Mysterious Glyph

Alex was struck still. 

Standing there frozen by the sudden loss of thoughts, the sense of urgency he felt earlier had vanished into nothing, gone without a trace. 

He calmly out of habit, walked towards the tunnel nearest to him and began to look for the glyph.

However, he was dumbfounded to discover at the position of the glyph, there was an intricate diagram instead. 

The image seemed to represent something but Alex could not figure out anything from it.

The glyph was virtually impossible to memorise and was just too complex. 

Containing too many strokes and curves that it looks like a child's crayon painting with multiple strokes in random directions, much unlike the previous glyphs that closely resembled letters.

Due to the lack of urgency, Alex sat there trying his best to memorise the entirety of the glyph, not knowing that this was not an ordinary glyph but a Grade 9 glyph- the pinnacle of the glyph system. 

It took Alex who had his thoughts stilled a whole 45 minutes just to memorise the first glyph and then another 45 minutes to get the second one down as well.

With the glyphs in his memory, Alex began to walk down the corridors to research the outcome and the more he contemplated the nature of the Grade 9 glyphs the more his train of thought recovered returning much quicker than when they were stilled before. 

With the gradual return of his thoughts the previous sense of urgency he felt returned, building up within his belly like an impending explosion.

Speeding up his pace he walked briskly down the tunnel but to his dismay, this tunnel seemed to stretch on for what seemed like forever. 

Soon Alex had recovered fully from the effects of the stilling, and with the assistance of his Grade 2 glyph mastery, he began decrypting the esoteric Grade 9 glyphs.

He had memorised using all that he had. 

He opened his mind up into the tunnel to sense the aura the Labrinth released within it, allowing the glyph he memorised to resonate with the tunnel, so he could draw his inference and interpretation from the glyph as much as he could.

Soon Alex felt that his thoughts were becoming clearer and more corporeal as the moment passed. 

Still walking down the corridor, Alex made sure he maintained his concentration on the glyphs in his mind.

Knowing full well that the only thing that could save him at this moment from the impending danger of death was this glyph. 

"This glyph is too advanced for me. I can't even get past the edges of it, much less breach its core." 

Alex continued to work his consciousness hard, drawing up the reserve mind power he had. He knew that the only thing that would allow him to break into the core of the glyph was a breakthrough in his understanding of the nature of glyphs as a whole. 

Alex kept moving through the corridors like a man under the influence. His eyes turned white in the bare interior of the tunnel. 

Within his mind, Alex had segmented the glyph into layers and with his understanding of the grade 2 glyphs he had broken through the first layer of it and was reaching the climax of the third layer.

The speed at which he decrypted the glyphs was phenomenal. Although he managed to segment the glyphs the layers were not wholly independent of each other and still influenced the overall difficulty of the nearby layers. 

Unknown to Alex within his sea of consciousness the thoughts of his mind had turned into a wind, billowing roughly within his mind. 

It kicked up a fog as though they wanted to welcome a massive transformation. The thoughts condensed and filled the space with fog as a shadow was birthed from within them. 

The moment the shadow appeared, Alex felt his mind becoming lighter and clearer like an old storage room that had just been aired out and dusted clean for the first time in forever. 

The clarity in his thoughts made it much easier for Aleex to decipher the meaning of each layer in the glyph and soon he was on the seventh layer of the complex glyph. 

"The earlier glyphs had all resembled the primitive writing systems of intelligent life but this one is much too different" 

Alex continued to observe the glyph in detail paying attention to every sensation and change. 

However, even while he examined it with full concentration, his movement within the tunnel was no longer ordered by his conscious thoughts but was based on his instinctive reactions.

Moving from one bend to the other, weaving in and out of the intersections, veering completely off the normal passageways and into the next chambers. 

All the while absorbing the aura of the tunnels he passed by and utilizing the information to draw closer to the meaning of the Grade 9 glyphs. 

Meanwhile, the thoughts in his sea of consciousness had formed into a thick fog surrounding a single spot.

Here, grains of light that seemed to appear out of nowhere aggregated from beyond the frozen tundra gathering together into the shadow. 

The aura of these light particles was the same as that of the glyphs. The shadow in the sea was devouring them greedily and strangely, the more the shadow consumed these light particles the clearer and more intimate the glyphs became to Alex. 

Soon he was on the final layer of the glyph and the end of the tunnel was still nowhere in sight. 

Struggling against the intricate lines, Alex drew up his inference of the meaning for the last layer and instantly broke into the core of the glyph. 

In his mind, the core was simply a short passage, describing the changes in the tunnels on the third floor.

And like the previous glyphs he had seen, this glyph also had a clear message to pass on to Alex at this moment. He had deciphered his first Grade 9 glyph. 

Taking a deep breath and opening his eyes, Alex found that he had arrived at the final chamber of the third floor of the labyrinth. 

In the process of understanding the core of the glyph, he had weaved in and out of the various chambers on the third floor and brought himself unknowingly into the final chamber.

Meanwhile, within the sea of consciousness, the mysterious shadow in the Fog of Thoughts was now much clearer. It was the mysterious glyph that appeared when Alex gained mastery of the grade two glyphs.

 It had merged into the sea of consciousness becoming part of Alex's soul. However, due to the sheer difficulty of the grade 9 glyphs, Alex subconsciously drew out the glyph to aid him in breaking the encryption of the high-grade glyphs. 

The glyph continued to grow brighter, absorbing the light that came into Alex's sea of consciousness from beyond. Transforming itself step by step into a grade 9 glyph it grew closer and closer to the complexity of the grade 9 glyphs Alex had memorised. 

While more of the thoughts within Alex's mind merged into the fog surrounding the glyph.

Alex unaware of the details of what was happening in his mind was shocked to see the massive chamber before him filled with too many tunnels to count.

 The tunnels all released a formidable aura that seemed to overshadow the entire space. 

Quickly without wasting another moment Alex rushed into the nearest tunnel and began to memorise the glyph within it as fast as he could. Less than 20 minutes later he had moved on to the next glyph. 

Within his mind, the glyphs that had not been completely deciphered were slowly disintegrating and flowing into the sea of consciousness soon after Alex forgot them but he didn't notice that he had.

Memorising and memorising, Alex gradually filled his head with the Grade 9 glyphs while the mysterious glyph in his mind continued to grow in strength evolving closer and closer to the pinnacle of Grade 9.

Suddenly a massive windstorm appeared in the tunnels around him. Alex seemed to have forgotten in his panic about the presence of the thought-stilling winds as out of nowhere the wind assaulted his mind. 

Within Alex's sea of consciousness, the thought-stilling winds that returned with greater strength pierced through the space within Alex's sea of consciousness.

Drawing away all stray thoughts and assaulting the fog of thoughts that had gathered around the mysterious glyph. 

Strangely, the fog was too heavy for the winds to drive away. 

Although Alex was being assaulted by the winds, the mysterious glyph seemed to have the strange ability to solidify the thoughts around it 

Unable to do much harm the winds subsided and left Alex again. 

Seeing the winds had gone but he still had his wits about him Alex was intrigued and closed his eyes to access his sea of consciousness 

Within it, the place was nothing like it was before. 

Floating in the air was a massive spiralling cloud. Alex's thoughts had gathered around the mysterious glyph drawing in the light streaming in from every direction.

It was a breathtaking sight giving life to the frozen sea of consciousness.

Alex approached the clouds and on touching them he could clearly hear his subconscious and conscious thoughts streaming within them.

Bewildered by the changes Alex walked towards the centre of the clouds and the source of the strange lights and discovered the mysterious glyph. 

Extending his hand towards it Alex touched the glyph and to his surprise, a red display window once again popped up.