Actualisation Test

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| Actualisation Test |

[If you could wish for anything right now, What would it be?]

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Midas didn't even have to think much. After the initial confusion about everything in his surroundings having disappeared, he steeled himself and responded.

"A library with every written record in all of History."

Suddenly the World went bright and Midas found himself on a street somewhere. The street was clean with the blackest tar road and the whitest paint marks almost as if there had never been a car that drove on to it.

When he looked around there was nothing but dirt in the surroundings of the street, but there was merely one building right in front of him. He walked towards the gate of the place and couldn't help but smile to himself. They really sent him here?

"Haha, what the hell. Is this a life size model? How did they pull this off?"

In front of him was a metal gate made of the words ``British Library ''. He couldn't believe it. He was entering the Great British Library in London? He had never even been to London yet, but he knew this was one of the most famous libraries in the world.

When he looked behind him, what should have been a busy intersection was now lifeless. The places where there were other buildings on the other sides of the road, they did not exist. He entered the place and followed the path onwards until he was at the door of the main building which to his right was the Knowledge Center, Bar and Theatre Hall.

He entered the main building and he was met with a beautiful sight.

A beautiful stairway going up towards the Book sections was at his front. On his sides were the walls which were lined with artwork from famous painters, sculptures of famous British writers, and informational signposts. When he looked at the levels of the building he found that there were eighteen stories that he could explore.

'Wait eighteen stories?' thought Midas, confused. As far as he knew, the Great British Library only had four stories...

So it's only a modeling and not the actual thing...

Midas chuckled when he found himself breathing in the awesome smell of books the same way a thirsty man would devour water. There were probably so many books in here that weren't there... He licked his lips like a pervert at the prospect of opening them up and making them reveal all their dirty little secrets to him.

"Haha, what the fuck."

As he walked forward he saw a blue panel in front of him again and knew that his test was here.

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| Announcement! |

[Welcome to the Great Earth Library. In here you will find every written account and data that has ever been left by Humans ever since the first forms of writing were created until this day.]

[Your Test is to Read, Memorise and Understand all the written accounts and data.]

[You have an unlimited amount of time to complete this Test.]

[You will not feel any hunger, thirst, aging or any other Negative Physical State while you are in the Library. You will not be able to access your Index while undergoing this test.]

[To quit the test, you may leave the Library's front gates. You may quit at any time, but know that that will affect your final evaluation and thus your rewards.]

[You may begin the test now.]

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'Hmm? I understand the written accounts, but what do they mean by data?' asked Midas to himself. Did they mean e-books? That would make the most sense. Right?

'Wait what about digital fingerprints. That is data. Do they have that data here? That would be a lot of data. How much time would it take to completely read through and understand all of it?'

Midas frowned for the first time after realising that this will not be easy at all. How many different books are there in existence? 100 million? 200 million? If it takes him an average of three days to finish one book, then that is already 600 million days. And 600 million days is almost 2 million years... And that's only for the books.

The data on the Internet? That is already exabytes worth of data that would take him another few tens of million years.

Then there's all the stuff that is definitely not on the Internet. Secret documents, Surveillance Data, Digital Footprint data... An average person generates 2 megabytes of digital footprint data every second. That has taken over the course of their lives since the digital boom in the nineteen nineties...

"Oh my God."

Now he understood what the green life-form meant by his words.

"You will not die. But you will experience something far worse..."

What Midas was afraid of was not the books, but the mental issues that may arise from being stuck in a library full of books with no human contact for years on end. Stress, Anxiety, Depression... Midas couldn't help but think to himself how with his low Spirit Stat, He would probably be very susceptible to negative mental states. This place was too quiet, and he inexplicably found himself thinking out loud to make up for it.

"Well, at least I'm protected against Negative Physical States. Although what that actually means, I will have to investigate in future. If that means I would never bleed or feel physical pain while I'm here, then it might be something to be grateful for."

"For now let's try to find our bearings. How long is a million years anyway? It will go by incredibly quickly once we start reading." said Midas to himself as a way to cheer himself up. But he realised that he had failed miserably once he looked up again at the towering structure of 18 floors that was probably filled to the brim with books.

"Let's start with the children's books." said Midas after spotting a big sign which had the words 'CHILDREN'S BOOKS' on it. He walked over, grabbed a random book titled 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and started reading.

"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf... One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and popped! - out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar... Well I don't know about the caterpillar being hungry, but that is most definitely a very ugly caterpillar haha."

And just like that the first few hours of the first day passed. Every time he would read a book he would try his best to internalise it and understand it. And whenever he thought he was done and could understand a book fully, the book would disappear from his hands and a blue panel would pop up:

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| Announcement |

[Congratulations! You have completed a section of Reading.]

[Progress: 0.000000000000%]

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"I've already read 20 children's books and the progress percentage still hasn't changed. I've still got a lot of reading to do."

Midas camre to understand that even though his physical body felt like it was at peak performance capability, his mind was already starting to get tired. The pure lack of stimulation from these children's books was demoralising for him. Trying to find something interesting in them was like trying to draw blood from stone. But he kept on Keeping on.

A few hours later, Midas told himself he'd give himself a break. He had just read 'the Cat in the Hat' by Dr Seuss which was his 27th book so far. He was making good progress. The lights were already on and it was clearly the middle of the night. Midas still felt like he had energy to spare. Too much energy.

"This Negative Physical State Nullification is really something else. I wish I had this all the time." said Midas to himself with a smile. But he knew that he was mentally wasted. He could not get himself to focus at all on this last book. He needed some rest. He walked around until he found one of those reading rooms. He entered, closed the door and lay on the floor. He closed his eyes, preparing himself for sleep.

"..."

"Wait, why can't I fall asleep?"

It had been four hours and he had tried to calm his breathing and enter into a sleepy state, but he just could not do it.

"Don't tell me that sleep is a Negative Physical State?"

"..."

Four hours later, Midas gave up on sleep entirely. He now walked around the library aimlessly while surveying all the reading he had to do. He had found a section with scrolls stored inside and when he looked through those scrolls they weren't even in English. Actually, a good portion of the books in the library weren't even English books. This meant that he had to learn a new language every time he wanted to read these non-English books.

Midas had also noticed that as long as he read a certain book in a certain language, any translated work based on it would also disappear from the library. This means he didn't just read 47 books, he had effectively read 47 books and every translation in every language of that book. Of course some books had no translations. It seemed that the library prioritised original works instead of translations.

One thing Midas knew, he had his work cut out for him. It had only been almost 24 hours since he entered this challenge and he already felt like giving up. But he also understood something else. This was an opportunity. He was just about to start the Seven Trials which would endanger his life. If he could learn some life preserving methods before tackling the Trials he would be in a better position to handle whatever comes his way.

Midas understood himself best. He had nothing much to offer. He grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa to a relatively poor family. His mother was a workaholic who never paid attention to her kid, his father was out of the picture due to problems with his mother. He was an only child, and the image of modern stereotype of an emotionally neglected child who did not know how to be close to people.

Him being abandoned by his parents caused him to have abandonment issues. All throughout his childhood, whenever he would make friends he would have subconscious expectations of being abandoned, and because of that, he would abandon the friend first so that it wouldn't hurt as much later on. He later learned that it was much easier to just not try making friends with people, and he started reading books as an escape for his grey, colourless reality.

Books were different from people. Books could never abandon him.

This was the most easily understood aspect, but his issues were in for a penny, in for a pound. His Abandonment issues manifested an Anxiety that made it difficult for him to deal with positions of responsibility. It also made him have a fear of standing out too much, and thus he half-assed his life and only managed to get by because of his above average intelligence.

His Anxiety made him abandon University and drop out of his Electrical Engineering degree after two years. He had spent the past three years idling about, reading books and writing code.

A waste of a life with no accomplishments to speak of. And he hated himself for it.

Midas understood this much about himself so he knew that this was a major opportunity to rewire his operating framework. He could effectively take this time to change the way his brain works. All he had to do was start. If he could complete this Challenge with flying colours he could gain more than just confidence. He could gain knowledge of everything in the world, from History, to Science, Mathematics, Psychology, Language, Philosophy, Engineering, Military Tactics...

All he had to do was just start.

Midas immediately ran back to the CHILDREN'S BOOKS section and grabbed his next book titled "The Giving Tree". He sat down and started reading.

After a few minutes Midas threw the book as far as he could saying "Wow, what a dick! And what an idiotic tree. This is why they say that love makes people idiots, so stupid."

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| Announcement |

[Congratulations! You have completed a section of Reading.]

[Progress: 0.000000000001%]

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"..."

"Hehe, only now you decide to give me a 1. Well, since that book was made from some idiotic tree, should I thank it? The Giving Tree. Ironic."

Midas stood up and searched for his next book to read with a smile on his face and a fire burning in his heart. He would definitely complete this challenge. No matter what.

"Hmm, let's see... Strega Nona. I wonder what it's about.."

Midas did not know this at the time, but this one decision of his, to not give up yet, to forge the will to change himself through his own efforts, to keep moving forward... This one decision of his would go on to be the most pivotal decision of his entire life.