Chapter 14: Where am I?

Within a realm filled with unique worlds, a remarkable sight unfolded. A speeding object streaking through the cosmos at a velocity surpassing both sound and light. This object was none other than Tom, flying through the void, his destination set upon a particular world.

The world he was flying to didn't have any outstanding features that would distinguish it from the others. This world was ordinary, too ordinary in fact, that it fitted perfectly with the other worlds around it.

Tom, who was completely blacked out, neared this world at an astonishing velocity. The sheer speed of his descent was enough to destroy the very fabric of any mortal soul, causing them to shatter with that force alone. Not even considering the impending collision with the membrane of that world.

Tom, of course, wasn't aware of any of the things happening all around him, or else he would have started analyzing the situation, and he would have started making plan after plan until he reached the perfect or at least most optimal one.

Unconscious and in the middle of an unknown place, Tom's current circumstances are truly unenviable. His fate was uncertain, with no one to guide him all alone.

The minutes passed by, and Tom almost reached his destination. The membrane of that world.

Seconds before the collision, a weirdly shaped mark lit up on his forehead, causing a ray of light to cover his body in the shape of a cocoon.

Boom, Boom, Boom.

An explosion sounded through the air, causing the inhabitants of this world to come to a halt. The deafening volume of the explosion caused the heads of every single creature of this world to look up. After the impact, there was a brief moment of silence where no one dared to speak out loud.

Moments passed, and It seemed like a dam had suddenly burst open. The silence shattered into a cacophony of voices made by the people who were discussing what had just happened.

None of the natives of this world were aware that they just had a visitor, a new addition to their world, if you may. This same visitor might soon cause this world to see the dawn of a new era.

In a small cottage in a small village, the sounds of cries of a woman giving birth made this tiny village noisy with the chatter of the villagers. Whether young or old, male or female, they all were excited to see the new addition this village would get.

After hours of hearing nothing but screams of the labor, the noisy villagers who were conversing happily heard that ominous explosion. Which naturally made the villagers talk amongst themselves about it. For some, they thought that the children who would be born at this moment would bring disaster to the village, and for others, they thought that it was simply a coincidence.

In the house of the woman who was giving birth.

"Li Mei, don't worry about anything. It will all be ok. Your main focus should be on giving birth to our child. I will make sure that you both are safe and sound." Tian Cheng wanted to assure his wife that nothing wrong would happen while knowing full well that some of the villagers would cause a commotion because of their idiotic beliefs.

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"As a husband and a soon-to-be father, I must not let my child or wife become an outcast of this village. As a husband and a father, I must become the roof that protects my family from the rain." Tian Cheng told himself those words to confirm his beliefs. He knew that he might not be the brightest of the bunch after all; he was but an average villager in a small village.

The sounds of soft and muffled footsteps were heard. Those footsteps belonged to a man guarding the doors of his house. A man who made sure that his childbirth would go unhindered, "Even if this means that I will need to face the whole village, I am going to shield them."

"Tian Cheng, we only need to make sure that he is not an ogre or a beast."

"Tian Cheng, you heard that explosion. Let us have a quick glance at him just to make sure he won't bring disaster."

"Tian Cheng, don't be selfish. You need to put the village first."

"Tian Cheng."

"Tian Cheng."

"Tian Cheng."

The worst possible situation happened, and a couple of those noisy villagers decided to come to his house and make trouble for his family. Tian Cheng didn't care for niceties. He was someone who spoke his mind without hesitation.

"Over my dead body." Four simple words by a simple man made the villagers return to their homes. Although the words themselves were ordinary, the determination and convictions behind them turned those ordinary words into a shield against his enemies.

While Tian Cheng was guarding the door of the house, his mother-in-law was inside helping her daughter give birth.

A couple of more minutes passed by, and with the help of Li Mei's mother, she gave birth to a cute baby boy.

"It's a boy," Ma Roi said, welcoming her grandchild to this and announcing to the village the new addition to the family.

"A baby, what is a baby?" a question was asked by this so-called child, "Where am I?" he wanted to know what this unknown place was," question after question was asked with no one to answer him.

Moments passed, and the memories of the baby started to return.

"I am Thomas Blackwood. I was pushed away by the Lord of Reincarnation at the last second before the collapse of the Pagoda to this place. That old geezer didn't explain anything." Tom started to remember who he was, opening his eyes to this new world.

Tom had many questions he wanted answers to; for example, why can't he feel his soul? And where is this place? However, he understood one thing in this new place, he had no one other than himself to rely on.

"Wait a second, I feel as if I forgot someone." Through his journey through the floors of the Pagoda, Tom forgot the thing that gave him the opportunity to enter the Pagoda in the first place.

"Noor, are you there?" he asked, hoping for a positive response.

Silence, nothing was heard.

Tom started to feel a weird sensation of loss, yet he wasn't the same Tom who entered the Pagoda on the first floor. He who entered the Pagoda was hammered by its fire and refined with each trial into a gem purer than any other.

"With or without Noor, I am going to make it to the top. Having her would make things simpler for me. However, that doesn't mean I can't reach the peak without her." Tom understood himself better than ever. Thus, he didn't care as much as he would normally have.

"Analysis."

"Synchronizing with host new body."

"Body analysis complete.'

"Soul analysis failure Incomplete analysis leading to a fragmented understanding of the host soul."

"Previous settings restoration requires host approval."

"Host, do you wish for your previous no-notification settings to be set up?" A mechanical voice sounded in Tom's deepest part. He heard it from inside him.

"Haha!" Tom felt a happiness that could not be imagined, and although he might have told himself he would get to his goals with or without Noor, he understood better than anyone else her value. After all, he was her creator.

"Noor reactivate notifications and restore settings status to normal." Tom started giving out orders to Noor in a hurry. He wanted to understand his surroundings as fast as he could.

"Settings restoration complete." Noor completed her configuration and made sure that she returned to her default status.

"Noor, since you are done with the setup, can you analyze my surroundings? Oh, and also, can you show me my body status?" Curiosity filled Tom with a hunger for information.

"Analysis of Visual environment."

"Analysis of Audible environment."

"Analysis of Olfactory Environment"

"According to my quick analysis, it seems that the host is in a villager's house with a style that combines both Middle age Western style with the ancient Eastern style. If we add to that the scents the host is currently smelling, I can confirm that the time period is before any kind of soap was invented, or more likely before it was made popular by the Arabs with scented soaps or even before it was widespread by the roman through their bathrooms." Noor started to tell Tom about the history of soaps out of nowhere.

"What do soaps have anything with my current situation?" Tom asked.

Noor continued, "Those two key points would have locked the time period before the second century BCE. However, after the analysis of the language model, it doesn't seem that the language spoken here belongs to any of the languages registered in the database, and it doesn't share any similarities with them. So after the addition of all of these elements and the host's previous encounters, there is a 99.99% chance that the host is in a new uncharted world." Noor gave Tom a complete, deep analysis of the situation, which increased his understanding of this new place.