-2 In the Beginning

There are some things that are better left unknown. Things that linger in the minds of men and women all over the world but, rather than face the truth, they sought the comfort of the mundane in order to shield themselves from it. Despite their complaints about systems designed to make their lives easier, they could not live without the structure offered by society.

The vast majority of the so-called civilized peoples relied on the conveniences offered to them by the businesses they purported to hate. They grow fat and complacent off the seemingly endless stream of new consumer goods that flowed into the market. Then, as their bodies break down as a result of their own inept mentality, they seek comfort in entertainment to distract them from the monotony of their existence.

Rather than do anything more productive with their lives, they continue playing the part of a cog within the system, distracting themselves with things like television, music, and video games. It was much easier to imprint upon the lives of others, using your imagination to pretend you were something far greater than yourself. After all, exercising required both time and effort, something that was universal shared amongst all people's yet, rather than accept the reality they had made for themselves, everyone was quick to blame others for their faults. They would rather customize a character in a video game and spend thousands of hours idling in a chair without moving rather than spend a single hour in the gym every day, cultivating powerful delusions and placing more emphasis on fictional characters than their own lives.

Due to this growing disconnect between reality and fiction, the world had been stagnating for decades, becoming a place where power was embodied by wealth and privilege rather than the intrinsic capabilities of the individuals possessing said power. This gradually led the world toward its inevitable destruction as, in the attempt to make a profit, the would-be powers that controlled the mundane masses lived their own delusional existences. As they were able to avoid having to face the consequences directly, living lives in their manors, mansions, and penthouses, they did not care about the world they destroyed.

Even with scientists all over the world warning people of the impending dangers, the very same media that had been created to distract them made the average citizen the patsies of the people they both resented and aspired to be. Instead of listening to reason and looking at the facts, they were kept idle by being fed propaganda from their favorite celebrities and politicians, living lives of waste as they further contributed to the problem.

As could be expected, this type of world could not continue to exist for very long, leading to the destruction of even more of the environment and the squandering of even greater resources as humanity began to fight over the remnants of the world. At the end of these conflicts, the lives of millions would be sacrificed for the benefit of a few thousand who, in turn, pacified the people who had propped them up with even more distractions. This perpetuated an endless cycle of conflict and stagnation which, after thousands of years of human folly, culminated in the mass extinction of the entire species.

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Watching this process take place from above, for what felt like the billionth time, an entity without any discernible features released a profoundly deep sigh. This noise, which could not be heard by the vast majority of people, even when billions had wandered their little planet, caused powerful fluctuations in the surrounding space. As a result, a ripple seemed to pass through the entirety of the Universe, destroying galaxies and spreading into the myriad of dimensional spaces that made up the fabric of reality.

Not caring about the destruction it had caused, the entity extended its hand, an action that made the surrounding space seem to expand outward as its body shrunk. By the time it had stopped shrinking further, the entity was large enough that it's back nearly touched Mars while its middle finger came to idle next to a tiny brown planet. Previously, this small iota of matter was a vibrant blue planetoid full of life but, after the endless devastation wrought by humans, it was now just another inert lifeless rock floating through space.

Feeling a frustration far greater than anything mankind could comprehend, the entity flicked its middle finger, an action that caused the tiny brown dot to flash with a small light as it fragmented into an incalculable number of pieces. These fragments traveled at nearly a tenth the speed of light, colliding into the sun after traversing through empty space for a little over an hour. Thus, with the simple act of flicking its finger, the entity had destroyed the Earth in its entirety...

After its chaotic mind had settled, a process that took the entity just under three-hundred million years, it began to look around the seemingly infinite space it had created for humans yet, even after rewinding time billions of times, giving them several hints, and even sending prophets to guide them, they had once again failed to get beyond a single planetary system. Even though there were a functionally infinite amount of resources spread throughout the Universe just waiting for them to claim, they ultimately destroyed themselves time and again.

In a mournful voice, the entity resumed its default appearance, losing its physical manifestation within the Universe as it grew to a size far greater than the boundless expanse of space. This brought it to a stone platform that contained nothing more than a simple bench and, at a glance, what appeared to be a small pond. Looking closely, however, would reveal that this pond was made up of a pitch-black substance which, upon even closer observation, seemed to swirl with what appeared to be clusters of stars.

At the very center of this pond, floating a few centimeters above the surface, an orb around the size of a palm defied any physical laws. This orb, which made up less than a billionth of the overall volume of the pond, was the entirety of the Universe that had been created for mankind. Now that the entity had left it behind, taking a seat on the bench, the orb fell into the larger volume of black matter, spreading out and dissipating after forming a few gentle ripples.

After watching the pond slowly settle, a process that actually took billions of years if observed from within the black mass, the entity gave another sigh before asking itself, "Was it wrong of me to give them free will...?"

The moment it asked this question, the entity shook its head, answering, "No. I want to create an entity that can accompany me through eternity. If they are unable to reach me through their own efforts, I would be better served talking with myself. Free will must be necessary unless I'm willing to admit I have none..."

While continuing this line of discussion with itself, the entity was simultaneously viewing the lives of more than three-sextillion individuals. It could see everything they ever saw, hear anything they had ever heard, taste everything they had ever eaten, and dreamed everything they had ever dreamed.

The entity wanted to know what it had overlooked. If it was unable to isolate the cause for the endless cycle of destruction, it would be impossible for another entity to reach its lonely place outside of creation. Though it had made several entities that were 'fated' to reach it, these had all been extensions of itself and, once they fulfilled their purpose, they would ultimately fade away after just a few trillion years. Because of this, it believed the only entities capable of reaching it without losing their sense of purpose were those who had gained the power through their own efforts.

Unfortunately, even after viewing the lives of everyone who had ever existed more than a billion times, the entity felt no closer to an answer. Instead, it could only start the cycle anew, this time changing the restrictions of reality to take advantage of the inherent nature of existence with free will. Since they competed and fought amongst themselves, even with plenty of resources to be shared amongst them, the entity figured it would create a crucible to promote this.

It decided to give them a clear goal to aspire towards as, apparently, even with an infinite vast expanse of space to venture out into, the various iterations of its creations seemed incapable of leaving their home planet without direct assistance. Even when it had made other entities that were capable of destroying galaxies through their own efforts, they would eventually reach a point where they didn't know what to do so, rather than leave it up to them, the entity decided to make it very obvious from the start.

With this thought in mind, the entity extended its finger into the pond, causing the viscous black liquid to coalesce around the digit before it formed into a sphere. Rather than let the sphere take shape and seeding it with life once again, the entity spent a few million years constructing a tower within its mind. This structure was impossibly large, to the point that entire planets would be able to fit in between the floors once you reached the higher levels.

Since most of the races it had made were unable to leave their home planets, the entity decided to treat each of the floors as a world of its own, assigning guardians to protect the boundaries between each successive level. Then, taking advantage of the fact its creations seemingly needed to be able to track their progress to avoid stagnating, it designed a system that would allow them to quantify virtually everything. It would still require them to make an effort to comprehend things, but they would never be without the basic information to determine their own track of growth.

Once the system had been completed, the entity fed the data for everything it had created during the previous iterations of reality. This included a myriad of sapient species, each possessing the potential for unlimited growth, and various other species that were meant to help them grow.

To make things even simpler for his creations to understand, it even restricted stronger species so they were unable to move between floors, allowing for a very clear line of progression for anyone that wanted to put in the effort. Then, to prevent the same situation of a few people suppressing the vast majority, the entity decided it would create a support group that worked alongside the guardians to regulate each of the floors. They would be the ones to determine the conditions for traveling between each floor and, for those who gave up climbing the tower, they would simply be ejected so that it would be difficult to set roots and inhibit the growth of others.

After establishing this system, the entity realized that the people that were ejected from the tower would use the power they gained within to oppress others. To prevent, or at least discourage this, it created a unique form of energy that only existed within the tower. This energy would become more prevalent as you climbed higher, allowing for greater growth as it nourished and refined the soul. However, once you were ejected from the tower, most of this energy would be expunged from your body and, causing a powerful backlash that would reduce you to the same level as those who had yet to begin their climb.

Though this seemed to be rather cruel, the entity knew exactly how people who had failed to gain power and prestige treated others. They would take out their frustrations on those weaker than themselves and, with the vast power gap that would exist in the higher floors, those that made the climb would be veritable gods amongst their former peers.

Since there was always infighting, even amongst members of the same race, the entity knew it was only a matter of time before large-scale massacres were carried out for entirely groundless reasons. Despite this, it genuinely believed it would one day have a worthy companion to stand at its side thus, after a process that stretched for nearly fourteen-billion years, an entirely new reality had come into existence. Instead of a vast expanse of space, however, it took on the shape of a simple tower comprised of two hundred floors.

Satisfied with its setup, the entity's body rapidly shrunk until it was no larger than two meters tall before taking a seat on a small throne at the very top of the tower. Then, not wanting to idle for even a moment longer, it gazed out into the vast room, which could fit an entire solar system, before raising its left hand and muttering, "Let the game begin..."

With those words still lingering, the entity snapped its finger, a simple action that caused trillions of lives to manifest throughout the seemingly limitless plane that surrounded the tower...