After confirming that he possessed a nearly zero-cost, no-cooldown, precisely targeted "bidirectional door" ability, Luke's heart felt like it was roasting over burning coals — scorched and boiling hot.
Once the initial overwhelming joy passed, more concrete and nagging questions arose: How does time flow between these two worlds?
He rushed back to his rental room and rummaged through everything, pulling out every old phone, old tablet, and even the ancient laptop that still buzzed like the noisy fan. He charged them all to full and synchronized the time.
Blue Star time: May 4, 2025, afternoon.
He took a deep breath, grabbed one phone, and focused.
Flea Bottom. That familiar wall corner.
The cold and stench hit him instantly.
He quickly placed the phone on a relatively dry stone in the corner, glanced at the screen to record the local time in the other world, locked it, and instantly returned to his rental room.
The other devices in the room had only advanced a few seconds.
He waited.
He waited anxiously for ten full minutes.
Then he crossed over again.
Back in the corner.
The phone on the stone was untouched!
Luke held his breath and leaned in to check — almost exactly ten minutes had passed since he left. The margin of error was within one minute, most likely due to his own movement and observation time.
Ecstasy hit him again, but this time he stayed calmer.
He repeated the experiment with different devices, at different intervals, at different times of day, and even tried leaving items in the other world for short periods before returning to compare.
The result was undeniable: The time flow between the two worlds was perfectly synchronized.
However long he spent on Blue Star, the same amount of time passed in the other world.
No "one day in heaven, one year on earth" cheat, and no time-freeze exploit either.
Strangely, this actually made him feel more at ease.
At least he didn't have to worry about food spoiling or returning to find everything had changed beyond recognition.
The next question was even more critical: Could he change the crossing location? Or was he stuck on a straight line between his rental room and that specific corner in Flea Bottom?
That limitation would be huge.
Late at night, past 2 a.m.
Luke changed into dark sportswear, pocketed an old phone and a fruit knife for self-defense, and quietly slipped out the door.
Modern society had too many surveillance cameras. Hotels weren't safe either.
Worried about being secretly filmed, he could only head to an empty "wilderness" area for testing.
Like a ghost, he melted into the city's shadows and made his way toward a small hilly park with woods several kilometers away.
The park was already closed, its iron gates locked.
But that couldn't stop an unemployed young man determined to test his superpower.
He found a quiet corner, climbed over the not-too-high wall, and landed with his heart pounding like a drum.
Sparse streetlights dotted the park. Most areas were sunk in thick darkness, broken only by insect chirps and the occasional car noise from the distant highway.
His target was clear: the deep part of the park, a patch of woods rumored to be full of stray cats at night and rarely patrolled by security.
The moonlight was blocked by clouds. Inside the woods, it was almost pitch black. The ground was soft with fallen leaves and tangled roots.
A smell of soil, humus, and night plants filled his nose — completely different from Flea Bottom's stench, yet carrying its own primitive, unsettling silence.
This was the spot.
He chose a relatively flat clearing behind a large tree and stopped, forcing his breathing to calm.
He focused, imagining a different spot in Flea Bottom — not the original corner, but another relatively secluded end of an alley he had noticed during the day.
The thought formed. Dizziness struck.
The scene switched.
No one noticed the sudden extra person.
It was still nighttime in the other world, but darker and quieter here, with only distant dog barks and a drunkard's muttering.
Success!
The departure point on Blue Star could be chosen freely!
He quickly memorized the features of this new "landing point": an abandoned broken wooden barrel and half a crooked wooden door.
Then he tried "moving" on the other side.
He crept along the alley for a dozen meters, turned a corner, and hid behind another pile of junk.
He stood still, closed his eyes, and focused on returning to Blue Star — specifically that small woods, behind that big tree.
Instant return.
His feet were still on soft fallen leaves, and above him was the same dark tree canopy.
Position…
He turned on his phone's flashlight. The weak beam swept around — exactly the same spot behind the tree he had left from!
Perfect match!
"Yes!"
He suppressed a low cheer and punched the air.
He tested it several more times.
Different locations on Blue Star — inside dark flowerbeds, on top of a small hill, even behind a park bench…
Crossing to different spots in the other world, walking a distance there, then returning.
The conclusion was clear:
The "shuttling" ability was limited to crossing between worlds. It could not be used for instant movement within the same world.
Want to go straight from the park back to his rental room on Blue Star? No dice.
Want to teleport from point A to point B inside Flea Bottom? Also impossible.
The return point was precisely locked to the departure point.
If he crossed from Blue Star point A to the other world, no matter how far he ran there, returning would always drop him back at Blue Star point A.
And vice versa.
This rule disappointed him a little — no instant-delivery teleport spam — but mostly gave him peace of mind.
At least he wouldn't mysteriously drop into a dangerous place and be unable to return.
Just as he finished the final round of testing and leaned against the tree trunk to summarize the rules, his heart filled with the thrill of "grasping the system" —
A sudden, indescribable flash of insight struck him like an epiphany.
Just like when he first understood he could travel freely, this time he "felt" the existence of something else.
It wasn't a voice or text prompt. It was a kind of… spatial awareness.
A formless, massless "place" attached to his own consciousness, something he could truly "touch."
He instinctively turned his attention inward.
A… space.
A cube.
Side length… 3 meters?
3×3×3 cubic meters!
He experimentally imagined putting the fruit knife he was holding into that "space."
His hand felt lighter.
The knife vanished.
Luke's eyes widened, breath stopping.
He immediately "thought" it back out.
Weight returned to his palm. The cold metal was back, the blade glinting faintly under the phone's light.
Not an illusion!
Trembling, he tried putting in an old phone. Success.
Taking it out. Success.
Putting in a stone from the ground. Success.
Taking it out. Success.
He even tried putting in a handful of fallen leaves, then retrieving only one specific leaf with his mind.
That single leaf appeared precisely between his fingers!
27 cubic meters!
A personal, stationary storage space completely controlled by his will!
"Hah… hahaha…"
A low, hoarse laugh escaped his throat, sounding especially jarring in the quiet woods.
"I've fucking made it… I've really made it this time!!!"
He could no longer hold back. He jumped up, waving his arms wildly, spinning in place like a madman as suppressed ecstasy turned into incoherent howls.
"No more wage slavery! No more sucking up to bosses!"
"Fuck yeah! It's finally my turn to have a golden finger! The heavens have opened their eyes!"
He roared until his voice grew hoarse, cheeks burning with excitement, tears almost leaking from laughing too hard.
All the frustration from unemployment, the despair right after transmigrating, and the fear of an uncertain future were completely burned away in this moment, replaced by excitement and ambition that shot straight into the sky.
His "ghostly wailing" obviously shattered the deep-night silence of the woods.
"Who… who's there?!"
A startled, hushed female voice came from not far away, accompanied by rustling sounds and the faint glow of a phone screen.
Luke's wild laughter and dancing froze instantly, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat.
Shit!
Joy brings sorrow!
He quickly crouched low, using the tree shadows for cover, holding his breath.
Through the gaps in the branches, he saw a young couple holding hands, peering nervously in his direction. They had clearly been scared half to death by his "crazy" outburst and their romantic atmosphere was completely ruined.
"Seems… seems like a lunatic… let's go, hurry!"
The guy pulled his girlfriend. The two of them abandoned all romance and stumbled hurriedly back the way they came, their footsteps and suppressed cries quickly fading.
Only when the phone light completely disappeared beyond the woods did Luke let out a long breath, cold sweat soaking his back.
Too careless! Way too carried away!
He slapped his own face and forced himself to calm down.
Looking around, the dark woods had returned to their unsettling quiet.
He couldn't stay any longer.
He straightened his clothes and mindset, then stored both the fruit knife and phone into his new storage space!
Just a thought — ridiculously convenient.
Then, like a real ghost, he quietly slipped out of the park along a more hidden path and vanished into the deeper night of the city.
Back in his rental room, he locked the door.
Luke leaned against the door panel, his heart still pounding violently from the recent scare, lingering fear, and the enormous joy he had yet to fully digest.