Chapter 57: Sorting and Summarizing

Chapter Fifty-Seven
Sorting and Summarizing

After pausing briefly, Klein continued writing:

“The essence of solving the potion problem is digestion, not mastery. This can be understood intuitively.

“Mastery treats the potion’s power as an external tool, a tamed beast. No matter how well or skillfully one masters it, it still does not truly belong to oneself, and the risk of backlash remains high. Digestion treats the potion one has drunk as part of oneself: breaking it down, merging with it, absorbing it, and unifying both sides into a whole.

“There is no question about this for now. The key is why ‘acting’ can help digestion.

“Based on today’s experience as a Seer, I will first make two guesses and wait for further verification.

“One: ‘acting’ according to the name of the potion can change the state of body, mind, and spirit, gradually bringing them close to the stubborn residual spirit remaining at the potion’s core. This produces resonance, allowing one to assimilate and absorb it bit by bit.

“Two: the stubborn residual spirit at the potion’s core is like a well-defended computer host. To invade it, break it, and dismantle it, one must find the bug, the vulnerability, the key. The name of the potion reveals the corresponding clue. Through acting, one harmonizes body, mind, and spirit, disguises oneself as ‘one of its own,’ deceives the ‘guards,’ and strolls in openly. This line of thinking resembles Emperor Roselle’s description more closely.

“Whichever guess is correct, the state of body, mind, and spirit cannot be avoided, because they are the only bridge between ‘acting’ and the potion’s power.”

Klein put down his fountain pen and read over the passage again. For a moment, he actually felt like thanking the great foodie nation for its exam-oriented education.

No matter what, and regardless of whether he had chosen sciences or engineering, he at least possessed basic logical ability. Otherwise, he would not have been able to become a keyboard powerhouse, nor conduct analysis and speculation of this sort.

“Acting may truly be effective. Concrete changes remain to be observed.”

Klein wrote a stage-by-stage conclusion.

Immediately afterward, he wrote down the second question:

“A description that feels strange: why does a Seer become more knowledgeable and more professional in the field of mysticism, yet lack direct means to defeat enemies? Shouldn’t knowledge and professionalism make a Seer stronger, better able to discover ways to defeat opponents?”

“Analysis of possible reasons follows:

“First possibility: like certain web novels I once read, I have transmigrated into a game world that has become reality. Therefore, different ‘classes’ must each have their own characteristics while maintaining relative balance. But so far, there has been no sign of datafication, nor any quest-like development. This factor is temporarily suspended; its probability is very low.

“Second possibility: the underlying law of this world is balance. The Creator made this place with balance as the core.

“Third possibility: potions of the same sequence exist at the same energy level. This is the best state discovered by predecessors through exploration and summarization. Exceeding this energy level easily leads to collapse and loss of control; falling too far below it cannot provide the desired Beyonder power. Therefore, with the energy level fixed, if one aspect is stronger, another naturally becomes weaker.

“Fourth possibility: all things share the same source, all divided from the Creator, all fragments of the Creator. And the hidden meaning of mutual complementarity is that each has problems of its own.

“At present, I incline toward the third and fourth reasons. However, the latter comes from uncertain mythology and can only be used as reference.

“For now, I will use the third as guidance and verify it through current study and later discoveries.”

By this point, Klein had already filled two full pages, but he did not stop. He continued writing, sorting through a new question:

“Judging from today’s study, my ‘luck-changing ritual’ belongs to typical ritual magic.

“Similar ritual magic can be divided into three parts. The first is the sacrificial part, meant to please or arouse the interest of the corresponding existence. The second is the incantation part, which describes the specific object of prayer. The third is the substantial part, which states what help one wishes to obtain. This must be clarified through a formatted corresponding language and certain symbolic signs.

“Starting from this, analyzing the ‘luck-changing ritual’ reveals one obvious problem: it lacks the third part!

“It has a sacrificial part: placing staple foods and walking four counterclockwise steps to form a square. It also has an incantation part that indicates the target of prayer, such as the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, and so forth.

“But after that, it only tells one to close one’s eyes and wait. It does not describe the purpose of the ritual as changing luck.

“In other words, whatever this so-called ‘luck-changing ritual’ wants to pray for, the corresponding existence has no idea and can only improvise… Improvise…

“Damn it! That Summary of Secret Arts from Qin and Han is way too much of a scam, isn’t it?

“My brain must have flooded at the time for me to even think of trying it…”

Klein stopped his fountain pen, took two breaths, and worked hard to calm himself.

Hoo. He exhaled the turbid air and continued sorting through the issue:

“Consider redesigning this ritual and making it complete. The goal of the prayer would be to return to Earth, to return to the world where my parents, relatives, and friends are.

“Then comes the question: did that existence truly improvise? Or was there a deeper hidden purpose?

“Going further: is the one referred to by the descriptive incantation on Earth the same as the one referred to here in this world?

“If they are the same, the different effects between the first and second ritual can be explained as improvisation. Then why were the second and third rituals both able to bring me above the gray fog, and both able to connect to Justice and the Hanged Man, with almost no difference?

“If tomorrow afternoon’s fourth ritual proves that the effect can be stably repeated, then it means the effect has solidified. It means the target of the prayer is hidden within some part I still do not understand. In that case, adding new descriptions and new requests would not receive a clear response. It might even make the ritual chaotic and produce bad results.

“If, while insisting that the object of prayer has not changed, the difference between the first ritual and the later ones means that the world one is in changes the response, then it is like using different interfaces…

“How should I design the ritual to achieve the result I want?

“If the first ritual and the later two pointed toward different existences, some earlier questions could be perfectly explained. But in the same way, the stability and invariability of the second and third ritual imply a hidden object of prayer. For now, there is no starting point for change.

“The most critical point: who exactly is the existence being pointed toward? Where is He? Why has He given me no hint or guidance at all?

“Is He in the depths of that gray-fog world?

“Hm. Can I treat Him as a slumbering existence—an existence that gives fixed feedback when given a certain stimulus, but otherwise does not interfere with or affect me?

“Then I can design different rituals to stimulate Him, summarize the patterns of the feedback, and finally find the correct method of returning.

“But the problem is, if He is not asleep, then every probe may lead to terrifying consequences. Extremely dangerous.

“The first probe must be sufficiently cautious, and the design must avoid provoking anger from the outset…

“What a headache. This requires further study.”

Klein sighed and wrote down the conclusion.

After that, he scattered records of other matters:

“Invisible voices are always echoing by my ear, screaming Hornacis and—hm, was the pronunciation Flegrea or Flegrea?”

“Hornacis is the mountain range spanning the Loen Kingdom and the Intis Republic. Its main peak is more than six thousand meters tall.”

“According to the Antigonus family notebook, in the Fourth Epoch, the Nation of Evernight existed there. The Nation of Evernight. The Evernight Goddess. Is there any connection between them? A dependent faction, or an opposing force? Was the Antigonus family destroyed by the Church of the Evernight Goddess because of the Nation of Evernight?”

“Do the whispers I hear come from that notebook, from the shouts of the Antigonus family over one or two thousand years?”

“Flegrea—hm, Flegrea—what does that represent?”

“An interesting question: the ability to leave behind such a notebook, and to leave behind Sealed Artifact 2-049, shows that the Antigonus family controlled fairly powerful Beyonder power. Then which Sequence pathway did they possess? Was it complete, or incomplete?”

“Discovering that the notebook was in Ray Bieber’s hands was somewhat too coincidental, yet there was no trace of arrangement. Is this truly a fated bond?”

…

One thought after another fell from Klein’s pen. He wrote freely about the matters he had encountered during this period and his own guesses.

This went on until he had filled four whole pages, front and back.

Riiip!

Klein abruptly tore out the four pages, then read them several times from beginning to end, sometimes circling a phrase with his fountain pen, sometimes adding a few extra lines.

Time flowed swiftly. The crimson moon was briefly hidden by dark clouds. Klein picked up the pocket watch on his desk, snapped it open, and glanced at it.

He put down the watch, took out a box of matches from the drawer, struck one with a scrape, and brought it close to the four pages of notes.

Orange-red flame bit into the paper and rapidly spread.

Klein held the four pages above the wooden wastebasket and watched the ashes drift and fall.

He released his fingers and let the paper drop. In no more than ten seconds, everything had disappeared, leaving only slightly swirling ash and scorch marks at the bottom of the wooden basket to speak of the past.

With Emperor Roselle’s secret diary as a precedent, Klein did not dare leave behind evidence that he knew how to write Chinese. If Old Neil or the others discovered those four pages, the matter would become impossible to explain.

And when writing about confidential questions, whether he used Loenese, ancient Feysac, or Hermes, Klein worried that the one who watched him in dreams might see and interpret the contents. Therefore, he had written in Chinese to sort through and summarize his thoughts. Once he had completed that task, he burned the pages and left no trace.

Precisely because he could not preserve them, he made a plan for himself: to summarize once each week and avoid forgetting.

Watching all the ashes fall, Klein drew out a clean sheet of white paper and wrote at the top:

“Dear Mentor:”

He intended to write to Senior Associate Professor Cohen Quentin and ask whether he had any historical materials related to the main peak of the Hornacis mountain range.