[ — YEAR 2051, VAREN CITY — 9:35 AM]
Kyle frowned at the screen.
"Creatormundi... is it the name of the app? If so, then what kind of name is that? And why does it not appear as the app name?"
Curious to know more about this new kind of scam, he went with the flow and tapped the screen to see what would happen next.
And what appeared next was not something he expected. It was a scene where tiny dots were moving on a black screen, like stars in the night sky in the countryside.
He got a little lost in it. As the stars were moving, it felt like those hypnotizing videos on the internet.
As Kyle was getting lost in the stars, the next second the screen started to change.
"Wai— what's happening!!"
All the stars on the screen suddenly started to merge with each other, and the screen began getting brighter and brighter, to the point of illuminating the whole room. Kyle covered his eyes and dropped the phone in panic.
"Is it a fucking bomb? Am I going to die!!" From scams his father could protect him, from guns his father could protect him {as for how, don't ask}, but from a bomb he would have to inform his father first to get it defused. Unfortunately, he didn't have time for that.
The screen started getting even brighter, to the point that Kyle couldn't open his eyes to see anything and just crawled to the floor.
After what felt like an eternity, Kyle opened his eyes to see that nothing had changed, and his phone was still on the floor.
Slowly, he stood up and went to pick up his phone.
"The fuck got into it—wahhhh!" The moment his hand touched the phone, he dropped it once again, wincing in pain.
"The fuckkk!! Why is it so hot!!"
He started blowing on his fingers like a child who had just touched a hot pan.
After blowing for a bit, the pain calmed down, and so did he. After a moment of hesitation, he decided to pick up his phone again, but this time cautiously, afraid that it might still be too hot.
So he went to get a cloth and used it to help with the heat. He wrapped the cloth around his hand and picked up the phone from the edge.
And to his relief, while it was still hot, it was not to the point where he had to wince in pain.
"Well, that's another headache," he said, looking at the part of the carpet where the phone was just a moment ago. It was black as hell—yep, definitely burned.
But to his surprise, while the floor and carpet looked burned, his phone was just **emanating** heat, not burned at all.
"And this is what I call weird," he said, looking at his phone.
He then went to his couch and called for someone to help with the burned mess through a special room switch, which he used, as this building was in his name, gifted by his father on his birthday five years ago.
So he had received various special treatments that other occupants could only dream of, as the top three floors were reserved only for him, and only a few specially selected staff members were allowed in to take care of his needs.
Kyle, who was now perfectly rested on the couch, decided to check what had happened to the phone to cause all this.
He clicked on his smartphone screen to see if it still worked, and to his surprise, while it did work, what appeared on the screen surprised him the most.
"Now what's this..."
The smartphone was now only showing a mysterious space, like an area filled with infinite stars, with only "CreatorMundi" written across the entire screen.
The smartphone was not showing anything except this, as if it was a device made only for this app.
He couldn't understand what had happened. He wasn't worried about his smartphone, as he could get a new one anytime he wanted, but what bothered him was why his phone was showing only this.
He tapped the screen to see if anything would happen.
And to his surprise, the screen once again started to change, but this time, instead of stars merging with each other, a few tiny stars started to pulsate like a beating heart, glowing and shining.
Out of all the shining stars, three were shining much brighter than the rest, as if they were telling him to choose one of them—but for what?
The moment he saw those stars, it felt as if some kind of mysterious force was at work. Without thinking much, he clicked on one of the three stars.
The moment he chose it, he suddenly came back to his senses, but before he could react to anything, he saw the screen change once more.
This time, it was as if the chosen star was opening apart.
He looked at it, and though he didn't understand it, he felt a strange sense of familiarity from it. And like before, once again he spoke a word whose meaning he himself didn't know.
"STAR OF MANTOS, ASTERIA!!"
After saying those words, he came to realize what he had just said.
While he was confused, he didn't feel that it was strange that he had spoken something he had never heard or known in his whole life. Instead, he felt as if he had always known it.
But before he could say anything, the screen showed changes.
< The Star of Mantos has awaited your return and rejoices. >
< The world of Asteria is awaiting your call, oh dear Great One. >
< Now is the time to shape your own world, Creatormundi. >
Seeing these prompts, Kyle couldn't understand a thing. Was it some kind of game or what? Games don't burn the floor or shine bright enough to blind.
Well, as they say, the unknown piques interest. Just like that, Kyle also sat straight up and clicked on the screen, waiting for the next pop-up or anything that could explain this.
And to his surprise, it did appear, and Kyle read it.
< The world of Asteria is empty. Shape it as you wish, oh dear Great One. >
< Begin the creation?... >