— Then why do I exist with this world full of life? Does this mean that the vicious circle has once been broken?

— Truly so! Once it happened that the cycle ended... with some deviations.

— Deviations?

— In fact, the end of the pre-previous Universe was very unusual. It all happened like this: ...

The expansion stopped before the end of the Big Freeze. The reason was unthinkable: all the dark energy in one moment was outside the Universe. It should have been impossible, but what happened was what happened. Dark energy began to press down on the Universe from the outside. Since the expanding force disappeared and became compressive, and gravity did not disappear, the reverse process of the Big Bang began.

The Big Crunch was caused by the zero rate of expansion at the colossal force of the gravitational compression of matter inside the Universe, and dark energy outside it. While young Universes after the Big Bang were very homogeneous, the shrinking Universe broke up into separate isolated groups. Eventually, all the matter collapsed into black holes, which then coalesced, creating a single black hole — a singularity of Big Crunch. If the first point can be called the Point of Origin (the point of reference of the observed reality), then this was the Point of Exodus.

The Observer saw it all. He saw all the fundamental physical constants becoming inconstant. He saw the laws of the Universe crumble, the observation of which was the meaning of his existence. He saw Everything going back to its original state.

This was all he had been waiting for. Finally, at least some changes! New knowledge that could be given!

And then the most interesting thing began.

The Universe was born from this point in 5.39116(13)x10^(-44) seconds! It is a little slower than it had always been before, although I've already told you that.

The entire path of cosmological evolution went exactly as it should, with one exception. In addition to the familiar dark energy, which caused the expansion with acceleration, and dark matter, which was the gravitational "ballast", a new, hitherto unobserved type of matter/energy was smeared all over the Universe in an even layer.

— Try to guess what it was. You have three attempts.

— Mana.

Wow, on the first try! Wait a minute ... HEY!

— You cheated!

— You asked me to copy this knowledge yourself, — the Heart replied with indistinguishable insolence. Or maybe without the audacity. Who the f███ knows?

— I don't remember that!

When did I ask? How much longer will THIS mock the poor old man?..

— Well, anyway, I have to continue. Fast forward 9.2 billion years...

— You can manipulate time? In all of history, only four magicians have managed to do this, but their greatest achievement was only to transfer the message to the future for 32 seconds.

They WHA-A-AT?!

「HOW?」

The most important thing for me now is not to break down at the Heart in a fit of anger. But I can't take a deep IIIIINHALE and a deep EXHAAALE to calm down without my lungs! [1]

Actually, such a timeskip would lead to a too quick transition to the gastronomic adventures of an Observer on Earth.

「THAT WAS ENTERTAINING.」

Is that so? Pf, that was a shame. Being drowned in envy, Your cration began... Nah, it doesn't matter. I don't have energy left to argue with you anymore.

— Forget it, I just wanted to cut the narrative a little short by skipping over unnecessary details, but I almost missed something important. I will tell you now...

Mana was something that the Observer has never observed before. For some unknown reason, he a priori knew that if he just would think about it, mana would immediately become anything for him. The Observer was afraid of it. He was afraid not only of breaking His precept.

The purest energy. The purest matter. The purest material of existence.

He was afraid of tainting it.

「THE FIRST FEELING: FEAR」

And at the same time, he was glad to be able to observe it, to see it filling the Universe.

「THE SECOND FEELING: DELIGHT」

But the Observer himself hardly knew what he could feel now.

And now we can fast forward 9.2 billion years.

The earliest stage of the Sun's formation is the protostar nebula. The sun became a star of the first type of the T-type stellar population of the Main Sequence.

For some inexplicable reason, all the existing mana began to flow here. This could not fail to arouse the interest of the Observer.

Let's skip a little more time.

Perhaps, given the power of my soul, I could create a more accurate image of the protoplanetary disk of the Solar System. This is a pretty bad illustration.

The mana has divided. It had polarity. The Observer felt no aversion to the dark mana, nor did he feel any affection for the light mana. He continued to observe.

|40 million years later|

All the light mana gathered inside the cooled Earth. It began to concentrate in its core, forming something absolutely new, but at this exact moment...

All mana was annihilated in an instant, as if matter had combined with antimatter. This happened due to the mutual attraction of two arrays of opposite mana and simple gravity. Dark mana was concentrated in the core of a protoplanet that scientists of Earth would later call Theia. It crashed into the Earth. The Observer was startled by this. He could no longer observe this immaculate energy/matter...

「THE THIRD FEELING: SORROW」

...Which made him very sad.

— Let's play "Guess what" again! In the absence of other players, the disqualification of the Heart of the World for cheating is canceled. So, guess what would have formed in the cores of the Earth and Theia, if it had not been for the catastrophic collision? You have one attempt this time.

— Could it be... me?

It sounded like the Heart of the World had a heart attack. Why did I even think of this dumb joke? [2]

Even if voice of the Heart is indefinable, I can understand its feelings: it has just learned about how its predecessor was annihilated even before the completion of formation stage. Awareness of vulnerability, fear of death... Even it is afraid.

— The player Heart of the World gets ten billion points for the correct answer! Ding-dong, we have a winner!

— Does this mean that there was no mana left in the previous Universe after this collision?

— Not really. After all, there was much more light mana, due to the phenomenon of mana asymmetry.

The remnants of mana remained inside the Earth. Not a single particle of it went with the debris of the Earth and Theia (which later formed the Moon, but that's not the point now) into space. 1.47 billion years after the collision, when the Earth has cooled down, the primary ocean and atmosphere has formed. The remaining mana itself was transformed into life energy, which gave rise to the first biochemical reactions in the "primary broth". Life was formed. What about the Observer? He was genuinely glad that he was able to observe the birth of something new.

Let's skip 3567 million years of continuous ecstasy of the Observer, from the contemplation of all the diversity of life on Earth.

It was then that evolution performed its (almost) main miracle: the first species of human race.

Homo habilis — "handy man". He knew how to craft tools. This did not elicit a strong reaction from the Observer. Nothing unusual: some birds and primates also used sticks and stones for their own purposes.

Further evolution led to the emergence of Homo erectus — "upright man". The Observer was fascinated by these creatures. What could have aroused such intense interest of the Observer? Interest? No, that was...

「THE FOURTH FEELING: ENVY」