I spent an unknown amount of time in that room. Just learning and coming to accept what I learned.
I learned the names and characteristics of every sapient species on the planet: Human, Svartalf, Fae, Elgar, Choy, Duhein, Intar, and the Lonkotnok.
Humans are as one might imagine, human.
Svartalf are a short race of very dark skinned elf-like people. They live in cave systems of their own design. They are like humanoid ants and even have a queen-centric social structure. They are some of the nest craftsmen in existence. Their technical expertise is second to none.
Fae are also something one might expect. They are basically elves, prettier, taller, faster, stronger, and ageless versions of humanity. Their only faults are the extremely low fertility and their tendency toward emotional detachment from reality. They are the greatest storytellers and artists around. Despite misconceptions here and there, they are not immortal. They simply have very long life spans and do not show signs of ageing after reaching their peak adult condition around the age of 25.
Elgar are humans on steroids, kind of like orcs from videogames or whatever. They are larger, stronger, more aggressive humans. They tend toward slightly diminished inteligence, but their sheer physical might makes up for it. They have a pretty healthy society with simple rules of might makes right, and they all seem to respect that simple dynamic.
Choy are where things get interesting. They are dragonoids. They are people with scales, claws, fangs, a tail, and functional wings. They even have horns and can spit a volatile chemical mixture from their mouths due to special glands in their neck in to create a fiery burst that reaches a temperature of 300 C. They are the most magically capable of the various races, but suffer from even greater infertility than the Fae. Other than that they seemed to me to be the obviously most superior race. I wanted to meet one.
Yes, magic. That was an interesting discovery. What I was using was not magic. I was doing something far more potent. I was speaking to the fundamental substance of the universe. Magic in this world was oddly simple and generic. It was heavily systematized, but still pretty basic. There is a form of primal enery that exists everywhere and can be harnessed by either having a natural talent, by consuming a special awakening elixir, by a magic ritual performed by other magicians, etc. Turns out that when I ate that amazing leaf, I unlocked my own ability to perform magic. Not only did I unlock it, but I was now probably the most magically talented person alive. . . Yup. That was a lot to take in. I was learning a lot and learning it very quickly. Moving on. . .
Duhein are where things became strange. I didn't think there would be non-humanoid sapients. Duhein are giant, amphibious squids. It was the best description I could manage. The overall shape was quite different, but the concept was the same. They could even camoflauge like an octopus. The Duhein are the rulers of the deep and pretty much monopolize the fishing business. They are extremely industrious as a species. Somehow they are all just good at doing business. Their society is the most economically powerful of any species on the planet.
Intar are really big. They are six legged and almost elephant-like. They are like longer wooly mamoths, except that they are hairless. They have several trunks, two that are especially large and powerful, more so than even an earth elephant, and two that are smaller and more delicate. Each trunk ends with four prongs for precise manipulations. No tusks though. They do have four eyes, two in front of their face, and one on either side. They could live for very very long periods of time, not ageless like the elves, but they could live six or seven times a human lifespan.
The Lonkotnok are definitely the most unusual. They are crystal people. Yup, they are living crystals. So the very first one came about looooong loooong ago, and wandered the planet for millenia before eventually being shattered and destroyed by a joint group of Intar and Halagan. The first Lonkotnok was massive, truly enormous, and the pieces were many. The shards were scattered about, and some were kept as trophies. From some of these shards, new lonkotnok began to grow. The growing process is quite slow before the point at which they are sapient and mobile. These new lonkotnok were of a much more mild temperment than their predecessor and kept to themselves for ages. As time passed, they developed a tradition of pruning in which they would regulate their maximum size. It was discovered that while greater size lent itself to greater cognitive function, it also gave diminishing returns after a certain point and would begin leading to increased insanity. Considering the size of the first, it had passed the critical point long before it was destroyed. The lonkotnok are not very numerous, as it takes a great deal of time for a lonkotnok seed crystal to grow to a size that is large enough to be considered sapient. They are friendly with all species, and are by far the most chill species on the planet. They don't need any food or water.
The ancient Halagan people would study the lokotnok crystal structure for over a millennia in an attempt to use the crystals. It was eventually discovered that when small enough, before the crystals exhibit life signs, the crystals could be magically programmed to continually cast a specific magic. This led to a new age in technology for the halagan race. But like all great societies, they tore themselves apart. They eventually got into genetic experimentation, and this is how the humans, svartalf, fae, elgar, and choy came to be. Nobody remembers what the original Halagan people looked like except for one or two lonkotnok that hid well enough and survived the mad crystal harvesting the Halagan inflicted upon their race at that time.
There are only about five hundred lonkotnok active at the moment, and it will likely be a very long time before they even have a thousand members.
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Feeling slightly guilty at the thought of a baby tree dying because of the leaf I ate, I spawned a new one with specific wording so that it would be spontaneously generated and assembled instead of taking an existing leaf from some unknown location. I didn't actually know what mechanism was used last time, but I felt the need to specify.
It was just as delicious as I remember, except I realise now part of the initial euphoria was my body awakening to the sensation of absorbing and assimilating a new form of energy. This time around it was less of a shock to my system, but it was still amazing. I decided at this moment that I could not be satisfied with any other food and would only eat these leaves for the rest of my life. They had ruined me for all other food.
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I was actually so obsessed that I did something rather impulsive. I discovered that these leaves had no specific name, so I named them after myself. Emil leaves. Yup, the power is going to my head. I was already naming things after myself as if I discovered them. I felt very imperialistic. That didn't stop me from going even further.
"Grant to me an innate and intuitive ability to rapidly and easily generate Emil Leaves at a location one millimeter away from the center of the palms of my hands without cost to myself or using prexisting energy or material but that each such leaf would be a completely new creation." Yes, I did just attempt to give myself the ability to create something from nothing. . . The crazy thing is that it worked. It wasn't even hard to do. In fact, it worked so well that I started thinking that I ought to get rid of this ability lest it drive me insane. Humans aren't equiped to handle such power.
"Can I go back to the world where I was born?" This was by far the most draining question I had asked. I consumed leaves at breakneck pace to just stay conscious. And my reward for asking this question was simply that I did not have the appropriate system access to get the answer to that question. It turns out that I was using the equivalent of a guest account and needed admin priviledges to get further information. It was worth a shot, but then the panic and anxiety started.
"I'm never getting out of here." I said this same phrase in at least 17 different languages, just so I could hear myself say it. I hadn't heard my own voice in a long time. It was surreal being able to speak for the first time and having my first actual words in this world be in a language that is not my mother tongue. I felt like I was going insane, and like a proper insane person, I acted without thinking of the consequences.
[Make me sane and well emotionally adjusted to my circumstances!] And that was that. It's not supposed to be that easy. Nothing is supposed to be this easy. But here I was, calm and at peace with my life. . . It was time to change a few things. I realized I did not like having this much power. Sure, some things about it were really nice, but I felt there were more positives than negatives. I did not want to be a god. I definitely still wanted some measure of power but not this much. This was roo much power for anyone. I could erase every living thing from the universe with a single sentence. I didn't want that kind of responsibility. I now had the emotional capacity to handle it, but I didn't want to handle it. It was time to learn magic.
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[Give me all the practical and theoretical knowledge and skill pertaining to magic that has ever been known by the inhabitants of this world and the mental ability to easily sort through it and make skillful choices based on that knowledge.] It was too easy, none of that 'my head felt like it was splitting as knowlegde rushed int my brain'. One moment I was clueless. The next moment I was the world's foremost magic expert. I immediately noticed several areas where there were unanswered questions that researchers had been searching to find the answers for quite some time with little progress. Obviously, this made me curious. Being a child of the internet in my home word, I was accustomed to getting all my answers quickly with Guugle. This was no different. I was still me.
[Give me the full and perfect answer to every unanswered question about magic that has ever been asked by the magic users of this world.] This was a lot. It was a lot more than I expected. Some of the questions had really far reaching answers that if they knew the answer would revolutionize the entire modern system. At this point, I did not want to know any more. I felt like I knew more than I even wanted to know about this. It is strange how without putting in the effort to search out the answers and really investing myself in the study, the knowledge I learned was boring to me. It was a strange realization.
So I did another thing. . . [Make me genuinely interested in magic such that I would enjoy using it and learning about it.] If I was going to live as a magic user, I was going to like it.
So it works like this. Cosmic energy enters the body. The body takes that cosmic energy and either uses it directly to enact an effect on the world or uses it to manipulate the larger, ambient flow of energy to effect the world. The second is a good bit more difficult but has much more potential. As for how one manipulates the energy in the first place, it would be pointless to explain unless one could feel it. It's like explaining how to use an insect antenna. If you don't have one, the explanation is pointless. There are no incantations or fancy hand signs involved, even though some do make motions or noises when they use magic.
After learning all this, I gave myself a few cheats, nothing too extravagant, but enough so that I would always have the magical advantage.
[Give me the perfect ability to sense everything within a 1km radius of the center point between my eyes.] This was even better than I thought it would be. It not only gave me the sense, but I could focus effortlessly on as many or as few things as I wanted. I could also block out certain things or chose to sense only a single atom at a time. Turns out 'perfect' really means perfect. Best of all is the ability to completely percieve the flow of normally imperceptible cosmic energy. [Cosmic energy that is the fuel for magic is from now on and retroactively known and referred to as mana.] Yup, just had to mold the world a little more in my own perception of what ought to be. I would soon be ridding myself of this ability anyway, so a few little things shouldn't matter too much. Nobody would even really notice the change since all records and memories have been changed to conform to the new reality.
For my second cheat ability I decided to do something defensive. I may have gone a bit overboard with it, but I wouldn't change it. [I shall only be effected by that which I desire to effect me to the degree in which I desire to be effected.] And that is how I became immortal. The universe would be in a constant state of adjusting itself to accommodate me.
By this point I was seriously questioning if it was wise to go any further. I decided I would ask a few more questions before deciding, but I did not want to know too much either. I wanted to know just enough to live well. I decided on three pieces of information, the geography of the planet, knowledge of any sapient species besides those on this planet, and basic cultural things so that I would not be a walking offense to everyone.
The geography thing was much more revealing than I thought it would be. This planet was full of various pocket dimensions and secret underground cities, floating castles, portals to other levels of reality, etc. It was baffling. I never expected such a complex place could even exist. Not only that, but it was also very very large. This planet was probably twice the surface area of earth. Whoever designed this place was really bored. I made sure that my understanding of the world also included the territory through all the portals and within all the pocket dimensions. It was enormous.
The second question had a very interesting answer as well. There were indeed other intelligent societies in other worlds, many of them, so many that it was shocking. They were all too far away to matter, but the knowledge of the galactic fairy empire sent chills down my spine. They were lightyears ahead in both magic and technology compared to the imhabitants of this planet. They had taken full control of an entire galaxy and were already harnessing the energy of their supermassive black hole. Their queen is perhaps the most intimidating figure I had ever learned about. Once again, they were too far away to matter.
The question of culture extended to every culture in the universe. . . I sat down motionless for a long time before eating some of my patented Emil leaves and going to sleep. I was done for the day, so very done. I had learned more in a few hours than an entire civilization learns over hundreds of years. I decided I was getting out of this solitary confinement as soon as I finished my nap.