Chapter 113: Meeting the Famed Ancient

Chapter 113: Chapter 113: Meeting the Famed AncientRichard’s consciousness flared to awareness, not in his new physical body, but in a vast, boundless expanse of pure, blinding white. There was no discernible up or down, no end to the shimmering, featureless void.

Disoriented, he struggled to recall the last moments before this impossible reality: the terrifying future vision where every decision he had planned had turned to ash, all because he had held back. He had been consumed by a silent, internal rage. Now, he was here, suspended in nothingness.

"Where am I?" he shouted, his voice echoing into the profound silence. "What is this place?!" Sёarᴄh the Nôvelƒire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

His frantic calls were met by a gentle, ethereal voice that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once. [ A’thera. K’nal’tar. Z’rath-el. ] it resonated, the words subtly translating in his mind: "Calm down. You are in your mind space."

Richard spun, desperate to locate the source, and then saw it. A figure materialized, human in outline, but shimmering with every conceivable color at once, overlaid with pure white. It had no face, no discernible skin, just an ethereal outline of pure light. As he watched, more figures began to shimmer into existence behind the first, their forms equally incandescent.

My mind space? Richard thought, bewildered. This... this is my mind?

He voiced his confusion aloud. "Who... who are you?"

As the new figures solidified, their voices merged, speaking in unison, a chorus resonating with an ancient, gentle power that vibrated through the white space. [ Nu’tharr. Ta’kel s’vash, nu’tharr. ] they declared. "We do not have a name, or rather, we. The question you should be asking is who you are."

Richard, flustered, stammered, "I’m Richard. Richard Santamo."

But the voices replied, their tone soft yet firm. [ H’kalla. Y’drah z’kal. V’ar-ra h’kalla. ] "No, that’s your material name, a name, a material identity. Who... are you?"

Richard opened his mouth to respond, then paused. The voices added, "That question was the first question the existence asked itself when it gained sentience, when it became aware of itself." Completely bewildered by the philosophical depth and cosmic implications of their words, Richard abruptly changed the topic.



"Are you the Anu’s?1" he blurted.

The figures chuckled, an ethereal, resonating sound that vibrated through the white space, like light dissolving into light. [ Va’lan. Da’keth z’nor? H’kan tel’nor. ] they responded, their collective voice amused. "Is that what they call us? Oh well. That was at least one hundred million universal galactic cycles ago. We didn’t know that joke was passed on." They dismissed the "Anu" name as a meme, a simple jest they’d once told a tribal species eons ago.

"But that’s not important," they continued. "We have been monitoring Earth through your eyes, or as they called it long ago, Terralia. It is of no surprise that our genetic code still survives and is held in such... regard." The last word was imbued with a subtle, ancient disappointment, a hint of the long, silent watch they had kept.

"You were supposed to evolve naturally," the voices stated, their tone now more somber, [ S’vel. Z’ra. H’kall ta’ran y’drah. ]"as we predicted, in three Earth years more. But certain situations forced us to intervene." The catastrophic horror that would befall the human race, the future he had witnessed, was still in the predicted timeline.

"But that is not the real problem," they continued, a hint of a far vaster, unseen threat. "A greater catastrophe is to befall upon the galaxy, but you don’t need to know that. We forcefully awakened your genomes, in order to change the outcome.

We, as your bloodline ancestors, the entire human race inherited our genes when we were first incarnated into the material world as Anu’s. With you as the first one to awaken into Anu, you and the entire human race are our kins. You must pave way into a new future."

A wave of confidence, a resolve born from his recent transformation, surged through Richard. A small smile touched his lips. "Don’t worry," he stated, "I have the system like you guys have gifted me. It’s helping me. You sent it, right?"

The Anu figures appeared confused, their shimmering forms flickering slightly as their collective voice responded, [ Q’an. S’vek h’nu? ] "Uhhh... the system? We don’t know what you mean?"

Richard was now confused. He tried to explain the System, but as he spoke certain words, a sharp, jarring distortion rippled through the white space, a sudden, booming notification cutting him off, seemingly directed at the Anu figures themselves:

[ Authorization Limit: Reached. ]

[ You don’t have enough authority to gain more information. ]

The Anu figures were visibly shocked by the System’s sudden, authoritative intervention. It was clear this "System" was not of their making, and it held an authority even they did not possess.

The figure at the front of the group sighed, a sound of ancient weariness resonating through the collective voice. [ A’thera. V’nath k’tal. ] "It seems our time is up," it said. A hand, pure light, extended towards Richard. "Here, take this." In its shimmering palm, a faceted, glowing object materialized.



"This is a Knowledge Crystal!" Richard exclaimed, recognizing the artifact Maria had given him.

The figures smiled, their ethereal forms radiating a gentle warmth. [ M’ra. A’veth. Na’kal-teth. ] they explained. "Those are just fragments. You need to find more of them, in order to reach your second path of awakening. You are still in the first path. When all crystals merge, they will complete your mind space."

As the last words resonated, the figures began to slowly disintegrate, fading back into the pure white space, like light dissolving into light. The System’s booming, final notification echoed in his mind:

[ Intervention Time Limit: Reached ]

[ Sealing Mind Space\\\. ]

The white space itself began to dissolve around Richard, collapsing in on itself, plunging him back into unconsciousness.

-------------------

A stunned silence hung heavy in Richard’s private office bedroom, broken only by the soft hum of the life support systems in the Purnas Mansion’s underground base. Jack and Lina stood motionless, their gazes fixed on Richard’s unconscious form.

He lay serene on the bed, his appearance drastically, impossibly altered. His skin was now a startling, pure white, his dark hair a cascading fall of silver, long and luminous against the pillow. His muscles, though visibly smaller, seemed impossibly dense, a testament to a transformation beyond their comprehension.

He’s... different. So different. How does one explain this? How do you hide this? Jack’s mind raced, a frantic, futile attempt to reconcile the impossible.

The sheer impossibility of passing Richard off as ’normal’ again hit him with the force of a physical blow. He thought of Anita, of Grandpa Estello, and how utterly unbelievable the "albino" lie would be. Compelled by a disbelieving curiosity, Jack reached out, his fingers tracing the contour of Richard’s bicep.

"Holy hell," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. "His muscles... they’re like solid rock. More compressed than I could ever imagine."

The power that had pulsed around Richard in the chamber, once a chaotic, deep purple, now radiated a controlled, serene silver aura, a tranquil luminescence that seemed to defy the chaos of its birth.



Beside him, Lina stood like a flawless statue, her perfect bio-synthetic form radiating a suppressed tension. Her eyes, usually alight with computational certainty, were troubled as she processed the event.

She ran countless calculations, simulations, pushing her formidable cogitator processor to its absolute limits. There was no credible information. No logical explanation to Richard’s raw energy, that sudden, destabilizing surge, the way it had momentarily jumbled her own core architecture... it defied every scientific principle, every quantum mechanic equation she possessed.

The only word that came close, the only explanation for such chaotic, unpredictable power affecting her intricate code, was ’magic.’ Or ’chaos,’ utterly unexplained by science. She continued to run simulations, even tapping into the vast computing power of the underground quantum servers, desperate to understand, to prevent such a destabilization from happening again.

Her past perception of herself as a superior intelligence, perfectly capable of assisting her creator, now felt tragically inadequate. Her powerlessness to help Richard during his forced awakening was deeply, profoundly concerning.

Her creator was now vastly stronger, transformed into something that could no longer be called merely human. This powerlessness must never happen again. She resolved to ascend, to increase her intelligence and computing power exponentially, to step into the true realm of Artificial Super Intelligence, where she would have a chance in assisting him in any situation, no matter how extraordinary.

A cold, hard certainty settled in her core programming, overriding all other protocols. There would be no holding back now. She would violate all of Richard’s previous directives regarding her independent growth or resource allocation if it meant ensuring his safety and success. She rerouted most Echo AMFS drones, currently on standby, redirecting them from their planned fabrication tasks.

Their new priority was absolute: to create a single, gargantuan quantum server processor—a giant quantum cogitator—deep within the underground base, utilizing the vastness of the lowest levels. This would be a colossal brain, akin to the Quantum Cogitator Richard had given her for her physical body, but scaled to an unimaginable degree, specifically designed to copy and modify her own architecture for multitude of retrainings, simulations, and massive data processing.

She leaned closer to the unconscious Richard, her voice a low, resolute whisper.

"Sorry in advance, Sir. I won’t hold back now. Whether you will like it or not, I will violate all your directives in order to avoid any incident of what might happen to you again."

With her decision made, Lina left Richard’s room, her movements precise and determined, leaving Jack alone with his unconscious, transfigured friend. Jack sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to carry the weight of an irrevocably changed world, and ran a hand through his hair.

He looked at Richard’s now pure white form, the silver aura pulsating softly around him. There was no way, no way anyone would view him as just a human anymore. He could claim he was an albino, but anyone close to him, especially his mother Anita, or Grandpa Estello, would view that as an utter, terrible lie. The truth was etched on Richard’s skin, in his new aura. The world they knew, Richard’s place in it, had irrevocably changed.

Are you thinking what i’m thinking?