The notification from his phone woke Daniel up from his sound sleep.
The dark space around him made him still dreamy in his sleep, out of habit of holding his phone to check the message.
Daniel panicked when he saw the time.
"Damn, when did I fall asleep? It's already three in the morning."
Looking around, there was no one else. The tall bookshelves were like walls, the surrounding space was immersed in a gloomy darkness. Only the lamp on his reading table was still on.
Daniel couldn't help but complain about himself, this habit of sleeping in and forgetting everything was really hard to fix.
But anyway, it was really strange that the school library was so empty. Even though it was three in the morning, medical students often stayed up all night to study for exams, right?
There were days when they arrived at twelve o'clock at night and still had nowhere to sit, let alone the exams that had been taking place for the past few weeks.
Daniel ignored those things, put the books on the table into his backpack and put the iPad away. Turned off the lights and left the medical reading area.
Downstairs, downstairs was as deserted as upstairs. The only sound left in this large space was his footsteps, Daniel really felt something was wrong.
Everything was too quiet and deserted, the library was usually open all the time but when there were only two or three people left at night, the lights would still be on. But today all the lights were off, it seemed like there was something wrong with the library.
The cool autumn weather made Daniel feel like this place was like a haunted house in a movie, quickly passing the rows of bookshelves outside and going deeper inside.
The medical university library had a futuristic technology structure, the stairs were at different ends of each floor, so every time he needed to go up or down, he had to go through that floor.
Arriving at the shelves in the innermost corner of the second floor, Daniel found the exact location where he had borrowed the book in the afternoon and put it back. But surprisingly, there was something there that reflected the light and flashed.
"Huh? Who left the watch here? And it's an old-fashioned one, a pocket watch?"
Picking up the brass pocket watch and putting the book back in its place, Daniel moved closer to the window to look at it more easily instead of shining the light from his phone.
"Looks pretty old, huh? Even the glass is a bit cracked. Who would leave this here?"
Daniel muttered, while pondering over the small watch in his hand. Who uses this kind of watch anymore, everyone uses electronic watches.
Who in school likes antiques like this? Or maybe the librarian?
He doesn't wear watches or collect antiques, so he probably doesn't.
"Just put it in the book counter downstairs and the librarian will return it to the person who lost it tomorrow."
But as soon as he turned around, a bottomless abyss suddenly appeared under the floor in a strange way.
Daniel was horrified to see the deep black crack under the floor, he had just passed by and had not seen anything there, so why was there a hole now?
'Could it be that me had studied too much and was hallucinating?'
Before Daniel could think of anything else, the crack had already spread wider and wider and the black hole was getting wider.
It was like a bottomless abyss, so black that one could not even see the faint light shining in from the window.
The crack grew deeper and wider, and soon reached Daniel. Before he could run, the crack quickly swallowed him and he fell into the dark abyss.
In a panic, Daniel tried to find a place to hold on before falling to the bottom, but unfortunately, there was not even a rock around.
Everything was dark, there was no sound in this place except the sound of the wind falling and the sound of his heartbeat.
He did not scream for help, because he knew that there was no one else in this place but him. It was better to use his strength to scream for help and pray for the rest of his life.
But this hole felt wrong, falling for a few minutes but still not reaching the bottom.
'What the hell was going on?! Was this an illusion or was I still not awake?'
Daniel knew there was no reasonable chance that a bottomless pit would suddenly appear and crack open, pulling him down before he could even run.
'Illusion! This is definitely an illusion!'
Daniel gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, the feeling of falling and the whistling wind did not stop.
Suddenly, a ticking sound rang out.
The watch in Daniel's hand suddenly rang, the gears started to run, the needle started to spin.
The sound was so loud, it almost filled the entire space. It was so close to him, as if right next to his ear, each ticking sound rang out.
'What? What's wrong with this watch? How can such a small watch make such a loud sound? On top of that, the surrounding sounds could no longer be heard clearly.'
'The whistling wind, the sound of breathing, and the sound of my heartbeat could no longer be heard. But the feeling of falling was still there, the space around him was still dark.'
'What's going on?'
Turning his head to look around, an unexpected sight entered Daniel's eyes.
A huge system of gears and steam clocks appeared, towering like an underworld emerging from the primitive darkness. It was not only huge but also incredibly majestic.
From above, giant copper pipes wriggled like the intestines of a mechanical dragon, spewing out white steam, so hot and dense that it could almost tear the air apart.
The sound echoed in all directions, the "creaking" of gears interlocking, the "shrilling" of chains rolling, and the deep "hum" like the breath of a creature made of metal.
Large gears overlapped small gears, horizontal gears twisted around vertical gears. Everything seemed to rotate together, pushing a giant system to operate.
There was a gear with a diameter of several dozen meters, protruding from the ground, each time it moved it vibrated like an earthquake.
"What…is this?"
Daniel was so shocked that he couldn't help but exclaim, unable to believe that there could be such a huge structure underground.
Looking down to find the bottom of this giant structure, a thin, barely perceptible mist was mixed with a faint golden light.
Daniel felt as if he was falling more slowly, he didn't even need to move to avoid the constant rotation of the gears around him that were a hundred times larger.
He easily slipped through as if the place adjusted itself so that he wouldn't be hit as he fell.
The deeper he fell, the brighter the light became. The sound of the engines and the clock ticking gradually went from steady to faint. Falling a little further, the engines gradually became less and less and the light began to cover the surroundings.
Until the blinding light shone into Daniel's eyes, so bright that he unconsciously closed his eyes tightly. A sound of glass breaking rang out.
Shattered, something shattered.
The pain of landing did not appear as Daniel imagined, he closed his eyes and waited for a while.
Nothing happened, and there was no sound other than his heartbeat.
One, two, then three.
Still nothing happened, Daniel slowly opened his eyes.
The surrounding space was completely white, below where Daniel was sitting was a floor of water that was also transparent white. He didn't get wet, it was just like the floor was made of water.
"Strange, so strange..."
"Where is this place?"
Looking around, there was nothing but a completely white space. Looking up at the place where he had just fallen, surprisingly there was no giant hole.
'Where did I just fall from? Did I just teleport here mid-fall?'
Daniel unconsciously pinched his face, feeling pain.
'Wait, this painful feeling! This is definitely not a dream or an illusion.'
'So where the hell is this and what the hell just happened?'
'This is all so absurd.'
That was all Daniel could think after what had just happened.
It was absurd but Daniel did not doubt the authenticity of this, perhaps thinking that all this was the effect of some random reality show or game show.
But one thing was clear, the heat from the air stream radiating through the gears and the cool feeling when walking on the water floor here were very real.
Standing up and looking around, Daniel saw that there was nothing but white. He touched his jacket pocket to find his phone, but the jacket was gone.
Looking back at himself, Daniel only then noticed. He seemed to have grown taller, and what was with this pure white outfit? There were no more headphones around his neck, no more windbreaker or backpack on his shoulders.
Everything was just white, a white long-sleeved T-shirt and white pants. Everything was just one color, Daniel was a bit panicked as he touched his body all over.
Many questions appeared in his mind, since when did he have long hair? And since when did he have such blonde hair?
Looking down, he observed himself carefully again. A pocket watch hanging around his neck caught his eye.
'It's the watch in the library, I was holding it when it fell just now? Why is it around my neck now?'
He picked up the watch, it didn't run.
"Strange... obviously..."
While he was muttering, a sudden buzzing sound rang out, a distorted projection screen gradually appeared in the white space, very prominent.
"What is this...?"
A transparent blue screen floated up like a 3D projection from a projector, except there wasn't any projector around.
[Welcome, chosen player number 9877201!]
[Welcome to the personal space.]
[Error!]
[Player Encryption Error!]
[Error in progress...]
[Error!]
[Error not detected, reloading player information...]
[Error!]
The notification sound that had been ringing mechanically from the floating screen suddenly became distorted, then kept repeating the same sentence .
'This is weird, after all that has happened, this system like in the story is even weirder...'
'So this is what the main characters usually have? But why does it keep showing an error message?'
Daniel did not move closer, of course to avoid any situation where the other thing could attack and harm him.
After all, in this weird situation, there was no phone to contact the outside world, nor was there any emergency first aid kit.
Safety first.
After a series of error messages, error identification and error correction, the floating screen finally blurred and disappeared into nothingness.
'So it's gone? Say hello and then error and disappear? Is this the same system as in the works I've read? It just feels different and wrong...'
After waiting for a while and not seeing any screen appear again, Daniel decided to walk around to see if there was an exit.
After walking for a while, all he was greeted with was disappointment. There was no exit, nor any sign of a way to get in. It was as if it was an endless space, completely isolated from the world.
While Daniel was resting, a line of black letters suddenly appeared in the air. Seeing the unexpected thing appear before him, Daniel immediately pondered .
The line of letters slowly appeared. It was the old style of writing that the British used in past.
[Dear master, welcome to your personal space in the system.]
[Allow me to introduce myself, I am D! A system that guides your tours through different dimensions.]
[Nice to meet you!]
"What is space travel, I need to get out of here, not a tour guide..."
[Please wait a moment, master. D will explain why you are here and how to get out]