William was no longer certain of anything.
Ever since the old man had placed his hand on his forehead...
Many of the ideas he had once considered absolute truths had suddenly become vague.
More than that...
He had begun to doubt everything.
The two of them moved through the cosmic void within the barrier created by the old man.
No stars.
No planets.
No light.
Only endless darkness stretching in every direction.
Yet William's mind wasn't occupied by their surroundings.
After a long period of silence, he finally stopped walking.
Turning toward the old man, he spoke.
"I want an explanation."
The old man showed no surprise.
As if he had been expecting that question from the very beginning.
"An explanation of what?"
William frowned.
"Everything."
"If most of the information you gave me was nothing more than simplifications..."
"And if some of the ideas placed inside my mind were flawed from the start..."
"Then how am I supposed to know what's real?"
Silence followed.
Then the old man smiled.
A faint smile.
A calm smile.
One that somehow irritated William more than it reassured him.
"You won't."
William froze.
"What?"
"Not now."
His voice rose slightly.
"So I'm supposed to keep moving forward like this?"
"Without knowing anything?"
The old man shook his head.
"You will know."
Then he pointed at William.
"But not from me."
He paused briefly.
Then continued.
"If I tell you the truth..."
"It becomes my truth."
His gaze sharpened.
"But if you discover it yourself..."
"It becomes yours."
William wanted to argue.
He truly did.
Yet no words came.
Because deep down...
He knew the old man was right.
Everything he had truly understood in his life had come through experience.
Not explanations.
The ocean.
The desert.
The forest.
The air.
The atoms.
None of them had revealed their secrets through words.
Only through experience.
Only through understanding.
Eventually, William sighed.
Then continued walking.
The old man simply smiled.
A long time passed.
Or at least, it felt that way.
Time behaved strangely within the void.
Sometimes William felt as though hours had passed.
Other times it felt like entire days.
Yet nothing around them ever changed.
Until finally...
Something appeared in the distance.
At first, William mistook it for a star.
Then he realized it was far too large.
Larger than any star.
Larger than any city.
The closer they came...
The clearer it became.
And William's eyes widened.
A palace.
An enormous palace standing alone in the endless void.
As though it had existed before the universe itself.
Its walls stretched farther than he could measure.
They were crafted from a dark, gleaming material resembling frozen night.
Yet they reflected colors he had never seen before.
Colors that seemed beyond human perception.
Colossal pillars rose toward the darkness above.
As if they were supporting the heavens themselves.
Across the palace walls, countless symbols moved slowly.
Living symbols.
Ancient symbols.
As though they possessed wills of their own.
Before the palace stood a gigantic gate.
Large enough to dwarf mountains.
Its surface was covered in incomprehensible runes.
The moment William looked directly at them, pain exploded inside his head.
He immediately looked away.
His instincts screamed at him.
His mind wasn't meant to understand what was written there.
Not yet.
The two of them stopped.
William remained staring at the impossible structure.
For the first time in a long while...
He felt small.
Not before power.
Not before a person.
But before history itself.
Before something that seemed older than civilizations.
Older than stars.
Perhaps even older than time.
"What is this place?"
he finally asked.
The old man did not answer immediately.
Instead, he gazed quietly at the palace.
Then he spoke.
"A suitable place."
William raised an eyebrow.
"A suitable place for what?"
A faint smile appeared on the old man's face.
"For a beginning."
Before William could ask another question...
The old man disappeared.
Simply disappeared.
No portal.
No energy fluctuation.
No warning.
One moment he was standing there.
The next moment he was gone.
William froze.
His eyes darted around the void.
"Old man?"
No answer.
"This isn't funny!"
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Nothing.
He was alone.
Completely alone.
For the first time in a very long time.
At first, William assumed the old man would return in a few minutes.
Then an hour passed.
Then several.
Then even longer.
Yet the old man never appeared.
A sense of unease slowly crept into his chest.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Just uncertainty.
Then he noticed something strange.
Beneath his feet.
William looked down.
And only then did he realize something he should have noticed long ago.
He wasn't standing on the ground.
He wasn't standing on stone.
He wasn't standing on anything connected to the palace.
Instead...
He was standing on a small platform floating in the void.
A circular platform.
Barely a few meters wide.
Suspended within infinite darkness.
His eyes widened.
How had he failed to notice that?
Slowly, he knelt.
Then touched its surface.
It felt solid.
Real.
Yet unlike any material he had ever encountered.
Suddenly—
A line of glowing text appeared before him.
Just a single sentence.
Yet it was enough to make him freeze.
"What lies beneath your feet is not a gift."
The sentence vanished.
A second one appeared.
"Build your own platform."
William's breathing quickened.
Then a third line emerged.
"This is the first step."
The glowing words disappeared.
Leaving only silence behind.
William looked around.
The endless void.
The colossal palace.
The tiny platform beneath his feet.
Then he raised his head toward the darkness.
And finally understood.
The old man had not left him here without reason.
A new training had begun.
A training that wasn't about combat.
Wasn't about power.
Wasn't even about knowledge.
It was about creating the very foundation upon which he would stand.
Literally.
And if he failed...
There might not be anything beneath his feet at all.