Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“That’s a really magical idea!”
Wu Haibo said, “Unfortunately, we have never seen ourselves in the ancient ruins’ summon, and theoretically, the chances of seeing ourselves are not very high.”
“Why?”
Meng Chao originally wanted to say that if the ancient ruins’ summon had images of the future Dragon City, he could also use his past life’s memories as the ancient ruins’ summon and guide Dragon City’s next decision-making.
In a sense, he would not be lying. His rebirth was indeed related to the ancient ruins.
“While the macro world is relatively easy to observe, it is very difficult to observe the micro world.”
Wu Haibo gestured and explained, “Imagine that we are boarding an armored airship and slowly sailing into the depths of the misty Monster Mountain Range.
“We are mostly surrounded by the mist and smoke of chaos. It is as if we are in the clouds and can’t even see our fingers.
“Occasionally, when the wind blows away the mist, we catch a glimpse of the rolling mountains, the weird rocks on the top of the mountains, a towering tree that stands out from the rest of the world, or the Apocalyptic Beasts that are soaring on the top of the mountains.
“However, it will be very difficult for us to see through the fog and forest to see the Demonic Halberd Pigs at the bottom of the forest, much less see a specific Demonic Halberd Pig.
“Do you understand now? The sea of stars is like the mountains themselves, and the ancient civilization is like the Apocalyptic Beasts. They all shine with boundless radiance and have an extremely strong sense of existence. It is very easy to see and leave traces.
“Nevertheless, our human civilization from Earth is like an ordinary Demonic Halberd Pig. No matter how loudly we scream, we might not be able to be observed. No matter how hard we try to crash into the trees, rub against the rocks, dig holes in the ground, and leave behind traces of our existence, these traces will disappear without a trace within a few days. One day, when we die, our corpses will quickly rot and be devoured by the forest itself.
“Yes, when the observers on the armored airship are equipped with some kind of long-distance high-powered observation equipment, it is possible for them to see low-level monsters or even snakes, insects, rats, and ants in the depths of the jungle. However, such observations are definitely random. We can’t choose the objects to observe. Most of the images that we observe are not very instructive for our future, at least for the next few decades.”
Meng Chao’s mind raced. He had to admit that Wu Haibo was right.
That analogy was really vivid.
An ancient civilization that could easily transmit a human city from Earth to another world was simply too brilliant. It was like an Apocalyptic Beast that emitted an overwhelming radiance and overbearing aura. Obviously, it was easy for others to sense it.
Compared with the ancient civilization, Earth’s civilization was too young and too immature.
“In other words, we can’t predict our future through the ancient ruins’ summon?” Meng Chao was somewhat disappointed but also kind of unwilling to admit it.
“Meng Chao, you shouldn’t have such an idea.”
Wu Haibo laughed. “It’s possible to predict the macro world, such as the orbit of a star system billions of years later, or the shape of Earth’s mountains, rivers, and coastlines tens of millions of years later, even the appearance of the entire universe 50 billion years later. These seemingly grand, glorious, and distant problems become simpler and simpler because all the minutiae have been discarded. At least theoretically, it’s possible to calculate and deduce.
“In contrast, if you want to predict the future of a civilization, you have to predict the thoughts, actions, and interactions of most intelligent beings in that civilization, including the new ideas, new actions, and sum of all the chain reactions and butterfly effects.
“It would be a chaos model with an astonishing amount of computation… No, it would be impossible to calculate. Intelligent beings have free will, and no one can predict where we will go next in the final analysis.
“This is just like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. We can measure the speed of the electrons, and we can also measure the specific position of the electrons at a given moment, but we can never know these two points at the same time.
“Intelligent beings are the same. We are like an eternal jumping, unpredictable electron or wave particle. No one can predict our future!”
“Is that so…”
Meng Chao mumbled to himself.
He felt that Wu Haibo was right.
Moreover, when he said that, he sounded very valiant.
If the fate of mankind was an eternal picture that was frozen in the long river of time and space…
What was the point of walking along each footprint on the picture again and again?
No one could predict the future of mankind.
Then, what about the memory fragment of his past life that appeared in his brain?
Meng Chao stared at the flame.
The flame burned silently, just like when it first appeared in Meng Chao’s field of vision.
“Are you ready?”
Wu Haibo’s voice woke Meng Chao from his thoughts. “The portal is about to open!”
Meng Chao nodded and took a deep breath. Wrapped in the buffer suit, he clumsily walked to the teleportation gate.
Not far away, the circular orbits that were carved with runes and embedded with crystals slowly rotated. They began to move faster and faster, leaving colorful shadows behind, and eventually, they formed a ball of light that looked like a small sun. It seemed as if it was going to swallow him up.
The feeling was completely different from when he was standing at the side and observing from a distance.
Even though he knew that Project 101 had conducted countless tests and there was absolutely no problem with safety, Meng Chao’s imagination still unwittingly ran wild.
What exactly was inside the “ball of light”? Could he really be teleported to another ball of light a hundred meters away with his entire tail and walk out unscathed?
Would he be teleported to another place, another planet, or even another space-time?
Would he be mixed with something else during the transmigration process and become a monster that was beyond recognition, just like that poor man who was locked in the same transmigration chamber as a fly in an old movie on Earth, eventually merging together after being launched?
However, once the light ball really expanded and brightened to the limit and Meng Chao could reach it in time, all these distracting thoughts were wiped away by the light.
“It’s too beautiful.”
Meng Chao felt like he was a piece of cosmic dust floating on a star.
He could not help but reach out, wanting to touch the shining ball of light.
Sensing the fluctuations of his vitality magnetic field, a thread of light immediately surged out of the light ball and wrapped around his finger.
He could not describe what it felt like.
The ball of light seemed to produce a magical suction force that sucked Meng Chao from his finger to his arm to his body.
It was also similar to a thread of light flowing into Meng Chao’s body through his fingertips, entangling his blood vessels, nerves, and spirit meridians.
The light melted him and made him assimilate with the ball of light.
The world around him disappeared, and Meng Chao’s vision became increasingly brighter. It was so bright that it almost burned through his retina, preventing him from distinguishing whether it was bright or dark.
He felt as if he was enveloped by something warm and sticky. However, he could not tell up from down or south from north, and he did not know how to use his strength.
The feeling was akin to weightlessness when drifting in the vacuum of the universe.
It was also like brand new life struggling to squeeze through the birth canal and completing the thrilling leap from a fetus to a baby.
Meng Chao was stimulated by this unprecedented feeling, or rather, this feeling that had been absent for a long time. He screamed and danced like a newborn baby.
His cries and the movements of his hands and feet turned into colorful ripples that spread into the distance.
It was as if his surroundings were filled with billions of invisible strings. His every move could play strings and play a silent but magnificent rhythm.
The colorful ripples extended into the distance.
It was unknown whether the bright or dark world was shattered.
The crystal shards were like shining stars but also like gates that led to a new world. Meng Chao really saw a new scene through these “gates”.
Behind one of the “gates”, he saw a crimson jungle at the foot of the burning volcano. In the jungle, there were two-headed ogres dressed in animal skins and skeletons. Dancing under an ugly and evil altar, they swung their war hammers made of monster skulls and smashed them at a poor sacrifice.
The poor sacrifice, which was also an intelligent life, was smashed into a bloody mess. Blood flowed down the meandering gully all the way to the bottom of the altar, which formed a huge rune array, causing something on the altar to emit a dark light.
It seemed to be… the remains of a transmigration device!
Behind another “gate”, there were dwarves with funny big noses and big beards as well as their creations—steel puppets with extremely exquisite structures and huge bodies. They were worshipping a blazing furnace together, while the molten iron and steel flowers that flowed out of the furnace were cast into various bizarre-shaped parts to repair another transmigration device.
He also spotted countless skeletons circling a long-sealed transmigration device in the depths of a gloomy building that looked like an ancient tomb. They circled it again and again as if they had been circling it for millions of years. With each circle, the phosphorescence in the depths of their eye sockets became brighter.
Behind these scenes, there were even more scenes farther away.
Different environments, different races, different civilizations, and even different planets—Meng Chao was very sure of this because he saw two suns in the background of one of the scenes!
The only similarity was the presence of a transmigration device in all the scenes.
It could be fragmented, it could be distorted, it could be rusted, and the runes could be eroded by time. It could even be buried deep underground and become one with the surrounding rocks, or it could be repeatedly repaired and modified by intelligent life until it was beyond recognition.
However, no matter how distant and bizarre the environment in the picture was, it was not even on the same planet or galaxy as Dragon City.
Meng Chao even had a vague feeling…
The transmigration devices were connected to each other.
As long as… he found the precise coordinates, the right method, and injected enough spirit energy, he would be able to travel to all the places he could see.