Hudson blinked his eyes and looked down. He was back in the pavilion, and his hand was resting on the cracked crystal core of the silicate Hudson knew as Sal.

He jerked his hand back as if he were touching a hot plate. The Sage was floating behind the raised dais on which the crystal rested, one eye cracked open and staring at Hudson with mild concern.

Hudson stared back at the ancient and powerful cultivator, all of the questions he’d intended to ask him drowning in the back of his throat. A powerful blanket of silence surrounded him, pushing down on him, and it felt wrong to break that silence.

“Speak,” the faintest of whispers entered his ears. The pressure increased for a moment, then decreased dramatically. The small area inside of the pavilion felt cut off from the surrounding mountain top.

Hudson wasn’t sure where to start.

“Is it… normal… to talk to Sal after you touch the crystal?” Hudson asked.

“Sal?” the quiet voice said in a questioning tone, then began to chuckle, as if at some inside joke. “No. But you did? In a mindscape? Your mindscape?”

“Yes.”

The sage floated slowly to rest next to Hudson, and reached out a single wizened finger to touch Hudson’s temple. “May I?”

Hudson gulped, then nodded yes.

White mist crept across the edges of Hudson’s vision, and he felt a brief sensation similar to when he meditated. His mind felt separate from his body, as if he could look at his body from the outside. The sensation was brief, the white mist fell away, and he was back in his mindscape.

He couldn’t say he was particularly happy to be back so quickly.

Hudson had appeared in his front yard, but a quick look around didn’t show him the Sage. He walked through his house, out the back door, but finally found him across the bridge and in the section that had come from Sal’s mindscape.

The sage was standing in front of the branch Hudson had planted, a contemplative look on his face. He turned to face Hudson and smiled.

“Thank you for welcoming me into your wonderful mindspace,” the Sage said. His voice was strong and warm, and lacked the oppressive weight it had in the real world. “It is much easier to talk in here… and it would seem that we have something to talk about, no?”

Hudson nodded, still a bit wary of the Sage. He seemed pleasant, but then again, so had Sal at the beginning.

Hudson relayed all that happened to him from when he had touched the crystal to when he had exited his mindscape, trying not to leave anything out. The Sage listened in silence, only asking a few clarifying questions at times. His expression became very grave when Hudson began describing how he had ventured into Sal’s mindscape, but did not interrupt.

After Hudson had finished his story, the two sat in a moment of comfortable silence.

“In the many centuries I have overseen this first Trial, few participants have had such an… interesting experience.

“Your gains in this trial are significant. The seed of a ten-thousand year old Far-Seeing Oak has improved your perception and will continue to grow with your mind, strengthening it against trials to come. The young root of a Philosopher’s Lotus is a common but valuable treasure up to the Core Formation stage, and will warm your soul for years to come.

“And as you discovered, the Philosopher’s Lotus will improve your ability to cut through illusions and perceive what is real – even within your own mind.”

“What were those things attached to my face?” Hudson asked with a shudder.

“Constructs of qi and will, that with enough time, could have developed into distinct Voices. Seeds sown in a fertile mind with the hope that one day they would return to the sower for harvest.”

“That’s horrible…”

“Horrible, yes…” the Sage mused. “With potentially devastating consequences… but also very powerful. Should you master the Voices, and not the other way around, they can be a great aid in your cultivation.”

“Not the type of power that I want,” Hudson said.

“No, clearly not. And your benefits from the trial were already great, without the need of those ‘gifts.’ You also missed the Wind-Steel Grass, a third treasure within the trial, but it would have only tempered your body further. You had much greater benefits from the sigils of the Way, extracted from a terrible being with great risk… not to mention this space and its sapling.”

“Um, I only received one sigil… and actually, can I ask you about sigils?” Hudson asked. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with the statue of the jackalope now, or how it’s actually useful to me.”

“Ah, yes,” the Sage replied, and walked out of the space with the sapling, motioning Hudson to follow him. “I can assist in some small measure in this regard.”

He strode over to the oak tree with purposeful strides. “The Broken One showed you multiple sigils, yes? Drawn with qi and imbued with a small shred of will.”

Hudson nodded.

“Sit beneath this tree of yours, sprouted from the seed of a Far-Seeing Oak, and meditate on the sigil of strength that you saw.”

Hudson wasn’t sure why he was doing this, but when a powerful sage tells you to sit and meditate, you sit and meditate. He closed his eyes and thought back to the dim carvings in the bark of the tree trunk; the sigil of Rooted Strength.

He could only remember a portion of the sigil, and doing so was bringing on a fierce headache. His efforts at recalling the sigil collapsed, and he opened his eyes.

In the air in front of him, interspaced between him and the oak tree, were faint wisps of mist taking on the vague form of the sigil of Rooted Strength. Much of it was missing, but a few rough strokes were there. As he marveled at the wavy strokes, they faded into nothingness.

“Again, but this time, when your recollection is as complete as possible, open your eyes and push the sigil into the oak tree in front of you.”

Hudson closed his eyes and tried again. This time, knowing that the effort had a purpose, he strove even harder to recall the details of the sigil in his memory. When his head was splitting from the effort, he opened his eyes and pushed with his will against the hazy and incomplete sigil in front of him.

The wisps floated into the oak tree and were absorbed. Portions of the bark of the tree twisted into the incomplete form he had recalled.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“It’s not quite right,” Hudson said, looking over at the Sage.

The Sage nodded. “And do you think that the sigil you were shown was complete and perfect as well? I will tell you that it was not. This understanding you have is still much, much poorer – but it is a foundation you can improve upon.

“Sigils are the language of the heavens; the form in which the dao, or the Way, is written. For a cultivator, they are a means of testing and transferring one’s knowledge of the Way. The greatest boon you have received in this trial is the means to further your own understanding of the Way, for that is the true path of cultivation.”

Hudson thought back to the sigils marking the sections of each trial, and when viewing them initially how it had taken an immense amount of effort to even keep his eyes on them. He recalled that the shape of each was difficult, even impossible to recall afterwards.

“This tree is a representation in your mindscape – in one manner of thinking, a symbol made real. In another, it is a representation that can be absorbed by your current means of understanding.”

“So… the sigil of Rooted Strength came from a tree, so a tree in my mindscape can absorb it?” Hudson asked.

“No, it does not matter that it came from another tree. What matters is that the concepts inherent in ‘Rooted Strength’ can easily be demonstrated by your mind in the form of this oak tree.”

“So roots are the connection?”

The Sage nodded. “Yes. If you continue to meditate upon a concept and experience it in different ways, your understanding of it will grow, and potentially change beyond your initial exposure.”

The oak tree now had a faint outline in the lines of its bark that spoke vaguely of the strength it drew from its roots. It was more than he had before, and was very much unexpected, but he still didn’t understand why it was important in the real world – outside of his mindscape.

“Thank you very much for your guidance,” Hudson began, and hesitated slightly before continuing. “If I may ask, um, how will this help me in the real world?”

“But this is the real world,” the Sage chuckled. “Ah, to be young and learning… After you leave this space, you will find that concentrating on the concepts you have imparted here will be easier and intuitive, and that being able to draw quickly upon those concepts will lend you great power.”

Hudson supposed he would have to test it to truly understand.

“And can I do the same for other sigils I have seen, like the Eternal Flame?”

“Yes, although allow me to impart a word of wisdom… Your path is your own to tread, but take care in the direction that it takes. Were you to meditate on a flame-aspected sigil, where in your current mindscape would you seek to impart it?”

Hudson looked around his mindscape. There was no fireplace or chimney in his house, nor was there a fire pit outside.

“The sun?” he asked.

The Sage nodded. “And what happens when this sun, empowered by the sigil and your increasing understanding of the Way, grows and consumes everything else within your mindscape, as flame is want to do?”

The ancient cultivator had a point.

“What about the stone figure of the jackalope, and the sigil for Liminality, whatever that is?” Hudson asked.

“Hmmm,” the Sage thought for a moment, then responded to Hudson’s question with a question.

“Do you understand what you did when you planted the sapling?” The Sage gestured towards it with a slow sweep of his arm.

Hudson shook his head. “I thought I was keeping up my side of the deal. I knew that they wanted to eat it, or consume it, but that wasn’t specifically what I’d agreed to. I agreed to give them the oak branch – not specifying how.”

“A loophole, of course, if perhaps a lucky one, but you reinforced your intention with multiple actions: you planted the sapling; you nurtured the sapling with the remains of your enemy; and you watered it with the embodiment of your will.

“A three-fold ritual, cemented in a dao agreement between two willing parties. ‘Sal’,” the Sage chuckled darkly, “must have been quite furious to be so outwitted.”

“Is Sal not their real name?” Huson asked.

“Ah, no. ‘Sal’ refers to an acronym, used by philosophers and researchers to define their type of being: a ‘sentience aggregation lifeform.’ They do not accept a single name, not in their own minds. Names are singular entities of cohesion and have the power to bind, for the Way listens to names.

“Silicates may be sentient, but they are not individuals. Each grows by consuming the power of those weaker than themselves, and incorporating the portions they consume into the rest of their selves.

“But a singular identity rooted amongst their collective consciousness would forever change the nature of their being. It would be their death, and the birth of something new. If they had not severed the sapling from their consciousness, sacrificing a small portion of their cultivation, then it would have formed a new core of individuality around which their constellation of consciousnesses would have crystallized.”

The Sage laughed again, a low and wrathful sound. “The Broken One sought to trap you, trick you, and in their arrogance were hoisted upon their own petard. A fitting result, although an incredibly risky gambit on your part.

“You did not send an avatar of your own qi into their mindscape – and how could you? You do not know how. You sent your whole self! And unless I miss my mark, you do not even know how to enter your own mindscape at will by passing through your mind meridian?”

Hudson shook his head.

“A veritable babe in cultivation. Were you any less careful, or lucky, ‘Sal’ could have trapped you in their own mindscape while they consumed yours from the inside out. You were incredibly reckless, but the risk netted commensurate rewards.”

The Sage’s words didn’t quite sit right with Hudson. “It seems like Sal is very dangerous… far more dangerous than I knew. Why expose all of the new cultivators in the trial to such danger?”

“Your path and your decisions are your own, little frog.” The Sage asked lightly. “Or are you questioning our methods?”

Hudson recognized the threat hidden within the Sage’s words, but couldn’t help himself. “Becoming a cultivator wasn’t my choice; I was basically kidnapped and I’ve just been trying to survive.”

Hudson was growing slightly angry, and it was much more difficult to control and hide his emotions in his mindscape. The old familiar rage that he pushed down his entire life, and the more recent anger at being used, tricked and bullied in the S.E.C.T. trial were difficult to suppress in this space.

“A pure and wonderful rage,” the Sage commented, as he stared upwards at the sun growing larger and redder. “But misguided, as anger easily is.”

“I mean no offense,” Hudson managed through clenched teeth, knowing that the man he was showing such aggression towards was an immensely powerful cultivator who could snuff his life out like a candle.

After a few moments, the Sage spoke again. His friendly and wise demeanor were still there, but there was an additional tone in his voice, a tone of implacable authority, as vast as an ocean and as wide as a mountain.

“Offense? How could you show offense? The frog in the bottom of a well knows not the size of the world, nor its own place in it.

“I take no offense from your anger. Is a mountain offended by the anger of the frogs living on its surface? No, it is not. To do so would go against the nature of the mountain. To respond to your anger in kind would go against my own nature.”

The Sage paused, and the silence was the weight of a mountain.

“You feel weak. You feel used. You feel ignorant. You feel injustice. And I tell you the truth: you are weak. You are being used. You are ignorant. But you are not being treated unjustly.

“I am the silence before the storm of our enemies. They are vast, but I am not. Who will rise to aid me? Will it be you?

“Will you grow to bear the burden of humanity, and do so without experiencing hardship and struggle on your path? A greenhouse flower will wilt at the first frost; a cultivator raised in seclusion will fall in his first battle.

“When you can bear responsibility for the survival of our people, then and only then, will I respond to your anger and perceived injustice. Until then, little frog, continue to grow in your strength.”

The avatar of the Sage began to fade into mist and grow translucent. His last words were a faint whisper.

“If you can complete your cultivation and reach the peak of Core Formation… seek me again before you form a nascent soul.”

Hudson stared around his mindscape. The Sage was gone.

As he walked out, he patted the stone figure of the jackalope on his porch and grumbled. “The Sage never did answer my question about this guy…”