Johan sat on the edge of his bed, the life-changing experience he'd just undergone still vivid. The words of the bored Singularity echoed in his head; the entire experience of the timeless space clung to him like a strange, unsettling dream. A part of him still suspected it was all a delusion, a hallucination, but if he closed his eyes and focused, he could re-enter that void, seeing the chairs he and the Singularity had occupied drifting listlessly.
Omniscient Umaran. The very title felt alien, a heavy mantle he couldn't quite grasp. What did it even mean for him?
The Singularity had told him about the power it had granted him: it was called the 'INFINITE MIND.'
Johan knew some of its features, or at least he had a vague theoretical understanding from the Singularity's detached explanation. The rest, he knew, awaited testing.
Closing his eyes again, a flicker of trepidation mixed with boundless curiosity, he tried to look inside his mind. This time, he saw a white space, a boundless expanse reminiscent of the one he'd shared with the Singularity. However, this white space was profoundly different: here, he was ruler. The absolute sovereign. If he commanded, he could twist and reshape this space into anything he wished—his simple room, or even the vastness of outer space itself. Anything, provided he possessed a complete understanding of what he desired to create. He recalled this sub-ability was called The Architect's Nexus.
This was a heaven-defying ability, he realized with a jolt, yet it seemed almost impossible to operate. How could he, Johan, possibly understand everything there was to understand about…well, anything? Even the seemingly simple act of creating a chair would be an insurmountable intellectual feat. He'd need to grasp every minute detail: its precise shape, its dimensions, the fundamental principles of how a chair actually functions as a support structure, the materials it's composed of, the intricate processes by which those materials are made, the atomic structures within those materials, and so on and so forth. The sheer scope was staggering. This was even a difficult task for an accomplished scientist; for someone like him, it felt utterly beyond reach.
Thankfully, however, The Architect's Nexus had an inherent failsafe, a genius design. It could perform this immense task itself. It possessed a passive function: it slowly mapped the reality around the host, gradually understanding every minute detail about the space and the objects within it. Once it understood something, the next time it encountered something similar, it would be able to replicate it instantly. So, in theory, given enough time, it could painstakingly replicate all of reality without the host moving an inch.
But the problem was that this passive mapping was agonizingly slow. Rather than leveraging logical deduction, which would be far more efficient, it relied on a trial-and-error method of pure observation, which Johan intuitively knew would be incredibly cumbersome for something so grand. He could feel the impatience building already. However, there was a glimmer of hope: if the host actively provided relevant knowledge, the Nexus would bypass the slow observation process for that section and swiftly move on to another.
If having the Architect's Nexus was heaven-defying, Johan also possessed another sub-ability he considered even more ridiculous: The Inner Conclave.
Its main function was the theoretical creation of an infinite number of clones, akin to having infinite versions of himself. These clones were attached to him and other clones like a hive mind, yet each possessed an independent mind. This meant that while they would follow the host's orders to the death, they would still retain their own opinions and ideas about anything. Imagine a new piece of information discovered by a clone changing their perspective of the world and leading to personality shifts. Essentially, these would be versions of himself with independent growth.
Another function of these clones was that the host could gain physical benefits from them. For instance, if a clone worked out and built muscles, the host would receive the corresponding benefits without exercising himself. This was an incredible advantage. There were other functions as well, but Johan decided he should first try this out and see his first clone.
Soon, he stood on the Architect's Nexus and gave it instructions to create a clone. Once he did that, he watched as a blood drop slowly appeared before him. The blood drop multiplied itself into countless others, swiftly forming a silhouette similar to his body. Then, cells, bones, muscle, organs, skin, and clothes all began to develop—a sight that was both incredibly bizarre and thrilling for Johan.
It took almost fifteen seconds for the clone to form. Once the process was complete, the clone slowly opened its eyes, looking straight at Johan. Johan, on the other hand, was equally surprised by the exact copy of himself standing before him. It filled him with a mix of awe and unease.
Meanwhile, the clone stopped looking at Johan and began moving around, examining the Architect's Nexus as if trying to understand its functions and the space in general. Although the white space they were in appeared infinite, Johan had an instinctive feeling it was limited. Perhaps, in the future, this place could indeed become infinite in size.
While all this unfolded, the clone suddenly stopped moving around, looked at Johan, and said, "What's up, twin?"