Lesson Two: An Entirely New Dimensional Theory (Part 1)

Just a few seconds later, Chuanhe opened his eyes. He looked down at Hui.

"The content that follows cannot be explained to you directly like this; it requires higher-level security measures. Hui, you will feel very uncomfortable in a moment, so you must strictly restrain all the chakra in your body. This is extremely important." Chuanhe said in a stern tone.

"Yes, Father." Hui took a deep breath and nodded solemnly.

Chuanhe closed his eyes. In Hui's perception, his father's chakra gradually retracted until it was completely undetectable. Slowly, however, a hair-raising sensation began to emanate from his body. Hui felt as if the chakra throughout his entire body had gained a life of its own, actively recoiling from this aura.

Chuanhe slowly reached out his hand toward Hui's head. Hui looked at this familiar hand, yet subconsciously leaned backward.

Hui gritted his teeth, forcing himself to sit still and struggling to restrain his own chakra.

Even though the hand moved with agonizing slowness, Hui's consciousness felt as if it were being stretched infinitely at this moment.

The world before him, much like a sunset, slowly transitioned from vibrant colors into an empty, void-like darkness. Even though there was no light, Hui could still see the figures of his father and himself.

My own figure? Why can I see myself?

"Alright, in this genjutsu, there is almost no possibility of any information leaking."

There was no sound. Yet, this information appeared in Hui's mind as if it were a direct memory. To understand it, Hui had to recall the past.

A series of strange sights and sounds made Hui subconsciously want to distance himself from his father. But no matter how hard he tried, the version of himself he saw remained perfectly still.

"Hui, this world is false; it is a genjutsu world. Because its underlying principles are extremely unique, it is very unpleasant to the senses. But at least by transmitting information this way, there is almost no possibility of leakage. Even reading memories is impossible—provided, of course, that the extraction is done via chakra."

"What I am about to tell you is far too shocking for this world. Therefore, not a single mistake can be tolerated."

"Bear with it for now. You shouldn't be able to speak in your current state, so just listen patiently as I explain."

"Your observations were not wrong. Because the theoretical gap is simply too vast, I will explain it to you directly. This is not a problem that can be explained by the knowledge you have learned thus far."

"At first, I was just like you, but the difference between us is that I hold a firmer belief in the conservation of mass-energy. That is why I was very confused about Water Release and Earth Release; I couldn't understand how they could achieve such obvious non-conservation of mass."

"It wasn't until I encountered Ōnoki on the battlefield that I saw his destructive light erase all matter it touched. Afterward, I realized that Ōnoki's Dust Release also seemed to be a phenomenon of mass non-conservation."

"Ōnoki claims that Dust Release breaks matter down into an atomic state. Hah, that is utter nonsense—sheer ignorance. Even if broken down into atoms, matter is still matter; it still exists in this world."

Chuanhe raised his hand slightly, and Hui saw a circular iron ball appear before him, which then immediately fell apart into a pile of iron powder.

"As you can see, the iron block becomes iron atoms, but it still exists in the world."

"This is just as I told you before: chakra is matter, not energy. What others or textbooks say is their business. As for whether a conclusion is true or false, Hui, you must judge for yourself. Do not believe everything others tell you."

"Ninjas are too obsessed with their own power; aside from a small number of medical ninjas, almost no one puts effort into studying these things."

"It is clear that Dust Release, like Water Release and Earth Release, appears to cause an obvious non-conservation of mass in this world."

"Your second small experiment was well-designed, but because you haven't encountered many ninjutsu, it is unfortunately still wrong. This is not your fault."

"This phenomenon is not absolute. The First Hokage of Konoha, Senju Hashirama, possessed Wood Release that could bring permanent influence to this world. The trees he created possessed vitality far exceeding that of normal plants."

"Contrary to the conclusion you reached, the creations made by ninjutsu chakra do not all vanish from this world."

"So many anomalous phenomena caused me a great deal of trouble. As I said before, I believe more firmly in the conservation of mass-energy. So, I began to try to explain these phenomena under the premise of mass-energy conservation."

"Dust Release gave me significant inspiration; it is different from the other ninjutsu I just mentioned. It causes a significant loss of mass."

Hui saw the phenomenon of Ōnoki unleashing Dust Release. Unlike the destructive light his father described, what appeared before him was the Dust Release: Atomic Dismantling Jutsu.

He saw a white-glowing cube, acting like an eraser for this "world," and the matter it touched simply vanished.

The memory came to an abrupt halt.

Hui then saw a giant "sheet of paper" appear on the ground.

"To make it easier for you to understand, we will use this to explain."

"I call this method 'dimensional reduction thinking.' Most people cannot understand thinking in three dimensions directly, but if you treat it as an analogy to two dimensions, it becomes much simpler to grasp."

Hui saw a square "blank space" suddenly appear on this giant sheet of paper. The paper remained the same, but Hui clearly understood that something was missing from that spot.

"That is the phenomenon, but at the time, I did not understand it."

"Back then, I was researching space-time ninjutsu. This was already after my time with the Uchiha Clan."

"I was having a very difficult time within the clan back then, and it was Yuki who gave me the Summoning Technique and storage scrolls I wanted."

Hui, who had been in a state of deep thought, was suddenly interrupted. This was the first time his father had mentioned his mother in front of him. Hui's emotions were complex.

"Because I had come up with an excellent 'idea' and was attempting to create negative mass."

"I mentioned negative mass and the conservation of mass-energy earlier."

"At the time, I wondered: what would happen if matter touched the boundary of space? Would it simply vanish? That doesn't seem to follow the conservation of mass-energy."

"But it seems that 'vanishing' is the most normal explanation. The conventional way to solve physics problems is through the conservation of momentum and the conservation of mass-energy. If it just vanishes, neither conservation law is followed."

"The phenomenon and the theory are contradictory. If this were my previous world, this problem wouldn't exist. But in this world, space-time ninjutsu truly exists."

"Even when two spaceships flying at the speed of light in opposite directions observe each other, they can only conclude that the speed of light is constant. Why should matter be able to break these two conservation laws just by touching the boundary of space?"

"So I began to think: if we satisfy both conservation laws, what would it look like for matter to touch the boundary of space?"

"This question stumped me for a very long time. Every result I predicted could only satisfy one of these two conservation laws."

"It was at that moment that I first conceived the concept of negative mass, and as if possessed, I formulated the following hypothesis."

"Normal matter undergoes elastic collisions like this (K). So, if we assume that when matter touches the boundary of space, its entire mass converts into negative mass and returns along its original path (B), then momentum must be conserved, and mass-energy simply gains a negative sign."

Although Hui was somewhat confused, a doubt emerged in his mind: didn't this still fail to follow the law of conservation of mass-energy?

But the darkness before him shifted, and Hui saw himself and his father standing by the sea.

Watching the waves, Chuanhe explained:

"Hui, if you were to tally the waves, would you only look at the crests? Waves are just like this matter; they are simply curvatures of spacetime in completely opposite directions, yet the degree of curvature is identical."

"As the saying goes, when things reach an extreme, they reverse. The conservation of mass-energy was originally deduced based on physical matter. Before this, the concept of negative mass didn't even exist. Who is to say that if mass converts to negative mass, mass-energy is no longer conserved?"

"Moreover, the most important point is that mass and energy are scalars; they have magnitude but no direction. Momentum, however, is a vector; it has both magnitude and direction."

"Is the kinetic energy carried by negative mass not kinetic energy? This negative sign has no meaning for the magnitude of kinetic energy. On the contrary, this negative sign is very significant for momentum. And in the subsequent process of my hypothesis, momentum is indeed conserved."

"Of course, I know you must scoff at this statement. Originally, I held deep doubts about this theory and wanted to discard the hypothesis entirely."

"But I thought of something else that changed my perspective."

"Hui, do you know that there exists a mysterious celestial body in the universe—a black hole? It is just like the planet beneath your feet, but its mass is so immense that even light cannot escape it. This is why I had to tell you about light first."

"As I mentioned before, light is also a form of matter. When mass reaches a certain magnitude, even light cannot escape."

"Near high-mass celestial bodies like black holes, there is another strange phenomenon—time dilation. The manifestation is that time in the outside world appears to accelerate when viewed from near a black hole; conversely, when the outside world looks at the vicinity of a black hole, time appears to slow down."

(If you cannot understand this, you can refer to Interstellar.)

"This is a phenomenon of positive mass. So, what if the mass were negative—"

"Exactly. From the perspective of the outside world, time near negative mass would accelerate."

(There are formulas to verify this; if you are interested, you can look them up.)

"Time acceleration and spatial boundaries—this made me think of the boundary of the universe."

"Undoubtedly, the boundary of the universe is also a boundary of space. If this is truly valid, couldn't it explain why the universe is expanding at superluminal speeds? Accelerated expansion could also be explained."

"At the time, I was incredibly excited, testing repeatedly with my storage scroll, but the results were fruitless. I didn't obtain even an electron's worth of negative mass. I pondered it repeatedly afterward and finally discovered where the problem lay."

"In this world, space and energy are not the space and energy I once knew. The two may share the same names, but they are not the same things."

"This means that the storage scroll in my hand is not a boundary of space. The conclusion remains unfalsified."

"But whether it is true or false is no longer important. Because I opened the door to a new world. This is the first lesson I am teaching you: I began to think about what chakra is. Is it matter, or is it energy?"

Chuanhe sighed with emotion; the erroneous process had provided him with inspiration, leading him to re-examine the world.

Failure is the mother of success; this saying is not false.

Hui was somewhat dazed by this barrage of memories. He subconsciously ignored what a "planet" was. At this moment, he did not care about such details, his entire being following his father's line of thought.