Elias stood at the edge of his slowly turning planetary hologram, the Tower Panel softly pulsing in the air beside him. The world he had just shaped from raw nothingness floated serenely before him. But behind him—and beyond him—stretched the White Room.
He hadn’t explored it. Not really. The Tower Panel and the world it contained had consumed his every moment thus far. But now, with the ecosystem stabilized and his planet breathing for the first time, Elias felt the curiosity settle into his chest like a seed waiting for rain.
He turned away from the floating planet. The light was still the same. Diffused, endless, directionless. It was not artificial. It cast no shadows. It didn't sting his eyes or warm his skin. But it was omnipresent, gently illuminating everything with equal softness.
The ground was just as strange—not hard, not soft, not cold. It was like standing on thought itself.
"GAIL," Elias said, slowly stepping away from the Tower Panel, "what is this place, really?"
The little bronze sphere bobbed into view, its mechanical wings humming gently. "This is your Administrative Core, Elias. The White Room."
"Is it part of the Tower?"
"It is connected to the Tower, but not governed by its laws. Think of it as a pocket of neutrality within the Tower’s domain. Your personal workshop, unbound by time and influence."
Elias looked around slowly. The further he walked, the more he realized there were no seams, no doors, no borders. Just white.
He paused. "If this is mine... can I do anything here? Like create stuff?"
"Yes," GAIL chirped, pleased. "Creation within the White Room is unrestricted and does not cost Tower Points. This is a simulated environment—an experimental plane. Here, you may conjure, test, and dismiss without consequence."
Elias blinked. "So I could... make a tree?"
"Certainly. Simply think it."
He took a breath, focused his mind, and imagined a tree—a tall one, with curling roots, rough bark, and a thick green canopy. Within a blink, it appeared before him, fully formed.
Elias took a step back.
"Holy crap."
The tree was vivid, textured, and entirely real to the touch.
"Here, you are not limited by your resources. Your thoughts govern this space."
"So I can try different life forms here before using TP to make them real?"
"Precisely."
Elias looked down at his hands. The realization was creeping in, slow and vast: he was something else now. Not just a manager. Not just an overseer.
He was a god.
"Do I have... stats or something? Like a status panel?"
There was a quiet chime.
Request Acknowledged Administrator Status Panel Unlocked
A new screen materialized in front of him:
=== Administrator Elias Rord === Tier: 0 Divine Entity Domain: Tower of Origin (Sieron Protocol) Essence: Management (True)
Attributes:
Cognitive Sync: 100%
Directive Authority: 100%
Creation Aptitude: 74%
Strategic Potential: 88%
Emotional Stability: Variable
Skills:
Administrative Oversight (Active)
Conceptual Instantiation (Passive)
Resource Prioritization (Passive)
Simulative Projection (White Room Only)
Cycle Awareness (Active)
Blessings:
Protection of the Nine
Cognitive Clarity (Gift of Biron)
Temporal Anchor (Limited)
Elias stared, slack-jawed.
"I... have stats."
"Indeed," GAIL said cheerfully. "All gods do."
He scrolled slowly, absorbing each line. Emotional Stability was flagged in orange.
"Hey," he said, smirking, "what's this supposed to mean?"
"It means you're human," GAIL replied simply. "Even gods have moments."
Elias grunted.
"And what's 'Cycle Awareness'?"
There was a pause.
Then GAIL spoke again, softer this time.
"Each Cycle is a millennial span—1,000 years of Tower Time."
Elias froze.
"The gods who gave you this Tower have placed you under protection for three full cycles. During this time, no external entities, including the Beling Creatures, may interfere."
Elias ran a hand through his hair. "So I've got... 3,000 years to prepare?"
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"Yes."
He swallowed hard. "That's not a lot."
"Relative to Earth, no. Earth required over four billion years to reach industrial civilization."
Elias turned away, his face growing pale. "Then how am I supposed to build something strong enough to fight chaos itself in just three?"
GAIL hovered close, like a concerned friend. "Because Earth did not have a god watching over it. You are not alone, Elias."
That gave him pause.
He inhaled deeply.
Then he thought of something simple.
A chair.
It appeared at once—smooth, wooden, high-backed. He sat in it slowly, gripping the armrests, grounding himself.
"Okay," he said, "tell me everything. Every unlocked system, every button. I need to know how this all works."
GAIL let out a happy chime. "With pleasure, Administrator. Let us begin with the top-level interfaces."
A new display opened next to the Tower Panel, revealing multiple branches of access:
Planetary Oversight - Monitor planetary conditions, weather patterns, tectonic activity, and atmospheric metrics.
Flora & Fauna Registry - View all existing lifeforms, including traits, reproductive rates, symbiotic networks.
Civilization Tracker - Currently locked. Requires sapient life.
Essence Flow - View the movement of divine energy through the world. (Read-only for now.)
Cultural Milestones - Locked. Will unlock with first tribal structure.
Defense Protocols - Monitors Beling activity. Shield active: 3 cycles remaining.
Timeline Scrubber - Adjust visible records of planetary evolution in fast-forward. (White Room use only.)
Elias studied each tab, then hovered over the Flora & Fauna Registry.
It opened into a full biological index, listing mosses, early aquatic algae, and the first fungal spores he'd designed. Each organism had a trait sheet—adaptability, reproduction, oxygen output, biomass impact.
"Every lifeform you create," GAIL said, "contributes to the planet's evolution. Their interactions determine the world’s pace of growth."
Elias nodded slowly. "So I can simulate these here before making them real."
"Exactly."
He stood up from the conjured chair and waved his hand. It vanished. Then he imagined a blank area to his right, a patch of simulated terrain about ten meters wide. It formed immediately.
He stared at the ground for a long time, then focused.
He imagined a small insect—round, chitinous, with four legs and a translucent carapace. A filter feeder that moved slowly and released nutrient-rich waste that fertilized soil.
It appeared.
It moved.
It fed.
And Elias watched, godlike and silent.
"Let’s see what else we can do," he murmured.
Elias stood over the small, insect-like creature as it scuttled across the simulated terrain in the White Room. It bumped against a rock, paused, then shuffled its squat legs to maneuver around it. It wasn’t much to look at—just a glimmer of biology, a test shape—but it was alive, in a way. And Elias had made it.
No Tower Points spent. No time penalty. Just a thought, and it became real.
Sort of.
“Is this alive?” he asked, not looking at GAIL.
“In the White Room, it functions within a closed-loop simulation,” GAIL explained. “The organism operates under the biological logic you define, but it has no soul—no Essence Thread. Life here is conceptual, not truly spiritual.”
Elias exhaled slowly through his nose. “So, it's like… a puppet?”
“A very convincing one.”
He crouched, watching the creature leave a trail of nutrient waste behind it, just as he’d imagined.
“You said everything here is free. I can create entire food chains if I wanted?”
“You may. And observe how they interact. Simulate different biomes, climates, even celestial arrangements. However, the White Room processes only one ‘environment zone’ at a time, to preserve your focus.”
He stood, wiping invisible dust from his jeans. “So… I could simulate evolution before spending a single TP?”
“Yes. This is one of the Administrator’s greatest advantages. Mistakes cost nothing here—only time.”
He chuckled, dryly. “That’s generous of the gods.”
“They learned long ago that giving Administrators freedom within a safe space reduces catastrophic planetary collapse.”
Elias flinched. “Wait—what?”
GAIL tilted slightly. “Your predecessors… well, let us simply say there were worlds made of fire, or glass. Entire species that devoured themselves into extinction within a decade. Evolution, when uncontrolled, is often unkind.”
Elias glanced back at the creature, now motionless, curled near a pebble.
“Can I run simulations in fast-forward?” he asked.
“Yes. Up to 10,000x real-time. You may fast-simulate generations, observe ecosystem effects, and pause to make adjustments. Do note, the White Room's processing limit is 200 concurrent lifeforms at that speed.”
“Noted.”
He rubbed his temples. There was something both thrilling and horrifying about what lay in front of him. Life on demand. Evolution in a bottle. Worlds in the waiting.
Then he remembered something.
“I want to try something else,” he said.
He closed his eyes and thought—not of an animal or a plant, but a humanoid figure. Not too tall, not too strong. Graceful, maybe. Flexible. Hands with opposable thumbs. He wanted a being that could make tools, that could wonder. That could fear and dream.
The figure appeared in front of him, half-formed.
Its skin flickered. Features undefined. Elias frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
GAIL’s tone turned flat. “This exceeds the current simulation tier. Sapient-level forms require Administrator Level 1 clearance within the White Room.”
“So I can’t test humans or anything like that yet?”
“You may design components—limbs, musculature, visual organs, brain architecture. But you cannot simulate sapience until your first real civilization reaches Tier 1 Enlightenment.”
He let the figure dissolve.
“So no preview of what thinking minds will be like, huh.”
“You must guide the world toward it. Not leap ahead.”
Elias turned and walked slowly back to the Tower Panel. He looked down at the “Defense Protocols” tab again.
Three cycles.
Three thousand years.
“You said Earth didn’t have a god,” he murmured. “But what exactly is a god in this system?”
GAIL hovered quietly for a long moment.
“A god,” she said finally, “is an entity with conceptual authority. A being who does not merely act within the world, but defines the parameters of it. You have administrative rights over matter, time, form, and structure within your Tower’s influence. But you are not all-powerful.”
“Right. I have limits. Like Tower Points. Cycles. Locked systems.”
“Correct. You are godlike in ability, but bound by design. You are a cultivator of complexity, not a creator of perfection.”
He nodded, chewing on the phrase.
Cultivator of complexity.
He liked that.
His eyes scanned the Tower Panel again. Several buttons remained grayed out. One flickered faintly: Cultural Seeds.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing.
GAIL followed his line of sight. “That is a suggestion tool. Once your first sapient race emerges, the system can offer archetypes—varied belief systems, myth structures, governance models. You may influence them passively through subtle cues: terrain layout, symbolic objects, the placement of monuments.”
Elias narrowed his eyes. “So, propaganda?”
“Not so crude. More like... narrative gardening.”
He chuckled. “Great. I’m a god and a myth designer.”
“You are a shaper of contexts. Culture blooms from context.”
He conjured another chair. This one had cushions.
And a coffee table.
He sat down and sighed. “Alright. So I’ve got a blank planet. An atmosphere. Primitive plants. Soil. And now a safe place to test ideas. What would you recommend next?”
GAIL spun gently in place. “If you wish to prepare for life, begin with mobility.”
“Mobility?”
“Wind. Tectonics. Currents. Weather. Without movement, ecosystems stagnate.”
He slapped his forehead. “Right. I need a magnetic field too, don’t I?”
“Yes.”
He opened the Planetary Oversight tab. It felt like opening a blueprint for existence. Sliders controlled rotational speed, axial tilt, oceanic currents. Others managed crustal stability, mantle convection. He spotted “Geothermal Pressure” and “Seismic Stress Markers.”
“Am I allowed to have volcanoes?” he asked.
“Controlled eruptions aid soil enrichment. But be careful with your fault lines.”
He adjusted tectonic settings and added three major plates. He gave the planet a slow spin and set the day length to 28 hours. Just to see what would happen.
Oceans churned. Winds formed.
He watched as simulated clouds formed in the upper atmosphere, moisture condensing over newly drawn mountain ranges.
TP +5
Milestone: Planetary Systems — Dynamic Climate Established.
“Hey! I got more points!”
“Efficient planetary scaffolding is rewarded. The gods wish to incentivize strong beginnings.”
He smirked. “So they’re proud of me.”
“In their own distant, cosmic way, yes.”
He leaned back in the conjured chair, watching his world shift on its own.
The White Room was silent except for the soft hum of the systems and GAIL’s occasional whirring.
Elias closed his eyes for a moment and let the quiet soak in.
“GAIL?” he said softly.
“Yes?”
“Do you think I can do it?”
A pause.
“I have scanned 14,218 past Administrators,” GAIL said gently. “Your probability of success is 41.6%. That is the highest I have ever seen.”
Elias opened his eyes.
“That’s still... more than half failure.”
“But none of them were you.”
He smiled. Just a little.
“Then let’s get to work.”