CHAPTER 3: THE INNER SANCTUARY

"As much as I'd like for you to revel in your previous and favorite Japanese exclamatory phrase as well as other wordings... we do not have the time, my lord... I'm barely able to keep your core running as is and will require your active effort for you to recover to a much better and presentable form," Codex responded to my shock, his disembodied voice taking on an unmistakable urgency that cut through my daze.

How the hell is this not similar to what I've read previously in my manga and light novels? For Christ's sake (that is if he exists in this place where I'm in), this is way too much cringe that I feel like offing myself and trying reincarnation again. My thoughts spiraled in a dizzying blend of panic, disbelief, and embarrassment. The cosmic entity residing in my consciousness was speaking to me about cores and recovery while I was starving to death in a dilapidated shack in God-knows-where. It was like some third-rate light novel plot, the kind I would have scrolled past without a second glance in my previous life.

"My lord, Ryan... you need to calm down and listen," Codex suddenly spoke once more, this time a tad bit louder than normal. The sound reverberated inside my skull, not painfully but with an insistence that demanded attention. More alarmingly, he had called me by name—my actual name from before—confirming that this entity somehow knew exactly who I had been.

"I understand your plight, my lord. You were not one to accept change easily but gradually, but right now time is of the essence... should your core not come into contact with your soul essence within the next 5 hours, you'll die... and this time... for good," he said.

The words dropped into my consciousness like stones into a still pond, ripples of dread spreading outward with each syllable. Death. Again. The concept should have been less frightening the second time around, but somehow it was infinitely worse. The first death had been abrupt, unexpected—a cosmic accident. This one was being presented as a countdown, a ticking clock that had already started.

And with the severity of the Codex's tone, I sobered up fast. Dying once I could accept; a second time? Hell no. The next death I'm meant to have should be on my own terms and mine alone.

"What do I need to do?" I asked, my voice steady despite the storm of emotions raging inside me. Survival instinct is a powerful motivator, and right now it was drowning out all the questions, all the confusion, all the disbelief that threatened to overwhelm me.

"First, sit comfortably, preferably in those meditative poses you know from the entertainment you had back on earth since it's one you most resonate with..." he guided, doubling down to fixing whatever issue was wrong with me.

I glanced around the shack, taking in the dirt floor, the crumbling walls, the sparse shafts of sunlight that managed to penetrate the gaps in the wooden planks. It wasn't exactly a zen garden, but it would have to do. Remembering how Buddhists and monks used to do it in the movies and shows I'd watched, I folded my legs and sat in that position while wincing at the extreme pain sourcing itself from my stomach as it continued with its protests. The hunger was a constant companion now, a gnawing void at my center that threatened to collapse in on itself.

My emaciated limbs trembled with the effort of maintaining the pose. The bones of my pelvis dug uncomfortably into the hard-packed dirt beneath me. Every joint ached, every muscle fiber screamed in protest, but I forced myself to remain still, to endure.

"Now what?" I asked, my voice tight with discomfort.

"Considering that you still vividly remember some of your experiences from back on earth, I want you to reflect back on your moments of creativity... back when you used to imagine and create... and back when you used to make vivid worlds in your mind," it replied.

The request was so unexpected, so completely detached from my current dire situation that it momentarily stunned me. Here I was, starving to death in a strange body in what was presumably a strange world, and this cosmic entity wanted me to reminisce about my creative endeavors?

"What the hell... How? How do you know that? Wait... When did you know that...?" I blurted out in utter shock, the words tumbling from my lips before I could stop them. A cold feeling spread through my chest, a primal fear response to the realization that this entity knew intimate details about me—details I had never shared with anyone.

"My lord, please... not now. In due time, I will explain..." the Codex interjected, a note of impatience coloring his ancient voice. The air around me seemed to thicken, as if his presence was becoming more substantial with his urgency.

"Fine..." I grumbled, surrender evident in my tone.

It was then that I just did as instructed. I know many would question their sanity for even believing the bull crap being mentioned, but the timer of 5 hours and the ever-increasing pain I could feel from my stomach was really, really spooking me. For sure I knew that it was hunger I was feeling, but at the same time, whatever gut instinct I had was saying otherwise, and it was blaring so loudly I couldn't ignore it.

See, back in my previous world, Earth, I tended to be a laid-back person. To others, I used to look chill without the common rush that others had in their lives to do this or achieve that... and that's only because of my procedural and logical thinking.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing my mind to retreat from the present—from the pain, the hunger, the absurdity—and return to memories of who I had been. The process was difficult; it felt like trying to grasp water, the memories slipping through my mental fingers just as I thought I had hold of them.

I tended to outright remove emotion in logical and procedural thinking and solving, resorting to questioning the who, why, when, where, and how slowly but gradually to the point that I could find an answer and then working it out from there upon coming to the base issue.

Images flashed behind my closed eyelids—textbooks spread across a desk, the soft glow of a computer screen at 3 AM, the satisfaction of solving a particularly challenging problem in my coursework. I had approached life as a series of puzzles to be solved, each with its own methodology and solution.

At the same time, I relied on something else which I could not for the life of me explain. It used to be a gut instinct, a feeling, but it used to be a warning. Anything that would feel disadvantageous to me or would harm me would make me shudder, and I'd simply steer myself wide from whatever it was.

The memory of this sixth sense brought with it an uncomfortable realization. Ironically, such a feeling did not save me from my actual death, huh? No premonition, no warning shudder as I boarded that fateful bus. Just ordinary life one moment, and crushing darkness the next.

On that note, because of my logical ways with little to no emotional attachments, I tended to question myself: what would be the perfect world? How would people act? Behave? Adapt? Learn? Socialize? And many, many more questions that for the life of me I could not even begin remembering since everything felt quite foggy.

As I delved deeper into these recollections, something strange began to happen. The memories became more vivid, more present. I could almost feel the weight of a pen in my hand as I scribbled notes in the margins of textbooks, could almost smell the coffee that had fueled countless late-night study sessions. The creative worlds I had built in my imagination—fantastical realms with their own rules and laws, populated by characters of my own making—began to take form in my mind's eye with a clarity I had never experienced before.

"Speaking of foggy, this whole meditation bullshit never actually wor—" I cut myself short when suddenly, my whole worldview went white and golden, the dilapidated shack vanishing as if it had never existed. The transition was jarring, a sudden shift that left me disoriented and breathless.

Below me, or what I could perceive as below me, was a white rippling surface, eerily similar to the surface of a water body. It moved with gentle undulations, like a calm sea responding to a distant breeze. Tiny ripples spread outward from where I seemed to be standing, though I couldn't feel anything solid beneath my feet. The surface itself emitted a soft, pearlescent glow that illuminated nothing yet somehow made everything visible.

Above me was a golden "sky," if I could even describe it as a sky. It wasn't blue, wasn't filled with clouds or stars or any recognizable celestial bodies. Instead, it was a vast expanse of molten gold—not harsh or blinding, but warm and somehow alive. Patterns shifted within it, complex geometries forming and dissolving in a continuous dance that seemed both random and purposeful.

The border between the white "sea" and the golden "sky" wasn't a horizon in any traditional sense. Rather, they seemed to blend into each other at some indefinable point, creating a seamless transition that defied my attempts to find where one ended and the other began.

One thing was for sure: I most definitely had no clue nor idea where in good God I was.

"Right now, we're in the most secure and deepest part of you, my lord... welcome back.... It's truly a pleasure to see you safe, healthy, and in one piece..." an elderly voice suddenly spoke quite literally next to me again.

This time, unlike when I was in that dilapidated and shady shack, there was someone next to me, or in this case, a something. Whoever—or whatever—this was did not have an actual and seeable form, but it was more humanoid, and I could for sure swear I could see a suit. The ethereal being was quite literally glowing white, like how Jesus back on Earth would have been depicted to be descending once more just before or after judgment day.

The figure stood tall and straight, its posture conveying a dignity that seemed timeless. Though I couldn't make out specific features, there was something inherently comforting about its presence—a sense of familiarity that transcended the strangeness of this encounter. Light emanated from it in gentle pulses, synchronizing with the ripples in the white surface beneath us.

"Wait... Is... is... that you? Sir Codex?" I asked shakily, while also surprised how the hell I was even able to produce sound in this eerily still yet calming place. My voice didn't echo, didn't reverberate, yet somehow carried perfectly in this vast, boundless space.

"It truly is I, my lord, but please drop the 'sir' part. It sounds a bit tacky coming from you. Call me Codex, just as you used to," Codex replied, and this time, I could for sure make out an outline of a mouth that was smiling warmly at me while speaking. The smile wasn't visible in any conventional sense—there were no lips, no teeth, no definable facial features—yet the impression of a smile was unmistakable, conveyed directly to my consciousness in a way that bypassed ordinary perception.

"I... I... I think I'm going to faint..." I said as I tried to sit down, and surprisingly, I could, as my feet came into contact with the soft surface of whatever was beneath me. The surface yielded slightly under my weight, like sitting on a waterbed, but quickly stabilized to provide comfortable support. It felt neither wet nor dry, neither warm nor cool—it simply was.

"Well, considering that you only feel like fainting while others would have their souls completely and utterly evaporated in my presence upon seeing the actual me, you're really better off, my lord," Codex said with a chuckle as it—he—took a seat next to me as I tried to seriously calm the fuck down.

The implications of his statement sent a fresh wave of terror through me. Souls evaporated? Just how powerful was this entity? And if this was just a glimpse of his true form, what did that say about the full reality of his existence?

"Where am I now? What is this place?" I wheezed, my hands instinctively gripping the strange surface beneath me as if seeking an anchor in this sea of unreality.

"This, my lord, is what we call a mindscape—your mindscape... And as always, I'm still and utterly impressed by how vast it is till to date," Codex replied, gesturing expansively at the infinite space surrounding us. The movement sent ripples of light cascading through his form, like sunlight through crystal.

"Mindscape? The hell's that?" I asked, my skepticism returning now that the initial shock was beginning to fade. This whole situation still felt like something out of a novel—too contrived, too convenient, too aligned with tropes I'd encountered in fiction.

"The mindscape is the home of the conscious and unconscious mind, as well as the final and inner shelter of a being's soul," Codex explained, his voice taking on a lecturing tone that reminded me of my favorite professors from university. "For one to even be able to have access to their mindscape allows for prospects beyond their imagination. A person's mindscape is their direct connection to their body, mind, and soul."

As he spoke, the environment around us seemed to respond, the golden sky pulsing slightly brighter with certain words, the white surface beneath us rippling in complex patterns as if illustrating his explanation.

"And now that we're here, since I thought it would have taken a bit longer... it will make things many, many times easier," he said, a note of satisfaction evident in his tone.

"What will be easier?" I asked, still trying to piece together everything since it was all going too fast. My mind was racing to keep up with the cascade of revelations, each new piece of information raising a dozen more questions.

"For starters, we'll have ample time since a being's perception of time in their mindscape differs based on the size of their respective mindscape. For yours, as vast as it is, a second in your outer view might very well be months inside your mindscape's perception," he answered.

The concept was staggering—time dilation within the confines of my own consciousness. It meant that while my physical body was racing against that five-hour deadline, we could potentially have what felt like years in here to work with. The implications were both fascinating and terrifying.

"It will be very much easier to have a proper explanation and have you updated on what has or have happened," he continued, settling more comfortably beside me. The motion was oddly human for a being of such cosmic significance, an unexpected touch of relatability that somehow made the whole situation both more and less surreal.

"You need to know and understand many things, with the first on the list: who you really are and what role you play in the whole of existence...." His voice took on a gravity that seemed to increase the weight of the atmosphere around us. The golden sky darkened slightly, becoming more bronze than gold, and the white surface beneath us stilled completely, as if holding its breath in anticipation.

"Should you choose to accept..." he concluded, the statement hanging in the air between us like a physical presence, a doorway to possibilities I couldn't begin to comprehend.

The choice being presented was clear, yet utterly ambiguous. Accept what, exactly? My role? My identity? My fate? And what would rejection mean in this context? Could I even refuse, given my current predicament?

I stared at the glowing figure before me, trying to discern some hint, some clue in his featureless countenance. The questions swirled in my mind like a maelstrom, each one giving birth to a dozen more. Who was I, really? What did Codex mean by my "role in the whole of existence"? Why me? Why now? What was this "core" that needed saving, and how was it connected to my "soul essence"?

But beneath all these questions, one certainty remained: I was dying. Again. And this time, it would be permanent. Whatever Codex was offering, it represented my only chance at survival. The choice, then, wasn't really a choice at all.