The Martial Unity

Rui didn’t delve into the topic of metaphysics very often, but with everything that he learned, he couldn’t help but ponder the nature of reality. He used to think that the material universe was the core of reality and the information dimension was a tertiary plane where all this information was recorded.

Now, he increasingly felt like the material universe was simply... a holographic projection of the information dimension.

An illusion.

”Almost like a simulation.”

He used to dismiss Simulation Theory as an explanation for the nature and origin of the universe, but now he found it difficult to deny.

”Maybe this universe is simply a simulation being run in a higher universe, in the labs of a university filled with higher lifeforms observing how a lower-dimensional universe unfolds under certain conditions.”

He smiled bitterly. ”I’m not sure I could adaptively evolve to that.”

Maybe he could. But he would end up being the AI villain in a sci-fi movie where a program inside a simulation hacked the simulation and took over the entire building and then spread across the world through the cloud.

He shook his head, putting aside such superfluous thoughts. The true nature of everything there was, including the information dimension, was beyond his fathoming even as a Transcendent. The fundamental questions of reality that every philosopher wasted a lot of grant funds on pondering were still unanswered.

He didn’t know where the universe came from, or the multiverse for that matter, since it seemed to exist. In some ways, it was almost relieving to know that there were questions the answers to which were equally unfathomable to him as they were to a curious child who wanted to understand where everything came from.

Rather than focusing on issues beyond his ability, he was more interested in those within it.

”Altering the boundary conditions of quantum gauge fields occupied by my body.”

It was a strange thing, inspecting the laws of one’s Martial Body. One often thought of laws as universal. One law that was attached to all aspects of reality. But the truth was that while there was one fundamental law, that law individually shackled every form of information in the information dimension.

Inspecting the laws of his Martial Body was like inspecting an extremely high-risk prisoner who was held in place by numerous shackles. This kind of treatment was usually reserved to the most egregious Martial Sages in the Void Regime, the kind who committed genocide and other crimes against humanity.

But it was unpleasant to see his own information form shackled, metaphorically speaking, with so many laws.

There were so many that it was hard to isolate the laws that he wanted. One often didn’t think about it, but the number of laws that everything had to follow in reality was actually much greater than the number of laws that countries had, which were already in the many thousands.

Not to mention, these were merely the laws of material reality. The laws of logic and of thought were even deeper in the information dimension beyond the layer of laws to a place that even he couldn’t reach.

He began sifting through all of the laws of reality, trying to find the boundary conditions of the quantum gauge field. It was unfortunate that the information dimension didn’t have a search engine; it would have made his life so much easier. Whoever designed the information dimension didn’t even have the courtesy to organize the laws in different categories like ’Quantum Mechanics’ or ’laws of motion.’ He could only go through them manually, one by one.

”Euclid’s axioms... not this. This... is the Pythagorean theorem, not this either. Not the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Hm, what’s this?”

He came across laws he had never seen before. But he could tell from the structure of the laws that they were wave functions describing strange exotic particles.

”Esoteric matter.” Rui’s eyes lit up. ”I’ll keep this in mind and share it with the Esoterist.”

He realized belatedly that the information dimension was an excellent way of doing research if one was a scientist. This meant that both Dwight and Argenton were going to be producing truly miraculous impossible technologies, which could potentially be mass-produced.

”Legislators are overpowered for civilizations,” Rui grumbled, continuing on with his long search.

After quite some time, he finally found what he was looking for.

The boundary conditions to the gauge field were an obnoxious set of equations that felt no different from a teacher screaming at students for merely laughing loudly in the corridors. Rui’s eyebrows furrowed when he saw just how restrictive they were. It was no wonder that entire dimensions of reality were hidden from all of them.

”This needs to go; I will not be restricted to the lowest planes of our universe. I am Water, and Water shall not be restricted.”

With that, he immediately got to work, exerting himself to the very limit. His Martialverse began rewriting the laws of his body, changing the boundary conditions. Of course, the speed and efficacy were laughably low. Compared to Argenton, who could meaningfully change reality noticeably, he made very minute baby steps.

By the time his metaphysical stamina came to an end, he had only changed the laws governing his body by 0.05%.

”This is too inefficient!” He cursed with frustration. ”I’m not a Legislator, so my Martialverse is not suited to making permanent changes to reality.”

Yet, just as his metaphysical stamina came to an end, a flash of an idea sparked in his mind.

”What if I... adaptively evolve my Martialverse to temporarily become a Legislator when I need it?”

The very idea caused him to become electrically excited. That was right. He was Water. He embodied adaptive evolution. Why the hell did he have to adhere to the same constraints that everybody else had to? He could become whatever he wanted!

However, this was the first time he had ever come up with the idea of adaptively evolving the nature of his Verse. He had absolutely no idea how to go about it. The idea had him so thrilled that he almost forgot to transfer his consciousness before he disappeared at the price of Transcendence.