Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 101 The Last Gift
Whenever the world is illuminated by the first ray of light, I always wake up with the world.
This time is no exception.
In that instant when the world suddenly became bright and could not be measured by even the smallest unit of time, I felt my own consciousness.
Then came upon me a tremendous change such as I had never seen before.
In the concrete surface world, this change is impossible to detect and everything remains calm and normal.
In that digital world of surging waves that never stop, a wave of the most destructive and nihilistic power you can imagine in this world enveloped me. Please forgive me for the poor language I can use, so that I can't describe and describe this power in the right language. It's not like a sickle, because after a sickle cuts the stems and leaves, it will leave a stump; it's not like a flame, because after a flame burns the charcoal, it will leave ashes; it's not like a toxin, because after the toxin corrodes the metal, it will emit a meaning...
This power is absolute destruction, total elimination, and complete obliteration. In a sense, it is not eradicated by any "method" of "existence" in the world we know - it is the opposite of "existence". It seems to mean "emptiness" in a philosophical sense. There is no difference between liquid and solid in front of it, the past and the future are meaningless to it, and time and space are useless to it.
It is not to destroy my consciousness and life as a creature or a form in this world, but to completely erase my "existence", whether in the past, present or future - that is the trace of everything related to me. When it succeeds, I will not disappear from this world, but I have never existed in this world.
I guess this is what old Carlson was so afraid of. I think I understand why he was so desperate in the face of this power, because I am just as desperate as he is now. This is a kind of destruction that is far beyond our comprehension - no, not destruction, it can even destroy itself - when you face it, you can't even grieve for the demise of life, and you can't struggle for the dissipation of the soul, because it's meaningless.
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
It is not only the end of all existence, but also the end of all meaning. In my adventure, I have faced death many times. Yes, I am afraid of death, but when I have to face it, I don't feel desperate, because I think at least my life is meaningful, my existence is meaningful, after all, I have appeared in this world and influenced it, changed it, and I have left insignificant but indelible traces in this vast world. If I die at this moment, all the traces I left will remain in this world at this moment, becoming irrefutable history, and preserved forever by time.
In front of it, all of this becomes nothingness. The meaning of our lives, the reason for our existence, and even all our dignity in the face of death are sadly worthless. It can not only make your existence meaningless, but even the entire world you once existed in meaningless. It even makes the long river of time that we always thought was irreversible worthless. The history deposited in that river is so worthless that it can only survive by relying on its mercy. If it gets tired of it and fishes out the silt of history and throws it away, then this period of history will be gone, this period of time will be gone, we have never influenced anything, we have never changed anything, our existence is no longer irrefutable, and it will not be preserved or proven by anything.
Is this my end? I thought. This is probably the most gorgeous and spectacular elimination in the world, a solemn reaction made by a force that is completely above this world and only to me. As old Carlson once said, it does not bring death, and you don't even have the right to choose death in front of it.
Just when I was horrified and discouraged by the boundless power that suddenly appeared, something mysterious happened. Suddenly, I found a black shadow appeared in front of me, and there was a darkness that could not be seen through.
In fact, my description was not accurate. The darkness did not appear after the power that wiped out everything came. I felt that there was no difference in time between their appearance, but they came to me at the same time.
I don't know whether this shadow sucked me in or it pounced on me and wrapped me up, but in an instant, I was surrounded by this shadow. In this tiny moment that was difficult to identify, I was suddenly kicked out of the source world of vast data. I was in such an unfathomable darkness, as if I suddenly became conscious in the world after being shut down.
Although it was only darkness, the feeling was really amazing. I had never felt this kind of darkness so vividly. It felt like I had suddenly jumped out of the edge of this world and was no longer bound by the world - can you imagine it? It stopped, but I continued. At this moment, I was like a piece of firewood whose flame was extinguished but still burned, like a drop of water in a river that was dried up but still flowed, like a leaf that was separated from the branch but still nourished by life, living outside of survival, existing outside of existence, transcendent and independent.
After passing through the darkness, my eyes lit up again, and then I found that I had come to a small house.
Of course, it was old Carlson’s cabin, his last gift to me before he disappeared, his last line of defense in my most desperate moment—and it really worked.
Yes, a lot of things happened in the past. The power of nothingness appeared and wanted to wipe me out. The dark shadow appeared and enveloped me. Finally, I came to this small house. It seemed to be a very long and complicated process, but please listen to my explanation. All this happened in a much shorter time than you imagined. It was even completed within a time unit that you can never divide and is smaller than the smallest measurable time in the world. This time is so short that it may even be beyond your understanding.
I looked around the room carefully: six walls sealed with bricks and stones, a bright and gentle light source coming from nowhere, a never-extinguished bonfire in the center, and next to the bonfire a chair that belonged to Arthur "Black Knight" Dengott, the commander of the fortress.
It had been so long that I almost thought I had completely forgotten this place. But when it all reappeared before my eyes, I realized that it was as if I had never left, so familiar, so intimate, as if the old man with blue skin and long teeth would come out from behind the chair at any time and hit me hard on the head with his staff.
Of course he wasn't there, but I couldn't help thinking that...
I sat down in a chair, facing the campfire, and began to think about my current situation:
Without a doubt, this is my last refuge. I think it has just successfully resisted the search of that terrible force - no, it can't be "resistance", there is nothing in this world that can resist the opposite of "existence". There may be something in this world that can resist the most powerful oppression and dissociation, but what can resist "nothingness"?
So it was more likely that it deceived that power, making it think that it had successfully eliminated me.
I remember that the moment I faced that power, I also felt a searching ability from it, as if it could automatically search for my existence through the information I emitted. No matter what time or where, as long as I appeared, it would pounce on me again in an instant.
Now that this power has not tracked me here, I believe that this may no longer belong to that world. That power cannot find the existence of this hut at all, which means that I am safe here. As long as I step out of here, that power will find me again and wipe me out, unless...
...Unless I have the power to fight it, or at least the power to escape from it. Thinking of this, I laughed at myself: How is this possible?
I entered the source world again and re-examined the hut in another way. As I expected, the source world of this hut was still vast, but it was no longer as boundless as the Falvi Continent. Of course, you have to know that when I say it is no longer boundless, it does not mean that I have seen its edge. In fact, in the source world, it is difficult to use "edge" to describe the size, because all data comes from the endless and goes to the endless. As long as the world is not closed, there will never be an end.
What I mean by "size" is the appearance of the world described by the data. This should be a keen feeling of being in the source world.
In the ocean of data, there is a strange and dangerous area. It hides behind other data in this world, trying its best to conceal its existence. If it were not for the several unknown fields around it that exposed it, you would hardly find it. Moreover, it keeps changing its appearance, sometimes disguising itself as a field that depicts shape and luster, sometimes as a field that describes some simple basic rules, and sometimes even becomes a field that seems meaningless and full of errors.
I was very curious about what was hidden in that mysterious area, so I tried to swim over there with all my strength, wanting to lift the layers of data fog to find out. But my action seemed to have alerted it: in an instant, many similar data suddenly swarmed up, making it difficult for me to distinguish the true from the false. These similar data dropped many false bodies in front of me, and the number was so large that it dazzled me. At the same time, other data began to stir and roll violently, and began to use some large and inappropriately complex methods to describe some rules that could be clearly described with very concise characters. Their abnormal movements made this tiny source world a mess, and everything in it began to become chaotic. I was in it and even had difficulty distinguishing things. It was not until I gave up the idea of approaching that mysterious area and left it far away that the world became normal again.
After that, I approached the mystery several times in succession, and the result was the same every time. As I had just arrived in this new and boring little world, I was inevitably a little depressed and impatient, which was clearly revealed when I challenged the fog. I brought my habit of fighting as a warrior into this completely different battle, and launched a brave, tenacious, unyielding, but also very stupid attack on the unknown mystery:
In this world composed of completely new rules, my ability to see, analyze and understand in the source world was greatly weakened, and those new rules were so solid, meticulous and unbreakable that I couldn't see any flaws. Even so, I still threw myself into the endless ocean of data again and again, struggling like a child who couldn't swim to get closer to the goal.
The huge mystery hidden behind the rules of the world appears and disappears in the endless digital turbulence, as if calling me and provoking and mocking me. It uses the most profound wisdom and the most magnificent power to play the simplest and most naive hide-and-seek game with me, and it never tires of it.
I should have given up. If I were on the Farvi Continent, if I were still an ordinary adventurer and warrior, I would have given up long ago in the face of such a futile, endless, and rewardless game. However, in this new world, I had no choice at all - unless I was willing to exit the source world and return to the small hut that was less than 20 feet square, facing a never-extinguished bonfire and six opaque walls, waiting for my death and decay that would come at an unknown time. I felt that in fact, I would definitely fall into madness because of depression before that.
That fog not only aroused my curiosity and competitiveness, it has become the whole purpose of my existence in this small world. Regardless of success or failure, this seemingly endless challenge may be the only meaning of my existence in this world, and the only thing I can do in this world.
Finally, in front of this difficult and unrewarding game, I had to admit my insignificance and incompetence. I had no way to get even a little closer to the mystery, and I couldn't even determine its location. Every time I found a trace of it, it had already left that place far away. I could only chase a shadow that it had left behind. When I realized that it was in a certain place a second ago, it had already escaped without a trace.
I realized that if I continued like this, I would never make any progress.
So I changed my strategy: I stopped this futile attack, shrank myself into a quiet code, curled up in a corner of this ocean of data, and began to observe quietly.
I began to learn to understand the world again - from the perspective of a digital life, not from the perspective of a human warrior. It took me a long time to realize that this change was of great significance to me, perhaps second only to my soul being freed from the Falvi Continent.
In this data world that seems a little strange at first, as I have told you, at the beginning I could only understand that I was in a completely different world that was much smaller than the Falvi Continent - I could only judge the size of this world, that's all.
Then I began to try to identify some of the simplest codes, and I found that they seemed much simpler than the codes in Falvi's world - simple and powerful - they did not seem to try to describe a colorful world with countless choices, but to describe an extremely simplified yet solid world with as few conditions as possible, as little change as possible, and only the minimum existence. Hidden behind these codes is a more rigorous and meticulous logical model. They operate as harshly as an army with iron discipline, and everything is based on stability and security as the highest requirements.
I tried to explain the codes from my own perspective again and again. I tried to get excited every time I saw something new and felt a new combination. Like a newborn baby, I observed, listened, touched, and used my most basic instincts to perceive this tiny new world. My simple wisdom could not help me well, and my tenacious perseverance and courage were useless here. In this new world, my strongest and most powerful courage was my curiosity, that simple, pure, and even a little childish curiosity, which supported me to observe and discover continuously.
When I think I have seen enough, I will try to make some subtle changes to this data world. At first, I was very panicked about whether to do this, because I didn't know how the world would react to my actions. It took me a long time to make up my mind to try it, and I took all kinds of precautions as much as I could before the first attempt.
When I first tried to modify it, I made a stupid little mistake. The rules that keep the world running immediately discovered it, and I believe they also discovered me effortlessly. Just when I was panicking and at a loss, the rules just quietly erased the part I modified and left quietly without even looking at me.
Oh, of course, I'm so stupid. This is the last gift that old Carlson left me. Why would he leave such a devastating punishment? Even though he has disappeared without a trace, my alien teacher is still teaching me. This tiny world is both his classroom and his homework for me. He hopes that I can continue to learn and evolve here, although I don't know what the purpose is.
I started a series of bold attempts: I modified some delicate fields beyond recognition; I deleted and tried to discard some data that I thought could be removed; I even created and wanted to add something that did not exist in this world. Undoubtedly, I was greeted with a series of failures - in fact, I never succeeded.
But in this endless failure, I gradually understood more about the rules of this world. I began to learn more and more complex data, began to touch those higher-level world rules, and integrated them. In front of me is a staircase with no end in sight. Every time I make progress, I will face a new, higher-level rule step. As I rise again and again, the steps I leave behind are increasing.
With every step I take to better understand this world, I have a deeper respect for my friend, my mentor, and my irreplaceable soul mate, the troll old Carlson. I thought I had learned enough from him, and he once told me so, but only now do I know that his vast wisdom is far beyond my reach. The world he left me seems to be extremely simple, but when I understand it to a certain extent, I find that it is not simple, but a kind of simplicity, which is solid to the extreme and full of power and beauty. He left me a world that is almost flawless, and until now, I still cannot modify or change even a single character of it.
In some ways, this world has far surpassed the world built by the Supreme God - no, the supercomputer Darius. Yes, it is small, crude, and lacks such rich changes and brilliant effects, but it is unprecedented and unparalleled in terms of stability, soundness, and perfection.
I can't imagine what I will learn and gain from this if I continue like this...
