Chapter 171: Eternal Void

[Author note: Try not to go insane 😁]

Jade reviewed the question he wanted to ask again and after setting his mind he asked 'What is space?'

[Sending question…]

[Waiting for answer…]

[Answer received]

[The Answer will strain your soul as it will be etched directly into it. There is a chance your soul and mind will be destroyed or warped by the answer. This process will take 4 days. Do you want to receive it or change your question?]

Jade was extremely surprised, he didn't expect the answer to be so powerful. He thought 'If it's this crazy then the things I'll be able to do will be just as crazy. Give me the answer!'

The world around Jade was instantly dyed black. Everything disappeared leaving only a deep endless darkness surrounding Jade. A figure appeared in front of Jade, the person was an exact replica of him. The replica said "If you had asked the other questions you would have gotten answers. But you might not have been able to understand the answer.

Now to answer your question, there will be two lessons that teach different concepts. We will start with understanding an essential concept that the mind finds hard to accept.

Consider existing in a world without sound, without smell, without taste, without light, without darkness, without heat, without cold, without size, without form, no distance, no direction, no space… Void, Nothingness, Nullity.

You don't have to try to imagine it because the experience will be etched into your soul. You have to experience what it is like in a world without space to understand space. If you survive we'll move to the second lesson."

Jade was returned back to his lab, he stood in place expecting the experience and it didn't disappoint. The objects in his lab began to disappear in his vision leaving only darkness. It was all an illusion that was made so that he could gradually understand the concept.

The world became quiet as more equipment disappeared and the temperature dropped and rose regularly from scalding hot to chilling cold. Everything eventually disappeared leaving Jade in darkness as the temperature dropped and rose.

The temperatures started disappearing and the feeling of heat and cold faded away with time as Jade's mind struggled to accept this reality. He found himself trying to convince himself that the sensation of temperature wasn't disappearing but the illusion was stronger than his mind and it forced him to accept the new reality.

In reality Jade was lying on the floor rubbing himself on the ground while drooling, sweating and scratching himself to get his body to feel some sort of temperature, cold, heat, warmth anything. His mind was isolated from his body so that his body wouldn't break down due to the information his mind was getting.

In the illusionary world the temperature completely disappeared and Jade, who could not move or make any expression, just stayed in place.

The darkness began to disappear after that, it wasn't replaced by light. It was just nothingness, colorlessness, infinite absolute transparency. If his mind was still connected to his body he would have pulled out his eyes so that his brain would only see darkness.

His mind focused on the remaining patches of darkness that were disappearing as it tried to desperately hold on to the things that defined its reality. The darkness completely disappeared and Jade's perception was left floating in a world that couldn't be imagined, he couldn't see or feel his illusionary body.

The last thing that left was space. Unlike what one would have assumed, the world didn't start closing in on Jade, instead his perception started expanding and reducing simultaneously. The expansion and reduction wasn't uniform as he perceived nothingness from many perspectives and lost his perception of some of the nothingness until he finally perceived every part of the nothingness and no part of the nothingness, which was nothing.

He was omniscient and ignorant in an empty world. He knew everything and was everything, he also knew nothing and was nothing in this world but there was nothing in the world and it was his everything. There was no where in this world as he was everywhere and nowhere. His mind kept struggling to find something anything to know, to sense, to feel, to be somewhere, to be something.

At a point Jade's mind grasped the only left in the world and held on to it. Time. The only thing that indicated that time was going by was the fact that he could still think, he could search and search and search and search because he had time.

An unknown amount of time passed as Jade couldn't sense days or minutes, all he knew was that he had moved from the past to the present and that there was still a future. Although it was all nothingness it wasn't the same because he decided that they weren't the same.

His mind started creating concepts that could exist in this world of nothingness but the concepts kept breaking apart and becoming nothing but he kept making them. Jade had forgotten the parts of his old world at this point. This world of nothingness was all he had, never had, didn't have, would have and wouldn't have. Void couldn't be owned or not owned, it just was and wasn't and would be and wouldn't be and had been and hadn't been and ...…and…... and…..

After the unknown amount of time Jade's perception reduced as the concept of size, distance and space returned to his world. Form came to the world as direction became a thing.

As the concepts that defined space came back Jade looked at them like they were treasures. New things that he couldn't have or not have before but now they were and whether they would be or wouldn't they were.

Jade returned back to his lab, the process had taken 2 days and some hours for him to complete in real time. Jade's body was connected to his mind and as an influx of various emotions burst forth from his mind.

Jade's current state could only be described as madness. He laughed, cried, bit his tongue and drooled while trying to make his head reach his butt. This state continued for a few hours with him attempting weirder things before the remaining parts of his soul stabilized him.

He sat down in the mess he had made of his lab shivering; he had hurt himself during his period of madness and was currently healing. The memory of what he had just gone through scared him. He closed his eyes and meditated on the feeling of nothingness his soul was actively trying to forget. His mind and soul somehow adapted to the experience and he finally understood and accepted what a lack of space was; eternal nothingness, eternal void.