Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

In Fang Zheng’s view, Academy City itself doesn’t actually look that advanced. The anime claims it’s thirty years ahead of outside technology, but to Fang Zheng it’s more like three years at best...... Strictly speaking, aside from the buildings looking a bit newer and having a stronger sci‑fi vibe, Academy City doesn’t look any more sci‑fi than anywhere else.

Of course, there’s no way it can be compared to the Heavenly Dao Palace.

After a quick sightseeing bus tour around Academy City, everyone arrived at one of the schools to experience a simulated Superpower development class. The one giving the lecture was someone about the height of an elementary school kid, and in fact gave off a full-on elementary schooler vibe...... Teacher Little Meng.

It wasn’t until then that Fang Zheng finally forced himself to perk up a little and started listening carefully to her explanation.

”...... In summary, in the Superpower development curriculum conducted in Academy City, the most important thing is the Personal Reality, that is, acquiring a reality that belongs only to yourself. This is the foundation of all Superpowers......”

Mhm mhm......

”And in the process of understanding Personal Reality, one cannot avoid the quantum theory based on the Uncertainty Principle proposed by Heisenberg......”

Mhm mhm......... Huh? The hell is this?

”What they have in common is that their goal is probability theory......”

Haaah.........?

At this point Fang Zheng was completely dumbfounded. He stared at Teacher Little Meng on the podium, feeling utterly bewildered.

Are you freaking kidding me right now?

What the hell kind of random crap is this?

Sure, what you’re saying sounds all tall and fancy, but at its core how the hell is this any different from that old ”qigong particle research” and ”wave quantum speed-reading” bullshit?

Aren’t they all just scams?! I came here for a Superpower lecture, can you say something that isn’t complete nonsense? You’re tying Superpowers together with quantum mechanics so it sounds high-end and classy, but do these two things have even a cent’s worth of actual connection?

Forget it, maybe this is just the public-facing PR version.

Considering Superpower development is Academy City’s ace in the hole, they obviously wouldn’t trot out the real Superpower development curriculum during a public tour. If someone stole it and set up their own Superpower development program somewhere else...... hehe, wouldn’t that be dumb as hell?

So Fang Zheng quickly adjusted his mentality, focused on petting the cat, while Riko was the one listening with great interest. For her, who had always been discriminated against by her family for having no abilities, Academy City’s Superpower development was basically her last straw of hope. She had no idea that, in Fang Zheng’s eyes, all this was just complete bullshit......

After sitting through one whole class that, to Fang Zheng, was nothing but incoherent MLM brainwashing, Teacher Little Meng finally took a break and then invited a few Superpower students up to do demonstrations. Only then did Fang Zheng get a bit interested. He was a Deity, after all; for this kind of thing, he could basically understand the essence just by taking one look.

The only pity was that none of the Superpower Users who came were ones Fang Zheng recognized. They all looked like background extras at best, definitely not LV5. The stuff they showed off was also pretty basic Superpowers, like Psychokinesis, manipulating water flow and such. But as he watched...... Fang Zheng did notice a few things.

However......

”This is actually pretty interesting.”

Touching his chin as he watched the Superpower demonstration up front, Fang Zheng couldn’t help but narrow his eyes. Although it did look very Superpower-y, and was Superpower by any reasonable definition, Fang Zheng could see that this so‑called Superpower was, in essence, the same thing as Magic from The Familiar of Zero’s world!

It was all particle manipulation!

It’s just that, in The Familiar of Zero’s world, due to differing properties they split it into the four elements of wind, water, fire, and earth, whereas this world went down the path of scientific classification. But in essence, there wasn’t much difference. For example, that Psychokinesis Superpower User would be a Wind Mage if you dropped him into Zero’s World, and that Ability User who manipulated water flow would be a Water Mage in Zero’s World......

The operational principle was basically the same too: think in your head, obtain a model, then manipulate particles into the form you want.

It’s just that Zero’s World was a bit more ”Magicland” about that step. Like, for treating injuries, Zero’s World’s Healing Technique is based on the perception of ”after finishing the Spell Text Chant, the wound will heal.” But in this world, it changes into an idea like ”manipulate liquid to accelerate coagulation and repair the wound.”

Different wording, same essence.

But that’s not surprising. After all, according to the records of that world, the ”Mages” of Zero’s World were originally people from this world. Although the story goes that the Founder opened a gate to Zero’s World with a big group of his tribe to escape another tribe’s pursuit, if you think about it even a little, there’s no way there was only that one tribe on the entire Earth. The Founder took his tribe and ran off to Zero’s World, but wouldn’t the other Ability Users still be staying in this world?

Come to think of it, they actually want to counterattack this world...... hehehe, they probably wouldn’t even know how they died.

Good thing the Red Ponytail stopped them.

But thinking about it more carefully, if Louise came to this world, then she’d more or less have to be an LV5 Superpower User, right? After all, she’s a Void Sorcerer, and Void Magic, bluntly put, is the ability to manipulate atoms. That’s also why every time Louise tries to Release other Magic it always explodes— you’re using a method meant for manipulating molecules to manipulate atoms; isn’t blowing things up the most natural outcome?

But either way, this has jack shit to do with any kind of quantum theory or the Uncertainty Principle. Sure, if you already have Superpowers and can manipulate particles, then studying these theories might help deepen your control and research. But this is supposed to be Superpower development. You’re telling people who can’t even handle basic arithmetic to go learn calculus? Are you brain-damaged or what.

Public courses really are all bullshit.

With that in mind, Fang Zheng immediately opened his personal terminal and hacked into Academy City’s network system to check out their teaching plans. And then...... the more he read, the more shocked he became, because...... this stuff was complete nonsense from the ground up!

According to the teaching materials Fang Zheng dug up, the so‑called ”Personal Reality” was indeed the core of Academy City’s Superpower development. But its foundation was really bizarre.

And that foundation was: belief!

Believe in yourself———fine, that one still sounds somewhat reliable.

Believe in the world———this one... I honestly don’t even know what to say.

Believe in science———now that’s just pure nonsense!

Looking at the whole thing, Fang Zheng’s feeling was that this crappy place isn’t scientific at all!

What does ”believing in science” even mean? Science is a way of looking at things, a way to evaluate something’s value using a scientific worldview and methodology.

But what do they mean by ”believing in science” here?

It means believing in every single scientific theory!

This left Fang Zheng at a total loss for words... No scientific theory is Truth; they all have to be tested, and there’s a good chance later discoveries will overturn earlier reasoning. Yet in Academy City the teachers treat scientific theories as absolute truth, demanding that students ”worship” them so they can shape their own ”Personal Reality”!

From Fang Zheng’s point of view, this was complete and utter bullshit!

In other words, to be a Superpower User, you first have to firmly, religiously believe that the basic theory underpinning your ability is an eternal, immutable truth!?

Is this supposed to be a joke?

What if science advances and new discoveries overturn the old theories—what happens to these people then?

If a Superpower User who’s a devout geocentrist runs into heliocentrism, what’s he supposed to do?

Blow his own brains out or what?!

What kind of bullshit Superpower development is this, it’s obviously just religious brainwashing! This is straight up a Church of Science!

After figuring all this out, Fang Zheng finally unraveled the confusion he’d had back when he watched the anime. When he watched Forbidden Magic and the Railgun spin-off, there were a bunch of parts that had always baffled him. Take the Tree Diagram Designer, for instance: in the anime it’s described as a super computer that can’t be surpassed for the next twenty-five years, and it gives perfectly accurate weather forecasts for every single day.

But at the end of the day, it’s just a computer!

So what happened?

Oh, Tree Diagram Designer says that if you kill twenty thousand Misaka Mikoto clones you can Upgrade to LV6, so everyone happily goes off to do it.

Tree Diagram Designer says this plan won’t work, and the scientists immediately fall into despair—my god, if even Tree Diagram Designer says this won’t work, then my idea must be wrong! There’s nothing more we can do!

When Fang Zheng watched the anime back then, he just thought it was stupid.

It’s just a computer!

Even if it’s twenty-five years ahead of the world, it’s still just a computer, right? So why do all those teachers and scientists in Academy City treat its commands almost like divine revelations to be worshipped?

Is that normal?

Is that how a normal, rational scientific researcher reacts?

And anyway, even if Tree Diagram Designer says killing twenty thousand Misakas will Upgrade someone, so what? What theory is that based on? What model produced that conclusion? Aren’t the model and computational methods designed by humans in the first place? Take Fang Zheng himself—he could just as easily design a framework right now that spits out ”if you kill twenty thousand Misakas, so-and-so can Upgrade to LV6.” That’s not hard at all, is it?

All you have to do is upload that model.

When it comes down to it, Tree Diagram Designer is just a supercomputer, not even an AI, yet these people actually take its output as the truth... Fang Zheng had finally figured out why.

After all this, this damn place clearly isn’t some kind of science city—it’s obviously a Holy City for the Church of Science!

”Enough, Riko, don’t listen to this bullshit anymore.”

After the tour was over, Fang Zheng also made up his mind.

This crappy place is basically here to ruin kids; anyone who comes in is paying an IQ tax for real!

”Eh? All of that was bullshit?”

Riko, who had been really excited just now, was quite shocked when she heard Fang Zheng.

”But it all sounded pretty reasonable to me, and Academy City really does have a lot of Superpower Users...”

”They do have a lot, sure, but they have even more Non-Ability Users. Academy City’s Superpower development is totally unreliable. Whatever, after seeing all this today I already know what this Superpower development really is. Once we’re back, I’ll personally do it for you!”

”Ehhh—————!?”