Conversations

The toddler said nothing as he stared at the skeleton outside the lavish pavilion.

Alex stood staring intently at the massive gateway in the middle of the pavilion. Entranced by its magnificence and aura, as though drawn in by it he walked into the pavilion. The very next moment, as though it was all a mirage, his flesh and clothes were instantly restored. However, the changes in his eyes remained the same.

With a strong red flame burning within his beautiful black eyes, the red glow from the flames turned them wild with a muted but fierce glow.

"Tell me. What do you want to know?" The golden cup spoke to him once again with a voice so ancient and dissonant, that the flames within Alex's eyes began to tremble in shock. Although he had heard these cups speak before and was prepared for it the bissare nature of their voices still shook him up.

"You can only ask three questions, which I will answer in all honesty and to the very best of my knowledge. So choose wisely." The gold cup added.

"What are you?" Alex asked directly. "Tell me everything you know about yourself."

"Hahaha, how impudent of you a mere..." The silver cup was saying only for its scraping voice to cease abruptly, as the golden cup holder glanced in its direction suddenly, before gesturing at Alex towards an empty chair to which Alex refused to sit.

"Sigh, alright then." the golden cup said as it began to explain.

"We are treasures created out of fragments of Ago, a beautiful realm of existence refined to be used as the core of the Trial of Determination. Our Maker is unknown, at least to us. However, we can utilize our abilities as treasures to capture stray Soul Essences and condense them into a soul tonic for our benefit, and to be used as a reward for those challengers who reach the passing grade.

Those who pass the desert stage, although it may not be a desert within their trial are entitled to varying amounts of this soul tonic as their rewards as challengers. But those who reach the mountain will receive the tonic made by our youngest, Wood. And at each shed on the mountain climb, a higher grade of tonic is served and as for other things about us, those are irrelevant to you and you should not concern yourself with them." The golden chalice said while the toddler carrying it displayed the contents of the cup to Alex before taking a sip of it.

"I said tell me everything and I meant all of what you know" Alex said with a frown on his face.

"Ungrateful boy! how dare you..." The silver cup shouted. Stood up in anger before realizing itself when the golden cupbearer looked its way. His eyes twitched in annoyance, before recovering their composure and saying to Alex.

"Fine then. Although we cups serve as core mechanisms, we are not the main eye of the trial's formation. There exists a higher plaza, which could be anywhere within the realm. Once we were connected to each other, but we were separated after gaining consciousness. And have been within this space for what would be aeons now."

"What is this gateway then?" Alex asked his next question. "Tell me everything about the gate."

"Alright, your second question is about the gateway. Fine, this gateway is both the entrance to and the exit from the trial realm. It serves as the control centre for the entire realm and gathers both the internal and external soul essence which we refine into the energy the trial realm needs to run.

Not like the fruit you ate which was a cluster of unrefined soul essence. You were really lucky it was under the moonlight, allowing you to refine it with your own body extracting most of the impurities. Otherwise, your soul flame would have been unable to ignite on the mountain steps, and you would have failed to climb the 8th peak.

As for the gateway it also seals and stores memory data and uses them with soul essence as a resource to construct a unique challenge for every challenger." The gold cup explained calmly.

"Lastly, I want to know what the wooden cup said in the first meeting. What did he mean?" Alex said turning to face the wooden cup bearer. "He said the trial never loses no matter what."

"Indeed," the wooden cup said calmly from the arms of the old man and began to explain

"No matter how weak you may be once you can cross the desert stage without your soul flames extinguishing or failing to ignite at all, you will pass. Given how strong most challengers' souls are there has never been any complete death since the very beginning.

However, those who don't know their own limits and continue to challenge the next stages of the test recklessly would be likely to have their will permanently damaged or completely crippled unable to break through to a higher realm or some would have their future potential overdrawn leading to difficulty in advancement.

Hence every challenger that fails to end their struggle at the right moment for their souls would come out of the trial one way or another making a gross loss instead of profiting from the trial. While the trial realm would gain from their foolishness and become stronger. Given the nature of human greed and ambition, a lot of people fail to differentiate determination from self-destructive ambition. Since the beginning of time, only 999 persons have passed by choosing an appropriate location to resign.

Most of them failed to judge accurately and quit too early or failed the trial entirely. None of the 999 persons were indecisive when the time came, but only 2 persons have ever stopped their trial at this point by themselves. Not to mention that the trial becomes exponentially harder the more people have taken it." The wooden cup elaborated.

"No more, the three questions are done. Give him his reward and send him off." The silver cup said annoyed.

"Indeed, although time within the trial realm is independent of the outside. Prolonged separation from the body and too many memories can directly collapse the body so..." The bronze cup said gesturing to Alex asking him to step forward and receive his prize.

Alex stood still processing his thoughts at this moment when he felt a very faint force of attraction coming from the peak of the mountain. Taking a moment to analyse his feelings he said.

"I'm not leaving yet, not until I arrive at the peak of this mountain," Alex said firmly making up his mind. His eyes glowed brighter as he looked towards the pathway up the mountain behind the pavilion.

The cups were shocked that this young promising expert would foolhardily continue the trial, even after knowing that failing outside the checkpoints would do him more harm than good. Silence immediately descended into the hall as all the cupbearers had not imagined that the 1000th person to pass would still succumb to the self-destroying temptation of the 2nd phase of the trial.

"Sigh, it's pointless to convince him against it. Plus it's too soon to judge. You can never tell, his potential is still immense. He can give it a shot." The gold cup said as the toddler stood and vanished with the golden chalice.

"He also fell for it too damn," The silver cup said with its cupbearer vanishing alongside the others

"Be careful up there. That is the graveyard." The bronze cup said encouragingly as it also vanished along with the entire pavilion and the massive gateway. Leaving only Alex who had reverted back to a skeleton on a pathway made out of corpses.

Meanwhile out in the Temple of Origins. Alex's body stood before the pulsating gateway when suddenly the gateway began to dim down from its previous brightness like it was in the process of deactivating.

Felix saw this and was stunned

"He really did it." He actually wanted to ace the trial. He went into the death trap by himself. I had overestimated the boy's sense of danger too much. I should have told him more about the trials at least." He said regretfully.

"But that would not have made much of a difference would it, Brother? After all his memories have been sealed." the woman said to him meekly.

"True, but at least the caution would have been in place before he started and he would have called it when he sensed the trap."

"In the end, would that not make the test result false?"

"Well you are right dear sister, it is up to him now to make a miracle happen." He said demurely falling back into silence and watching the gateway for even the slightest changes.

But within the temple, the twinkling starlights seemed to form a pair of eyes that kept looking at the active gateway.

"Ahh, it seems another soul has ventured into the inner realm of Ago. Too bad, too bad." a voice said echoing within the stillness of the temple hall.