Alister lay on his back on top of the covers, still fully dressed with his arms at his sides and his eyes closed. From the outside he looked like someone who had fallen asleep mid-thought, which was not entirely inaccurate.
But From the inside…
…
Entering his own mind space was something he'd read about in theoretical texts. The descriptions varied depending on the author and the tradition. Some described it as opening a door and some compared it to being swallowed by the ocean.
Alister had expected something relatively unremarkable for his first deliberate entry.
He'd anticipated memories stacked without any order wherever they'd landed, resulting in the accumulated chaos of twelve years of living without anyone ever having bothered to organize any of it.
He had prepared himself for the mess but what he saw couldn't be blocked by any amount of preparation.
He occupied the position of standing, because the concept of a floor was doing something complicated, in a black space so vast that the word vast immediately felt like an understatement.
It was not just the black of a dark room or a moonless sky but the black of genuine absence, the kind that exists before light gets invited to party.
And in that black, illuminating it from within was a TREE.
Not just any tree.
Its trunk alone was wider than any physical structure Alister had ever stood in front of, its surface was not bark like usual tree but it was semi-transparent and luminous.
White and silver lines with occasional threads of gold were tracing pathways through it that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Its branches extended upward in a symmetry that looked architectural rather than natural, each one splitting and splitting again endlessly into progressively finer structures, each terminal branch was ending in a point of brilliant white light.
From each of those endpoints, luminous threads extended upward toward a ceiling that did not exist. Alister tried to tilt his head back and followed them with his eyes until they vanished into the dark without arriving anywhere.
The roots descended with the same patient infinity. Downward into a floor that also did not exist, branching and narrowing and disappearing into depths that his perception couldn't locate a bottom for.
At the center of the trunk, at approximately the height where a heart would be if trees had their own hearts, a golden light rotated slowly.
Alister stood there for what may have been five seconds or five minutes or it could be longer as mind space don't have regular time flow.
Then he opened his mouth:
"Holy fucking shit."
The words went out into the black space and were absorbed by it without echo, which was even worse than if they'd echoed.
Then he said, considerably louder:
"Hey! System! Come out and explain what in the actual…" he gestured expansively at everything in front of him, which required both arms and still felt insufficient, "Whatever that is. Just tell me, what in the fucking world did you do with my mind?!"
[…]
"I know you're there. Don't you dare be smug about this. Just talk."
"Tell me," Alister said slowly word by word conveying the weight of each word, "why is there a motherfucking tree growing in my mind space."
[Host. How about taking a deep breath.]
"Deep breath your sister!"
The System went quiet for a moment.
[I don't have a sister. I am the sole system created by…]
"I know you very well. Can you stop bullshitting and start answering my questions."
[You are the only host with a system in this world And I am the sole system created by the will of this world. There is no need for us to prepare for any other sudden competitor…]
"Shut up! Just S-H-U-T U-P."
[Host]
"You," Alister spoke again in rough voice.
[Host, your blood pressure]
"I don't have blood pressure in my mind space," Alister spoke as he took a breath. Not because arguing with the System was genuinely like arguing with a river. It didn't take it personally and it was going to keep flowing either way.
"Okay," he said. "You have some time before I lose control of myself again, which at current rate is maybe ninety seconds. Talk fast. What is this."
[What you are looking at is a projection]
"Projection? Projection of what?"
[The World Tree]
"The World Tree? What the heck even is that? And why is it In my mind space?"
[It's just a projection of it. You are not standing before the World Tree but before a resonant image of it, generated by the connection between your mind space and the original structure.]
"And that connection exists," Alister said carefully, "because…"
[Because your mind space is connected to it]
"SYSTEM!! What do you take me as? don't give me this type of technically accurate but useless answer"
The System continued, moving past the unhelpful answer.
[The World Tree's roots extend through every leyline of magical energy in this world. Every significant confluence of magical power, every deep wellspring, every pathway through which the world's own magic flows. The roots of the World Tree run through all of it.]
Alister looked at the roots disappearing into the non-existent floor below him.
"All of it?"
[Every significant source whether it's the leylines beneath Hogwarts or the deep confluences under magical sites worldwide or the ancient networks that predate every human civilization that has ever built on top of them.]
"And my mind space is connected to this because."
[Because you are the host]
"That's not an answer!!"
[It is the complete answer. The connection exists because you are my host and you are connect to the world. That makes all three of us connected to each other, we rise or fall together in a true sense.]
"So that's why you are getting more and more fluent lately."
[It's your misunderstanding, I was always like this.]
"…"
"Wow! You are even trying to act 'Tsundere' now."
[…]
"And the gold core," he said, starring at the golden core rotating slowly at the tree's center. "What is that?"
[It's the core of the System, my core and the projection of the World Core itself. The source from which the World Tree grows and the point from which the leylines originate. The world mind node which is the core of Arcane network is also integrated here. It's also the point that connects me to the world]
Alister stared at the core for a long time before a perverted smile formed on his face.
"That means. If I ever find you irritating like today, I just need to use my mind space to close your connection to the world."
[…]
"Am I right? my dear system."
[Y…Yes, you're right.]
Alister feeling so much satisfied after a long time continued:
"Those glowing lights on the branches. What are those."
[Every leaf on the World Tree represents something that exists or has existed within the world's awareness. A life, A moment, A piece of the world's history whether it's significant or insignificant is held in the tree's memory.]
Alister's eyes moved slowly across the branches. The points of light were… there wasn't any word qualified enough to quantify them.
They extended across every branch in numbers that defeated any attempt to count them, each one distinct, each one burning with its own particular quality of brightness.
"Are those all lives?" he said.
[Even a dead person in physical world has a leaf specific to him.]
Alister went very still.
'Even the dead,' he thought slowly. 'So it records everything. Past and present. Every life, every moment, every...….'
'Wait.'
He looked at the tree with new eyes. At its branches and uncountable number of lights burning across every level of the structure, extending as far as his perception could follow in every direction.
'If the World Tree records everything,' he thought, 'and those roots run through every leyline, then every piece of ancient magic that was ever practiced and every lost technique. and every civilization that developed magical theory and then disappeared and took their knowledge with them, must be recorded by this tree too.'
His thought kept expanding.
'Every secret that was ever kept by a person who is now dead, which is eventually every secret, because everyone dies eventually—'
A slow smile spread across his face and it was not small.
'I'm rich,' he thought. 'I am absolutely, completely, historically, legendarily rich. Not just financially rich, although certainly that, but rich in every sense that actually matters. Ancient magic, Lost arts and buried treasures. Every piece of knowledge that humanity has ever produced and then managed to lose, it's all here.'
The smile had reached a size that would have concerned anyone who knew him.
[Host.]
"Don't interfere, I will deal with you later."
[I strongly advise you to…]
"I'm going to be the most knowledgeable person in the history of this world,' Alister thought. 'I'm going to know things that have been lost for thousands of years. I'm going to…"
[Host.]
"…and the treasures alone. If every significant location is recorded here then I know where every lost vault and every ancient site that historians have been trying to locate for centuries…"
[Host, Although I know this is your mind space but I strongly suggest you stop dreaming]\
"What do you mean? And why i am getting a feeling you are going to say something I will not enjoy hearing about."
[I say this with the full acknowledgment that your enthusiasm is…. characteristically you. But there are several significant problems with the scenario you are currently constructing.]
"Such as"
[Firstly, what exists in your mind space is not the real World Tree. The difference between looking at a reflection of a library and actually being in the library is that in the reflection, you cannot read the books.]
"What the heck!! are you saying that I can only see this damn tree but not use it"
[Not yet. Actively using those records for accessing specific memories, navigating the historical archive and drawing on what has been stored requires the World Core to direct power through the Tree's structure to make those functions available.]
[At the current world tier operating the World Tree's basic recording function is essentially all that the World Core can manage. The power required to do more than that exceeds what the current world tier can supply.]
"Then what is the use of keeping this damn tree in my mind space."
[Ah, That is where it becomes useful. When an outsider enters this space, they are immediately and simultaneously exposed to the whispers of every leaf on the tree which includes the thoughts of millions of beings. And the full weight of the world's accumulated awareness, arriving all at once, from every direction.]
"Ah, That would be rather overwhelming."
Don't know why, but Dumbledore's image appeared in his mind. If he attempts Legilimency on me in a social setting and the result is his head….
'Yup, It definitely won't look good.'
[Host]
"oh System, I definitely wasn't thinking anything strange."
[Strange. I didn't ask anything, why are you panicking?]
"Shut up! you noisy System. Now, it's your turn.."
[???]
"What? You really don't think I am over with you right?"
END OF CHAPTER
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