Noah did not open his eyes immediately after withdrawing his consciousness from the outside world.
He let the silence settle.
The bakery had quieted down. The last customers had left, and his parents were cleaning up in the background. The smell of baked bread lingered in the air. The smell felt really attracting to him, grounding him, anchoring him to something human.
Only then did Noah turn his attention inside the ring.
To the storage ring.
The moment his will touched it, the ring responded without resistance. There was no barrier, no need for brute force or cracking seals. It welcomed him like a subordinate acknowledging its true master.
His consciousness slipped inside.
The first sensation Noah felt was a vast scale.
Space unfolded endlessly in all directions, layered and stabilized by formations so refined they bordered on art. Noah paused, instinctively measuring the volume.
"…About the size of a solar system," he muttered.
This was not an exaggeration.
