The Atomic Universe. The Tower of Babel.
A torrent of water-like yet blinding light burst forth from the "Gate of Time and Space," instantly igniting the surrounding Magic Circles and conjuring the wondrous sight of lines and patterns drifting through midair.
At the same time, the "Gate of Time and Space" was no longer dim and pale, but dazzlingly brilliant, veiled in a layer of shifting, unstable light.
This layer of light bulged outward suddenly, taking on the vague shape of a faceless figure. Then the figure grew ever more distinct, resolving into Lucian's appearance.
The moment Lucian stepped through, the radiant gate immediately faded and withered, crumbling into a flurry of drifting dust. The lines forming the Magic Circles around it likewise shed their brilliant colors, fracturing inch by inch until they collapsed into a pile of debris.
Only then did Lucian make out that the hall held not only Natasha, but also His Excellency the Speaker. The latter had lost his customary composure — a faint trace of urgency played across his features. Not the urgency of fear or excitement, but the urgency of someone desperate to unravel the questions gnawing at his heart.
Lucian was not surprised by this. After all, upon sensing the "Real World Feedback" and witnessing the anomaly in the sky, it would have been far stranger if the Speaker had not come looking for him. As for Natasha, she had watched him teleport away and understood that whether or not he managed to find the sun, he should return within half a day at most. So she had waited here patiently, eager to satisfy her curiosity the moment he reappeared.
"How did you discover it?"
Natasha opened her mouth, then smiled and closed it again. She had originally wanted to ask what the sun looked like, whether it was a real material entity, and how far the teleportation distance had been. But hearing Douglas pose his question first, she held back out of respect and courtesy. She had plenty of time to ask later.
Lucian laughed. It was rare to see His Excellency the Speaker so impatient — it was as if his old teacher had possessed him. He had even forgotten the one thing he needed to do immediately after reaching peak Legend.
"Your Excellency, one moment." Lucian pressed his right hand downward, and behind him a world materialized with startling vividness. In this world, the stars of the sky shimmered faintly, orbiting a colossal ball of fire wreathed in blazing flames and forming a multitude of complex, mysterious patterns. Behind the fireball, however, lay a profound darkness that seemed to devour both gaze and soul.
Below the sky, protons and neutrons as tangible as physical matter clustered together to form atomic nuclei. They drifted and collapsed in turn, bonding with probability-cloud electrons into elements. And in different regions of elemental concentration, different spectacles arose — liquids and solids radiating an intense, penetrating cold, for instance.
Light flowed among these charged particles, seemingly partitioned into discrete portions, reflecting the essence of the electromagnetic force, harmoniously linked with the "force of wind" permeating the surrounding void.
The edge of the entire world subtly curved, and beyond that curvature something else seemed to connect, allowing changes in the Perception World to influence the material world.
The instant Douglas laid eyes on this anomaly produced by the solidified Perception World, he let out a self-deprecating laugh. How could he have forgotten that after reaching peak Legend, one had to let the changes in one's Perception World reflect into one's
The moment the Perception World unfolded, the Tower of Babel suddenly shuddered violently — a tremor originating from the very planet on which it stood.
Outside, the dark cosmos erupted with dazzling brilliance. The elemental planets blazed with a brightness beyond imagination, growing ever more real. In particular, those stars resembling the sun ignited with flame and radiated terrifying temperatures — temperatures approaching those of reality itself.
Once the upheaval within the "Atomic Universe" subsided and the projection of Lucian's Perception World faded behind him, Douglas asked once more: "How did you discover it?"
Lucian answered concisely: "I mainly considered two problems. Since our planet appears to be shrouded in 'Mist,' the depths of the Endless Ocean make travelers circulate back upon themselves, and anything flying outward through the atmosphere loses observation of the ground within a certain range — only regaining it once it enters outer space — we had to posit two things: first, whether light entering this region encounters the same phenomenon, whether it too is bent; and second, whether other planets are similarly veiled by this 'Mist.'"
"Combining the data I obtained from the depths of the Endless Ocean with a theory I'd held previously, I corrected the calculated position of the sun based on these two premises — and I truly saw it."
"Generations ago, we already considered whether the atmospheric 'Mist' interfered with the path of light, whether it was the reason we couldn't see planets after teleporting near them. Yet after all these years, we still have not managed to thoroughly study the 'Mist,' to study the peculiarities of the Endless Ocean's depths." Douglas voiced his own doubts.
Generation after generation of Archanists were no fools — of course they had considered the two questions Lucian raised, had considered the effect of the 'Mist.' The problem was that no one could extract a cause or an explanation from the exploratory results and data in order to build a model and extend it to the discovery of planets. If it were as simple as Lucian made it sound, they would have found the sun centuries ago!
Therefore, what Douglas cared about most was how Lucian had managed to find a way to correct the sun's position from the data — that was the crux of the matter.
Lucian spread the five fingers of his right hand, then rubbed his chin, somewhat hesitant. "I can only give a rough explanation for now. The 'Mist' and the peculiarities of the Endless Ocean's depths are most likely some form of spatial anomaly."
Beside him, Natasha recognized at once from Lucian's unconscious gesture that his mind was indeed filled with contradictions — he was not being deliberately vague.