Lyren did not rush himself as he walked to the second row. It had been a roller coaster ride for him and he had learned several lessons. And he was not going to make a mistake, well, he was not going to repeat them.
He did not know what dangers awaited him so he could only be careful. He sat at the first pattern of the second row and did not try to understand it. He just wanted to observe it first before he even dared to learn anything about them.
His eyes darted as he tried to see what was different but it was difficult to tell with a glance. Well, it was obvious that the patterns were more complex but so were the first patterns when he did not really understand them.
He did not even seem to realize that he was able to look at the second row and nothing was happening to his mind. He moved on to the second pattern and then to the third all the way up to the eighth. The math had changed once again.
He guessed that the third row had just four patterns and the fourth row had only two. As for the fifth row, he guessed it the exact place he had dropped the head and lit up the entire place. He could not help but feel a shiver.
Would he be able to see the sight once again? Would he get crushed once again? There was only one way to find out and that was by lighting all the patterns up to the center. He stood at the center of the second row and stared at the first row which was almost ten meters away from the second row.
He sat down and let his mind drift. He needed to get rid of all the distractive thoughts before he dived headfirst into the second row. There were eight patterns here but the fact he had gained nothing from his observation apart from the fact that the second row had only eight patterns was discouraging.
…
Lyren had lost track of time. He was still stuck on the first pattern and he had not yet found anything substantial. All he saw were intertwined lines that appeared almost like a kid had scribbled them. He had slept two times already. And he guessed that that was two days gone just like that.
Well, he did not know what time it was and whether his internal clock had reset and his awake hours had increased. He just let his thoughts wander for a while. He spent so much time on the pattern he even felt he was going to lose his mind here.
He had lost count of how many times he had tried to memorize the pattern only to get a taste of a bitter truth; even if his memory was impeccable, he could not memorize it if he did not understand it.
He realized that even if he tried to memorize a single line, it would just disappear from his mind. So far, all he had memorized had disappeared. He kept going back to square zero every time. There was no progress at all.
He was still lost in thoughts as his eyes stared at the pattern beneath him blanky. He had lost track of how long he had found himself staring blankly at the pattern the past two days. His mind concentrated on only one section of the scribble and his thought went back to the first row.
He had even forgotten about the lines he had named as A, B and X. Maybe if he tried to identify them, he was going to make some progress. Lyren followed this trail of thought and he even felt like the pattern in his palm warmed up.
'It responded again…'
Lyren thought as he placed his hand on the first line from the core. He traced it all the way to the end and even as it wound through what appeared like the scribble, it did not touch any other line.
It dawned to him that the reason he was able to memorize the first row was because he could recognize the lines. He also realized that these second row's patterns were around 1.5 times larger than the first row. A detail he had missed the past few days.
When he realized that this line did not meet any up to the edges, he realized that this was the B line. What was different was that they were not straight anymore and even moved in a zigzag manner and they still maintained their main property.
They did not merge with any A or B line.
The mark in his palm was being active and it was difficult to miss the glow it kept releasing even when his palm was facing downwards. Having identified the B line, he decided to look for the A lines and to his dismay, it appeared that all lines here were B lines.
There were sections where these lines appeared to merge but it was not the case. Even in the scribbled parts, it was the numerous amount X lines that kept jumping from one B line to another. This was much of a drag than it was in the first row.
If his hypothesis was correct, there was no way the pattern could light up without both the A and B lines. That was a rule he had found fundamental for the patterns to light. This was why it was difficult to accept the change of rules in the second row.
'Unless there is something that I am missing…'
Lyren felt his palm warm up. It was true then. A pattern required both A and B lines to function and the X lines had a very different function. Almost like they were circuits for these A and B lines. The fact that there were X lines in this pattern was an already huge clue. He just couldn't wrap him mind around it.
Having hit this bottleneck, it was obvious that he was not going to find any other clues on this pattern. The only logical step next was studying another pattern. There was definitely something here that was being hidden in plain sight.
Lyren moved to the second pattern. He decided to identify the type of lines first and as he traced his fingers, he was shocked by his discovery. These lines were all A lines! They merged with each other and even their edges merged.
He noticed the numerous numbers of X lines and he could not hep but be confused by them. The first pattern was only made up of B and X lines while the second pattern was made up of A and X lines.
Lyren stood up and went to the next patterns. It appeared that they followed the same order. Each pattern had either A and X lines or B and X lines. There was no combination. This was a huge leap forward but he wondered.
'Maybe, just maybe, these patterns can light up without the other set of lines…'
This thought filled Lyren with hope. He took his time to accurately memorize the first pattern which he was able to do, surprisingly easy than he had expected. He then placed his hand on the core of the first pattern and visualized it…