Marcus was beyond confused, he had spent hours touring the private space yet the countdown for the system installation had only gone down by 44 seconds.
What was the meaning of this?
"System, care to explain why 44 seconds took hours to pass?" Marcus decided to ask the AI.
[Because only 44 seconds have passed on earth] was the simple response that came.
"On earth meaning... Outside the space?" Marcus guessed based on the phrasing he had received from the system.
[Yes, well done. I thought it would take another minute for you to work that out, time moves differently within the private space than it does on earth.
To be precise time here moves 1000 times faster.
So although 12 hours have passed here it has only been 44 seconds outside, which is where the countdown is based]
"What does that mean for my aging? Will I age 1000 years if I spend an earth year here? That seems unfair. " Marcus was confused.
Anything like this always hurt his brain when he saw it in films or read it in a story, it always overcomplicated things when people aged wrong.
[You don't need to worry about that, any living being within the space ages at the pace of the earth time.
You could spend 10,000 years here and only age a decade.
It took your ancestor a long time to tinker with the time dilation, he figured it was the best way to let you learn and train for as long as you want without dying of old age before you could actually do something with these studies.]
"Seems handy but couldn't it get kind of confusing?" He wondered, scratching his head in thought.
[Only if you let it, just try not to overthink it]
"Seems like the best advice, I'll just ignore it and not worry about wasting time in here.
So how do I get out? I want the system to install before making any decisions on my next move and I don't want to wait several years so I think I'll go home to rest." Marcus finally decided.
[Just will to leave and you should appear back in the shrine] the system told him.
Marcus closed his eyes and focused on his need to leave.
The space seemed to stretch and twist around him lifting him in the air, suddenly he felt his feet touch solid ground and opened his eyes.
He was back in the empty room where he first met Lucian, with the single door in front of him.
He looked up as he remembered falling into this place and didn't know how he would possibly climb back out.
[Don't worry you don't need to climb, your ancestor simply wanted you to experience his shrine when you entered] the system could feel his worry about how he would leave and reassured him.
"You keep calling this place a shrine, what do you mean by that?" Marcus enquired wondering on the peculiar word the system kept using for this place.
[Each member of the "Powers That Were" would spend their life building a shrine that focused on their entire being.
It is said that entering this shrine showed everything about the owner, their strength personality, everything.]
"But we're just in an empty white room?" Marcus pointed out.
[This isn't the whole shrine, the dark room you went through was part of it too.
The light in here and the darkness out there show his personality and emotions towards his actions.
The darkness is the fact he regrets everything he threw away when he broke the sacred laws of his people and had to leave, while the light signifies his hope for the future of his descendants.
The fact that both rooms are empty show that he has unlimited potential with his ability, if it was filled with objects then there would not be much that can be done with the space in the shrine but the fact it's empty means he can do anything he wishes to.
There are a lot more details involved but I don't think you will ever fully understand it as your ancestor spent millions of years working on his shrine and every atom is meaningful.]
The system seemed to have some sort of emotion in its voice as it described the shrine to Marcus, which he thought was peculiar as it is supposed to be an artificial intelligence.
But in the end he decided to ignore it as the AI must be a bit more complicated than he could currently comprehend, after all it was a gift from his ancestor.
"So how do I leave this place if I don't need to climb out?" He eventually asked after having another look around the empty shrine.
[Use the door]
"Won't that take me back to the private space though?"
[No, you won't be able to go back until your system activates.
The key is in the space itself and you can't get it without the inventory feature, this door is simply the exit] the system clarified.
Marcus reached for the door handle and pulled the door open, there was another black space on the other side.
"Fuck it" Marcus decided the system was the only way out so he had to trust it and headed through the door.
As Marcus was walking into the absolute darkness he felt space twisting and stretching again this time with far more intensity, closing his eyes due to the nausea that he felt he suffered the teleportation for a minute before landing.
Opening his eyes he found himself in his own bedroom.
"What the fuck? How did I get here?"
Today had simply been one surprise after another, by far the most confusing day of his life.
[Your ancestor set the teleport to your abode, he had been watching you your whole life so of course he knew where you lived.]
"Well, that makes things easier then. How long left until system activation?"
[23:36:38 left on your timer]
"Nice to see it finally moving normally" Marcus smiled seeing the time that had elapsed.
"Let's get some rest, it's been a long day."
With that he headed to his bedroom and went to sleep.
It was only 10pm but Marcus had spent over 12 hours in the private space which made it feel like he had been awake all night.
As he slept he started to dream, it was nothing meaningful just simple fantasies but due to the day he had been through there were elements of his new reality mixed into it, he dreamt of ancient cities and the old rulers of the planet.
As the dream went on he saw himself among them, but he was half their size and they treated him like he was contagious.
He soon started talking to the human slaves that were smaller than him and walking with their heads down, each conversation ended with a handshake and the slaves would raise their heads with a smile.
With each handshake he saw himself grow a little.
More and more of the slaves came to talk to him, each leaving with a smile on their face and he kept growing.
Eventually he was the same size as the old rulers, yet he continued in the same way bending down to talk to the slaves and shaking their hands.
Now the rulers would smile to him as he was slowly growing larger and larger, he was bigger than them now and they approached him for conversations and a handshake.
Some would approach but leave angry and not shake his hand.
Those that were angry would soon return and attack in a multitude of ways but he just laughed and snapped his fingers turning them to ash.
As he grew bigger and bigger he knew he was the biggest being in the city so he smiled to himself and left.
Then he woke up.
"I guess that's how to play it, I will work from the bottom up.
Work on quantity and then get the quality.
Gains are gains, every penny earned will eventually add up to the pound."
He then started to formulate his plans for when the system activated, after all he knew the basis behind his ability.
To start from the bottom he would need find the lowest of people.
To find the lowest of people he needed to move to a city.
There were always plenty of homeless, drug addicts and general desperate people in a city.
He decided to make a trip to his closest city and see how many he might find.
"How long until the system activates?" He asked.
[6:20:40 left on your timer] the system responded
'That was one hell of a sleep' he thought to himself.
After what felt like a 30 hour day he had slept for 17 hours, it was currently 3pm.
"Ok, by the time I wash change and get the train that should be a few hours.
Let's head to Liverpool."
He had decided to try out his system as soon as it activates so he thought he would scout a little to kill some time.