Chapter 597: A Quandary, Indeed
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The Archmage’s words left Baiyi quiet; the soul armature had retreated into his subconscious, reexamining his countless simulations and models. Sometime later, Baiyi discovered something unexpected: despite the Laws and methods used to build a world, if Baiyi did not interfere, every world he built would end in the same way.
It did not matter how perfect the world was at its beginning. Nature could be bountiful and stable and harmless; the world could begin with the absence of natural disasters, plagues, and other kinds of diseases, and thousands of years later, the world would end up like the others. It would contain happiness and desolation and be surrounded by miracles and disasters; maladies of all kinds would somehow return, and the people would end up divided.
‘Humans will always make the same mistakes,’ Baiyi thought, smiling helplessly.
The evolution of civilization was a system to complex for Baiyi — who had begun to realize the limits of his knowledge — to predict. The best thing he could come up with from crunching some numbers was a guesstimate. He was not omniscient, so he could not observe everything that occurs after the universe is conceived, in order to remove whatever bug that causes the world to deviate from what he had planned from it. For all Baiyi knew, the flap of a b.u.t.terfly’s wings could be responsible for civilization veering off course.
That ought to be the real meaning of the b.u.t.terfly Effect!
A perfect paradise was no longer a matter of choice; Baiyi did not have the capability to create it. Even if he carefully watched the universe evolve and removed everything that could threaten its perfect state, the universe would still end up like the others. Baiyi’s act of removing unplanned changes would be, in itself, an unplanned change. In short, a utopia was no longer a question of Baiyi’s choice but his capacity. Every change Baiyi made only made the uncertainty of the universe’s outcome even greater.
That was not counting the fact that parenting a universe was too demanding of his attention. Baiyi was not keen to make his life in the new world to be so arduous.
He must now admit that no matter how thoughtful he was and how realistic his predictive models were, the best his simulation could offer was some kind of reference. The revelation hugely dampened Baiyi’s mood, especially when he also realized that he might have blown his ego a little too much by believing he could direct the process of change and evolution of an entire universe.
This limitation was a good thing, though. If the world operated exactly as Baiyi wished it to, life would be dull. This was what Baiyi used to console himself as he finally made his decision.
With fifty percent of his power and his understanding of the Laws, Baiyi forcefully freed a large expanse of the Void from the darkness and destructive Void power around it.
Although this freed area of s.p.a.ce was unimaginably vast, its size was microscopic in comparison to the size of the full Void. There was no water, light, and air to be found in the newly liberated s.p.a.ce, but it allowed Baiyi to construct his Laws without interference from already existing Laws.
This was the ‘seed’ for a new world; Baiyi’s world. He planned for it to grow into a fertile land according to his Laws. Soon, there would be light and air, and after that, water and earth would form. Only after a long time would it be optimal for human habitation.
A complex project like this ought to take a long time, but Baiyi’s power over the Temporal Laws was sufficient enough to speed up the seed’s growth. However, at maximum speed, the seed would still need a few more decades to completely grow. This time could be used to think about the world more thoroughly and make adjustments where necessary.
Baiyi was faced with a serious problem, though; none of the Laws he had grasped were related to the Laws of Life! Thus, he could not create humans or plants. When his world reached the ripe state for habitation, only microorganisms and viruses would be found there. It would be a silent world.
Baiyi knew that microorganisms could eventually evolve into complex lifeforms, but that could take billions of years. Sure, Baiyi knew that more complex lifeforms could naturally evolve from these microorganisms, but that could take billions of years to happen. No matter how much Baiyi manipulated the Temporal Laws, he would still be unable to skip an era of progress!
“Our world needs life!” Baiyi exclaimed. “Animals and plants are fine. I can get them with money and persuasion, from people in this part But, what about the human population?”
If Baiyi’s world grew at the pace he wanted it to, it would one day be ten times the size of Isythre. The colossal expanse of land could house at least a hundred billion people; in comparison, Steppe, the Northern Continent, and the Southern Continent had a total of two billion people. In this universe, they would be like a handful of rice in an ocean of s.p.a.ce.
That did not take into account the possibility of some people unwilling to follow Baiyi into a strange universe that they know nothing about. Even an ordinary Isythre — one without religious beliefs or other stances that do not permit them to move — might still decline Baiyi’s offer because they have grown accustomed to their home. Was there even a chance that a million people would agree to migrate?
“To solve this, I could remove the Church from its position of authority within the religious sphere. Or, maybe, I could be less brazen and control the Church and the Imperial Family from the shadows, using them to draft the first set of emigrants in my place…” Baiyi wondered out loud.
With the power and influence Baiyi currently had, it would not be difficult to pull either plan off. The Church’s trump card — the angels, who had suffered a crus.h.i.+ng defeat — had failed miserably to deliver, and now, the ma.s.sive organization was nothing more than a washed-up has-been. After the war, support for the Church tanked, and many of its members left. When the Voidwalkers announced their victory, many expected the number of believers in the Church to crash, leaving behind only the most faithful of members. Even if that happened, there was also a chance that an attempted takeover of the Church would crush whatever — and whoever — remained.
That was the sort of picture that recent news painted. It was said that the Pope and his cardinals had either committed suicide or gone into hiding after the Church’s defeat. It was rumored that the Church had planned a start a large area fire, in a bid to take many with it to the afterlife. If militia from the Imperial Family and other n.o.bles had not arrived in time and thwarted the plot, tens of millions would have died for their beliefs.
Fortunately for the citizens, they were rescued just in time, and the Pope, who was named the instigator of the war — had committed suicide, the public was told. Whether the Pope or someone else was behind this stunt, no one knew for now. Nevertheless, there was little need to fret over such matters.
The longer Baiyi thought for, the more he felt that it would meaningless to replace — or even recreate — the Church. Even if he did use the Voidwalkers to uproot the Church completely, he was sure that the Emperor would not react kindly to the rise of another ma.s.sive organization. He might even wage war against this new and fast-rising compet.i.tor. If that happened, who knows how many more lives would be lost?
‘d.a.m.n. Populating the world is such a difficult issue,’ Baiyi thought. He felt the urge to create a functional flesh body right there and visit his harem just to solve a bit of this crisis. Maybe if he worked very diligently in creating humans the traditional, fun way —
Nah. This method was even funnier than trying to put out the Californian fire by raking the forest floor.
The problem bugged Baiyi long enough into the late night when everyone else had already fallen asleep. Yet, at this wee hour, Attie appeared in his room. Seeing Baiyi’s absent-minded gaze on the floor, she boldly approached him and poked his mask.
It was usually Baiyi who poked Attie’s puffy cheeks. Since when had the tables turned?
Unfortunately, Baiyi was too absorbed in his thought to notice his Kitty Cat Maid acting out of line. It took a roundhouse kick to finally jolt him out of his musings, and even then, his first reaction was on when had the Kitty Cat Maid become Karen the Maid. Wherever did she get that extra pair?
After noticing the unnatural expression on the girl’s face, however, he finally understood who was standing in front of him.
The War G.o.d-possessed Attie pa.s.sed a thick, black stick to him wordlessly. Of course, it was the hilt of the War G.o.d’s Sword (and definitely nothing a dirty-minded teenager might like to think it was), and Baiyi understood that she had her reasons.
“What’s the matter?” Baiyi queried, taking the hilt from her hand.
There was no answer. Instead, Attie’s body fell onto the floor, limp. Quickly, Baiyi scooped the girl up in his arms and carried her back to her bedroom, tucking her with a layer of comforter until she looked like a burrito. Then, he returned to his room and muse about the War G.o.d’s unannounced arrival.
The next day, the Walkers found a bizarre object appearing in Baiyi’s living room. It looked like a teleportation portal, except its color and magical pulses were wrong. A typical portal was pale-blue, but this one was so dark, it was like a black hole where light could not even escape. It was also eerily silent, save for those unsettling pulses.
“I have no idea what happened. It just formed on its own the moment I activated the War G.o.d Sword,” Baiyi explained to a crowd of confused Walkers with a shrug. “The War G.o.d probably wanted to pa.s.s a message to me, because contrary to how it looked, the internal structure of the sword had changed a lot. When I held it, I could read the Spatial Laws embedded in it without hindrance. So much easier than that war with the Time G.o.d.”
“Can you just cut to the chase and tell me what the heck is it already?” The Archmage said a little snippily. He suddenly swooped on a potted plant on the table and hurled it into the black hole.
The plant sank into the blackness without any response from the portal.
Baiyi had a response, though. He immediately lunged at the Archmage after screaming, “My flower!” and then pulled out a storage pouch from the old man’s s.h.i.+rt.
“Don’t! You! Dare! Touch my prrrecious!” The Archmage shrieked, clawing at Baiyi’s robe frantically. Just like that, the two began rolling around in a fight.
The other Walkers shot each other a confused stare and ignored them both, preferring to gather close to the black hole and coming up with guesses.
A while later, the black hole suddenly spat out something s.h.i.+ny, bouncing off the floor with a metallic clang. One of the Walkers picked it up and saw that it looked like a spanner.
“Wait. So you throw a plant into the hole to exchange for a wrench? Whoa, is this a material converter?” The Engineer chirped, bringing the spanner closer to him to inspect it. “This is nothing like our world’s tech, or even Earth’s. Honestly, I can’t even tell what material this is.”
“Allow me!” The Authority of Material Science, Sir Alchemist, s.n.a.t.c.hed the spanner and turned it around a couple of times — and then pa.s.sed it to the Blacksmith with a toss.
After scanning it for a while, the dwarf shook his head. “Maybe it’s, uh, a completely new material synthesized from the potted plant?”
It was then when Baiyi and the Archmage’s brawl finally came to an end. Of course, the winner was definitely not the older man who could not even stand up.
“Bah, stop guessing. This is a portal to another universe.”