Her voice disappeared as swiftly as it had appeared leaving Haley alone to start the trial, only.... 

         "Can't you at least tell me how I'm meant to start the trial in the first place?" He shouted into the air, his cries were met with nothing but silence, he didn't give up so easily however and shouted a few more times only to be certain that she truly had no intention of giving him the slightest hint. 'So this is something I have to do entirely on my own.' He thought as he stared up at the globe held by four pillars.

         He approached the closest of the four pillars, it had intricately carved images of animals that one would only see in fantasy: A Hydra, Dragon and Basilisk adorned it, they were only carvings and yet they looked so life-like as if at any moment they would break free from the shackles of fantasy and bonds of stone to wreak havoc on the land. 

        Haley chuckled softly and shook his head to rid his head of such fantasies, something that he realised he hadn't done for a long time; there was a foreboding feeling lingering in his mind for the first time since 001 had entered his life, as if his mind had not been entirely his own to this point. He tried to shake it and focus on the task at hand but the thought lingered like a ghost. "Now's not the time Haley..." He mumbled before walking closer to the pillar, he slowly brushed his hand against the base of the pillar which happened to be the face of one of the heads of the Hydra.

       "Let the first trial begin..." A voice like the whisper of the wind appeared in his mind before swiftly departing the moment his hand made contact with the pillar, the pillar began to glow a blinding silver plunging Haley into a world of pure light before it slowly began to recede exposing him to a new scene.

In front of him now was nothing but endless darkness and a single planet, the pillars were nowhere in sight - he 'looked' down only to see that even his body and disappeared yet he could still feel his limbs, experimenting he waved his hand in front of him lightly but to his shock the planet actually started to spin like he had just spin a ball. 

       'Oh fuck....' Haley thought, he waited for a moment for the voice of the Spirit to appear to tell him he had just destroyed everything on the planet with the light wave of his hand just now yet she didn't appear. In fact, the planet was still spinning as if nothing had happened, slowly he extended his hand in front of him and simply held it there as if commanding someone to stop.

       Slowly yet surely the planet began to slow down until it was as still as it had been just moments before, he examined it in interest only to realise that there seemed to be far more pieces of land than there had just moments before, the gigantic continent he had seen just moments before had actually split off into multiple lands and islands across the globe. 'So... I can control time?' He observed the planet closely and realised that he could 'zoom' into where he was looking, on a certain piece of land somewhere he saw that even the trees had stopped moving in the wind as if they were truly frozen in time, there was a bird frozen mid-takeoff and a rabbit mere moments away from being devoured by a fox.

      Curiously Haley raised his hand and slowly waved it, 'Start' he said in his mind - instantly the world around him came to life as the plants and animals began to move and time started once more. If Haley had a physical body it would be possible to see his mouth open in awe as he watched all of this happen, 'How incredible!' He thought excitedly before he reigned in his emotions, 'I can't let myself get carried away however, this place doesn't really exist it's just something created by the Spirits power; I'm not a God.'

      That was right, that was the only thought he had to keep in mind. 'I'm not a God.' All of this was nothing but a mere illusion, if he let himself be carried away by the illusion of power he would lose himself and not even realise how he died. The power he had was nothing but temporary even if it was omnipotent.  

      Haley took a 'step' back and returned to observing the entire planet, "There has to be a point to this," he mumbled as he stared at the planet slowly rotating on its axis in the pitch black void, "If I was a God, what would I do next?" He asked himself uncertainly. He wasn't certain what his powers were exactly but it seemed to act on his impulses, he stretched out his hands and repeatedly said, "Create" in his mind. 

       'But what do I create?' Almost instantly the image of himself came to mind, a human: two eyes, arms, hands, legs, feet and a single head. Like magic it was as if he was looking into a mirror but he had created himself from his own memory, 'he' had no consciousness and was little more than a soul-less doll that was held in space by his will. Without much thought he found a small cave in the side of a nearby mountain next to a forest and a stream. He slowly placed the body down in the cave and looked at himself for a moment in silence.

       "Life." He muttered as if he was under a spell and he watched as a stream of life force, a misty grey cloud of energy, slowly began to fill the body with life. A short few moments later Haley watched as his twin opened its eyes for the first time, it quickly got up in shock and began to look around the cave dumbly; Haley was dumbfounded as it picked up a rock and tried to eat it, 'Of course he only has basic intelligence.' He groaned internally but he had no reason to correct this and simply watched as he began to explore his surroundings.

         Haley#2 was very simple minded, he put everything he could in his mouth and anything he could eat without experiencing pain he would eat when he got hungry. Haley grew bored of watching him like this, 'If I make a few more humans and place them around each other, I just need to speed up time again and come back then.' 

     Quickly he made nine more humans of varying appearances, he made four males and five females to even out the numbers and placed them within the same forest near one another, he created mountains around the forest to ensure that they would at some point meet one another. He repeated this several times in different locations across the globe, making sure that he didn't reuse the same human 'design' more than once in the end there were fifty of these experiments across the world.

  "I wonder how this'll turn out..." He mumbled before willing time to speed up, he watched as the world began to rotate at an unbelievable speed - he didn't know how many years exactly had passed in the mere second he sped up time but it was enough... 

. . . 

Haley#2 lay on his deathbed, his hair a disgruntled mess but otherwise there was a content smile on his face as he looked at the five children at his side. Tears welled in their eyes as they cried yet they didn't have the words to express themselves other than a few short grunts at low tones to show they were sad, the smile on his face didn't leave even as he slowly closed his eyes for the final time as he watched his family cry for his passing.

       Haley nodded from the side as he watched this, in that single second at least twenty years had passed - he had come back to the point where his clone had become the leader of the 'tribe' of humans he had setup, he had spent the past five years watching their lives while learning how to speed up time occasionally; luckily it felt as if the first trial had no time limit so he had the leisure of watching them go through countless challenges to build up the tribe of sixty people that they had today of course, they had some help from him as well especially when it came to the development of tools and using them. He discovered that he was able to possess the body of anyone he wished for a short time so even though he had trouble communicating with them he could show them through his actions how to improve their lives.

         'Unfortunately only twelve of the other experiments have survived to this point and they've only barely begun to discover the applications of fire.' The other experiments had only barely managed to maintain a population of twenty humans on average, without Haley's interference the other experiments had developed at much slower paces than the 'tribe' his clone commanded.

         'It's time to let time pass again...' He mumbled before leaving the world for the first time in half a decade.

Daoist_Aileus

Sorry for the lack of chapter yesterday! I scheduled the chapter for today at 1pm instead of yesterday by mistake, I was doing some editing on previous chapters and just realised whoops ;-; Thanks for your patience!