"I'm not sure how good my disguise is, but it should be pretty good," Kyle thought. "I can definitely fool Advanced Sages and lower, but I'm not sure about anyone who's stronger."
"When I'm back on the clock, I will just experiment a bit."
Kyle took a deep breath as he mentally prepared himself.
"Only one Refinement left... the worst and longest one. Ten thousand years of agony."
"I don't even know what's waiting for me, but it's probably brutal. Luckily, I have the Major Law of Mind now. That should make it bearable."
"Well, no point in waiting. I should get right to it."
Kyle activated the Seventh Refinement.
A moment later, he felt a burning pain appearing in his mind, which grew more and more intense.
Initially, it was not so bad, but when it reached its peak, it was just as bad as the pain of the Sin Flames. However, Kyle could deal with that pain.
Then, a different kind of pain joined the first one.
"This feels like the Fifth Refinement," Kyle thought as he felt the familiar feeling of his mind being frozen.
He had gotten through the Fifth Refinement simply by swinging his hammer without thinking. Focusing on anything that required complex thinking had been too difficult back then, but this time, Kyle could still focus. The Major Law of Mind allowed him to force his mind to move, even though it was painful.
Sadly, it didn't stop there.
Next, the chaotic storm of Energy reappeared around him, and the familiar feeling of asphyxiation returned. Luckily, Kyle had managed to deal with it during the Sixth Refinement. The familiar anxiety and terror returned, but they had been his companions for 6,000 years.
Kyle took a deep breath.
"Everything at the same time..."
The burning pain wanted him to move.
The freezing pain wanted him to stay still.
The feeling of asphyxiation wanted him to fight for his life.
Experiencing all of these things at the same time was not easy. Kyle could deal with them in isolation, but dealing with all of them at the same time was difficult.
Kyle emptied his mind as he aimlessly stared into space. The best way to deal with this kind of pain was to not focus on anything.
As long as time passed, everything would work out eventually.
But then, Kyle's mind was pulled back into focus as he sensed a fox moving through a forest thousands of kilometers away.
Kyle didn't want to focus on it, but that didn't matter.
Afterward, more and more stimuli entered his perception.
The sound of flowing rivers. The sound of rustling leaves. The smell of a dying animal. The taste of a tree's bark. The Energy of the magma around him. The movement of stone. The sensation of touching an animal.
Everything in Kyle's surroundings became so incredibly clear and sensitive.
His eyes widened as he felt an unending cacophony of sensations. He felt like he lost control over his senses as his Energy Sense focused on everything it could perceive.
Then, his Energy Sense started to expand, and an indescribable but horrifying sensation entered his mind.
"Too much!" he shouted in his mind. "Too much!"
His body started to shake violently as he grabbed his head in terror.
This sensation...
It didn't hurt, but for some reason, it felt so horrible.
Kyle's mind went wild, and he involuntarily remembered some instances in which he had felt this sensation before.
On Earth, he had felt this sensation a couple of times.
It was the sensation of his legs "waking up" after they had fallen asleep.
Kyle had experienced this sensation once before after going to the Tertiary World.
It had been back when he had been in the process of reaching the Second Realm.
He had improved his Soul back then, and the process had felt just like this.
However, this couldn't compare to what he felt now.
On Earth, the worst instance had been when both of his legs had fallen asleep.
In the Tertiary World, he had felt like the entire room had "fallen asleep."
But now, he felt like everything within a diameter of over 60,000 kilometers had fallen asleep.
An unending, chaotic wave of sensations shot into his mind.
The shaking of Kyle's body intensified, and moments later, he collapsed.
Everything stopped making sense as his entire existence was filled with a senseless wave of sensory input.
All manner of coherent thought escaped Kyle as he was fully focused on interpreting all of the signals he received. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't formulate a thought.
His mind was like a computer that dedicated all of its processing power to something random. All the other functions halted, and no matter what the user did, the computer wouldn't react to any of their inputs.
Kyle didn't even know what was happening anymore. He had turned into a chaotic mess of senseless sensations.
His mind sent all manner of commands in an effort to recover, but nothing worked.
That was, until it tried to send a certain signal.
The signal that would stop the Seventh Refinement.
As soon as Kyle's mind was about to send it, the signal was violently compressed and destroyed.
In the ocean of senseless chaos, there was one thing that still made sense.
It was not a coherent thought.
It was just a feeling.
A singular feeling of resistance.
It was not complex, nor was it noticeable amongst all the chaos. The entire feeling could be summarized with a simple sentence.
"Do not touch that!"
The discordant sensations thundered through the endless chaos, but whenever they touched the solitary feeling of resistance, they were destroyed.
Kyle didn't notice any of this. He could perceive every tiny little bit of Energy in the surrounding world, but he couldn't even sense the tiniest bit of his own self.
His entire existence had changed.
He was not his body, his mind, or his Soul.
He was this large area in Ayuvar.
He was the ground, the rivers, the animals, and every other human.
The only human he wasn't was himself.
He traveled down the river as a droplet.
He flew through the air as a leaf in the wind.
He helped his mother fetch water.
He watched his daughter fetching water.
He ate through the ground as a worm.
He shone on a sword as a beam of light.
He felt the seizing body on top of him as a stone.
He knew too much.
He felt too much.
He was too much.
He didn't know what he was.
He didn't know who he was.
He was everywhere.
He was nowhere.
Nothing made sense, and everything made sense.
The chaotic sensations kept firing, but the feeling of resistance held firm.
Was Kyle suffering?
He didn't know. He couldn't even think. He didn't even have a concept of self. How could he know if he suffered or not?
These chaotic sensations were existence, and existence didn't need pondering.
It just was.
Just as a stone dropped to the ground, Kyle's mind processed.
Time and space lost all meaning as Kyle existed.
Yet, no matter how much Kyle sensed, the feeling of resistance didn't collapse.
However, things also didn't improve.
Things had always improved during the last Refinements, but they didn't improve during this one.
There was just one thing he did for the next ten thousand years.
Kyle experienced.
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