Day: Unknown
Month: Unknown
Year: Unknown
Time: 05:50:00 AM PDT
Location: Unknown
A man stands on nothing by the sheer force of his will, in the middle of space. He has the appearance of a man in his 60s with a long, white beard, a bald head, and is as thin as showing his bones. The man stood in front of some kind of border. It was ineffable, a barrier between universes, infinitely dark and infinitely light, ever-changing with every passing moment. The man laid a hand on the border, and something in his eyes seemed to shine.
[Universe Membrane Gate]
Gate to another universe.
Time 'till Universe integration has approximately 10 minutes remaining
A woman appeared from nowhere next to the man, she looked much younger than him, but her eyes showed that she was closer to his actual age than 25 years old. She bowed to the man even though he wasn’t looking directly at her, but he seemed to know she was there as if he had eyes in the back of his head.
“Oh, Great Celestial, thank you for being the patron of this pitiful universe. It has been eons since you last participated in such an update event. May this inferior one ask why?”
With a smile, the old man said, “This Old One does not need to be questioned… However, I will grace you with an answer. The Fairy Sovereign divined that I could find a successor if I patron this universe, and if my successor comes from such a universe, how can it be pitiful? Are you calling me pitiful?”
The woman was frozen with fear. She had overstepped, and now she was dead. Her body just turned to dust—no last words. No fight. No Resistance. Just death.
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Day: Unknown
Month: Unknown
Year: Unknown
Time: 05:55:00 AM PDT
Location: Stoneford University
I have always enjoyed learning. I mean, having near perfect memory can do that to someone. The simple joy of knowing something and the control gave me as a person. Until I got into college, I thought attending a prestigious college would help me learn more, but now I realize my naïve thoughts as I sit at a desk with a bunch of papers and a laptop in front of me while I am half asleep from pulling an all-nighter. The coffee in my left hand kept me alive, while the pen in my right kept my grades high. It wasn’t easy keeping a perfect A in a class with a 70% fail rate in my college. But that was part of the joy of taking it. It wasn’t teaching anything but how to work hard for something I paid for. It was all going to be worth it when I graduated with my master's in 6 years, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
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Only ten other people besides the librarians were inside the library, mainly because it was almost six in the morning. More than half the campus was asleep in their beds, and I wish I were one of them. I got up from the desk to find some more reading material for my report and mostly to keep myself awake. I walked through the hundreds of shelves of books with a wonderful smile on my face. How many books were there in this one library? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Who knows. The woody smell of the library filled my lungs with every breath. It was genuinely lovely. The quiet made me feel happy and want to reflect on my life.
Born to a mother of one at the time, I, Ray Adams, was the middle child of a family of five in a small city in Nevada. My parents were not overly wealthy, but to take care of three kids all two years apart from each other, in a small town, they might as well be. They were not having extreme difficulties with money. I always had a near-perfect or eidetic memory or whatever you want to call it; I never really cared. I could even remember things from when I was three. Throughout school, I had excellent grades. This affected my relationship with my siblings, who always compared themselves to me in many ways. My older brother, Mathew, was always considered athletic and competitive with sports. He's now playing for some college team near home. When I was younger, I tried competing with him once but stopped after seeing how much he hated me playing with him. My younger sister, Sophia, always enjoys public speaking. I never enjoyed it. But, every time I joked about starting, she gave me a look. They wanted me to stay in my lane, and it was not like I had any problem with that. My parents never tried to get involved in sibling rivalry and always treated us all the same, which I love them for because, without them, I don't know what I would be doing now.
But it does make me wish I spent more time finding friends and enjoying life. I'm only 18, so I still have an entire life ahead of me, so what if I spend a few years studying for a degree I never wanted? I don't hate the world, but I sure don't like it. The lack of control in my life is what I hate most. How can I enjoy my life if I can't control it? I don't know what I would do if I had another option in life but would surely not want to stay in my dull and average life. With a chuckle and a shake of my head, I continued walking through the library halls. But, the thought of what ifs kept invading my mind. What if I could disappear from this life and be born anew like some isekai, but that would require me to die, which wasn't something I wanted? I wanted to live. In fact, that's why I do all this. Study for a pointless degree, then work for a meaningless job. That's why everyone does it, I guess. To live. The most primal desire to live just above greed keeps everyone going and not just ending it all.
With a heavy sigh, I grabbed the book I was looking for in the maze of a library and smiled. This book will be the last bit of support I need for my report. As I checked for more books I could read and add to my report, I heard something.
*DING*
Then suddenly a blue screen appeared in front of my face.
System update! 2.0.1
Universe Integration has begun. While the Universe is being integrated, all beings will be undergoing alterations.
May you all grow powerful.
Then everything turned black.