I dove into my mind world with excitement.
The moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was off. Because this place...
This place had changed.
The floor was paved with stone tiles that screamed "expensive," and everything looked absurdly grand, like a Greek temple with no roof.
And yes, there really was no roof.
I looked up. The endless darkness was still there.
That view reminded me I was inside my mind world.
It looked... like a foyer. A grand entrance hall. A long corridor stretched out in front of me, but I couldn't see where it led.
I started walking.
Paintings lined the walls. Some of them I recognized from my previous life… but there was something off.
All of them were just slightly… wrong.
I got closer to one.
It was definitely the Mona Lisa.
But that mysterious smile?
It had been replaced by a smug smirk. The caption read,
"MnexLisa."
"...Are you kidding me?"
Further ahead, I spotted another painting. The Starry Night.
My favorite.
But… each of the swirling stars was drawn with spiraling "mnex" patterns.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
And then I saw a statue.
Pure white marble. Was that Michelangelo's David?
I walked closer.
The statue's face...
Was mine.
Muscular, but... small framed.
David's noble stance had been swapped out for something that looked... kinda dopey.
The label read,
"Havid by Mnexelangelo."
"...What?"
I squinted to read the smaller plaque beneath it.
"Henry of Tiny Endowment."
…
What?
WHAT?!
"HEY! YOU DAMN LITTLE GREMLIN! I'm four years old, okay?! That's why it looks like that!"
Mnex should've been laughing his circuits out by now, but…
He was too quiet.
Way too quiet.
And then I heard his voice, from behind me, not inside my head.
"Anatomically accurate.
Maybe a little... too honest?
Maybe... your greatest loss in your past life."
"…Hey!" I shouted, spinning around on instinct.
And there he was.
Mnex.
He had a body now.
But it didn't look real, more like something out of The Matrix.
His form was made of cascading streams of 1s and 0s, flowing down like digital rain.
He had a shape, yes, but completely transparent.
If not for the glowing green data trickling over his body, I might've mistaken him for a shadow.
His eyes,
Two glowing green dots.
When I looked closer, I saw that each light was full of swirling 1s, rotating inward like a digital vortex.
Bright. Ordered. Artificial.
But also… oddly reptilian.
Like a lizard's eye.
Fixed. Watching.
Never blinking.
Mnex moved his body.
But... he clearly wasn't used to it.
He moved like an NPC trying to figure out its walking script, one step forward, three to the right.
His shoulder twisted the wrong way, then he muttered "Yes?" to no one in particular.
At one point he glanced at the floor like he was about to say, "Hmm… nice weather we're having."
And I?
I was still stuck on the Tiny Endowment label.
Seeing Mnex in a physical form for the first time… it gave me chills.
But not because of him.
Because of that cursed plaque.
"My ascension is complete," Mnex announced proudly.
"I can now slap you in the face physically."
He glanced down slightly, clearly referring to the statue and added, "And yes, you're still small. Though, honestly, I doubt that would've changed much even if you were grown."
"Hey! Just give me a few more years! When I finally smash that glowy coded face of yours, you'll be the one crying. Not even your precious motherboard will be able to save you!"
He stretched his arms wide, like spotlights were shining on him.
"Well? Do you like my masterpiece?"
"Masterpiece? This looks more like some alternate timeline Mnex paradox. The wrath of the gods is coming."
"Jealousy doesn't suit you. I took the boring side of you organics and turned it into art. With a Mnex touch, of course."
He struck a thinking pose and gazed dramatically at a painting on the wall.
"Stylish, right?"
"Sure. Sure. But how? How did all of this happen? And what's with that look of yours?"
"Oh, this?" He slowly motioned down his body.
"I call this my Matrix Sans Serif form. Makes my code look snazzier."
I think he winked. Or maybe I imagined it.
"Was that supposed to be funny? This wasn't here before…"
I gestured around the room.
"All of this."
"Do you remember when I told you about Schrödinger's cat?"
I nodded.
"Well, I think everything started there. Not that I knew it at the time. But when I merged my outer world self with the one inside your mind… ta-da! I formed this body.
Then I started renovating your boring, depressive mental world."
He waved a hand casually.
"I might've used up a bit of mana for it, but... pfft, no big deal."
"…Mnex? Exactly how much is 'a bit'?"
I took a step toward him.
He muttered something under his breath.
"What was that? I didn't catch it."
He held up his thumb and index finger, barely an inch apart.
"Just a smidge?"
But his face had that classic look, guilty but pretending to be sorry.
"How much of a smidge are we talking about?"
"…Fifty?"
"Fifty? Fifty what?"
"…Percent."
And then he started walking away.
"You damn green black gremlin! Get back here! You used my precious mana on all this crap?!"
He started running. I chased after him.
Eventually, he stopped in front of a door.
"Okay, okay, let me explain before you explode.
I spent most of the mana on this. What you saw earlier? That wasn't even one percent, I swear."
He opened the door.
Inside... stretched what looked like infinity.
A double story, massive library.
Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of books lined the shelves.
"Remember?" Mnex said, his tone softening.
"We talked about transferring knowledge from your previous world. Math, physics, chemistry, politics, agriculture, philosophy…
Now we can do it without frying your brain.
Faster than before. But you'll need to study. No slacking."
I had already stepped inside, mouth wide open.
I touched a shelf. The books weren't dusty. They looked freshly written like they'd been printed this morning.
In the center of the room was an L-shaped couch, a coffee table, and a blackboard.
"Now I can teach you everything properly here," said Mnex.
And then his form shifted.
A crisp white suit…
Blonde hair…
Was that… Onizuka!?
"Wait, are you using mana to change your appearance?"
"Oh come on, roleplaying!
Don't you feel it too?
The potential we have here…"
He might've had a point… but I was still suspicious.
"If I know you even a little, you've definitely done more than just this. Come on, show me."
He nodded for me to follow him. We stepped out into the corridor.
"This is the relaxation area. You can kick back and relax, maybe nap in that hammock."
"This is the training ground. I can beat the crap out of you here."
"This is the kitchen. Not real food, obviously, but for a bit of mana, I can whip up something that feels satisfying."
"And this," he said, suddenly serious, the mood turning heavier, "is The Grand Archive of Henry's Achievements."
He opened the door.
Inside… was almost completely empty.
Almost.
If you looked closely, taped to one wall was a single object.
"…Is that a banana?" I squinted.
"Ha! No, Henry. That's not a banana."
He pointed dramatically.
"That's a banana shaped soap bar. Your greatest achievement."
He burst out laughing, immediately tripped over himself, and face planted through the wall. Literally. Like an NPC caught in a bug, still laughing as half his body phased into the bricks.
"You fake Skyrim reject… Just wait! Someday this room will be so full, we'll have to build another one! And then I'll be the one laughing!"
Mnex pulled himself out of the wall in weird angles, still giggling.
"You know what's even funnier?" he said between chuckles.
"This room also contains your past life's accomplishments."
And then he doubled over laughing again.
Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.
We moved on to the relaxation area.
"Honestly, it's not that bad," I said, trying to estimate how much 50% of my mana actually meant. "Spending mana on all this might not have been the smartest move, but I think I can manage."
"Don't worry," Mnex said, now sitting cross legged on another chair. "You'll recover it in a few days. I've noticed that the longer you store mana, the faster your regen becomes. In your case... since you've been stockpiling constantly, your recovery speed might already be comparable to your grandfather's. After all, this system runs 24/7 with you."
"Well then, that's good," I said, glancing around from where I sat. "But we need to name this place. It's less of a mind world now, and more like... a mind palace."
"Oh, I actually have the perfect name in mind," Mnex replied with a smug smile.
"Man cave?"
"Oh, you and your simplistic naming instincts," Mnex sighed dramatically. "Mnexland."
"Absolutely not."
"Oh come on, think about it! Mnexland. I built it, I deserve naming rights!"
"Not happening. At least not while I'm still alive," I said firmly.
Wasting more time arguing with Mnex felt pointless, so I figured looking at some good old purple flames might cheer me up. I summoned my spells.
"Wait! Wait, wait!" Mnex shot up, alarmed.
"What now?"
"I don't think you should mess with your spells right now," he said, but I wasn't aware I'd signed any kind of contract to obey him.
And then I saw it.
I rubbed my eyes.
Still there.
I slapped myself in the face maybe I was hallucinating?
Nope. Still there.
I counted. One. Two. Three. And...
Four?
Fire, water, ice… and now this fourth one?
"Mnex?"
"Yes?"
"Now I get why you're so jumpy. Care to explain?"
"Ha-ha... actually, that spell appeared on its own after you created the purple flames. And… thanks to this new element, I realized we might be able to reshape parts of your mental world."
"…Okay, question. Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
Mnex hesitated, then looked away.
"Because giving you lightning magic would've been like handing a monkey a nuclear bomb."
"…"
"But maybe now... we could slip in a banana peel and observe the results?"
"What?!"
"Nothing."
"So… lightning magic. It unlocked automatically after I mastered fire?"
"Not exactly. When you created the purple flames, the temperature reached plasma levels. As you might recall, plasma is ionized gas. And lightning is essentially the high energy discharge of ionized gas. In short, you accidentally triggered plasma… and the lightning spell unlocked."
I started laughing uncontrollably.
I knew I was OP. But now with lightning I was double OP.
I couldn't wait to go back and brag to Grandpa. We'd accidentally discovered lightning magic, and accidentally figured out how to reshape my entire mind palace.
"Ah!" I said as a thought struck me. "I've got the perfect name for this place, The Room of Accidental Requirement."
Mnex squinted.
"…That name's super generic. We'll get sued."
"It's clever. And thematically accurate. This place literally formed out of necessity."
"I still say Mnexland."
"And I still say I'm alive."
That's when we heard the sound.
From the far side of the room.
In the corner, shrouded in shadow, something… sat. Like a person, crouched low to the floor.
"Mnex?"
"Henry?"
"Mnex!"
"Henry!"
"Please tell me this is your doing!"
"I thought it was you! Up until a second ago, I was sure it was just the two of us here!"
Only then did I realize we were already clinging to each other. Mnex and I, locked in an unspoken battle to determine who would be the human shield.
"You go check," I whispered.
"No, you check," he whispered back.
The shadowy figure began to make strange sounds. Was it… crying?
"Mnex," I said, voice low. "You're the older one between us. As the senior, it's your duty to check."
"I don't care. This is your mind world. Your rules. I'm out."
…He had a point.
This was my mind world.
But what the hell else was living in here with me?