Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 32: The Mysterious Origin of the World
It was like a violent thunderbolt falling from the sky, piercing into the deepest part of my heart, dispersing all the haze that covered and hidden my heart, cutting open my heart, and digging out the deepest secret buried in my heart.
I am a person rejected by the laws of the gods, a sinful existence that should not exist. I don't know what this means, but I know that this will be a secret that I can never tell anyone in my life. Although I don't know what will happen if I reveal this secret, the thought that came out of nowhere made me very sure that if I really did that, it would bring me some terrible things and completely destroy some of my precious things.
In the past years, whenever I think of these, I can feel the fear seeping from my bones and nerves. This unprovoked and unprovoked fear comes so clearly and so strongly, like countless ice spikes piercing my blood vessels, making me feel uncontrollably cold. In order to escape from this, I tried my best to find my friends from other worlds, wishing to be with them all the time. Only in this way can I temporarily forget my own identity and regard myself as a "normal person" with the same goals and beliefs as them.
And now, there was such a troll standing in front of me. With just one sentence, he expressed my greatest fear. I was so frightened that my heart ached, as if it was about to burst. A hysterical fear made me violent and crazy. I suddenly wanted to stab the old troll in front of me to death with a sword, cut his body into countless pieces, and throw it into the most secret corners of the vast Farvi continent, so that this secret would rot in the soil, rot in the swamp, rot in the sea, and never, ever appear again.
I don't know when my right hand has been tightly grasped on the hilt of the sword, and my fingers have turned pale due to excessive force. If I didn't know that I couldn't kill this troll named Carlson, I might have really put this terrible evil idea into practice. At this moment, I felt like a piece of land that was erupting with an earthquake, and my whole body was torn apart inch by inch. While I was being destroyed, I also wanted to destroy everything around me...
"I've noticed you since the first step you took into the fortress..." Ignoring my excitement, the troll Carlson said in a relaxed manner, "...What's interesting to me is that you're actually hanging out with those space travelers. From the beginning, I wanted to find a chance to get close to you, but you guys always stayed together. I've always been worried about you. You know, your level is too low, and Black Knight is not that easy to deal with. If you die here, I won't be able to do anything. But fortunately, you're lucky - or rather, we're both lucky."
"This is impossible!" I shouted. "We were very careful along the way. If someone was following us, we would definitely find out!"
“Follow?” Carlson smiled. “I never said that word. In fact, I have some better ways.”
As he spoke, he stretched out his skinny dark green left hand and gently waved it in the air...
Something amazing happened. A picture showing the fortress gate suddenly appeared in the air. I swear it was not a painting or a blueprint. Through it, I could see the grass at the gate swaying in the wind, several bodies of corrupted people infected with toxins lying beside them, and some worthless herbs and low-level equipment scattered on the ground. These things looked so familiar, as if they were the results of our battle after entering the fortress.
Carlson waved his arms again, constantly adjusting the floating pattern. Sometimes he made the scene very large and detailed, so that even a grain of sand or a handful of soil could be seen clearly; sometimes he shrunk it very small, even revealing the whole picture of the rubble fortress, as if we were flying high in the sky and looking down at it.
This novelty eased my fear a little. I leaned over and stretched out my hand to touch this magical scroll, but I didn't expect my fingers to pass through the scroll without feeling even the slightest touch. I was afraid of damaging the painting, so I immediately withdrew my hand in fear, but was surprised to find that it was still floating there intact, without any damage.
"You can see the whole fort with this thing?" I asked.
"As you can see." He shrugged and nodded slightly.
"Then how did you find out that I am... um... different from others?" This is the question that concerns me the most and also the one that puzzles me the most. I have always believed that I have concealed myself well, and even my closest friends who are space-related have never noticed my abnormality. No matter what, I can't imagine how this troll witch doctor can find out my true identity with just a glance at this magic map.
"This..." The troll Carlson scratched his head in some embarrassment, "...This is a very complicated question. But if you really want to know, I am willing to share this secret with you."
The curiosity of a half-baked alchemist was aroused, especially when the question was closely related to me. I temporarily put aside the positions of our respective races and camps, sat quietly below him, and listened attentively like a student.
"Speaking of which, this should involve the question of the origin of the world. Do you know what this world is made of?" Carlson glanced at me with his eyes slanted and said in a mysterious tone.
"There is a saying that this world is made up of four elements: earth, water, wind, and fire." This is the most common explanation on this continent, and it is also the only explanation that the believers of the Supreme God can accept and recognize.
Carlson seemed to feel slighted and frowned in dissatisfaction: "If it was such a simple question, do you think I would ask you so seriously?"
"I have heard of the five elements theory from the distant eastern continent. They believe that the world is made up of the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth." I replied again.
"Do you think it makes any difference?" The old troll waved his hand impatiently.
"There was an alchemist named Mendeleev who believed that the world was made up of 118 different elements."
Shake your head.
"An alchemist named Dalton once proposed a hypothesis: all matter in the world is composed of tiny particles called atoms."
This is obviously also a wrong answer.
"Could it be energy and matter?" I remembered the chapter on "Relativity" in the thick stack of alchemist textbooks.
Carlson Sr. didn't seem interested.
Suddenly, a flash of wisdom illuminated my mind, and a philosophical and thought-provoking idea suddenly burst out, making it impossible to resist the wisdom it represented.
"I see..." Thinking is always addictive. At this moment, I have completely forgotten the fear of my identity being exposed and have completely fallen into this academically meaningful discussion. "...The origin of the world is only my consciousness. Because of me, they can be perceived. For me, everything in this world exists. If I don't perceive them, then they have no meaning of existence, which means they don't exist. In short, this world is the result of the collision between the existence of an objective object that cannot exist independently of the perceiving subject and the reflection and reaction of the private self-environment as felt by my subjective experience."
This may be the most philosophical sentence I have ever said in my life.
"What a fucking mess!" In the face of my profound and lofty conclusion, the troll old man who had remained calm all the time finally revealed the rude side of this barbaric race. He couldn't help but curse loudly, and he choked and coughed.
"Then tell me, what exactly is this world made of?" After a series of wrong answers, I lost interest in trying again. I spread my hands and asked helplessly.
"You will see..." Carlson smiled slightly, closed his eyes, and said to me slowly.
"What did you say? Saw it?" I was shocked by his irrelevant words. "Are you crazy..."
Before I finished speaking, I thought, I had seen it:
Everything around us suddenly darkened, and the background color of the world turned into pure darkness. Above the seemingly endless darkness, large tracts of fluorescent green characters surged over like a tide. All the familiar shapes in this plane disappeared, and the whole world seemed to have turned into a dark plane, carrying countless characters, allowing them to jump and flicker in a complex manner. The three-dimensional world we live in has completely transformed into a two-dimensional space, a simple carrier for writing and recording.
Although the number of characters that flickered and changed was almost endless, the content between them was monotonous and confusing. There were only two characters that filled the entire world:
One is "0" and the other is "1"!
I lowered my head in fear and tried to see my arms, but it was impossible. I don't know when my whole body turned into a collection of "0" and "1" symbols, completely blending into this two-dimensional world filled with "0" and "1". Every thought and movement of mine set off a wave of complicated waves in this endless data flow, and billions of numbers changed dramatically because of my movements.
"What's going on?" I tried to shout as loud as I could, but in fact I couldn't "hear" my own voice at all. I could only find a long string of characters like a storm rolling up in this flat world. Although there was no evidence, I subconsciously knew that it was the changes caused by my shouting.
"This is the origin of the world!" The same intense data flow reached my location, and then I received Carlson's consciousness. No hearing, no body, only the drastic changes of countless "0" and "1", but somehow, I was able to understand what he meant under such circumstances.
"I've seen enough, let me go back. Let me go back quickly!" I screamed like crazy, trying helplessly to wave my hands, feet and body, throwing the turbulence of countless data as far as possible into the data in front and behind, as if I was trying desperately to tear open the curtain of this world covered with "0" and "1".
I admit that I was really scared, and I am not ashamed of it. If one day you find that your body has become a string of dispensable fields, I guarantee that you will never do better than me.
Just as suddenly as it came, this ocean of data also disappeared without a trace. In a flash, I was already sitting in the secret room without doors or windows in the Rubblestone Fortress. The old troll Carlson was still sitting in front of me with a smile, his two cloudy eyes looking at me meaningfully. Although his gaze was dim, it penetrated deep into my bones, like a quill pen dipped in ink, which could add a "0" or erase a "1" on my body at any time.
This feeling gives me the creeps.
"You have seen it. This is what I want to tell you. 0 and 1, this is the origin of this world. When I first discovered this secret, I was as surprised as you are now: How could this be? What do they represent? And what do I mean? I saw this question left by the Creator God in this world, but I didn't know where to find the answer."
"What about you?" I seemed to suddenly wake up, pointing at his nose and asking anxiously, "Who are you? A god? A monster? Or some other transcendent existence? Why do you have such extraordinary power? What is your purpose?"
"Me?" My question made Carlson smile bitterly. "I don't know who I am or why I am here. But maybe I can explain who I used to be..."
He summoned out the magic blueprint that showed every detail of the fortress, chose an inconspicuous corner, and found the image of a corpse in a clump of weeds on the inside of the city wall.
"This is me, or rather, this is who I used to be, a level 47 troll witch doctor. The elf girl in your team just beat me to death here, I guess you probably didn't see it."
On the head of the corpse, a gray-white name that belonged only to the corpse was clearly displayed: "Troll Witch Doctor Carlson"!
"Wait!" I felt as if I was struck by lightning, and an unbelievable answer became clearer and clearer in my mind. I stretched out my trembling finger, pointed at the corpse in the picture, and then pointed at the troll in front of me, and opened my mouth excitedly. Countless words wanted to pour out of my throat, but I didn't dare to say a word: I was afraid that these words would be like a spell to dispel nightmares, and once they were spoken, they would disappear.
"You..." I used all my strength and could only squeeze out this meaningless word.
"Me!" Carlson nodded firmly.
"You are..." My heart was beating wildly and an unknown joy was swelling in my chest, almost as if it was going to burst me.
"I am!"
"You too..." I heard the moisture in my voice. The unspeakable emotion and excitement hit my throat and made me choke.
"Me too, my friend. Me too!" Carlson gently reached out his hand and patted my shoulder.
Yes, I, Jeffreys Kidd, am not a lonely life. In my short and passionate life journey, there are many life and death intersects and intimate companions who have walked with me all the way. However, it was not until now that I found a real companion and relative. Although he is a troll with blue skin and huge fangs that are completely different from me, here, he is the only one who can be regarded as my kind, my tribe, and the only friend who defends and protects the same secret with me.
We are all beings rejected by God's laws, native beings who have escaped from our own destiny, and free rebels. I have been carrying this deep secret alone for too long, and now I have finally found a companion who can share this burden with me.
"How did you become like this?" I held Carlson's hand and kept asking.
"I don't know either." Carlson shook his head. "I only know that one day I suddenly appeared here, wandering aimlessly, not knowing where I came from or what I was going to do. Obviously no one gave me any responsibilities or tasks, but I just wandered around in that small place without taking a single step. To me at that time, that patch of grass in the corner was the whole world."
"I don't know how long it took, but a group of adventurers rushed into the fortress. I didn't know who they were, nor did I understand what they were going to do. I just rushed over to them involuntarily when I saw them, and they also rushed towards me. They were much more powerful than me, and they hacked me half to death in a short time. Then, a knight stabbed me with a sword, and when his blade just penetrated half of my body, the world suddenly fell into darkness, as if everything was extinct."
"When I woke up again, I regained my consciousness. I found that I was almost free and could travel everywhere. I walked through every corner of the fortress, climbed to the top of Black Knight's tower, and visited A. Vesalius's laboratory. I once wanted to leave the fortress, but there was some powerful magic at the gate that prevented me from leaving."
"Later, I found that I somehow possessed some unusual powers, just like what you just saw. I knew that I was completely different from everyone else here. Race, country, camp, all of these were completely meaningless to me. I seemed to have grasped a shadow of the true origin of this world, but I still couldn't figure it out. At this time, I found you."
"You know, although I don't fully understand what the origin of this world means, I have been exploring it for a long time. I found that behind the origin of those space-related beings, there is a strange and magical character. They seem to be the power code that can travel between various planes. Through the power represented by this string of characters, they can travel freely between planes."
"But you don't have this soul code that carries the power to penetrate time and space. On the contrary, many of your origin characters are very similar to mine. That's why I believe you are my kind."
"I see." I finally understood how this old troll who had awakened from his fate could solve the mystery of my identity at a glance. Suddenly, I remembered something important: "You have such a powerful force, so aren't you the real master of this fortress?" I asked hurriedly, "Can you help us defeat Black Knight?"
"That's impossible!" Carlson shook his head firmly.
"That sounds nice, but I knew you still couldn't give up the Apocalypse Empire." Seeing that he refused so straightforwardly, I glared at him angrily.
"It has nothing to do with the camp's position, my friend." Old Carlson explained quickly, "In fact, it is more dangerous to do so."
"When I first comprehended the power of the origin of the world, I tried hard to crack it, and indeed discovered some rules and functions of these characters. I found that this is really a huge power. In front of this power, the Black Knight you met was completely vulnerable. I even believe that even if the king of the last days came in person, he would be easily wiped out by this power. More importantly, this power can not only destroy, but also create, creating something out of nothing that did not exist originally."
"I once tried to use this ability to change some things around me. Fortunately, I was very careful. At the beginning, I just tried to adjust the position of a weed. Among the original symbols that I can understand, this is also the change that will cause the least impact."
"The scary thing is that soon after I finished the modification, a huge force that I had never seen before instantly came from the unknown mysterious void. Believe me, the breath of destruction was too strong to resist. I cleverly chose to escape and escape from some power loopholes I found. However, all the existences that I changed were wiped out. Note that they were not dead or destroyed, but 'erased'. Not only did they completely disappear without a trace, but the places where they were originally located were completely replaced by the original things, as if they had never changed."
"The gods are watching this world!" Carlson yelled at me. I saw the unconcealable fear in his eyes. "Once they find out that something is different from what they want, they will really destroy everything, including us, understand? Including us! I can only find a place for myself in this fortress by taking advantage of some loopholes that already exist in this world, hiding deeply, or using these loopholes to do some things that look magical, including this hut - according to the rules of the gods, this house does not exist at all - and the secret method that brought you here, and everything else I showed you."
"And now, helping you and your friends to kill Blackadder requires far more power than I can guarantee. If I do this, you know what the consequences will be? You, me, and every trace we have left in this world will be wiped out. We will no longer exist. Your memories, your honor, your battles, your friends, and yourself will all disappear. Death will only leave a silent soul, but we will have nothing left."
"Use the rules to change yourself..." Carlsen said to me very seriously, "...and never try to change the rules! I beg you to remember this sentence firmly."
