Mirroring

Intent- 

The innate result of the fusion between will and the mental energy in the mind of any being. 

Born alongside their ego and consciousness, it exists in a rather fragile form in most individuals and lacks the essential qualities to manifest its full potential. 

However, in this age where science has grown so high in its complexity, the mysteries which were once called pure fantasy have been broken one by one.

The strength of a being's intent directly indicates the maximum extent to which they can control the world around them. 

Only with their intent can sentient lifeforms bend the existing rules of reality and perform supernatural feats. 

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Alex was indeed fully aware of the importance of intent in enhancing his resonance with the hexes. 

This was the main reason he did not rush through the stages and steadily trained his intent into a force he could rely on within the trial when the need arose.

The need always arises.

Alex inspected the state of his intent as he trained, gradually elongating it towards his head while he strengthened it against the burden of the Sands of Reality around it. 

He dubbed it the 'wand of intent'. 

First, he used the tip of the rod-shaped intent to connect with the particles around the hex and began to resonate with them. 

Doing this once and then twice, he resonated easily with the frequencies.

He was shocked to notice that the door before him had directly opened up. 

He had unlocked the entire door before he could complete his training target.

"That was fast,"

Alex was stunned by this speed. 

Given that he had just started training his intent seriously, his speed of resonation was just too fast. 

Glancing at the two doors, Alex took a moment to meditate and recover his state before choosing the next door to enter. 

Focusing inwards, he was stunned to notice that within his consciousness, faint shadows were fading off from the barrier wall of his Sea of Consciousness. 

On closer inspection of the bolder shadows, he realised they were copies of the most recent hexes he resonated with. 

He tried touching the shadows on the barrier but he was directly sent into his Sea of Consciousness.

The barrier was completely immaterial. It could only be touched by his intent. 

Manifesting his intent, Alex touched the shadows on the membrane.

Instantly, the space within his mind began to resonate with the hex.

"What the hell?" 

Alex soon realised the reasons for the resonance in his mind. 

The membrane of his sea of consciousness was like the surface of a calm lake, reflecting the hexes like the image of the moon on its surface recording their shapes and frequency of origin. 

"No wonder it has become much easier to resonate. After the hexes with similar functions are recorded, though there are minor differences in their frequencies, the resemblance makes it much easier to resonate among them."

With this realization, Alex picked a random door and walked in. After all, it did not matter which he picked, he needed to record as many different kinds of hexes as he could.

"I am going to train to the best of my ability any way it makes no difference." 

With the discovery of the mirroring ability of his sea of consciousness, Alex was far more confident in speeding up his pace. 

Within the new chamber, Alex noticed there were no more multiple doors. A single double-panel door stood in his path, it's massive double-panel wooden frame stood imposingly before the stunned Alex. 

Of all possible outcomes he never expected the difficulty to spike up so suddenly.

Walking closer to the two-meter-high doors, he tried the handle out of curiosity. 

"What if it opened once." 

Of course, it didn't. 

Alex took a few steps back for a closer look at the whole door. 

The massive door was a light shade of black, uniform through both panels. 

Engraved on the wooden door panels were, not 16, not 36, but 64 hexes on both panels.

The total number of panels had far exceeded Alex's greatest estimates.

"This is just plain bullying." 

Without wasting another moment, Alex began to train again. 

Focusing on the closest hex, to his relief the particles around it were still as simple and easy to see and connect with, as the others in the two previous stages. 

Like a novice magician, Alex whipped out his 'wand of intent' and instantly connected the tip of it with the hexes.

Particles nearby vibrated at their unique frequency and began the resonating process.

While Alex elongated the wand gradually towards his head and within 5 minutes he had successfully activated the hex.

His speed was quite impressive. 

In an instant, it flashed with a white light syncing with the shadow seal on his membrane. 

Quickly moving on to the next hex he began the process again.

Wash, Rinse and Repeat.

Slowly, while training, his speed kept improving. From 5 minutes per hex to 4.5 minutes to 4 minutes. 

The hexes kept activating and the seals kept appearing on the membrane of his Sea of Consciousness, soon Alex had completed all the hexes on the first door panel.

The wand of intent had grown longer by another 3 cm. 

"Well, that is one down" 

Alex stood up admiring his new record as he had cleared all the 32 hexes on the first panel at an astonishing pace. 

Quickly he moved on to the left door panel, this panel unlike the other made the light around it appear more subdued. 

Alex began by focusing his mind again on the nearest hex, soon he could see the particles surrounding it.

Immediately he placed his now longer and more agile 'wand' of intent onto it. 

However, for a prolonged period, it had not resonated yet.

It took a good 10 minutes before Alex could resonate with the particles this time.

Stunned at the drop in speed, Alex began to meditate on the spot trying to understand why he suddenly became much slower at resonating.

When Alex finally resonated with them there was a flash of black light within the hex. Instantly Alex understood why. 

The hexes on the opposite panel had opposing attributes to this one. So when his mind became polarised by the frequency of one attribute it became harder to resonate with those of the other. 

Taking this in Alex spent a good minute analysing the countermeasures he could carry out. 

"With this discovery, it is clear there are many more areas to train in before I can gain a proper mastery of hexes."

Alex's ambition had grown larger. Previously his goal was to get out of this stage of the trial, but now he wanted to draw out fortune from misfortune by mastering the fundamental skill in Hex Mastery- 

communicating with and controlling the Sands of Reality.

With no other option, Alex trudged on slowly and the seals imprinted on his sea of consciousness increased gradually evening out the polarity.

Slowly, he cleared the entire panel and moved on to the next hallway. 

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"Finally," Alex said relief spreading on his face as he cleared the last hex on the door to the hallway.

Since he faced the large door, Alex had cleared another two hallways with multiple doorways.

However, the number of hexes per door had not increased by much but his 'wand' had extended by a full foot, almost touching the surface of his skin at his forehead.

Walking into the next hallway, Alex was surprised to see another massive door blocking his way, this one was far more intimidating and boasted a full array of hexes.

At a glance, Alex saw about 108 hexes spread all over the doorway. 

There was an imposing aura that wafted off the door in waves.

Clearly, out of all the doors he had approached before this it was apparent this was the most forbidding. 

"Well well, the final boss finally shows himself"

Alex said excitedly knowing this was likely the last door on this floor.

His confidence was brimming as he had a trump card in store. 

Alex stood boldly before the doorway, which was now completely made of stone and stared fixedly at the hex closest to him.

The instant the particles appeared in his vision, he threw his intent into them.

The long wand now resembled a teacher's stick, long and firm.

The moment it connected with the sands of reality floating in the hex, Alex drew his intent slightly and still maintaining its strength Alex trained all his focus as he awaited for the moment the intent made contact with the skin of his gabella. 

Woosh 

Like a wave breaking into the sandy beach the frequency of origin flowed smoothly along the intent and instantly connected with Alex's mind and onto the shadowy seal formed by the reflection of the hex. 

Weng

The resonance was made in an instant. Like a magnetic clip, the frequency was directly drawn into the seal and recorded.

The hex on the stone door was directly activated. 

"As expected," 

Alex was overjoyed at the instant resonance, it was so worth it.

Meanwhile, as Alex trained and quickly progressed in integrating the hexes, he was not the only thing in the tower making progress. 

The darkness chasing him had completed its devouring of the floors below and had begun to draw closer to the fourth floor, its aura far more menacing as it approached the upper floors. 

Alex could still sense the approaching danger, however, fear was far from him. His confidence was brimming.

"Let's do this."