The biological limits he could not overcome brought another problem.
In October 2020, exactly one year and three months after Huang Si had come to this world, his body began to give out.
No matter how much stronger his soul became, it could not replace his body. It was good that his resilience had improved, but the physical deterioration was undeniably real.
Huang Si often felt unwell. Even though he took vitamins and exercised every day, he could not reverse the trend.
He knew little about medicine and was helpless to do anything about his condition.
"If only I knew more about the human body. Maybe I could use my mind to change my body and erase some of the damage."
Huang Si somewhat regretted that all his previous research had focused on external things. Now he knew nothing about his own body. He could see obvious signs of disease in several places, including his liver, kidneys, and spine, but had absolutely no idea how to improve them.
What was more, many conditions in the human body were difficult to reverse once they had developed. The damage was practically permanent.
Huang Si did not know how much longer he could live. He only knew that he should start preparing to revert.
After discovering that his bodily functions were steadily declining, Huang Si began writing a set of instructions for his future self after the reversion.
Besides that, he kept writing in his diary and recording every discovery and result in meticulous detail.
In March 2021, Huang Si's body finally began to collapse. Severe malnutrition and the oppressive isolation had destroyed his health.
He had now been in this darkness for a full year and eight months. He had encountered no dangers in the dark, but he had found no way back, either—and he was close to death.
The pain had made it impossible for Huang Si to focus on his research any longer. He set aside his work and took stock of his condition.
"I can probably last another month or two? No, there's no point dragging it out that long."
His body was no longer capable of doing anything. Huang Si resolved to revert.
He pasted the instructions in the most conspicuous spot, then lay comfortably on the bed.
Huang Si connected his consciousness to the Creation Book and experienced the imprint he had left more than a year earlier.
Before reverting, a philosophical question suddenly occurred to him.
What was a personality?
Was it the unique individual consciousness formed by countless memories?
According to folk legends, the dead drank Granny Meng's soup in the underworld, forgot everything about their past, and were reincarnated.
Did even the ancients know that memory was the essence of personality?
Once a person lost their memories, they were no longer the same person, but a different individual.
What Huang Si was facing now was not nearly so extreme. But in the short year and eight months he had spent here, he had experienced and learned far more than he had in the previous twenty-five years of his life.
His mind had also grown considerably.
Huang Si was no longer the shut-in he had once been. His entire state of mind had changed dramatically.
The strength of his soul could be measured by various values of Creation Power, but changes in his mindset and outlook could never be quantified.
Huang Si had now begun to develop the psychological qualities needed to accomplish great things. But if he reverted, he would retain his soul's strength while losing all the benefits that came with experience.
Nothing could be more like sacrificing a limb to save one's life. It was practically like cutting away part of his own personality.
Yet Huang Si was calm. His strong mindset and keen perspective made him perfectly clear about what he wanted.
He needed to keep living and fulfill his goal.
"Goodbye, the me I am now. If I can reach this state of mind once, then even if I lose all my memories, I'll surely be able to reach it again."
Huang Si connected to the Creation Book, read, and overwrote.
The next moment, Huang Si leaped off the bed with a panicked expression. But he soon saw the lines of writing on the wall:
"To my reincarnated self:
"This is a set of instructions. You may have just experienced something strange and be confused, unsure of what happened or why things have turned out this way. The truth is, it's already March 9, 2021. You need to calm down first, then accept everything I'm about to tell you."
What followed was a general account of what had happened over the past year and eight months. At the end, the instructions directed Huang Si to the thirty-four notebooks on the study's bookshelf and to files 001 through 457 on the computer, all beginning with LOG.
Huang Si's memories had reverted to how they were on his fifth day here, and his mind was full of confusion.
But the things written on the wall were probably true.
Not just because of the handwriting, and not just because he could imagine himself doing all of this.
More importantly...
Huang Si glanced at the bed around him and willed a pillow to fly off it.
The pillow defied the laws of physics and floated silently in midair.
That was right. Before his body had started to collapse, Huang Si's soul had grown strong enough to lift objects against gravity. It was a huge improvement from when he had first reached the Perceive stage and could only open a window.
At this point, Huang Si had not yet accumulated all the painful, complicated memories that came later. His mind was still at ease. Feeling how powerful his consciousness was, he found it fascinating. Before long, he had broken off a small piece of wood and was controlling it with his mind, zipping it around the room like a flying sword.
Huang Si spent more than ten days reading the records on the bookshelf. Then he spent another week going through the records on the computer and familiarizing himself with the equipment around the house.
The house now had electricity and air conditioning. He could watch movies and play games, and there was even a virtual world on the computer where a group of AIs interacted. Huang Si found it fascinating.
As for food, there was artificial meat and artificial gluten. For drinks, there was alcohol, rice vinegar, and sugar water.
Huang Si sat at the computer with a little sweet cake and some sugar water, opened a movie, and began watching with relish. This life was practically just like his old days as a shut-in!
By April 27, 2021, Huang Si had regained most of his earlier research results. This was thanks to the extremely detailed records he had left before his memories reverted, which included his entire research process, all the data, and all his ideas.
From March 9 to April 27, Huang Si had picked up where he left off in just over a month, recovering the results of a year and eight months' work.
After that, Huang Si resumed his research.
He also kept up his work on using Creation Power and strengthening his soul.
Time passed.
In December 2022, Huang Si once again felt that his body was close to collapsing. Having reverted once before, he was not the least bit flustered.
By then, he had developed robots that could move on their own. The robots helped with many household tasks, making life much more convenient. The main problem he still had to solve was energy. Solar panels alone were terribly inefficient.
Huang Si had also developed a battery-powered solution. All he had to do was replace the liquid in the batteries regularly, but it was still a hassle.
Before this reversion, he left behind an even greater volume of records.
Huang Si estimated that his future self would need about four months to master all his research. But he could not afford to waste that much time, and as his research progressed and his results accumulated, it might take even longer.
To deal with this, Huang Si drew up a plan. Starting with his next reversion, he would focus on studying one particular field and ignore all records outside that field.
In December 2022, Huang Si reverted for the second time.
After reverting, he read the records he had left and understood that he needed to focus on robots.
So he only read notebooks 19, 23, 34, 35, 52, and 57, then used the computer's search function to read all the relevant sections.
This time, it took him only seventeen days to catch up on his previous work.
Huang Si immediately returned to research. Perhaps because his soul had grown stronger and stronger, he was now better at adjusting his state of mind. It did not take long for his mindset and outlook to rapidly reach a high level.
As a result, his research efficiency increased severalfold.
He had actually been here for years by now, but Huang Si no longer minded. He still intended to return, but he stopped worrying about everything else.
In March 2023, Huang Si sent ten small reconnaissance robots out through the doorway.
These robots were powered by jets, the simplest method he had found for moving freely through the darkness.
The robots came equipped with cameras and touch sensors. Huang Si sat at the computer and monitored their movements.
For convenience, Huang Si had now made a second computer. The old one was for research and monitoring, while the new one was for hosting artificial intelligence. The AIs' databases had grown increasingly large, and they had become quite humanlike.
He had also assembled a disk array to store data.
Huang Si controlled the robots, dividing the dark area around the house into several sectors and sending the ten robots to explore in different directions.
By then, Huang Si could try to form objects in the Dark Space, but his mental reach extended only about twelve meters, and the darkness did not block it.
In other words, whenever a robot needed more energy, Huang Si could replenish it with Creation Power as long as it came within twelve meters of the room, then send it farther out to explore.
The Dark Space was still pitch-black. There was nothing in it, and even the trash he had thrown out earlier was gone.
Huang Si found it puzzling. Why had the trash disappeared?
For now, all he could do was have the robots continue exploring the Dark Space. He hoped they would discover something.
Before you continue