Chapter 88: Let Me Give You Some Guidance

Chapter 88: Let Me Give You Some Guidance

Picking up where the last chapter left off: Mother had just finished telling us the origin of the lotus-shaped green jade disk, and the tangled, unresolved relationship between it and the Myriad-Dimensional Brain.

I still had questions, so I asked her, “Mother, according to the Fermi paradox, if extraterrestrial civilizations really exist in such numbers, why haven’t we ever truly observed one? Even that saucer you described had no one inside it, and nothing to prove it actually came from outer space. So how do we explain this—in theory the galaxy should be crowded with alien civilizations, and yet in practice we find nothing but silence?”

Mother said, “There are two mainstream explanations at present. One is the Dark Forest theory, which holds that every mature civilization chooses to hide itself, and none will risk reaching out to a civilization of similar or greater strength. So everyone remains locked in silent vigilance. The other is the Great Filter theory—it holds that every civilization has a lifespan, humanity included, and all will eventually perish. So between one mature civilization and another, often one side destroys itself before or just after reaching maturity, filtered out, in other words.

“But your father and I believed something else: that before any civilization can reach the point of interstellar communication, it must cross a series of extremely difficult thresholds, and at least one of them is nearly impossible to clear. That’s why synchronization between interstellar civilizations is so rare. And even meeting one is not necessarily good news.

“Take the evidence sitting in our own hands. The Myriad-Dimensional Brain and the lotus-shaped green jade disk are separated by hundreds, maybe thousands of years, but to a civilization operating on an interstellar scale, that gap is nothing at all. That was exactly how the issue of same-frequency sensing between the disk and the brain arose, and why we came to suspect the two belonged to one and the same civilization.”

The subject of interstellar civilization still felt distant to me. What occupied me most, right then, was broadening my experience and finding a way to grow stronger.

So I told Uncle I wanted to visit the virtual Future World.

Uncle said not many people went there. The entry requirements were steep, and so was the cost. It was also a domain the Shadow Pavilion controlled directly, so without real ability, there was little to be gained from the trip. Still, he had confidence in what I could do.

He suggested I go in as Song Chenfeng, the virtual code-body, rather than registering as someone new. With my abilities where they now stood, Feng Du might not even be able to hold me back.

The advantage of entering as Song Chenfeng was continuity of soul code.

Song Chenfeng had lived a long life inside the Song virtual world, and his abilities were considerable now besides. His soul code would carry a high credibility rating. A freshly registered soul code, by contrast, would start from zero.

I asked, “Uncle, what does soul-code credibility actually get you?”

Uncle said, “Tang and Song are both entry-level virtual worlds. To move up into the other metaverses, your credibility is what gets checked at the door. Only those who meet the threshold get in. Jump levels, or show up with zero credibility, and you’re made to sit an assessment right there at the entrance. There are all kinds of assessments, and they’re strict, harder even than growing up inside an entry-level metaverse. Only if you pass do they let you through. So using a soul code that’s already registered, and climbing the ranks step by step, is by far the easiest path. This time you’re skipping several levels at once, so you may still face some kind of assessment and authentication. But that’s still better than starting from nothing. Mind you, go in as Song Chenfeng, and the system will know exactly who you are, in any metaverse. The Shadow…