As for Aha saying he was as stupid as a pig and couldn't appreciate a kind Aeon's intentions... Lingchen laughed.
"Of course. Aha is one of the finest Naming Masters among the Aeons."
Aha instantly grew smug, the owl's head spinning happily in place twice.
"But now that I'm here, you'll have to settle for second place."
Lingchen wagged a finger, utterly composed. Aha froze, shock filling the owl's face.
"Impossible! Aha is the Naming Master!"
As Aha spoke, the title "Naming Master" appeared overhead, complete with a looping animation.
Cheap streamers burst beside it, too.
"Heh, you see everything, hear everything, and come sniffing around at the slightest disturbance. From now on, your name is Diting."
Later, he would show Aha some cute videos of Diting.
Above them, Fuli quietly watched the scene.
Actually, if Aha really turned into Diting and Lingchen really turned into a Warp Trotter, Fuli might well record it on the spot and make a Light Cone to pass down.
Unfortunately, the two were merely taking sarcastic digs at each other.
"Fuli, let's go."
"Wait, you really don't want Aha anymore? You're Aha's Emanator!"
"Sorry, Aha." Seeing the humanlike sorrow on the owl's face, Lingchen first looked pained, then slowly curled his lips into a smile. "I can never go back now."
Fuli: "..."
There was something a little wrong with both of these creatures.
[Thou mayest conduct a trade]
Fuli reminded him again.
"Do you have a room? Let's go to your room."
Lingchen looked up and addressed Fuli.
If Aha got this information out of him, Aha might just go off and make a game.
Something like Playing Honkai: Star Rail Inside Honkai: Star Rail.
As for Fuli, the [Remembrance]-
Nothing in this world was more inclusive than pure memories: they recorded everything, without disgust or preference; they selflessly preserved every basic fact and every magnificent form; they were a river formed from the convergence of enduring lives, a treasure built from ancient wisdom.
Fuli, the Aeon of [Remembrance], was the school of fish swimming upstream, and also the key to the treasure vault.
Fuli sat in meditation at the center of a pure land, silently watching all things tirelessly repeat their mistakes.
That was Fuli. Perhaps Lingchen's memories would do little to help this universe's future, but the memories of a visitor from another world who had just earnestly declared, "I liked you in my past life," could hardly fail to attract Fuli.
These were memories Fuli had never obtained since coming into existence.
Fuli said nothing more. Lingchen merely felt his surroundings changing rapidly.
Aha was still shouting behind him, but was already nowhere to be seen. Even the voice had become indistinct noise, with only one final cry of "Aha has really lost face!" reaching Lingchen's ears clearly.
The space before him abruptly stretched, flashed with brilliant colors in that same instant, then finally came to a halt.
Only after the space stabilized did Lingchen look around.
The empty, square floor was assembled from countless crystals, emitting a still, lonely glow, while a desolate miniature starry sky surrounded it.
The starry sky hung overhead like a semicircular lid.
In each of the eight directions around the floor stood an enormous pillar, likewise made of crystal, with nothing but gray mist upon its surface.
[The pillars display memories thou hast no means of knowing]
Fuli shrank to Lingchen's size. The crown had long since vanished, and now Fuli looked more like an ordinary Memokeeper.
"So what do you intend to offer in exchange?"
P.S. Two more chapters to go, but it'll probably only be one. I've got another meeting soon. Sigh... sorry, everyone.
The mask with the glowing forehead is the protagonist's mask.
Chapter 37: All Right, I Agree
Lingchen reached out and took out Aha's mask.
"Aha treats me pretty well. Whether I'm finding amusement or improving myself, the corresponding [Elation] authority and Imaginary Energy both grow. And that corresponding Imaginary Energy and authority belong entirely to me. I don't know what Aha is planning, though. After all, from my perspective, this is a losing deal."
As he mentioned the losing deal, Lingchen couldn't help chuckling.
If his use of that power also strengthened Aha's Path, then giving him power would have been no surprise.
But now, the power Aha gave him belonged entirely to Lingchen and no longer had anything to do with Aha. Yet Aha still delighted in doing it.
Perhaps that was simply the Aeon of [Elation]. Aha could freely give power to a worm just to see whether it could join the Genius Society, so what couldn't Aha do?
Lingchen figured that if Aha found hauling manure amusing, Aha might even go out specifically to haul it.
[What did Elation receive in exchange]
Fuli continued asking.
"Simple. Watching from the sidelines as I used my own power to deal with a bunch of bugs."
"You must have noticed back then, too. Don't tell me you weren't watching?"
Aha had noticed his arrival immediately. Among the other Aeons, at the very least, the Aeons of [Remembrance] and [Equilibrium] had noticed as well.
Perhaps Terminus of [Finality], moving backward against the flow, and Xipe of [Harmony] had also noticed.
It was just that none of the other Aeons had acted, apart from Aha and now Fuli.
Lingchen also had his suspicions. HooH was now so deeply integrated into the universe that appearing would probably be no simple matter.
Perhaps only once he became an Aeon, or even surpassed the Aeons, might HooH appear.
After all, he wasn't part of this universe's future destiny. Whether HooH would actually consider him a threat to [Equilibrium] remained uncertain.
Just like now: Fuli showed no "emotional" reaction to him whatsoever. Even that interest in his memories seemed less like curiosity and more like an occupational compulsion.
Fuli seemed to be considering the price.
[Emanator-level power and authority of Remembrance]
Normally, once someone became an Aeon's Emanator, they could no longer become another Aeon's Emanator.
Even setting aside whether they could withstand intersecting and conflicting Paths, these were Aeons!
As the founders and guides of their Paths, Aeons naturally considered their own Path the most correct "road" in the universe. Apart from encompassing narrower Paths, how could they permit their Emanators to possess another Aeon's power?
Although Aeons held final authority over the interpretation of their own Paths, enormous differences truly existed between Paths. Otherwise, there would only be one Aeon rather than a whole bunch of them.
But now, to obtain Lingchen's memories, Fuli had compromised.
[The authority shall belong entirely to thee]
Just moments earlier, when Fuli brought Lingchen into this space created with a thought, Fuli had noticed that the power of [Elation] within him had grown an exceedingly tiny bit stronger.
That proved Lingchen had been telling the truth.
In that case, there was no problem with giving this authority entirely to Lingchen, unable to reclaim it, just as the Aeon of [Elation] had done.
In the past, when Fuli personally acted, any desired memories could be recorded, and living beings might even have considered it an honor. But Lingchen clearly wasn't such an existence.
For memories that couldn't be recorded, a trade was a perfectly viable option.
After all, didn't those Memokeepers strengthen themselves by walking the Path of [Remembrance], practicing it according to their individual understandings?
That could also be considered a "trade": Memokeepers brought memories, and the Path provided power.
Lingchen simply demanded more.
After all, with [Elation] as the comparison, the authority Fuli offered couldn't be underwhelming.
"Then I'll only share a portion of my memories. For instance, how information about this world was presented in my former world. So, do you think you could raise your offer?"
This was far too stingy.
Fuli might as well be called the Aeon of Penny-Pinching.
Aha had only asked him to fight the Swarm and the Antimatter Legion to see his power, and in return, he'd received power that belonged entirely to him and could keep growing. Fuli wanted this and that, yet offered so little.
Check in.
Lingchen had already confirmed with the system that all information relating to it would be concealed.
There was no way he would let this opportunity slip by.
[Ding! Checked in before the Aeon of [Remembrance]. Reward obtained: Feixiao Character Card]
Wait, another Emanator-level one? Is it because I can increase my power at a critical moment that I can't get anything higher from checking in?
[Ding! This is simply the Character Card you randomly received]
...All right. It's actually pretty good. Quite a lucky pull.
Lingchen thought this in all seriousness.
[What art thou thinking]
"Nothing. Have you finished considering it, Fuli of [Remembrance]?"
"After all, I came from that world. That means some other information is probably true as well. For example, information spanning fifty thousand years of a certain world. The time span might be rather vast, but there must be useful information in it. Or perhaps conjectures about the theory of the [Tree] and the [Sea]."
At the beginning, Lingchen might not have been able to confirm whether the [Tree] and the [Sea] really existed.
After all, according to legend, Aha had climbed the Tree of Existence, but who knew whether that was history invented by the History Fictionologists?
Yet when he transmigrated, he had definitely passed through the [Tree] and the [Sea]. What that meant needed no further explanation.
Fuli sank into thought again. The information Lingchen mentioned really was somewhat "tempting."
[As with [Elation], the corresponding Emanator authority may continue to grow alongside thine own power. I shall not intervene]
Fuli offered the final terms.
That essentially meant this portion belonged entirely to Lingchen. In the end, he could at least rise many times beyond the level of an Emanator.
Of course, he could forget about approaching an Aeon's strength.
After all, an Emanator's authority was equivalent to a concept weakened many times over.
And the philosophical concept corresponding to it was merely one part of an Aeon's Path.
To approach an Aeon, he would need to fuse it with other concepts, letting quantitative changes produce a qualitative transformation.
A drop of water, a wave, and the sea-that was the gap between a Pathstrider, an Emanator, and an Aeon.
Still, ultimately surpassing other Emanators many times over would indeed seem very close to an Aeon to the universe's civilizations and other Emanators.
This was already excellent. After all, he had confirmed that this world was real. In other words, most of the information he possessed would merely satisfy Fuli's "curiosity," or rather, "collecting obsession."
"All right, I agree."
P.S. Thanks to the generous readers Want to Go to the Two-Dimensional World in My Next Life and Tianchenyue 2 for the monthly tickets.
Thanks to the generous reader Bright Moon and Clear Breeze for the update request.
Thank you all for your support.
That's it for today. I have to write a report, and it'll probably take until two in the morning. Sigh.
Chapter 38: Receiving the Blessing of [Remembrance]
Quit while you're ahead.
Lingchen understood that principle.
Pushing any further would probably wreck today's negotiation. After all, only so much of his information was valuable.
Likewise, if he didn't agree now, Fuli would probably approach him many more times in the future. Lingchen had never doubted an Aeon's fixation on information related to their own Path.
He might as well conduct the trade right now.
In terms of what an Aeon could offer, especially Fuli, this was probably already the best possible deal.
But Aha is different. Aha really is the best.