren's brows and began to swivel.
The swivelling pulse of energy picked up the pace in no time at all, generating a violent suction force that began to absorb the Ocular Energy at a swift, yet steady pace.
Soren was boundlessly delighted, and just when he thought that was all, the swiveling whirlpool suddenly expanded its range of influence.
It surged into Soren's immediate surroundings, latching onto the ubiquitous shifting mists in the Labyrinth, freezing in place, absorbing them with a flood-like momentum.
The shifting mists surged towards Soren, piercing through the spot within his brows and flooding straight into him.
Simultaneously, within Soren's Soul World, another crack appeared in its skies, and both the mist and the ocular energy began to pour through the gaps.
This time, it picked the non-attributed Moon hovering around the third world of flaming gas, and this time, Soren's rate of absorption spiked within the trial ground.
The Illusory Mists and Ocular Energy found a much larger vessel to fill up and thus flooded into them, and within mere moments, everything around Soren was sapped dry.
The Moon hummed to life, releasing a shockwave that rippling through Soren's Soul World, exited his Soul Body and shattered the entire labyrinth, bringing Soren's trial to a close.
Soren felt his soul body phase through a barrier, knowing he had exited the trial ground.
Then after what felt both like hours and days of assimilating his rewards, Soren abruptly sighed as he whispered.
"In a world of illusions, the Dao flows unseen, but the truth of one's nature will always reveal the way." He said as his Soul Body glowed with a blinding light that illuminated the entire desert.
By the time the light dimmed and Soren regained clarity, he found himself once again standing before the Cosmic Being's face.
"Ready?" It asked.
"Definitely!" Soren replied.
No long talk, just a probe and a response. And just like before, Soren's consciousness blinked out.
This time however, he had learnt his lesson, and as such, he shut his senses until he felt his feet touch solid ground once again.
----
The next trial ground was the heart of a tranquil oasis, nestled amidst an emerald forest with streams that trickled whispers of secrets civilizations.
Soren found himself at the entrance of a clearing where a hovering, coiled monstrosity was waiting for him.
The girth of this serpent made the giant anaconda look like a needle before a thumb.
Its presence loomed so large, that it dwarfed Soren into a dot hovering before its face.
The nostrils alone were tunnel-sized, capable of fitting dozens of Soren without needing to bump into each other.
However, while the size of it evoked Soren's deepest fears, its ethereal azure form seemed to lock them in place, somewhat keeping Soren in a persistent state of confronting his fears.
The serpent's scales shimmered with an otherworldly light that resonated and tinged the ambient atmosphere into one that fueled the very essence of its divinity.
"Welcome Sojourner, prepare yourself for the trial ahead.
This trial is meant to test the bounds of your wildest imagination and the depths of your creative brilliance." The Dragon got straight to business.
Hearing this, Soren felt a surge of excitement mixed with trepidation.
This trial, despite promising unparalleled potential, seem to also carry an equivalent difficulty, if not more.
"Behind me sits the Cauldron of Primal Harmony, visualize it; etch its image and essence into your psyche; for from within it, must you create your perfect treasure."
Soren's gaze drifted towards the rear of the dragon, and indeed, behind it was a massive three-legged cauldron that seemed to have been crafted from an ethereal metal.
It shimmered with a spectrum of colors, and etched onto its rim, were several ancient runes that pulsed softly with a golden glow.
Even from without, Soren's intuition kept telling him that its interior was unbelievably vast; most likely deeper than its physical form should allow.
Its presence was sturdy, as if the earth was an extension of its base,
Overall, it gave Soren a primal, mystical vibe; almost as if the cosmos above were nothing but testament vapors of what it had once birthed.