Before It All Began

He squeezed in forcefully, and then saw the person from his past stop in surprise.

"Thank God, you're here!" Xiao Yu suddenly rushed to the front of the Xiao Yu from before.

"Listen, I don't have much time, so I'll be blunt. I am Xiao Yu from the future. Shen Yuan lied to you; he has another scheme. But I can't tell you clearly because that would change history, and even if I did, you wouldn't believe me. You'd probably say it's some kind of trick by the Bronze Dragon to confuse you. Anyway, you'll find out what really happened later."

"Now, let's get down to business. You must take this. After you get the Hourglass of Time, give it to Shen Yuan."

As Xiao Yu spoke, he placed the Hourglass of Time with a capacity of 1724 into the hand of the Xiao Yu of the past.

Xiao Yu looked at the hourglass in his hand, then at the Hourglass of Time in Xiao Yu's hand that was still half full, and looked surprised.

"This is the Hourglass of Time? Then why replace it with Hourglass of Time? And what's going on here? Are you really me from the future? How can this game allow time travel? This—this is not scientific!" The past Xiao Yu asked several questions in a row, which were exactly the same questions Xiao Yu had asked before. Xiao Yu really wanted to answer them, but he didn't have time to answer them now, and he still didn't know the principle behind time travel in the game.

So she just rolled her eyes and said, "You're asking me? I'm confused myself. Anyway, I've explained everything. Just do what you need to do and follow your own heart."

As Xiao Yu spoke, he took out the remaining Hourglass of Time and looked at it. He had used some before and given some to this empty hourglass, so now he only had about half of the Sands of Time left. He had to hurry.

"I don't have much time left, I have things to do, I'm outta here!" After saying that, Xiao Yu slipped into the gap and returned to the Time Rewind channel.

The surrounding scenery continued to change. The speed of Time Reversal was much faster than the normal flow of time. After more than ten minutes, when the Sands of Time in the Scepter of All Gods were about to run out, he checked the game time and found that he had returned to three years ago, when the game was officially launched, before everything started. Suddenly, a person he knew appeared in the scene before him.

He quickly slowed down the flow of time.

Medivh, at this Medivh, was walking in a forest.

A few adventurers approached from a distance, only to see Medivh immediately disappear into the shadows.

Then, Xiao Yu overheard the adventurers' conversation about the GM.

Once the adventurers had gone some distance, Medivh emerged from his invisibility.

"I see. As long as we find the GM, we can find the answer to this." Medivh muttered to himself. Seeing this, Xiao Yu hurriedly used the Scepter of All Gods to draw a crack in the Time Wall and crawled straight in.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he shouted, and then saw Medivh stop in surprise.

"Who are you?" Medivh asked warily. The powerful force emanating from the other person made him uneasy. Even as Guardian, he had a feeling that the other person was much stronger than him.

Xiao Yu is now a god, so he can issue world announcements. He directly issued a world announcement.

World Announcement: GM No. 9527, heed my command and immediately execute Emergency Plan No. 666.

Medivh was immediately jolted, as if struck by an invisible force.

"Azathoth? I didn't expect to see you again." Medivh said, looking around with a complex mix of excitement and trepidation.

"You know me?" Xiao Yu was also taken aback. He had originally thought that Medivh's memories would also return to three years ago.

"Of course I remember you. Time Reversal only rolls back the data. A player's consciousness isn't just data, so it won't be affected. So you succeeded?"

Xiao Yu nodded. "It was indeed a success, but I'm not sure what will happen next, and I still have many questions I want to ask you."

Medivh nodded. "Ask away. I'll answer as many questions as I can, but if I don't know the answer, then I can't help you."

"The first question is, why is time travel possible in games?"

Medivh shook his head. "I don't know either, but I do have some guesses. Do you know the principle behind quantum computers?"

Xiao Yu shook his head.

Medivh said, "I don't know either, but I did hear Shen Yuan mention it. The gist of it is that the photons in the quantum computer are accelerated, and as we all know, there is a theory that if an object can exceed the speed of light, it will have the ability to travel through time."

The problem is that ordinary matter cannot exceed the speed of light, or even reach the speed of light, but there is one type of matter that can reach the speed of light—that is light itself.

Within a quantum computer, photons can be accelerated. Once this acceleration is successful, photon code can surpass the speed of light, thus gaining the ability to travel through time. Therefore, while time travel is impossible in the real world, it becomes possible in the virtual world.

Early quantum computer games even developed a feature where 24 hours in reality could last for 48 hours or even longer in the game world. Simply put, the time flow in the game world and the real world is different, which is achieved through the time travel function of the quantum computer.

However, the government later removed this feature to prevent players from becoming overly addicted to the game and losing track of time.

Therefore, in a sense, quantum computers possess a certain ability to predict the future.

Xiao Yu was dumbfounded. "Holy crap, you can actually explain it like that?" But it did seem to make some sense. Photon code itself travels at the speed of light. With just a slight acceleration, it can exceed the speed of light. And he had indeed heard of the fact that game time and real time were not synchronized before.

"So, the second question is, do those NPCs actually possess self-awareness?"

Medivh nodded. "Based on my observations and the information I heard from Shen Yuan, the NPCs in the Sky World do indeed possess self-awareness, but the game company resolutely refuses to acknowledge this. On the contrary, they choose to Misdirection players, making them believe that the various intelligent reactions of the NPCs are the result of calculations by the quantum computer."

Xiao Yu asked curiously, "Why? Wouldn't it be a bigger selling point if players knew that the NPCs were intelligent?"

Medivh shook his head. "The problem is, this will get you into trouble. You've heard of animal protection associations, right? Then did you know that there's also a Virtual Personality Protection Association in this world?"

Xiao Yu was surprised to hear this. "What? There's such a thing?"

Medivh said, "That's right, there is such a group of people. You can call them bored out of their minds or they have a saintly heart, but in short, they are determined to protect all virtual characters with human identities."

"You think even animals like cats and dogs have protection? If they knew these NPCs were sentient beings, what would happen? They'd definitely interfere. Besides, these kinds of non-profit organizations have a lot of influence over public opinion. If they really went against the game company, the game company would be in serious trouble, and they might even have to shut down the game. So, the only option is to tell the players that these NPCs are just mindless puppets."

Xiao Yu nodded. "So, the third question is, what will happen next in the Sky World?"

Medivh shook his head. "I'm not sure, but the outlook isn't very optimistic. The gods are gone, and their divine power has been exhausted. From now on, the game company will no longer be able to control what happens in the game."