Chapter 2: Dream?

"Hey, can you hear me?"

Those were the first words that snapped me out of my daze. I remembered going to work and after that... it's all a blank. "Oh, sorry! I'm just feeling a bit disoriented.” I said while trying to look around me.

“Huh? Where am I? And why are we in pitch-black darkness?"

As I opened my eyes, pure nothingness surrounded me. There was no one in sight. Who was I talking to?

"Do you by any chance remember what happened before you woke up here?” Said someone in a deep growly voice, while completely ignoring my question.

“Ahh. I, I don't know.” My head was pounding, and concentrating on anything was damn near impossible. The stupid darkness was also not helping. Instead of calming me down, the eariness of it was just making me more panicked.

“The procedure went well, but the remnants of it will leave its mark on you for a little bit. It's no wonder your memory might be a bit hazy."

The weird thing about the voice was that it was coming in from all directions. Not that I could discern them in this dark room.

“Here, this might help.” The person said and I felt my senses tingling, as something entered my body and wherever it passed my body felt renewed. It was like I was back in my prime years, without the slight belly fat and back pains from sitting behind the desk all day.

The pleasant feeling quickly disappeared after the sense went over my head. A wave of panic washed over me as the memories came flooding back to me in a tidal wave.

The pain, agony, and despair, knowing I will never see my soon-to-be wife ever again were suffocating. At that moment I wished none of it was real. That it was just a bad dream. I was alive, wasn't I? So all the death and destruction had to have happened only in my imagination. I blinked, trying to make sense of the situation.

"We... We decided to… To escape.”

“But then things went wrong. The supposedly secret exit was compromised…”

“And then… “

“Aaaaah?!" I felt tears flowing freely down my cheeks, and anger building up inside me.

“I don't know. Why did we trade our lives for that damn research?“

“WHY!? God damn it! WHY?!”

I collapsed on the strange ground while sniffling all the while. I could see their faces before my eyes now. The stupid bastards, all of them. Maybe if we allowed them to come in and take what they wanted we could have all been alive now, but no. The fuckers decided to take them with us. There was no way out after they blocked all the exits, so we blew up the lab. Our life's work, the research, the exabytes of data, the raiders, and all the innocent personnel inside all went up in flames. We were murderers, just as bad as the people who came after our work, and the ones who gave them orders.

I could feel my mind slipping back into darkness. The vein in my forehead was pulsing so strongly it was making my head hurt again. I was hyperventilating and barely staying conscious.

"Calm down, James. Take a deep breath. Not all is lost. Focus on my voice.” The person was evidently expecting something like this as he was completely calm as I was going through the rollercoaster of terrible emotions. So I did what he said.

“Good now, inhale. And exhale.”

I used his voice as an anchor to keep me sane and regain control over my body as it was previously slipping.

“Ok. Now that you have relatively calmed down we can finally talk. I am known as Nixaris, one of the counselors of Charlak, but none of that matters now.” He said the title with extreme pride and reverence as if he proclaimed himself a god, but after that, you could literally feel the pain and disappointment he held inside. There was obviously a bigger story but I didn't want to pry. I had one of those as well so I could tell how he feels.

“Now, after the explosions went off I took you from Earth at the last moment. Unfortunately, you are the last survivor."

“Huh? What do you mean by tha-?”

“⬒⁒∖⧟⢧⣓♙⒅⁝⒍ⶆ⡲⏘⒛⏁ⷛ⚟⻡⃪≤⟔⚧⻡↩⛏⺛⠒⟁⊸⏺⁜⦧⽦⾷⿃⦶⁈⊸⿅⹙⽯⬩⧳⬡₃⣴◻↠Ⱜⲷ⸌⬧⠯╤␕Ⱒ⣂⠸⒈⿟⤱ⅶ⩡⫛❺⿈┑⽍ⓥ⼁ⳑ⑫⚭⡂⹞⮃⮲ⵆ┊ⶻ⼶⺶Ⳮ⃑Ⳉ⫪ⅼ₇⺆⢵⎑⚜”

An incomprehensible noise came through the link and stopped my questioning.

“ⴏ⠏⍕⠈∑⿋Ⱎ⦓≎⋳ⰲ┐⣩⺊⹡ⴗ…” Another line of mumbo jumbo was sent over.

“Can-∑⿋ y-Ⱎ⦓≎ und-⋳ⰲ┐me now?” Trying to unravel the meaning behind the nonsense was starting to hurt my brain.

“Sorry? I don't understand.”

“Can you understand me now?” The words this time were clear enough to discern the message.

“Yes, I can… What was that?” I enquire.

“...”

It is evident that he or rather it, doesn't want to talk about it.

“My apologies. Things seem worse than I thought.”

What in the world is going on? I know that dreams can be confusing sometimes but this is just nonsense. One moment he is talking to me normally and the next he is blasting my head with the loudest chanting I ever heard.

“Where were we? Ah yes. We are not on Earth anymore. This place is what we call The Interstice, and you enter it through the Realm rift. For someone like you, this is probably the most dangerous area in the universe. But with me, you have nothing to fear.“ He says.

“Aha. Sure. So, we are like inside the void or something?"

A hint of confusion laced my voice as I struggled to comprehend the situation.

First the raid on the lab, the subsequent explosion, and now this. Yeah... There is no way in hell any of this is real. Now I just want to wake up next to my beautiful fiance, go on with my day and forget any of this has ever happened.

"Well I don't know what definition you have for a ‘void’ but if it entails an immaterial plane that is composed of antimatter, and functions like a mirror universe to ours, you would be correct," the voice replied calmly.

“Though the real beauty of it lies in its use. By traveling on the Interstice we can move faster than light in the material universe. It's just that there are many potentially dangerous places in it and if you lack the strength to escape the Rift storms you are done for.” He warns.

“Right, so if this place is potentially so dangerous, why are we here?”

At first, there was only silence, but after a while, he answered.

“I can’t really go back to the material plane as my physical body is badly hurt right now, so this was the only viable solution. And even then if there wasn’t such a great disturbance on the Interstice that you guys caused, by triggering that explosion, there would be no way for me to open a Realm rift in time to save you.” He reluctantly answers.

Alright, this makes a lot of sense then. Maybe the injury also caused him to go nuts every now and then and talk nonsense for a while until the rational side takes back control.

The more I think about it the scarier it gets. Just imagine if even someone this strong got hurt this badly, who was he fighting against?

It was evident that he didn't like to talk about his injury or anything related to it, so after snapping myself out of the reverie I finally focused on the things that I might actually get answers from.

The more we talked the more the scientist inside me came out. I asked him some more questions about the Interstice and Rifts until he had enough.

“Alright. I didn’t want to get into too much detail so this should be enough to satiate your curiosity for now. It's not like any of that knowledge will be of need to you any time soon.” Nixaris responded, sounding surprisingly nonchalant.

I on the other hand was annoyed to be left hanging like that. During the course of our conversation I was starting to accept that this might be my new reality, as hard as it was to believe.

“Now, for why you can't see anything but darkness,” The being continued, not giving me a chance to interrupt.

“My soul form or anything going on around us is beyond your wildest imagination and consequently if you were to witness any of it your mind would shut down. Because of that, I took the liberty to shut down your senses. The way we are communicating right now is strictly through the soul link I established. It also enables me to understand your language and vice versa.”

Damn. That was… Quite something. And if I believed that everything I heard so far was real, that could very well also be true.

“So…” I trailed off.

“You said I'm not dead, so why am I here? Why would someone so incredibly strong even bother with someone like me? From the things I see and your explanation I can't even be considered an ant compared to you, but there must still be something you want from me." Amusement and intrigue were lacing my voice.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“You're here because I am slowly dying and decided to leave my inheritance behind to someone capable. If you agree I will send you back to the material universe where you will have to do just one thing. Impress me. If you succeed the inheritance will be all yours, if not you will die. Permanently this time.”

“Alright… If I understand this correctly, you want me to be your dancing monkey until I prove I am good enough or die for real right now?”

“You can take it that way, but you should know this. Your soul, as it is right now, is still way too weak to reincarnate, so once you leave my sphere of influence, you would just dissipate into nothingness.” the being replied nonchalantly, while I, on the other hand, felt conflicted. Not by the choice I had to make but by everything happening around me.

Even if it was a dream, it was a very convincing one. The healing and the other possibly real information was still bouncing in my mind.

So be what it may. I decided to become the creature's pet. I bet it will still be a thousand times better than dissipating into nothingness so why not. At the very least I'll try to reinforce my soul so I can reincarnate, and if my newly gained luck persists, I just might even gain the inheritance, whatever that entails.

"Okay... I should probably process all this later. For now, I'd rather not cease to exist, and this game you're proposing seems really intriguing. Can you explain a bit more about what you want me to do? How do I prove to you I am worthy? And will there be any other contestants I will have to fight with?”

“Good questions. Now you're using your brain. No there won't be anyone else, even though that could spice things up a bit, the place you are going to will probably give you enough problems as is. Remember I don't want you to just survive. I want you to thrive!”

That's really good to hear. Still, getting some company at first would be good as I wouldn't have to suffer alone, but eventually, the inheritance would only go to a single person so a fight to the death would be inevitable.

“Ok. That sounds good. You said the world will be challenging. Just where are you planning to take me?” I wondered.

The following response will be critical to my future approach and planning. I just hope it won't be someplace too dangerous, where even from the beginner village you have to fight with end-game bosses.

"Well, for one there won't be any transportation to another world. I am far too weak to do that right now. Instead, I'll send you back through time.”

“Wait what? You can do that? But how?”

My scientific brain was firing neurons at full force, looking for a viable way to explain something like that. The closest I got was the hypothetical scenario known as the ‘twin paradox’. According to this scenario, if one twin were to travel away from Earth at speeds close to the speed of light and then return, they would experience time passing more slowly relative to the twin who remained on Earth. As a result, when the traveling twin returns, they would find that less time has passed for them compared to their twin who stayed on Earth.

However, this scenario is an oversimplification of physics and not a real reversal of time in the conventional sense. Time dilation effects occur due to differences in relative motion and the gravitational fields experienced by the twins. The traveling twin would age less compared to the stationary twin, but time would not reverse or go backward.

So I was stumped. But then I remembered that maybe someone so powerful as this creature in front of me just might break the theory of relativity, proposed by Albert Einstein, which states that the speed of light in a vacuum is the ultimate speed limit in the universe. As an object with mass approaches the speed of light, its energy requirements increase exponentially, making it nearly impossible to reach or exceed this speed. So according to our current understanding of physics, traveling faster than light is not possible, but what if he can pull it off? What if that is the answer to time travel?

But in that case that wouldn't really be the only problem I would then have to face. Even if he succeeds there would still be numerous challenges and paradoxes, such as the grandfather paradox. It questions the possibility of altering events in the past and potentially causing contradictory outcomes that would easily ruin my plans.

“Well don't take time travel literally. Something like that is impossible, at least as far as we know it. Even if someone could do something like that it would create countless future problems, so he would probably try to use it in secret, and never let anyone else know about it. In short, you won't really go to your world so there is no fear of killing your ancestors which would cause you to disappear.

The place you will be sent to is a copy of your old world. I gathered enough information about it so throwing you into a parallel dimension where the time passes slower shouldn't be that hard. The calculations and possible problems while doing so are countless, but the energy needed is negligible compared to traveling along the interstice and battling against its current and possible dangers.”

The line about traveling to an alternate universe didn't really give me any reassurance. The thing was definitely badly hurt and if he can't even talk to me normally, how can he do something like that without messing something up?

“All right. So why are you so adamant about taking me back in time? Couldn't you just reproduce the world as it is in my normal timeline?”

Many of the modern luxuries would be lost by going back in time, so I can't say I was too pleased about his decision.

“In your times the wars are fought by utilizing technology, although there is nothing wrong with that, my inheritance leans more towards the spiritual and supernatural. And that was much more commonly found in more primitive times where there wasn't an explanation for everything, and most of the natural phenomenon was explained as a supernatural or godly power.”

“Alright. I guess you already made up your mind about the place you will take me, but aren't I just going to introduce a deadly virus and trigger a devastating plague? Or perhaps succumb to their unsanitary conditions and die in agony? And even if I somehow manage to survive, I don't even know their language!"

"I'm aware of the risks. That's where the perks come in. It would be rather dull for you to be an ordinary human. Therefore, I shall bestow upon you the following boons:

The ability is called a Memory-palace. To make it I will use a part of your soul and transform it into a construct that will store all your knowledge, but can be used for a limited amount of time depending on what you're doing. For example, if you are just browsing and recollecting your memories, you'll last for hours, but if you got a bit creative and told it to create a perfect martial art for you, that would cripple your ability to use it for anything else for about a year if not more. Of course, you could stop its progress in the meantime and check something you forgot or even make its progress even slower by designating a bit of 'memory' a day for other tasks but, it still stands that it's fairly limited in its usage right now. The only way of improving it is to constantly use it. That process is like training a muscle or in this case your soul. Another way to think about the palace is to picture a plugin/controller to your soul from which you can gain access.

The second bit of help is body remodeling. So if you have any special wishes, tell me and I'll see what I can do. To make this work I will unfortunately have to overwrite your DNA, but it shouldn't impact you in any other way.

What do you think? Quite appealing, isn't it? But of course, it can't be all sunshine and rainbows. There are a couple of downsides:

This goes without saying but your children won't inherit any of your abilities.

And I'll be watching your every move, but you won't be aware of my presence."

The things he listed were... Absurd. Any reincarnated young master or hero would kill to have it and if I agree to play his little game, I could also gain knowledge and power previously unimaginable.

"So… What kind of modifications to my body are we talking about? What are the limits?"

"To keep the show entertaining I would like to keep them inside the limits of cosmetic changes. Basically, whatever you would like on your body I can model it for you. If you would like to look exactly like some famous person we can do exactly that."

"Damn... So does that mean I can't just ask for dragon skin or something that would make me impenetrable to bullets and any other afflictions?"

"Correct. If you would like to remodel your body within human limits, let's say becoming an athlete, I can help you with that, but that is also the limit to how far I'm willing to go."

"Alright, alright. That's also not too bad. Even though it may come out a bit shallow, pretty privilege is a real thing no matter where you are. Well then. Let's start with the most important upgrade that any man would probably take. Make my tool 2 inches bigger."

“...”

I could definitely feel his judgment but in this case, we were talking about my benefits, so how could I let such a great opportunity slip by?

"Very well."

I looked at the image that appeared in my mind. It was a 3D model of my current appearance. I have to say that I was satisfied with my genes previously but now it was perfect.

So in the next couple of minutes, I rattled on my requests as they arose in my mind and changed my appearance as I pleased. The process reminded me of the character creation game menu before you start playing, but unlike most of my gaming characters, I decided to look good instead of the usual goblin-like creature.

"Alright... Is that it? If so, what do you think?"

The image was of a very handsome, lean, caucasian man in his late twenties with beautiful long brown hair that flowed like a mane, a manly beard, and piercing blue eyes.

The reasons I picked the modifications that I did were: One, to make myself look good, and two, because I knew that taking care of my appearance to a certain extent will be impossible to where I'm going. Well for at least another 1000 years or so. Having a beard and long hair also made me look like a Viking and the muscles also helped sell that manly look, that will only get more pronounced when I'll get dirty, sweaty, or painted with the guts and blood of my enemies.

"Nixaris, you have really outdone yourself with this one." I was evidently very pleased with how my ‘character’ turned out.

"Thank you. My possible champion can’t look too shabby after all."

"Oh. I just remembered something. Will I be able to return if I pass the trial?"

Unconsciously I started taking this whole ordeal as something that was truly happening to me and I wasn't only imagining things, so I had to make sure that there would at least be some way to see her again.

"Hmm… In this case, if everything goes according to plan, the New Earth's gravity, rotation speed, and everything else will be the same, but as I said before the time will pass slower than in your old world. That is also the reason they are still so undeveloped compared to your world.”

Shit. This is bad news. If that is true, then depending on the speed of time dilation I will still be in my thirties when Claire will already be an old lady.

“No… I won't do it. If you really send me there, then there will be no point in coming back to my Earth even if I succeed. Everyone I know and love will already be dead and the world will change too much in that time. It will be like I am transported back into the future.”

There was resolve in my voice. This is my ultimatum. It was evident that he doesn't have much time left and by sharing so much information with me he definitely wants something else from me, that he isn’t saying.

The being sighed through the link.

“Listen. If you become my successor there will be a near-limitless lifespan waiting for you, so why are you so stubborn? It's better to say goodbye now rather than later when you will be too attached to let go.

You know. The feeling of knowing you are going to live on for eons more when someone you love passes away is terrible. Believe me, I know, and I don't want you to repeat my mistake.”

“I would rather just live my life like a normal person, instead of reach for the stars and discard what is actually important. Yes, there might be some regrets when I will be on my deathbed, for not taking some opportunities, but having a loving family around me would dispel any such delusions.”

“...”

The soul link was quiet. And then he sighed again. I really hoped it wouldn’t come to this. For that I am sorry, but it has to be done.”

“What are you talking about? Are you having another one of those seizures where you talk nonsense for a while?” I said, completely bewildered.

He didn't answer, but I felt like he was preparing to do something I wouldn't like one bit.

“Wait! What are you doing? Answer me dammit!”

Just when I finished talking I felt an excruciating pain in my head, the likes of which I never even imagined existed.

The scream I let out was heart-wrenching. I felt like my vocal cords would rip and tear. I screamed until I couldn't scream anymore.

The pain was getting stronger and stronger and I couldn't even process all of it. My neurons felt like they were fried and so I just stood there in agony, until I passed out.