Chapter 30: The Temple of the Six-Pointed Star
Philip opened his eyes.
He was back in the void—an endless expanse of starlit space. The same place where the door had once appeared. Now, fragments of his old world floated aimlessly: the ruined room, his old car, the factory, and even his phone.
They drifted like relics from another life.
Curious, Philip swam through the space, weightless, toward the car. It looked just as he remembered it. He reached out to open the door, but the moment his fingers made contact—
**CRUNCH.**
The metal crumbled like dried leaves.
He stared at it. That hadn't been his intent. He had only touched it.
Without hesitation, he ripped off the entire door like it was paper, reached in, and picked up his phone. No signal. No bars. But the calendar kept counting.
Three Years had passed.
Three months in the real world. But for him, it had felt like years.
He floated back to the factory, a familiar anchor in the surreal emptiness. Inside, he began to practice the martial arts and techniques he had studied during the Trial of the Mind. Each movement was sharper, heavier, and more precise. The air cracked with the pressure of his strikes. His body responded like a perfect machine—no hesitation, no wasted effort.
After hours of practice, sweatless and focused, Philip paused. In the far corner of the factory, a mirror leaned against the wall.
He turned to look at himself.
Etched into the right side of his chest was a glowing **six-pointed diagram**—a geometric sigil pulsing faintly with energy. Instinctively, he channeled mana into it.
The world shifted.
He was back—inside the **temple**.
It was no longer dormant.
More of its functions had awakened.
Voices whispered again, subtle but firm. He understood now: the temple was responding to him. But it wasn't fully open yet. The diagram on his chest—the *Gate Seal*—was a key, but it was telling him something else as well:
**He was still too weak for the next trial.**
The door he had previously entered had vanished. A new door stood in its place. Silent. Impenetrable. Waiting.
Wanting more from him.
He stepped outside the factory to explore. Reaching out through the Gate Seal again, he was transported into a new chamber—**the storeroom**.
The room was cluttered with strange gadgets, glowing relics, and piles of radiant crystals.
A voice echoed softly:
**"The emperor's trash. Discarded things from his youth."**
Philip marveled at the treasures. Gems that once littered the temple grounds, casually ignored, now hummed with power. He didn't know what most of the items did, but one crystal caught his eye. He touched it.
Mana surged into his body.
*They're mana crystals,* he realized. *Raw, condensed energy.*
He picked up several, storing them mentally for future use.
From the storeroom, he accessed another chamber—**the Library**—filled with floating tomes and holographic archives, and then, a third chamber called **The Axis**.
Here, the diagram on his chest pulsed again.
Information flooded his mind.
**The Axis** was a network—an ancient gateway that allowed travel across the galaxy. The emperor had once marked every life-sustaining planet. As long as there was energy, the Axis could take Philip anywhere within those worlds. The Gate Seal on his chest granted return access to the temple, but it wasn't instant. It took *ten full seconds* to activate—a delay that could mean life or death in battle.
Still, it was a powerful advantage.
Returning to the storeroom, he picked up another crystal and absorbed it. His body glowed faintly with the intake.
*The book from the Trial of the Mind,* he recalled, *had taught him how to control mana, how to refine his soul.*
He had changed.
Completely.
No longer was he the man who stumbled into Athena's compound. He didn't know how strong he was exactly, but he was sure of one thing:
He wasn't weak anymore.
Part of him wanted to test his strength—to fight, to push further. But another part, quieter, longed to live normally again.
For the first time since this all began, he felt no compulsion to collect, to chase, to conquer.
And then he remembered—
**The Gem.**
Still embedded in his forehead.
It pulsed with a deep purple light, a reminder of all he had endured, and all that was yet to come.