The next day, Noah returned to the inheritance.
As soon as he stepped in, he looked toward the Speaker — but the little blonde girl wasn't there.
"I brought ice cream."
He carried a bag filled with assorted flavors. Since there was nowhere to set it down, he simply left it floating in midair — as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
With a lazy wave to the gatekeeper, he walked up to the stone door and entered.
Silence greeted him once again.
When Noah opened his eyes, the platform was there — still, infinite, suspended between nothing and everything. The same absolute white surrounded him.
Only now... something was different.
He no longer saw that place as an unreachable challenge.
To his eyes, it was a playground.
And he had infinite tickets.
"The journey matters more than the ending."
He took a deep breath.
"Back to the beginning," he whispered.
He stepped forward and stopped at the edge. The abyss awaited — patient, silent — offering the same indecipherable invitation as before.
But this time, Noah didn't hesitate. He closed his eyes and jumped.
Invisible wind wrapped around him. The fall took him.
"Up."
His body obeyed.
He rose, as if direction itself had flipped.
When he reached a certain height in that boundless white sky, an idea sparked — and he twisted his thought.
"Not down," he murmured. "Sideways."
For an instant, the world warped — and Noah's stomach lurched like he was caught in a whirlpool. The horizon, once below, tilted at an impossible angle.
He was... falling sideways.
It wasn't just a lateral fall. "Side" had become his new "down."
The sensation was absurd. His body couldn't tell what was front, what was ground, what was sky.
Neither could his mind. It was an alien perception — no logic, no reference.
His balance imploded, and Noah spun wildly, like a comet trapped in orbit around an invisible sun.
"Damn...!"
He tried to steady himself, but the void pulled harder, faster. Directions blurred — and in a blink, he lost control.
Space folded.
In the next instant, he was back on the platform.
Panting, he dropped to his knees. His head throbbed. His heart pounded as if he'd been running for hours.
He pressed his temples and chuckled softly.
"If this were the real world... I'd have thrown up."
He sat for a while, trying to gather his thoughts.
There was no time here — but there was exhaustion.
And that was enough to call it rest.
"Even though I lost control... it seems possible."
If he could truly master this, Noah knew he could reach a goal he'd carried with him for a long time.
He stood again.
"Let's try one more time."
He walked to the edge, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
"Fall to the right."
This time, space responded more smoothly. The fall began vertically, but the direction slowly bent, as if reality itself were curving to follow him.
His body followed the twist. The horizon tilted. The world rolled like a glass sphere spinning in slow motion.
Noah laughed, feeling the discomfort twist through his insides. Every cell seemed to fight against the logic he imposed — but he persisted.
"I am the center... The world stays the same. Only my direction changes."
He rebuilt the image of the scene in his mind.
He created his own model — a mental map aligned to his body's axis.
If the mind understood it, the body would follow.
"Now the other side..."
And space obeyed, folding the axis.
The floor became a wall. The wall became a ceiling.
His body floated, then fell diagonally.
Noah tried to orient himself, but each time he thought he'd found balance, the void changed its mind.
"There is no 'side'..." he muttered, laughing at himself. "Only the point of view of whoever's falling."
Vertigo won.
His body spun, lost focus — and in an instant, he was back on the platform.
The white swallowed him again — gentle, silent.
This time, Noah didn't get up.
He lay there, staring at the nothing above — or below.
"I can change the axis... but I'm still the wrong center."
"Maybe it's not about changing space..." he thought, "but about changing what space means to me."
A tired smile slipped from his lips.
"Magic is language. And language is interpretation."
He stayed like that for a while — time that could've been hours, or years.
When he finally stood, his body felt lighter.
He walked to the edge one last time. Looked into the abyss — and the abyss looked back.
"Let's see how far this goes."
And he jumped.
This time, his body didn't fall. It spun.
Space didn't push him — it followed.
The horizon moved with him, as if the void, for a brief moment, had understood his intent.
The white curved, and Noah slid through the air as if gliding along an invisible surface.
He laughed loudly, feeling the wind that didn't exist.
"Diagonal."
He turned one way until his body tilted — then the other.
Ambitious, he dove into that fleeting moment of enlightenment. His mind seemed fused with the experience.
He didn't miss. Didn't hesitate. Didn't think — he simply did.
By changing the direction of his fall, he was flying.
He forgot the platform. Forgot the monolith.
Noah, the space, and the void were one and the same.
His image began to fade, turning transparent.
For a moment, he didn't seem to exist as an individual at all.
And it was in that moment that the white changed.
Or maybe he did.
There was no more white — only lines. A gray veil.
The fabric of space.
He felt his body become a line. Then two. Three. Four.
He felt himself being stitched into the void, as though part of its tapestry.
He wanted more.
He wanted everything.
But then he realized — something was missing.
Something inside him.
Something he didn't yet understand — and without it, he couldn't truly grasp the space around him.
"My right eye..."
The thought came, instinctive, natural.
But the moment he considered activating that ability — he felt it.
Death.
If he did it, he would die.
Everything went black.
When he opened his eyes again, he was back on the platform.
He didn't speak. Just sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
The void watched him silently — like a patient master, letting the student lose himself before learning how to walk.
There, where time was a single malleable line, Noah stayed still for a long while.
Until, slowly, his body began to float.
Then his eyes opened.
They looked distant, unfocused — until, suddenly, awareness returned.
His blue eyes reflected the absolute white, as if they held that entire world within them.
Still floating, Noah stretched out his arms.
"I…" he whispered, reaching for something unseen. "I touched space…"
He looked up and laughed.
He knew he had touched something else too — something far greater.
He just didn't know its name.
Not yet.
He floated toward the stone door and left the inheritance.
This time, he didn't fall on anyone. He simply landed on solid ground and walked away.
The gatekeeper watched him in silence.
Noah didn't know what went through the man's mind — and didn't ask.
He glanced at where the ice cream bag should've been and laughed.
Before leaving, he said:
"I might not come back for a few days. My head's full."
The gatekeeper only nodded, watching as Noah disappeared down the corridor.
He stayed quiet for a long time — until the little blonde girl appeared beside him, her mouth smeared with chocolate.
"Trying to grasp something like that… without even touching the concepts…"