The Place Where Everything Begins

Twenty minutes later...

Jeremy stopped his footsteps after finally seeing something 'conspicuous'.

Currently, he stood approximately 100 meters away from a moderately large structure that appeared to be...

"A house? Are you kidding me now?"

After Jeremy walked for a mile, he had to stop to look at the astonishing sight in front of him in stupefaction.

The reason?

It was because Jeremy suddenly spotted a medium-sized brick house...

A medium-size that meant a particular house capable of letting a family of four people live comfortably in.

For the appearance, it was a one-story brick house, the roof made of brown woods covered with light-grey thatches, together with a brick chimney exuding dark smoke continually.

It looked classic at first glances, like an ordinary brick house that anyone could see in the countryside back on Earth.

Because of the house's sudden appearance, there came a big problem...

In the middle of nowhere in this uncharted, dangerous winter forest filled with hundreds of wolves...

How was it possible to have a house here?

'This doesn't make sense... No... It has no fucking sense in the first place.'

Even though Jeremy had a slight hunch earlier that the door, aka the exit, should be within a 'house' or a 'chamber', when he actually saw it firsthand that there was admittedly a moderate-sized brick house situated within this boondocks of a winter forest.

Jeremy couldn't make up his mind to accept it...

Even his earlier hunch that was so accurate seemed like a lie now...

'My hunch is correct as always... but it still doesn't make sense. Why a house? Furthermore, a house that contained mana turbulence within...'

Right now, Jeremy's face twitched slightly, as he didn't expect any of these coming towards him at all.

Thus, he fell into deep thought...

Very, very deep thought at that...

'It is strange indeed. Starting from the moment I've set foot into this place, nothing makes sense...'

'First of all, there are only wolves as predators roaming everywhere here. This must be a test for a contestant's survival skills, no doubt. Also, why those larger wolves don't look like alpha wolves at all? They are more like beta ones...'

'Secondly, those large wolves from the three packs earlier... Why did they join hands together and lead the submissive, omega wolves to hunt me down? Usually, each pack will operate independently...'

'Then, this brick house, which comes out of nowhere with a trail of black smoke emanating from the chimney, someone must be inside... still... my unignorable hunch tells me there is no one inside... My hunch never lies, but the chimney with black smoke also seems to tell the truth...'

After thinking up till here, Jeremy's fleeting thoughts suddenly came to mind,

'What does the creator truly want to test us, Earthlings?'

Having thought of that, Jeremy promptly blinked his unfocused eyes dazedly three times...

'Hmm...?'

'Wait... creator?'

'What creator? This was the second time I've thought about that term already.'

With the fleeting thought that might not look important at all, but it was already the second time Jeremy had thought about the said term 'Creator'.

Thus, he couldn't ignore it anymore even if he wanted to...

'Alas...'

'It seems like I have no other choice now. Even though I don't want to access my sea of consciousness, now I need to.'

The circumstances finally pushed Jeremy towards a dead-end...

After thinking so, Jeremy retreated from the house's vicinity for now because it might not be safe to stay around this area for the time being.

About five minutes later, when he thought it was safe enough, Jeremy sat down on the snowy ground with no further delay, preparing to meditate.

After a few minutes, Jeremy entered stage 10 of meditation, tranquility and equanimity. Not long after that, he successfully accessed into his sea of consciousness...

'Everything remains the same.'

Upon coming inside his own sea of consciousness, Jeremy took a look around,

The sky was brilliant blue...

The high-grade brown soil was magnificently beautiful...

The moderate-sized pond was filled with transparent milky white water...

Currently, it's like Jeremy was standing in the proximity of an unhot, brown desert together with an oasis-like pond of pearly-white water situated in the centermost place.

Also, the exterior of the closure, desert-like soil area was still painted in solid white color, for the spaciousness of his sea of consciousness could only be this limited for now.

'Oh... My sea of consciousness, which was depicted in the form of land and sky areas, has actually gotten bigger? Hmm... When I came here before the First Doom began, it was approximately 10 acres but now increased to 12 acres. That's a remarkable improvement.'

The progress of Jeremy's sea of consciousness was obviously the result of doing meditation daily.

As for the benefits he received from having a more extensive sea of consciousness, it was simple...

The bigger his sea of consciousness was, the stronger his mind power became.

That's because one's sea of consciousness was directly related to one's mind power.

That also meant the stronger his mind became, the better he could protect his own soul depicted in the form of a pond-like oasis situated at the centermost part of the land and sky areas.

After having enough of spectating his own sea of consciousness, Jeremy walked towards the pond of unknown water some meters away.

While walking forward, Jeremy thought to himself in annoyance,

'It's very bothersome to always have to access my own sea of consciousness whenever I want any in-depth information. If my mind and soul were not affected and weakened by the stupid space and time laws, everything would be so much easier than this...'

Not long after, Jeremy reached the milky-water pond's vicinity; with no further ado, he stepped inside the pond, letting himself being submerged by the murky-white liquid.

'Whatever, let's see if I had missed something important or not, or only missed the miscellaneous information.'

With those thoughts in mind, Jeremy's virtual body submerged into the pond completely.