Operator #3: Every Reason

The soul exists simultaneously in the present, the past, and the future.

Research at the Galahad Magic Academy suggests that the soul differs from the other two fundamental elements—

--Especially in terms of the concept of time, the ways in which spirits exist are incredibly diverse. For example, paintings that were full of spirit thousands of years ago can still detect very active spirit activity today.

These spiritual entities, spanning centuries and millennia, or even the entirety of human history, are typically treasures of human civilization, influencing our daily lives almost constantly.

Even if we don't know who invented the wheel, its spirit still exists in modern society, inextricably linked to all wheels, becoming an immortal poem that will always be mentioned and praised.

Using spirits to record information is extremely difficult. According to the 1773 Arcane Library, there is a wager between the devil Mephistopheles and a human in Faust. The contract between the two parties was written in their souls, and its binding force can span decades, making it more robust than any paper document or legal provision in human history.

Jiang Xueming and Bu Liuxing's teacher, another blond slut— David Victor —possesses this divine power to record information on spirits, and even the Lord of Cinder is subject to this superpower similar to the power of words.

Returning to the first sentence of this chapter--

--At the moment a powerful spirit is born, the sum of its energy, its influence on human society, or its ability to change its own destiny will cause strong fluctuations in the calm ocean of time.

Therefore, it not only exists in history, but even if we cannot travel to the future, we can vaguely sense that works with great souls will surely shine brightly in the future.

Such prophecies are everywhere, although some of them are wrong.

--For example, people used to say that soon the internet would enable people to communicate more conveniently and without barriers with people all over the world, but now I have to open my phone and scan a QR code just to use Baidu, as if the ritual is too cumbersome.

The results may be somewhat off, but its spiritual energy is so strong and its influence so wide that the people who created the World Wide Web and the Internet have already stirred up waves on the sea of time and left their names behind.

Back to the main topic--

Wood Plark is a teacher at the Galahad Magic Academy.

When people become Morpho butterflies, ready to shine in human history, these newly minted VIPs need to attend school to understand their own spiritual bodies and master their own divine powers. Morpho butterfly is not the end of the transformation, but rather the first form of a brand new life coming into this world.

There are different levels of skill in using Soul Power, and Wood Plark is one of the best at it.

David Victor and Su Ling can both use spirits to record information, and Train Captain Wood can do the same.

If your memory is good enough--

--During the time Wood was tracking Jiang Xueming, he picked up the torn pages of Jiang Xueming's diary and used the power of his soul to restore the information on the paper, using the light of his soul to reproduce the words.

At this very moment, this experienced magic teacher had already written many words on the spirit body. At the end of the last reincarnation, when Billy the Kid was on the verge of death due to gunshot wounds and hallucinogenic drugs, he had already seen the standard answers to the exam paper and memorized them firmly.

"Fuyanni, that VIP from the Abyssal Railway isn't dealing with time-manipulating superpowered individuals for the first time. He already sensed something was wrong! First of all," Billy the Kid said, glancing specifically in the direction of the vending machine, "First of all, the chocolate milk!"

"Chocolate milk?" Fuyanni didn't understand. "What does Soul Power's superpower have to do with chocolate milk?"

"See!" Billy opened his phone and texted Fuyanni while adding his own explanation, "The vending machine originally had six bottles of chocolate milk, right? Now it's three missing. One was bought by Sister Duran, another by the strange man in black who was with Sister Duran, and the last one was taken by Wood Plark."

The messages in the chat software were flying up like crazy, making Fuyanni dizzy.

"Wait, wait, slow down! Why are you moving so fast?"

Billy the Kid immediately said, "I don't know! I don't know either. When I was doing these things, I felt like I was divinely inspired. It might be a side effect of hallucinogens, or it might be like what Mr. Wood did."

"Why are you calling Wood Plark 'teacher'?" Fuyanni asked, bewildered. "What's wrong with you, Billy? You've been spouting nonsense I can't understand from the very beginning!"

"Because I drank chocolate milk too!" Billy the Kid said, typing the first essential information about Teacher Wood's spirit body on his phone. "Sister Duran, that mysterious person, and Teacher Wood all drank this stuff, so I tried it too."

[Chocolate milk allows you to sense the residual energy of time travel.]

With that, Billy rushed to the vending machine and bought the rest of the chocolate milk.

"Fuyanni, you should try it too!"

The result was not as expected. After drinking the milk, Fuyanni burped several times, but felt nothing unusual.

Are you kidding me, Billy?

Billy the Kid nervously explained, "No! I'm serious, Fuyanni, I never lie to you—we're best friends, right?"

"That's right." Fuyanni's expression was serious. He stuck out his tongue and licked the bottle cap clean, but still didn't feel anything was wrong, except for some strange and inexplicable déjà vu. If Billy was telling the truth, he couldn't remember anything about time travel either.

"There's a guy who can reverse time and influence the workings of the sun, moon, stars, and even most of the universe," Billy said. "Our memories come from electrical signals, the cerebral cortex, and the hippocampus. If these also degenerate along with this divine power, then our memories will be lost."

"But," Fuyanni kept scratching his head, "How did you remember all this?"

"Because before my last reincarnation, I stepped into the Gate of Death, but my mind was unusually heightened," Billy explained. "The hallucinogens allowed me to see Professor Wood's spirit and remember many, many important things!"

Fuyanni asked, "Can drinking chocolate milk really get rid of the effects of time reversal? That's amazing."

"No! It's not as simple as you think." Billy the Kid immediately began his lesson, as diligently as Wood Plark's teaching assistant. "Chocolate milk contains zinc oxide and a lot of iron, high-quality sugar, and may instantly activate our brains and keep the spirit in a state of excitement."

Then, more words were quickly typed out on the chat software.

"Sixty-Three, that should be his name— Sixty-Three's soul power can reverse time, but it's difficult to affect massive celestial bodies like black holes and pulsars, which don't have the concept of [time] because the gravity they generate is so strong that even light can hardly escape."

"Like a clockwork mechanism or a gear, these strange celestial bodies are firmly locked into our universe. Even if we turn them back, the reason why Plark and I can move so quickly and precisely is because of the effect of the chocolate milk. We are propelled forward by this gravity and complete many complex movements in a very short time."

"The information recorded on Teacher Wood's spirit, Fuyanni, also includes three tally marks."

"Wow!" exclaimed Fuyanni, "He's playing for high stakes!"

Billy yelled, "What the hell are you thinking! This is a record of time reversal! Seventeen times in total, three Chinese characters for 'correct,' plus two strokes, we should be in the eighteenth cycle!"

"Oh, sorry, I got the wrong idea," Fuyanni blushed slightly. "Anything else?"

The message left by Teacher Wood in the spirit world was listed word for word on the chat software.

[Chocolate milk allows you to sense the residual energy of time travel.]

[For Sixty-Three, the Soul Power of the Regret Pill had been active for twenty-three hours and forty-one minutes.]

[The Red Mountain Stone favors the brave and bestows upon them extraordinary luck. As long as it remains on the plane, this divine power will continue to operate. Its destructive power is immense; even an adult Morpho butterfly with soul power cannot withstand its lucky force.]

[Sixty-Three needs sleep; during the time he recovers his mental strength, he can escape the time maze created by the [Regret Pill].]

[On the plane, there are two souls resembling five-dimensional beings, and the divine power of the Red Mountain Stone is also involved. These represent three forces: the power to travel back to the past, the power to foresee the future, and the power to change the present. They are intertwined and constantly altering the course of fate.]

[In the sixteenth cycle, I blew through the cockpit beneath Sixty-Three's feet, yet he showed no surprise whatsoever, not even fear or astonishment, nor any remorse for the impending loss of the Red Mountain Stone —therefore, it can be confirmed that from beginning to end, Sixty-Three's target was Xue Ming; the Red Mountain Stone was worthless to him.]

[Red Mountain Stone is the BOSS's spiritual essence. As far as I know, Sixty-Three received the divine power of Red Mountain Stone, thus enabling him to travel from the distant future back to 2006. He attempted to alter Xue Ming's soul power and change the predetermined ending where Jiang Xueming received the [Regret Pill].]

[But I believe this is putting the cart before the horse, and is utterly rebellious.]

[Jiang Xueming of FE204863 is an unlucky guy. He has almost lost everything precious in his life, yet he wants to help Jiang Xueming of FE33031 reach the paradise of happiness in this way—has he never studied physics? Doesn't he know the laws of celestial motion?]

[Every time he traveled back in time, his first target was the other Jiang Xueming. Having conducted so many experiments, did he ever ever consider the real reason why all three hundred-plus cases failed?]

Bad luck is contagious! He's like a black hole. When Jiang Xueming from other timelines comes into contact with him, gets to know him, sees him, and understands the power of the [Regret Pill], she will naturally be absorbed and assimilated by this black hole, and involuntarily awaken the power of the [Regret Pill]!

[We absolutely must not let Jiang Xueming discover the existence of the [Regret Pill], otherwise this cycle will never end.]

[I need to speak with this irrational guy alone, away from Xue Ming. I need to find Sixty-Three, calm him down, and get him to explain things clearly—often, these guys who recklessly manipulate other people's fates create many inexplicable tragedies.]

They never revere destiny, never respect the free will of life, and will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, acting without a shred of remorse, thinking, "I can have one more time anyway!"

[Perhaps Sixty-Three didn't even realize it, but I had already sensed the spacetime disturbance and recorded all of this information in my spiritual form.]

[The soul exists almost simultaneously in the present, past, and future. Even if matter is reversed and restored by the divine power of the soul, the spirit remains unchanged. As Galahad's teacher, I have dealt with these dangerous souls wandering through time more than once—I thought they should understand these obvious laws better than I did.]

[But the superpower to control time has made these guys arrogant and lazy. Their methods of defeating enemies and clearing obstacles are simple and brutal; they're even unwilling to use their brains or think about why fate has arranged things this way, or why time flows in this direction.]

[Sixty-Three: To try and change Jiang Xueming's spirit is tantamount to killing another self—cruel fate presents him with a series of tests. Jiang Bailu's death defeats him, leaving him no choice but to drift along and accept his fate.]

[But Jiang Xueming from FE33031 was different. When David Victor mentioned this student to me, he told me something like this: even if Jiang Bailu died, Xue Ming would be determined to live well. He wrote all of this in his letters home, in that farewell letter.]

[His Soul Power has a weakness, and a very obvious one at that. It can only reverse time for a maximum of about four hours at a time. Although I can't sense the cooldown of his Soul Power, I can still perceive from the effect of the chocolate milk that he has remained conscious for more than twenty hours in total.]

[His second weakness is arrogance. He seems to regard me as a major threat and almost avoids any verbal communication with me. But keep in mind that even excluding the potential factor of the Red Mountain Stone, Duran and Flavia's superpowers could kill him.]

[The moment the two little guys in the back of the plane bravely awakened Red Mountain Stone, I was killed by this divine power of luck—but Sixty-Three was completely unaware, only thinking about Jiang Xueming, seemingly never noticing anything amiss, as if everything was under his control, treating all these lucky elements as gifts of fate, simply glossing over them with "good luck" and "bad luck"!]

[Billy! And Fuyanni! You two were spying on my spirit, weren't you!]

Billy: "My God!"

Fuyanni: "He knows! He knows everything!"

The two young brothers glanced furtively toward the southwest corner of the terminal. At that moment, Wood Plark, with his legs crossed, had just finished drinking chocolate milk and was sticking out his tongue and winking at them.

[David Victor said, a manuscript is like an author's buttocks, while the spirit, something so private, is like a man's rectum—something that can only be given to one's wife as a wedding ring, something that no one else can intrude upon!]

[At this moment, I am revealing my soul power and spiritual body to you, as a sign of my absolute trust in you.]

[Jiang Xueming of FE204863 has gone mad. He is arrogant and overbearing, considering himself a god and wantonly altering the fates of others. I will defeat him.]

[The BOSS is the passengers' lucky charm; Red Mountain Stone favors the brave—it allowed you to see my spirit, Billy the Kid seized this opportunity to escape.]

[If you want to survive, fight alongside me.]

[Remember this: under no circumstances should Sixty-Three be allowed to get close to Jiang Xueming, nor should the truth about time reversal be mentioned in front of Xue Ming.]

[You've all heard of the formidable reputation of the Nameless Boss, so you naturally know him.]

Billy said nervously, "Are we going to go against this guy?"

Fuyanni was nearly driven mad. "This Digimon was a killing machine even in its Rookie stage! We're supposed to deal with its Ultimate form?"

[YET! YUP! YES!]

[All the reasons are written on my ass.]

There are only two kinds of people in the world!

One goes with the flow, the other goes against the current!

"Quick, quick! Billy, think! Remember! What exactly was written on Mr. Plark's buttocks!? Did his spirit have writing on his buttocks?" Fuyanni asked anxiously.

"He said," Billy said, looking embarrassed and finding it very strange, "That he would vouch for us and reduce our sentences if we were willing to help him."

Fuyanni gritted his teeth and said, "I'll do this job!"

Billy hesitated, "How could you agree so quickly!?"

"Ming De never lies!" Fuyanni said. "It might also be because of the chocolate milk; I always surrender very quickly."