Thanos looked around inside the area that would house his core should he ever create one. There wasn't much he could do in the real world as his tiny body slowly fell into the waiting maw of oblivion.

With little choice left to him, he activated his mind's eye as he flew through the air, knowing the time-dilating effects he experienced there would give him a chance to think.

Part of him wanted to split his attention and look outside, but he was worried doing so might break his focus and send him back to face the approaching death.

Therefore, he had no idea what was happening in the outside world but knew everything would appear slowed to such a pace as to seem stationary, so he did have time.

Time for what?

His internal retreat was made more on instinct than conscious thought, and he didn't have a plan to get him out of his current predicament, which left him alone.

Huh, I never noticed that before.

Only now did he realise that whilst everything else seemed to slow outside, the essence flowing through him didn't appear to.

Unless it normally flows ridiculously fast.

Watching the flowing mass of essence move past, he wracked his brain for anything that might lead him towards a path of survival. Surveying the area, he noticed that his filters had collapsed during his panic, and a cold part of his brain noted that he needed to work on that.

As he pushed that cold logic to the side, one idea had been forming as he looked around, but he might not survive even if he pulled it off.

What if I ignited my core?

Turok had said during core ignition that some kind of explosion would surround him as the essence rushed outwards. This strategy might be enough to get him out of his predicament and force the enormous monster beneath him away.

The only issue with that plan was that he would still be pretty far up in the air even if he did succeed. The Terror stood the same height as their farmhouse, and he still fell towards its open mouth.

Perhaps he could survive a fall from that height with some injury, which was still better than being eaten.

Maybe Marcus will catch me?

His father got knocked aside, but he wasn't too far away. It was possible that if he created an opening, Marcus could use that to catch him. Worrying about these things seemed pointless since he had no way of knowing. He remembered the words a favourite tutor of his had once told him.

Just focus on what you can control and leave the rest to sort itself out.

Intense focus overcame him as he calmed his mind. He had created many cores during his practice sessions, so he had some idea what he wanted to do.

The main issue was that he knew his time was limited. Perhaps in a different setting, he could think things through more, but whatever core he chose to make today would have to be quick, and he was worried it might end up a failure or useless.

When they went through his lessons, the elder had said that with the finite amount of materials he had on hand, he would only get two chances when moulding at the most. Whatever he formed on his second try would be what he ended up with, good or bad.

There's no sense waiting around.

He called on his will and used it to form a massive bubble that enveloped the crystalline material stored and various types of essences as he dragged them into the centre of his core area and began compression.

Splitting his focus, he created a couple of filters that spat out spatial and time essence, channelling it into the compacting mass that was taking shape. Once he had enough of the correct essence ratios, he let the filters collapse, using his spare willpower to increase the pressure.

The light blue crystals inside that reminded him of sugar cubes in texture started to dissolve under the strain. As they did, he felt a familiar feeling from the released energy he matched to his arrival here when he saw that azure wolf.

Of course, he knew that was just a representation his subconscious created that let him process those strange energies at the time.

This energy wasn't something he had planned for. He knew that it was possible to use this as a material to form his core, and during his practice sessions, this material had always been like a lump of clay, easy to shape as required.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Turok hadn't mentioned anything about leftover lightning essence locked inside, but it was there as he watched it spark inside the packed area. He also realised that this blue essence was the same that was flickering around inside the globe that had tested him for his essence affinities.

It made sense that it would have that result now, as he knew it was the leftover portion of his essence body locked away, so the result wasn't sure what to make of it.

This change left him with a choice he needed to make fast, as the addition of lightning essence ruined his original plan. He considered expelling it and trying to keep the base material behind, but he felt that was the wrong choice as they seemed intrinsically linked.

Strengthening his resolve, he decided to run with it and made some on-the-fly adjustments to the plan as he carried on with the compression. After a long time, a tiny ball of super-compressed essence rotated inside the area as he felt it wouldn't be much longer before it hit the expansion phase.

Just as he started to feel tired, he noticed the ball bulging. Pulling his willpower back, he set it into the shape he wanted his core to take. He saw the essence hit his barrier before registering it in his mind due to the crazy expansion speed.

As the core took shape, he began phase two. He knew if he messed up now, there would only be one more shot at this. He couldn't compress the material again, even if the outside world gave him enough time.

An old wooden-looking hourglass started to take shape before him as he used his will to make subtle internal alterations, not letting it set.

His initial idea was for an hourglass with unlimited sand dripping into the bottom that never fills, then building into endless dunes as far as the eye can see. The top of the hourglass would house a starry night sky looking like outer space, whilst the bottom would appear to be a vast desert at night.

His overall idea was for the shape of the hourglass and the falling of endless sand to represent time, whilst the stars in the top and bottom sections and the endless desert would represent space. With the lightning added in, he needed to make changes on the fly.

He altered the hourglass, removing the falling sand. Instead, he changed it out as light blue lightning now coursed through the funnel of the glass, looking like bottled lightning.

The bolts of blue fell, mixing into a growing cloud that sat above the endless dunes. A lightning storm now hung in the sky above a desert world. The rest was the same, and the overall result was an antique-looking wooden hourglass that flowed with blue lightning, making crackling noises.

This doesn't feel right.

Looking over his creation as it set, he couldn't help but feel unhappy the more he observed. The entire thing felt hamfisted and last minute. If he let this core ignite, he would only regret it.

There wasn't much time, so acting decisively, he collapsed the forming core, forcing everything back into a tiny compressed ball. This time, he felt more mental strain, and the whole thing felt harder to compact.

As it broke apart, he studied the lightning essence born from the material left behind when his old essence body got sundered. There was a feeling coming from it that had been nagging at him as a sudden epiphany washed over him.

That could work!

As he honed in on the lightning essence, he felt a sense of malleability there, and the realisation struck him that these leftover pieces didn't have to be what they were.

One thing had been bothering him. He wasn't sure what his affinity to lightning essence would be, with no way to test it here. As the core was collapsing again, he tried to get a sense of it only to find it wasn't any lesser a feeling compared to when he focused in on space or time. During that testing, there was also something more present.

A vague feeling like the old essence body didn't mind getting reformed into something new came over him. It just didn't want to be wasted. He knew there was no sentience there. It was more his interpretation of whatever laws governed essence.

Deciding to take a risk, he created a tunnel made of will that left the compressed ball and entered it again. He set up a filter in that channel, forcing all that lightning essence and material through it. This created a self-fed system that stripped away all the parts he had no idea what to do with, feeding it back as a new kind of essence, illusion essence.

Happy with the change, he watched the consolidated mass about to expand once more, and he moved his willpower barriers back, catching it in the shape of his new core.

Working furiously, idea after idea struck him.

The outer hourglass frame was now shaped like a curving helix that represented the cyclical nature of time, joining as two funnels in the centre instead of one. He made the frame match the texture and colour of those crystalline blockages that had been the material used in its construction.

The top half was a pitch-black manifestation of space filled with multi-coloured stars. A large blue and purple nebula floating in that space was slowly sucked into the funnels, emptying the top. To him, the nebula and black void symbolised space and time essence as he copied those ominous clouds surrounding Earth as the basis.

Multi-coloured stars above a calm desert planet twinkled at night with sand falling from the sky, pooling into endless dunes. A magical-looking city sat in the distance, flickering in and out of existence like a mirage on the horizon.

Footprints crossed the dunes as if someone invisible were walking all over them, with shifting sands erasing them as new steps eventually moved into the old.

If someone looked from above, they would see a shape in the figure of eight representing infinity made up of those ghostly footsteps. Those footsteps not only symbolised illusions but also time as they wound into perpetuity as they were created and erased.

Thanos couldn't help but stare at his creation, knowing he wasn't there yet. He forced more concepts and cycles into the core as the mental strain grew. It felt like it wasn't just himself that he had to convince of the validity of these concepts, but some grand force that oversaw all creation.

The hourglass flipped when the top grew empty, and the desert planet was turned upside down with the sand pulled into the funnel. A new nebula at the bottom grew as the world above ended, lost in the vicissitudes of time.

He watched as the nebula reached a critical mass, and the image flickered and burst into life as a new desert world formed that matched the old from the leftover dust. The top half that housed the old world was now nothing more than a blue and pink nebula of dust floating amongst the stars.

The two sides were locked in a constant cycle of creation and destruction as the glass occasionally turned, birthing a celestial body in an endless universal cycle.

He watched calmly as a large crack covered the glass of the hourglass before stopping, but he wasn't concerned as this was the final concept—the shattering of illusions and the revelation of truth and reality.

He looked in awe at what he had just created, seeing the layered concepts and cycles mixed as Illusion, space and time blended seamlessly.

His willpower held the core in shape as it set, waiting in anticipation for ignition as an aged voice sounded beside him, nearly causing his attention to slip.

"Fascinating." A weak voice echoed through his mind as a greyed-out shape appeared floating next to him.