At last, I understood what all the cables and pipes around me were for.
And I finally understood why there were only three rooms here...
The first room was mine. (Capsule Pod Hall)
The third room was Mi Xue's. (Stone Gate Hall)
The room in the middle was an empty one Mi Xue used to stage photographs.
This was all there was to "reality." The real New World was only this big.
As for that "virtual" New World, it canned the consciousness of every living being and let them dream beautiful, interconnected dreams.
And I was this world's counterweight. My consciousness and body were equally important, so I couldn't be canned. That was why Mi Xue had kept me asleep in that hibernation pod.
"Honestly, this reality is awful."
For a god, this was undoubtedly the lazy option.
But Black Rabbit explained, "The New World is more stable and risk-free, and it can produce genuine emotions. You and Mi Xue can still draw power from it. You can't do that now, but someday..."
I cut her off.
"You could have given everyone real bodies. Even if they weren't as capable as Magical Girls, we could slowly solve the capacity limit problem... But what you're doing now is treating everyone like batteries."
"To this world, even humans with flesh-and-blood bodies are still data."
Terra had once said that the world itself was a system...
Then what Mi Xue was doing now was creating another virtual machine within that system.
I reached out and held Black Rabbit's lower leg, injecting Radiance to help her regenerate. I watched her missing foot grow back at a visible pace...
Yet this was also an opportunity for me to consume her.
She seemed to understand that as well, so she said:
"Wait, don't absorb me yet."