Moku knew he had to be patient. The answer was there, veiled behind the mists of his consciousness. Haste would yield nothing. He had to trust in himself and in everything he had staked to reach this precipice.

Then, the words of Sabdo Palon suddenly echoed in his mind once more.

"...The process of ascending the evolutionary ladder isn’t a transformation—it’s a return to their original form of creation. The purest form, the one closest to the Supreme Creator."

What was this "purest form"? The form closest to the Supreme Creator?

Moku did not know who this Supreme Creator was. Perhaps He was the true God—the uncreated entity that created all else. The Alpha and the Omega. Perhaps He was The One, the very name Moku had used as a ruse to deceive the monsters. Or perhaps not. Had Moku invoked the name of "The One" purely out of a manipulative will, or had there been an invisible divine hand guiding his tongue all along? Moku did not know.

Yet, that was not the core of Sabdo Palon’s riddle.

"When the Supreme Creator made living beings, He breathed life into clay figurines. That breath is eternal, while their bodies are transient."

Moku peeled back the layers of meaning from that memory. The Supreme Creator was the architect of all things. In birthing life, He breathed His own essence into statues of clay. This meant that what truly granted life was not the clay, but the breath exhaled into it. The body—the clay figurine—was merely a hollow, fleeting vessel without the Creator’s breath within. If every being was an extension of that breath, then for as long as the Creator willed it, their existence was eternal. That breath is eternal, while their bodies are transient.

Was this breath the "purest form"?

Moku dived deeper, plunging through the depths of his spiritual ocean.

"Every being’s existence was predetermined even before creation. Their soul is the first form to emerge, long before they have thoughts or a sense of self. Only afterward are they given physical bodies..."

The order of creation unfolded clearly before him: first the Soul was created, then came the Mind, and finally, they were shackled by the Body.

At that precise second, enlightenment struck Moku like a thunderbolt. The process of climbing Mount Lawu—this evolutionary ladder—was the absolute inverse of the creation process. One who ascended rung by rung had to first subdue the Body, then seize absolute mastery over the Mind, until finally, they were able to touch the Soul once more.

All this time, Moku had believed evolution was a path to becoming a new, more powerful entity. He was wrong. Climbing Mount Lawu was a process of purification.

The Soul is the breath of the Creator, the purest and holiest form. But when the Soul is endowed with a Mind, it is no longer just a divine fragment; it evolves into a unique individual with Free Will. The Mind is limitless; it can become anything and reach anywhere. However, once the Mind is imprisoned within a Body, the shackles begin to tighten.

The Mind has no need for food, yet the Body hungers. The Mind has no need for air, yet the Body can suffocate. The Mind has no need to procreate, yet the Body is driven by that primal instinct. The Body imposes boundaries upon the infinity of the Mind.

Now Moku understood why the beings in the Mind Realm were so obsessed with Sin. They were the failed products of this ascent. They had discarded and severed all ties to the body’s needs to liberate the mind—a fatal error.

In truth, the Body is not merely a shackle. The Body is a trial designed to teach the climber the meaning of "Control." When the Body craves, the Mind must be able to restrain it. When the Body refuses to move, the Mind must be able to command it. Only when the Body has completely knelt before the tyranny of the Mind has one truly mastered their own Astral Realm.

But what of the Mind? Was it also a trial for the Soul?

The answer was no. The Mind was not a trial, but a compass and a weapon granted by the Creator so that the Soul might find its way home. Every Mind possesses an innate thirst to ask: Who am I? Where do I come from? Why do I exist?

These three absolute questions are not a labyrinth of confusion, but the keys to true enlightenment. And the answer would never be found by merely locking oneself in a void. The answer lay spread wide before his eyes.

The universe was not created as a backdrop for a stage, but as a gargantuan mathematical equation that provided a definitive answer for every variable. The sun rises in the east and dies in the west. Mountain water flows to the sea only to evaporate back into the sky. Grass is eaten by the deer, the deer is torn by the tiger, and the tiger dies to rot into the earth that nourishes the grass. The world is an invisible set of gears turning in absolute order. If one rotation deviated by so much as a mustard seed, the entire system would collapse.

Thus, the Soul endowed with a Mind must realize its place within the vortex of those gears. The emptiness of egoism collapses the moment one stops being ruled by the body and begins to gaze upon the world. Realizing this does not diminish one’s existence; rather, it proves that one is connected to everything. Every natural phenomenon, every narrative, every spoken word is a reflection of oneself. They live within a cycle, yet the cycle they turn is uniquely their own.

We are different.

But we go together.

When this realization coalesces within a person, the boundary between reality and imagination dissolves. They become capable of pulling dreams and ideas into the physical world. They have conquered their own Mind Realm. And one who truly knows who they are can never be subjugated by the mental illusions of another entity.

When the Body and Mind are finally bound perfectly under the control of the awakened Soul, only one proclamation remains.

"I am that I am!" Mujun opened his eyes.

He no longer saw through the physical eyes he had carried since his rebirth. Nor did he see through the inner eyes he had struggled so hard to open. He saw through the eyes that had existed since that first breath was exhaled at the dawn of creation.

Ethereal Perception.

"I knew you would succeed!" a voice rang out, heard not through his ears, but through his new vision. A voice that had nearly faded from his memory due to the severe trauma he had suffered as a child in his previous life. A voice that had repeatedly saved him and shown him the path, whether in this world or the one before. The voice that had always been with him.

And this time, with his new sight, Mujun could no longer just hear the voice—he could see its source.

"Yeah, thank you for waiting," Mujun said with a smile.

"It was no trouble. I will always be with you, my son," the figure said, smiling back.

"Nice to meet you again... mother."