Chapter 13: Chapter 13 : Updated Mental Space (Part 1)

“Ah?!”

Ralf’s reaction was immediate. A mental bomb went off in his head as his senses took in the spectacular sights before him.

Giant numbers floating in the sky, various tall towers, large buildings, items…the Mental Space was now filled with all sorts of constructs. ‘So this is where that energy went, you really went out.’ Ralf focused on the most prevalent sight, the domes.

‘It's like self-contained worlds, amazing.’

The domes came in various sizes, some as small as 100 meters in diameter with some several kilometres wide. In it, existed what could be described as snippets of reality.

A forest biome, a section of a modern city, a dungeon atop a mountain, an eastern temple, a giant stony colosseum, a hilly field of grass, a town out of an old western; Ralf was thoroughly impressed by them.

Rei hadn’t just settled for quantity, every single thing present was high quality. In fact, it was too high quality in Ralf’s mind. He sniffed an oddity.

He focused on the dome to his left.

The modern city dome was experiencing a dreadful storm. Rain poured down heavily and winds raged. The dark clouds were teaming with lightning snakes, and every now and then, they came thundering down. Their bites left black stains in their wake.

‘How did he do this?’ Ralf was baffled. It was clear to him that Rei wasn’t actively controlling the effect he was seeing, and yet, it was happening. Moving from that dome to others, he caught similar incomprehensible sights.

Wanting an explanation, he snapped his head rightward. But upon taking in Rei’s current form, he suffered another surprise.

Instead of the form held previously, Rei now adopted a form similar to the one he had in the outside world. Yes, similar. Instead of blonde and blue, his hair and eyes were now jet black.

"Finger-less gloves, long black coat, you're even more chuuni than usual. What’s with this form?”

Rei shrugged. “You’ll understand soon, let's talk on the couches.”

“Sure.”

Taking flight, the two quickly arrived at the couches and plopped down on their respective seats. Conjuring a milkshake, Rei took a sip before speaking.

“I’ll start at the beginning. The first question I sought to answer was the exact dimensions of this place. Was it endless? The answer was no.”

“Oh, how big is it?”

"It's a dome-shaped space, fifty-three kilometres in diameter.” Snapping his fingers, a ruler materialized. “Using my own height as a reference, I created various units of measurement. I doubt it's a hundred percent accurate to the real-world equivalents, but it’s close enough. First a meter, then a hundred, then a kilometre, then ten kilometres. This is how I measured out this place initially.”

Rei dismissed the ruler. “After arriving at the Mental Space’s edge, I was curious about what lay beyond and tried pushing through. It worked. But there was nothing to see. You were right. This place is somewhere in your Mental Domain. The black swamp you mentioned is just outside, squirming about. Touching that stuff felt dangerous, so we best avoid it.”

Ralf nodded. “That is a domain only skilled Telepaths and their equivalents can roam. Did you leave a hole?”

“No. It closed up cleanly. None of the darkness entered this place. Anyway moving on, the second question I had was: why is this place like this?”

“What do you mean?” Ralf asked with a head tilt.

Rei didn’t immediately answer and instead materialized an apple in the air before him.

"Without consciously willing it to stay afloat, the apple will fall down. But why? This is a mental world, why is there gravity? It's not just this.” Rei tapped the black floor. “The Mental Space is curved. The only conclusion I can come to is that in creating this place, your personal reality engine was referenced. I imagine it was done subconsciously, just like it is in a dream.”

“Hmm, interesting. What else?”

Rei dismissed the apple and continued. “Next, I explored the limits of what I could do in this place. First, perception. I knew I could throw my perception into the distance, but could I perceive this space in all directions? The answer...yes. In fact, I’m doing so right now.”

Hearing this, Ralf attempted to do the same. “Whoa, this is so weird.” Entranced, he extended his range further and further until the entire Mental Space was captured.

“You should get used to this. I imagine Psi Scan is similar.”

“Yeah,” Ralf nodded. He continued to marvel at the strangeness.

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Rei took a sip. “Next, my form in this place. Was it fixed? Again, no. Just like curvature and gravity, the forms we initially take are based on our image of ourselves. But, we can take any form we want...or no form at all.”

Following his words, Rei's figure was engulfed in darkness before scattering into dozens of black bats, which after a few flaps vanished from existence.

“Rei,” Ralf called out at the now empty space before him. Desiring to capture the other’s existence, his mind honed in on a spot.

[[Oh, you can spot me?]] Rei said, as a disembodied entity.

[[Yeah.]]

“That’s interesting to know,” Rei said as he returned to the couch, and returned to his previous form. “In short, we can take any form we want. The bodies we’re occupying are simply avatars.” Taking a sip, he eyed Ralf opposite him.”That childish form won’t do for what I have in mind. I prepared an avatar for you.”

With a thought, a body identical to Rei’s current form materialized between the couches.

“Hop in.”

Ralf stared at it for a bit, before doing as Rei wanted. His thirteen-year-old form dissipated into particles, and a second later, the eighteen-year-old avatar’s eyelids opened.

At the same time, a bright flash passed over him. With its passing, the ink-like darkness was washed away, returning his hair and eye colour to normal and turning his black attire, white.

Satisfied, Ralf returned to his seat.

“Much better.”

Rei shook his head at the claim.

“Never mind that, continue.”

“After discovering that I could do these two things, I went on a creation spree.”

“Yeah, I felt that.”

“No, I doubt that,” Rei corrected.

Ralf titled his head. “What do you mean?”

“You’re referring to this feeling right?" Snapping his fingers, Rei activated the mechanism.

“Ah?! Yes, this is it. But what are you doing?" Ralf glanced around confusedly. For the energy being consumed, he expected to see a giant object being created, but there was nothing.

“Confused? Look up.”

Ralf did as he was told. His eyes focused on the numbers. Immediately, he noticed the oddity. He couldn’t tell what the other numbers represented but he was certain that the red coloured numbers were the current time represented in digital form. He had seen it ticking away since entering. But now, it was frozen. Strangely, another number continued to tick away normally.

Ralf’s mind raced to understand the oddity. When a conclusion was reached, everything clicked in place.

“Rei, how much time has passed in this place?”

Rei smirked. “30 days.”

Ralf’s eyes widened. It was as he reasoned but even so, he was floored hearing it out loud.

“It was when I was testing the limits of this place. Could I make myself smarter? Give myself perfect memory? Exist in two places at once? No, no, and kind of. When I was searching for things to do, I remembered the time difference between our worlds and had a thought. Could I make a hyperbolic time chamber-like effect in this place? The answer: yes.”

Rei got up. “Conjuring objects is pretty low cost, even massive ones with many moving parts. Altering time is, as you’ve felt, very costly. We can't slow down time infinitely though, the limit is just over 600 times. Of course, when put on max setting, it drains Psi very quickly, and in a few hours, we'll be reduced to zero." He walked off with his hands behind his back. “In my month here, I’ve done quite a lot. Follow me, we'll go through them one by one.”

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