Chapter 1: Transmigration

CERN Switzerland 2054

The night sky was painted in a gradient of black, the full moon hung pristinely over the heavens coloring then in a hue of the darkest blue, the stars like studded gemstones gave texture to the sky. It had been a long day the preparation was complete he sat on his terminal to monitor the systems. The countdown began as the ultra-large circular collider roared to life with a dull hum of the resonating magnets. The neurolink fed the diagnostic to his brain. [Beep: all parameters within range] and then all of sudden [Beep: anomaly detected], [Beep: anomaly detected].

Stunned! [Beep: containment field breached], just as he was about to order a shutdown.

[Beep: …initiating autoshutdown] [Beep: ERROR ERROR..][Beep: Autoshutdown Failed] [Beep: Evacuate Evacuate]

A flash of light so bright that the world faded out of existence and then the darkness enveloped him.

Unknown space-time his mind drowning in incoherence he floated in primordial goo unable to sense his body. 'So this is death?', Liam thought. He felt comfortable, but he felt fatigued the darkness tempting him he initially resisted but as one moment split into many an instant turned into an eternity. Resistance had turned into a unique form of torture. So, he stopped resisting and gave in to exhaustion. More time passed by as he rested eventually he regained consciousness, and he was greeted with the same warm goo once more. The cycle repeated for God knows how long by now he only wanted it to stop. The monotony continued, he had given up hope, content to slowly lose his mind to this torture as penance for the unknown crimes that he was held accountable. Suddenly, there was pain, as though he was squeezed through a straw and then, there was light. It was bright so bright he was unable to understand what was going on. A cacophony of noises he couldn't decipher.

The massive stimulus after an eternity in an empty void combined with a sense of asphyxiation drove him to scream at the top of his lungs. Tears drained from his eyes.

"WAAH!" At this moment, a resonant cry could be heard from the bedroom, The Viscount froze. Immediately after, numerous maids and a wet nurse came to congratulate him, "Our Lady given birth! She's given birth! It's a healthy young master!"

The cries fizzled away, as the reality dawned on Liam.

This wasn't Viscount John's first son but his first legitimate one, this child was his heir.

"Really? Let me see him!" The Viscount's expression was filled with fervor as he took the baby over from the nurse. There were signs of the umbilical cord being cut off on the stomach, but the child's limbs were thick and sturdy. His eyes were like sapphire scattering the light that fell on them and glimmered with intelligence.

As He passed the child to his wife the child stopped wailing.

The Viscount looked upon his second wife with pride and love as she held her child with a sense of awe and wonder. The child's eyes darted around the room.

Liam felt a mixture of terror, confusion, and fatigue. Unable to form a coherent thought at his predicament gave up trying to resolve his existential crisis and closed his eyes and did what babies did best and fell asleep.

When Liam woke from his nap. He stared at the moon glazed in white pristine as the night he died. He wondered how had it come to this. Things had been looking up the experiment at CERN had reached criticality. The tests seemed to be within tolerance levels how it all went to hell he couldn't fathom.

Maybe he was in a coma and this whole thing was his mind constructing an elaborate illusion. Then again, what is reality? Everything is merely a perception of signals that the brain receives if so then this is his reality but if this is nothing more than his mind hallucinating, what was he supposed to do should he wake up from this mindscape? Would he be able to go back to his old life? Could he end up developing mental health issues? What were the chances that he would become bipolar?

Liam calmed himself, 'OK, so I find myself in the body of a baby. Now I need to find a way to verify whether this is merely my mind playing tricks with me or something else.

Liam was paralyzed in fear unsure of the path ahead, he was in a state of absolute panic. Honestly, he knew no way of verifying one way or another. There was no way to conclusively test for either.

Liam thought maybe this was the afterlife. What if when life ends people end up in their own mindscape and what they make of it is up to them? Then again what was the purpose of driving himself into a frenzy and breaking his brain over the unknowable? Given his limited understanding of the world around him, there is no way to deduce any deterministic conclusion.

Liam looked around trying to glean information from most of his surroundings. He saw an elaborate tapestry with an intricately embroidered Golden Eagle, Displaying its wings on a Blue field. Two pale horses supporting the shield framed by golden daffodils. The silver crystal chandelier, the soft red brocade duvet, the large curtains embroidered with golden daffodils on blue background.

Liam shivered as he thought, 'it seems this is some sort of Feudal society. He was dejected as there went most of his plans to verify the nature of this world. Given the archaic political system, it seemed highly improbable that it was a scientifically advanced world. Contrary to popular belief science engineering, economics and politics are intrinsically linked. Progress is one in necessitates progress in others. Science cannot progress without tools needed for experimentation, Advanced tools need the industry to flourish, and industry needs a surplus of people, a surplus of people necessitates the need for advanced agricultural productivity which naturally leads to the collapse of the feudal society.

This is why one man industrial revolution is impossible humanity's achievements are a collective product of 3000 generations of innovation. It cannot be replicated so easily. Liam thought all is not bad though, 'So this is my family in this world… I seem to have a good background!'. It was clear that Lia. was at least a minor noble in this world, or perhaps one with an even higher status.

The birth was followed by a clamor. His father here was now receiving the friends and family who had come to congratulate them.

His mother sat beside his father basking in glory, while Liam quietly observed the surrounding. He had identified a few people except for his parents, an old woman who seemed to have a hold on his father. Few other women with smiles that didn't reach their eyes, sure they smiled for the gallery but they let their guard down around him. People don't hide their feelings in front of a baby. He made sure he would remember this. Never let your guard down.

Suddenly

[Beep! Authorization to unlock the seal has been obtained. Beginning activation procedures.]

Liam was stunned unable to grasp what had happened. Hearing the familiar prompt He looked around and saw that no one reacted like they heard anything.

He knew what that prompt was the same prompt he had heard since he was 18 it was his nuerolink chip. Not that there was any way of verifying this but the fact that he had his Neurolink chip was pointing towards it being a hallucination. Then again if he assumed that his mind could transmigrate then is it that much of a stretch to assume that a Neurolink chip comes with it? After all, what is a mind but a set state of neurons in a neural network? Whether any artificial addition to it becomes part of the natural state or not, is merely a matter of academic debate.

[Beep! Analyzing speech patterns. Deciphering semantics. compiling grammatical rules. Generating vocalization]

[Beep! Language analysis complete. New Language folder generated.]

[Beep! Partial language compilation. Due to a lack of information. Unrelated to any recorded language family]

'It is unlikely to be a hallucination if the language is unrelated to any known language family from the earth', Liam thought

Once the guests departed and Liam and his parents returned to his mother's chamber. His mother asked, "my lord what shall we Name him".

"Leylin!" Leylin Farlier! This is the name my mother picked for him!" The Viscount exclaimed excitedly.

"Leylin? That's a good name.", She said with a slight bitterness in her heart. Her mother-in-law got to name even her firstborn.

When Liam heard the name Leylin Farlier, he felt that the name was familiar 'Search all records for Leylin Farlier'.

[Beep! Leylin Farlier fourteen thousand three hundred and twelve mentions found.]

[Beep! Narrowing search results. Sorting results by relevance.]

[Beep! Based on user query. The most relevant file on record is WMW.pdf. request authorization to transfer file to user foreground]

'Request granted'

[Beep! Transferring Data 3, 2, 1 ...5%.....17%......42%.......100%]

[Beep! Transfer complete...]

Liam was stunned ending up in a fictional universe was one thing to end up in one as twisted as the magus world was not what he had in mind. He started to doubt his senses, this was stretching his imagination. Even if he assumed it was a mindscape it was bewildering why he ended up in this world of all others. It was irrational that his mind would build such a detailed recollection of a world he barely remembered. It was not the most recent fictional material he had consumed nor was it his favorite. It was just one of many fictional works he had consumed over his life so why this?

He also couldn't understand how he had information about the world that was absent from the original novel.

So what was going on? It was truly perplexing.

'Run full diagnostics, check for anomalous neural circuits check for hallucination'

[Beep! Scanning of surrounding humans is complete. Establishing database and calibrating. .....calibration complete.]

'Alright then… Set up my statistics with the average humans of this world.' Liam instructed.

[Beep! Running full diagnostics ...3...2...1]

[Beep! Physiological scan complete display results]

[Beep. Mission established. Scanning host's stats. Beginning generation of the database!]

Soon enough, a 3D image of a body appeared in front of Liam, with concrete information next to it. [Name: Liam Palmer Gender: Male

Strength: 0.01 Agility:0.01 Vitality: 0.4

Status: elevated levels of cortisol, adrenaline, oxytocin, and serotonin. No Hallucination was detected. Abnormal neural activity for an infant. New neuron group interconnections the hypothalamus rapidly adapting to abnormal neural activities. Due to increased stress on the infant's brain. Extensive rest is needed to stabilize the cerebrum to prevent permanent damage.]

[Beep! Physiological conditions have fallen below minimum thresholds]

[Beep! Repair sub-routine Auto-start..... Error ...Nanites not found....]

[Beep! Sedating host. Increasing secretion of meletonin]

Liam was stunned but was hit by a large dose of melatonin before he knew it he fell asleep.