Chapter 355
Although it wouldn't lead to a complete abandonment of the research on the Aeon of Propagation, Ai Yue's words made Ruan Mei decide to postpone the related experiments, so the sample of this experimental subject was no longer so important at the moment.
Since she can create the first one, she can create the second, or even more.
On the other side, Ai Yue, who was almost at the door, turned back to look at the two of them. "What are you standing there for? Let's go!"
"Where to?" Black Tower asked instinctively.
"I've already seen your research findings," Ai Yue smiled slightly, "But you haven't seen mine yet, have you?"
"Come on, I'll show you something good."
Chapter Thirty-Four: Do You Want to Listen to What You're Saying?
Without even Pom-Pom's knowledge, Ai Yue led two members of the Genius Club onto their assigned carriage.
No one knows what Black Tower and Nguyen Mai saw on the train; only a few people realize that the two people who returned from the train were somewhat different from before.
"To be honest, I used to think you and Boshizun had some kind of shady relationship," Black Tower said in a very strange tone as he returned to his office. "Like, you were Boshizun's... uh, reincarnation or something."
"Don't you want to listen to what you're saying?" Ai Yue, who was drinking water, almost spat it out. "Are you alright? Did what happened just now really affect you that much?"
Ai Yue wasn't unaware that the events surrounding the Honkai would deeply shock the Black Tower, but he truly hadn't expected it to have reached such a level of mental derangement.
"According to research, this possibility is not zero," Nguyen Mai said from the side, then realized and added, "I mean, the Boshizun might prepare some kind of backup for himself, and this backup would not be limited to inorganic life forms."
"That's not the problem, is it?" Looking at the two rambling fellows in front of him, Ai Yue was speechless for a moment. "Do I look like the Boshizun in any way?"
"No one says that reincarnations have to be similar to their predecessors," Black Tower shrugged. "But considering the closed nature of the Solar System, it seems like this is quite difficult to achieve."
There's absolutely no possibility of it!
Ai Yue sighed again. Others might not know his situation, but how could he not know? His current achievements were basically due to the mysterious system within him, but this system clearly could not have come from the hand of the Boshizun.
Even if the opponent could calculate everything in this world, they still couldn't rise above this universe, let alone transcend the current dimension and ascend to become a more powerful being.
"Okay, just pretend I was talking nonsense," Black Tower didn't intend to continue the topic, after all, she was just venting her chaotic emotions. "So, who exactly are you?"
Although Black Tower already knew some of Ai Yue's achievements from Vita, hearing about them and witnessing them firsthand are two completely different things. Now that he has seen what Ai Yue has done, even Black Tower, who is usually fearless, can't help but feel a bit of awe towards Ai Yue.
The fact that she can still sit and talk to Ai Yue on what seems like an equal footing is only because of the little pride that Heita has left. Without that pride, she can hardly imagine how she would face the man in front of her.
"As you can see, I'm currently an unknown guest." Ai Yue shrugged. "I do have a somewhat illustrious past, but it's nothing special in the vast universe."
"I don't really want to talk to him anymore." Black Tower glanced silently at Nguyen Mai beside him. "Doesn't he realize how irritating his words are?"
"I think Ai Yue probably knows, maybe he did it on purpose," Ruan Mei said with a slight smile, "Just like you."
Realizing that this might be his usual demeanor, Black Tower was momentarily speechless. After a brief silence, he spoke again, "Okay, let me rephrase my question. What are you planning to do next?"
"The long-term plan is probably to try to surpass the Star Gods," Ai Yue thought for a moment, then his expression became somewhat serious. "As for the short-term goal... how about we talk to all the Star Gods first?"
"Your short-term goal makes me look like a clown..." Black Tower sighed helplessly. "What's worse, I'm actually starting to accept this situation... But seriously, are you sure you can even talk to a Star God? Those high and mighty guys aren't so easy to talk to."
"Black Tower has tried to communicate with Boshizun many times, so she has a lot to say on this matter," Ruan Mei said from the side. "However, all her current plans have failed, so it's hard to say how authoritative her opinion is."
"Thank you, Ruan Mei, but you didn't have to say the second half." Black Tower rolled its eyes, somewhat annoyed, skipping even the pause between Ruan Mei's name and reality. "But what Ruan Mei said isn't wrong either. You at least need to be qualified to communicate with the Star God to..."
She didn't finish her sentence, because Ai Yue was slowly taking something out of his pocket and showing it to the two of them. "Does this qualify me?"
"Such powerful protective energy! What is this?" Black Tower eagerly took it, examining it closely. "No, it seems to contain more than just power; there's something else that's hard to decipher... Once this thing is released, the company and the city builders will probably fight tooth and nail for it!"
"It's hard to say about the builders, but the company probably wouldn't go that far," Ai Yue shrugged. "Because they've seen this before."
"Really? Those ruthless guys who exploit people have seen this stuff before, would they really leave it to you?" Black Tower looked at him curiously. "Or have you already fought over it? But I haven't heard of any major losses to the company."
Having witnessed Ai Yue's abilities, Black Tower didn't believe the company could pose any threat to him—not to mention Ai Yue's own strength, any one of the many envoys lurking in the Solar System would be enough to give the company a run for its money.
"You can't say that. The company is very friendly." Ai Yue smiled. As the company's Honorary Chairman and the person who formulated the company's future operating strategy, he naturally had to say a few polite words. "Besides, this was a gift from Amber Lord. No matter how much courage they had, they wouldn't dare to have any ulterior motives."
Upon hearing this, Black Tower froze in place; the small hammer, which hadn't weighed much before, suddenly felt incredibly heavy.
Even Ruan Mei, who had been waiting to see the Black Tower and then have a go at it herself, quietly withdrew her gaze at this moment.
"The Amber Lord... gave it to you?" After a moment, she barely regained some of her composure. "I... you..."
"That's great, I wanted to see that expression on your face," Ai Yue said with a mischievous smile, watching the other person's somewhat incoherent manner. "Don't get excited, take a few deep breaths, dizziness is normal."
"I'm not that fragile, okay?" Heita quickly came to her senses and handed the hammer back to Ai Yue. "So, the rumors about drastic changes happening inside the company were also related to you?"
Black Tower is Black Tower after all. With just this one piece of information, it directly connected Ai Yue with the company's recent situation. "So, what is your position in the company now?"
"That's not important anymore, since I don't have any real power anyway," Ai Yue put away the hammer and casually changed the subject. "So, does this thing prove my qualifications?"
"I never doubted anything like that; I was just reminding you not to be so easygoing when facing the Star God." Black Tower then realized that Ai Yue had misunderstood him. "Please, you're so much stronger than me. You don't think I'm bossing you around, do you?"
"Of course not," Ai Yue said with a sly smile, "But how can I take it out so easily if I don't seize this opportunity?"
"Wow, you..." Black Tower felt like he'd never been speechless more in his entire life. "I didn't realize you were so vain."
"How can you not show off when you have something good?" Ai Yue shrugged. "Anyway, since you've tried so many times, you must have a way to contact Boshizun, right? Lend me your connections."
"That's no problem, but the device still needs some debugging. I've already had the puppets do it." Black Tower agreed without hesitation, clearly having already made arrangements. "Before that, do we have a little time to discuss things?"
"Sure," Ai Yue leaned back in his chair. "Ask me anything you want."
"He's so arrogant," Black Tower turned to look at Nguyen Mai again. "Am I usually like this?"
"What do you think?" Ruan Mei asked with a smile. "Your temper is inversely proportional to your appearance, you know."
"Well, it seems I really do have a bad temper," Black Tower said matter-of-factly. "Never mind that, we can't miss this good opportunity."
After realizing that Ai Yue could indeed rival the Star God, Black Tower knew that now might be the closest he was to the answer to the question that was on his mind.
She paused for a moment, then looked at Ai Yue: "I want to know, what is divinity?"
"Good question." Ai Yue nodded, then said without changing his expression, "I don't know."
The atmosphere in the room froze instantly, only to be broken a moment later by Black Tower's booming voice. "You don't know?!"
"Yeah," Ai Yue said casually, shrugging his shoulders. "Do I look like someone who would know about this kind of thing?"
Looking at Ai Yue, who was not much different from an ordinary human, Hei Ta felt very unhappy, but he couldn't help but sigh.
If Ai Yue doesn't use his magical and unique power, then the other party, in terms of behavior and personality, can be said to be no different from an ordinary organic life form.
In other words, even if he possesses power comparable to a star god, he is clearly closer to a human than a "god".
Even if such an existence could truly explain divinity, it might not be enough to convince the Black Tower.
"I thought you would at least say something," Black Tower said, though he had already accepted the outcome, "Like, telling some profound riddles or something."
"That doesn't make sense. If I don't know, I don't know. There's no point in covering it up for me," Ai Yue shook his head slightly. "Of course, if you need something from me to comfort yourself, I might be able to fool you a little."
"Who would want to hear that?" Black Tower couldn't help but retort. "It seems the only answer to this problem rests with the machine head."
"Should I ask around for you later?" Ai Yue said with a smile, "But I suggest you don't get your hopes up too high."
In Ai Yue's view, the Star Gods and ordinary people have different perspectives on the world. Therefore, when faced with the same question, they may get different answers, and even the question itself may have many different versions. The "divinity" that the Black Tower is struggling with may be something completely different in the eyes of the Boshizun.
In this situation, even if Boshizun provides an answer, it might not be what Black Tower wants at all. In fact, given the circumstances in the game, she might have a very difficult time getting an answer.
Speaking of which, that guy named Kaka, he shouldn't suddenly jump out from somewhere and stop me later, right?
"No need for that." Faced with Ai Yue's kindness, Hei Ta hesitated for a moment, but finally declined. "I will find a way to ask the Boshizun for advice myself. This is part of the pursuit of truth. If I have to rely on others for even this, it would make me seem rather incompetent."
No wonder he's a genius who believes asking questions is more important than answering them.
Just as Ai Yue was about to say something, the other party suddenly changed the subject. "Of course, if you've discussed this topic, then I'm not unwilling to listen."
Okay, never mind.
After a short while, the preparations were finally completed. Based on his past experience, Black Tower temporarily evacuated everyone from the space station to prevent any unexpected events from interrupting Ai Yue and Boshizun's conversation.
To ensure everything went smoothly, she decided to personally guard the door this time.
"Go ahead without worry, I'll guard this place, there won't be any problems." Before activating the audience device, Black Tower said to Ai Yue one last time, "However, this thing was designed based on my standards, and I don't know how long it will last if you use it, so you'd better finish this quickly."
"Don't worry, it won't take too long." Ai Yue raised an eyebrow. "Besides, you don't actually need to guard it."
After saying this, Ai Yue's connection with the outside world was completely severed.
Hei Ta was silent for a moment, then looked at Ruan Mei beside him. "Do you think he can succeed?"
Although she seemed to be seeking answers from Nguyen Mai, having known Heita for so long, Nguyen Mai could also tell that Heita was more likely experiencing self-doubt.
After all, she had never succeeded.
"Given the current situation, if even Ai Yue can't succeed, then you should probably give up on this idea as soon as possible," Ruan Mei said with a smile. "Instead of worrying about that, why not imagine what those two will talk about?"
"To be honest, I can't imagine it." Black Tower shook his head. "The Boshizun's understanding of the universe far surpasses our imagination. The universe should hold no secrets in His eyes—but judging from the current situation, the existence of Ai Yue and the Solar System should be completely outside His calculations."
"Under these circumstances, I even suspect the two of them..."
Without saying a word, Heita suddenly looked behind him—just as the two were talking, the previously closed door suddenly opened.
Ai Yue walked out calmly, his face showing neither the realization of having found an answer nor the confusion of being entangled in a question. Those who knew him understood that he had just been communicating with the Aeon of Intellect, but those who didn't would have thought he had just gone to the toilet.
"Although I told you to finish this quickly, is it reasonable to do it this fast?" Black Tower looked at him blankly, then confused. "You didn't manage to contact the machine head either, did you?"
"No, everything went smoothly," Ai Yue shook his head, then said in a slightly apologetic tone, "I'm sorry, Black Tower, you probably won't need to think about how to ask Boshizun anytime soon."
"What's wrong?" Black Tower immediately looked tense and subconsciously looked into the room. "Did you blow up my device?"
"The device is fine," Ai Yue shook his head, "But it seems that the Boshizun has crashed."
"... ah?"
Chapter Thirty-Five: Sorry, the number you dialed is not being answered.
Boshizun appears to be experiencing a system outage.
This was something that neither Black Tower nor Nguyen May had anticipated, nor even Ai Yue himself had expected.
At the beginning, everything went quite smoothly. With the help of the audience system designed by the Black Tower, Ai Yue successfully connected to Boshizun's wireless network and made contact with the other party's consciousness.
Whether it's because the Boshizun possesses the power of "wisdom" or because He is already quite accustomed to interacting with humans, in any case, compared to when He could only deduce the Amber Lord's intentions through the fluctuations of the latter's consciousness, the communication with the Boshizun One is much smoother.
Even so, because the two were quite far apart, their communication was mostly based on guesswork. Although it was a bit difficult, fortunately, Boshizun responded quickly, so it wasn't too difficult to deal with.
After a series of guessing and deliberate exchanges, Ai Yue finally managed to figure out why Boshizun was so eager to find him.
The reason was similar to what he had guessed; it was related to the "Radiant Flow" he had released when he ascended to the next level.
As the star god who governs the destiny of "knowledge", the Boshizun has always been dedicated to deciphering all things in the universe. No one knows how much wisdom has been accumulated in His "brain". However, according to various clues, the answers that even geniuses may not be able to obtain in their entire lives may have been hidden in the Boshizun's memory many years ago.
For a being like the Boshizun, who has an endless pursuit of knowledge, that strange "Radiant Flow" that can illuminate every corner of the universe is naturally something He wants to understand.
It was only at this moment that Ai Yue realized that the Solar System he thought he had hidden well had actually been locked down by Boshizun through his calculations of the "Radiant Flow" and Vita. However, for a black box that could not be directly observed, even Boshizun could not confirm the situation inside until the inside was completely exposed.
This, however, aroused even more interest in the Boshizun Aeon of Intellect, who was also one of the earliest star gods to begin paying attention to the Solar System.
While it seems that the Boshizun only had contact with Ai Yue when he had just left the Solar System, in reality, through that one contact, he had already begun to calculate Ai Yue's subsequent journey, just as he calculated everything in the universe.
However, the calculation results were not optimistic—for the first time, Boshizun discovered that his invincible computing power had met its match. He could accurately calculate every key moment of every major event in the star sea over long periods of time, but he could not calculate what Ai Yue would do tomorrow.
It's as if some mysterious, unquantifiable variable is hindering the calculation of Ai Yue.
"So this is why the machine head is so eager to find you?"
In the office, the now-calm Black Tower wore a thoughtful expression. "Let me guess, that so-called variable is probably the Power of Light, right?"
"It's an obvious fact," Nguyen Mai commented succinctly. "And it seems that this power is also the reason why Boshizun was brought down."
"That's true." Ai Yue shrugged. "To be honest, at the time I thought the Boshizun was just thinking. It wasn't until the red light on him went out that I realized something was wrong, but by then it seemed too late."
"So, the Boshizun really crashed?" Even though he had accepted reality, Black Tower still wore a very subtle expression as he repeated the question. "Is that so-called Power of Light really that dangerous?"
"It's not so much dangerous as it is mysterious," Ai Yue shrugged. "After all, even I am studying its mysteries, so it's understandable that the Boshizun doesn't understand it either."
"Not understanding it and causing a system crash are two different things." Black Ai Yue was thinking much more deeply than Ai Yue. Her expression was somewhat serious, as if she was struggling with something. "If what you're saying is true, then the secret contained within the Power of Light is a bit exaggerated."
As someone who tirelessly tries to communicate with the Boshizun, Black Tower believes she understands the Boshizun better than other geniuses. She knows that most of the secrets of the known universe have probably been deciphered by the Boshizun, which means that his computing power is so strong that it can cover the entire known universe, or even stronger.
Even with this level of computing power, Boshizun still experienced a system crash after coming into contact with the Power of Light. This means that either the existence of the Power of Light has had a huge impact on Boshizun's underlying operating logic, or the computing power required to analyze this power has exceeded the needs of analyzing this universe.
As the Star God who governs the destiny of knowledge, Black Tower doesn't believe there's anything in this world with more powerful computing power than the Boshizun. Yet, even so, the Venerable One is still powerless against the Power of Light. Doesn't this mean that this power has already exceeded the limits of this universe?
There may be other possibilities besides these, but any possibility currently facing the Black Tower suggests that the Power of Light may not exist in this universe at all.
If that's truly the case, then what kind of being is Ai Yue, who created this power?
What changes will his appearance in the universe bring to this sea of stars?
Hei Ta looked at Ai Yue, unsure what to say for a moment, but after a while, he suddenly smiled with relief, "So it seems that it's already quite impressive that the Simulated Universe was only destroyed."
"Heita, are you alright?" Ruan Mei looked at Heita, who suddenly broke into a relieved smile, and couldn't help but show a worried look in her eyes. "Is anything bothering you?"
In Ruan Mei's view, Heita was never someone who was easily satisfied. Her ambition was so great that she wanted to surpass Boshizun, but now she was complacent about such a thing, which clearly showed that she had lost her mind.