Chapter 458 - The Lost Controller, The World’s Truth!
Chapter 458 The Lost Controller, The World’s Truth!
The game’s position was full of contradictions. Sometimes, it would be ruthless, inflicting all kinds of punishments without mercy, taking away human lives from the wasteland.
At other times, it would distribute rewards and punishments fairly. Anyone who deserved a reward would not get a penny less than what they deserved.
In the long run, the game would only cause more and more humans to distrust it.
On the flip side, it also never changed its ways and executed its duties and responsibilities steadfastly. This was something that had been tried and tested many times.
Su Mo thought that those duties and responsibilities were like remnant commands from the game’s creator or operator. These commands were absolute, and the game could only obey and modulate its actions within certain parameters.
What he did not foresee was that—his guess was correct!
“You guessed right! We humans aren’t the masterminds of this universe or dimension.” “Your world, my world, the world we currently reside in together with foreign races, plus the 6896 other Earths, all don’t belong to us.”
“They all belong to the game, and to the gamemaster.” Jiang Chu spread out his hands to shut off the screen with a sigh of resignation.
The next second, a bottle of cola appeared in the grasp of his bluish phantom figure, which he poured into his stomach.
No one would ever accept the fact that their existence was merely a small piece of someone else’s private property.
No one would also accept that the Earth and the universe they lived in were nothing more than playthings for the other party. In Jiang Chu’s memory, when this scary reality became common knowledge, countless researchers nearly went mad.
They observed, reasoned, calculated, and simulated but, in the end, they all chose to give up. It was a fact and the truth! “The Earth we lived on was some parallel universe, it was just the gamemaster cutting corners and purchasing the same product in batches, creating planets of the same model.”
“The universe we’re in is also not a real one, but also a generic template that the gamemaster bought, which he then uploaded us into.”
“The world we live in is real, but also fake and, because we were fooled from the outset, we lived our lives never being able to come up with a method of escaping or lifting those shackles.”
“It was the suppression of the other dimensions that resulted in human kind suffering the greatest contempt!” “In the eyes of the beings of the higher dimension, we’re just like ants locked up in an incubator, whose only purpose is to be observed and laughed at for eternity!”
Jiang Chu’s words did not contain personal feelings nor attachment.
These words were spat out from his mouth like a documentary narration.
Even so, after his voice quieted down, the blood-colored water outside writhed about immediately while the ground erupted with bursts of flames.
Obviously, he had roused this world’s wrath by exposing the hidden rules.
Fortunately, Jiang Chu was already dead, and everything he just said was part of an audio he had pre-recorded for Su Mo.
This strange phenomena outside ceased and everything became tranquil once again, avoiding the game’s attention.
“How is it? Are you flabbergasted?”
“Back then, when I found out about this, it took me two hundred and twenty years before I came back to my senses!” Seeing that Su Mo was still seated in front of the table in deep thought, Jiang Chu turned off the pre-recorded audio and smirked.
“Indeed! Unexpectedly finding out that one’s own world is someone else’s plaything would be hard for anyone to accept”, Su Mo smiled as he lifted his head.
His response left Jiang Chu in shock; it was as if he had just seen a monster. “It can’t be! Su Mo! Don’t tell me that you’re already able to accept this reality?”
Su Mo raised his eyebrows, “No, it’s only this way because before you told me, I had already guessed as much!”
Jiang Chu was stunned into silence. He could not understand how a depressing reality, that took him two hundred years or so to accept, had taken only a few minutes for Su Mo. This was despite the fact that he had already accepted that Su Mo was a genius.
Jiang Chu sat on his stool with a dejected expression on his face. Those who were a half-step quicker than others when it came to the affairs of the world were considered wise.
If they were one step quicker, they would be demons.
If they were ten steps quicker, they would be Gods.
For someone like Su Mo who was a hundred, or even a thousand steps ahead, he was an incomprehensible freak!
“What you’re saying is that, in this world they created, it is fair to say that we will never be able to ascend beyond dimensions? And that all the information and data we have is just what that other party intends and allows us to obtain and see?”
Jiang Chu nodded. “Yes! Even though no one knows what happened to the gamemaster that caused it to lose control over the game, the administrator it left behind is still working its hardest to maintain the balance of the game.”
Their roles were flipped. Su Mo was now the one who held the initiative and was asking the questions, while Jiang Chu was the one answering
What Jiang Chu did not realize was that Su Mo could accept it so quickly not because of his talent or knowledge, but rather because he had seen something from a higher dimension personally—the system!
It was the only way to crush the game, and perhaps even the gamemaster’s existence. Since he possessed the system, Su Mo did not panic about his situation, but instead grew excited.
As a follow-up question, Su Mo asked again,” If we want to change our fate and go beyond our dimension, we must first defeat the game administrator and obtain all his authority. Are you of the opinion that we will only be able to figure out how to escape this cycle after gaining the power to decide our own fate?” Jiang Chu replied, “Yes, we are now ants in an incubator. We must first be able to gain control of this incubator before we can even think about opening it and climbing out of the incubator.”
“The game is our biggest obstacle. It is the incubator’s intelligent operating system that abides by the rules and regulations that have been predetermined for it.”
“If our population is too large, it will summon the “ant exterminator” and create meteorites, interplanetary collisions, epidemics, wildfires, earthquakes, plummeting global temperatures, floods, gravitational fluctuations, continental collisions, and other supernatural disasters to diminish our numbers. If our population is too low, it will initiate a series of proliferation measures and restore the environment in order to allow us to recuperate!”
“If those from the Butterfly space-time continuum had failed to open the portal to the wasteland, and then later open the portals to the other dimensions in the incubator, we humans on Earth would still be in the dark about the truth, waiting for extraterrestrial civilization to arrive like idiots!”
“Anyway, this is also the case of the game digging its own grave. It figured out that something was wrong and started revoking the authority of the wasteland’s gods. However, the game had no way of outrightly massacring these gods, so it allowed us humans to become players. We logged in using our consciousness, and were given the ability to infinitely respawn and, through missions, obtain the wasteland’s authority. In the end though, the game retrieved the authority by taking back the bodies we used as ‘carriers’ when we became players.” “It’s just that, when we humans accumulated authority exceeding 35%, it destroyed the game’s equilibrium completely. As such, it had to hastily increase the number of living beings in this world, forcing it to level the playing field early. Once it got rid of our ability to respawn, we first-generation Gods, before our death, gave up our authority so that the humans from Earth who would come after us could inherit it. This was equivalent to us using our bodies and consciousness to obtain authority in a way that was even less under the game’s jurisdiction!”
Su Mo looked thoughtful and asked, “Then why would the game summon us to the wasteland to participate in this survival game?”
Up to this point, Su Mo had almost pieced together the entire picture regarding his speculation based on the earlier explanations provided by Jiang Chu.
After all the explanations and questions, it all circled back around to what the primary goal was for humans participating in the game. This was an unavoidable point. “This was the result of a thousand years of effort by the humans on the wasteland, and the compromise we reached with the game. In other words, it’s the bug we worked ourselves into!”
Hearing the word “bug” come out of Jiang Chu’s mouth, Su Mo was naturally happy.
Jiang Chu, who was still sitting opposite him, also finally shook off the shock caused by Su Mo earlier and started smiling again. “Just as I said before, when our population is too large, the game will activate reduction measures, whereas when our population is too low, the game will activate proliferation measures.”
Su Mo nodded.
Jiang Chu continued, “As such, there is an incongruity in the rules!”
“When we’re at war with the game to fight for authority, the mass culling of human lives would result in our population quickly reaching the lower limit of the game’s settings. When that happens, according to the rules, the game must activate the proliferation measures to increase the number of humans to avoid our population decreasing past the point of no return, otherwise the game administrator would be punished, or perhaps the game might even be forced to shut down.”
“However, just think about it. If it stopped fighting with us and helped us to increase our numbers again, wouldn’t that be the same as changing his position from an enemy to an ally? That would give us the chance to obtain all the authority.”
“Hence, the game had no choice but to negotiate and parley with us in order to protect its interest and avoid the destruction of the incubator.”
Speaking of this, Su Mo involuntarily tightened his chest.
It would have taken immense human sacrifice to take advantage of this loophole in the rules and get to this step.
However, it would be the first time humans had achieved success in the war against the higher dimensions!
“This negotiation had three participating parties.”
“First, the game; second, the humans; and third, the native inhabitants.
“All the native inhabitants surrendered because of the humans’ crazy invasion. They had no way to fight back and gave up the 28% of authority they possessed to the game from the outset in exchange for the privilege to be able to bring their people to other planets, which were different compartments of the incubator, to survive.”
“With the game’s protection there, they would be able to proliferate and prosper. Their gods would also be protected by the game and continue to possess longevity.” “We humans were naturally one of the warring factions, and we sought to make a bet with the
game.”
Su Mo asked, “The main battlefield where this bet would be decided was the wasteland?”
Jiang Chu nodded. “Yes, it’s the wasteland!”
“For this bet, we used the 43% of authority in our hands as a wager to gain the remaining 57%. We placed all the authority in a huge safe space. Everyone lost their authority at that moment and returned to the same starting line. Whoever could get 51% of the authority first would be granted the remainder and become the true owner of the incubator!”
“From that point onward, the real battle began!”
Jiang Chu once again glanced at the 1.46% authority flowing through Su Mo with great admiration, after which he continued, “We agreed that, on the wasteland, the game can continue summoning humans from other sections of the incubator, as well as other living beings, to fulfill the conditions for the game, including reduction measures such as disasters. Those who stood out and performed well would be rewarded with authority.” “For example, if we humans who arrived with nothing could survive the disasters using our own ability, we’d obtain some authority.”
“It was the same for the foreign races. They could send people to fight us for the authority rewards given out by the game.”
“The only exception is that, if we humans relied on 80% or more of the abilities given by the game to survive the disasters, it would be recognized as them receiving the assistance of the game, which meant that the game could take their authority away.”
“After such a long time, we humans only managed to accumulate 12.1% authority, while the game’s authority has risen to 14.9% recently. Your 1.46% would help us bridge that massive gap! Awesome!”Jiang Chu gave Su Mo a thumbs up after saying all that in one breath.
Seeing the amazement on Su Mo’s face, Jiang Chu thought that his overwhelming praise had worked wonders and enthusiastically prepared to continue showering him with more flattery.
What he did not see coming was the previously silent Su Mo speaking up abruptly, “Hold on! If we humans survive disasters using our own abilities, how do we check our authority…”
Jiang Chu seemed astonished. “Eh? Can’t you check yours now? Oh, right! I forgot yours was obtained via a backdoor method from Bai Zhan Tang. If your other identity possesses authority, you just have to…”
Su Mo lowered his head and thought for a while as Jiang Chu uttered a spell rapidly.
Su Mo then swapped his identity without hesitation and started doing just as Jiang Chu instructed
The next second-boom!
Jiang Chu stared at Su Mo with so much surprise that his jaw almost hit the floor.
A more striking divine light than his previous 1.46% authority shone from-Su Mo’s body!