Sothing was off!
The mont Volent's words slipped up, Cheng Shi knew he'd been deceived.
Over a dozen failures — and the fault lay not with the experint, but with people!
The Erudition Presidium — no, the six Grand Scholar puppets were the problem!
Although everything they'd said had technically been true, in hindsight, not a single word of that truth was genuine.
It was even possible that they hadn't been affected by the Ti Battlefield's resets at all, retaining their mories from every previous iteration of the experint.
What did that imply? It ant either they possessed so ans of resisting [Ti], or the mastermind behind this experint had long since transcended the Ti Battlefield's domain and was manipulating everything from a dinsion above it!
Only that could explain why these puppets reset alongside him ti after ti yet retained mories spanning every iteration!
'This is bad. I knew this Trial couldn't be that simple!'
But the question remained — what were they after?
The atmosphere inside the experint site tensed instantly. The six puppet Grand Scholars fixed the players with grave stares, as if they were about to launch an ambush on the very people who'd co to help.
And right then, Cheng Shi heard Galusha snicker behind him.
"Heh. So it wasn't
they were waiting for — it was you.
How interesting. Volent, I'm rather curious — just how many of my slices did you capture before you reconstructed
here?"
"!!!"
What did she an?
Cheng Shi's heart sank like a stone. His mind raced, trying to decipher what "the Grand Scholars were waiting for 'you'" ant — who exactly did that "you" refer to?
It couldn't possibly be the players!
Impossible!
As NPCs within a Trial, no matter how vast the Grand Scholars' perspective might be, they shouldn't be able to know about players' existence. That was a fundantal rule of the Faith Ga — a right protected by the Convention.
And even if the Grand Scholars had sohow learned of the players' existence, what would be the point of targeting them?
Players weren't the ones destroying the Tower of Logic. Even if you killed all six players in the Trial, would the Tower be rebuilt? No!
Would [Truth] endure because of it? Also n—
Wait!
At that thought, Cheng Shi's pupils contracted and his eyes flew wide open.
Why couldn't it?
The Trial's hint was "finite truth is never truth." He'd previously interpreted this as aning the players needed to ensure [Truth] wasn't severed on the Land of Hope — save the Tower of Logic, help the Erudition Presidium complete the experint.
But what if, instead of thinking from the angle of "truth being severed," he approached it from the angle of "truth enduring"? Wouldn't that free him from the geographical constraint of the Land of Hope?
Once his perspective leaped beyond the Land of Hope — no longer confined to the crumbling Tower of Logic — and he considered that the Erudition Presidium's true targets weren't Galusha but the players...
All of these threads, woven together, seed to form one possibility — an unthinkable yet perfectly fitting possibility:
These old foxes appeared to be using this experint as bait, intending to steal the players' identities! By doing so, they could break free from the shackles of history and perpetuate their "truth" in the current era!
As for how they'd break free...
The Ritual of Truth!?
Pe Laya had said that anything containing a core truth could serve as fuel for the Ritual of Truth to reconstruct all things. People lived by following natural laws and inherently possessed core truth — so what difference was there between players and NPCs, aside from their identity?
Probably none. And even if there was, under the universal laws of [Truth], as long as the players were used as "fuel" and "templates," whatever was produced should co out roughly the sa!
The realization hit Cheng Shi like a thunderbolt, sending chills crawling down his spine.
It wasn't the threat of being targeted by NPCs that frightened him. What terrified him was the implication — if this theory was correct, it didn't just an NPCs had their eyes on the players. It could an a higher existence had told the NPCs at the very start of this Trial that "escaping" was an option!
And who could that higher existence be?
Who else!
[Truth] had gone mad!?
How could a god do sothing like this!?
What about the Convention — wasn't it supposed to stop this kind of cheating?
Unease flickered in Cheng Shi's eyes. He turned to look at Galusha, who let out another derisive snort:
"Looks like you're not as stupid as I thought. What's wrong — figured it out?
My guess is that everything we've seen was an experint from the start. We just happen to be variables within it.
And here I was, carefully approaching this regression experint, trying to thread a connection through ti to awaken a future version of myself. Turns out even my current self is a fabrication.
This is the Ritual of Truth — the power to reconstruct everything!
Who would've guessed that the Tusnat we've been seeing is actually a city reconstructed into an experint ground by the Ritual of Truth?
Heh. But if that's the case, then it seems you aren't the chess masters on the board I imagined, Prisoner. You're rely a different kind of chess piece than us.
Volent and the others seem to have grown tired of being pieces. They want a new identity to live as — and you're the unlucky souls they've chosen.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. What a truly fascinating world this is!"
"!!!"
'This is all an experint, and we're just variables within it!?'
Cheng Shi froze, staring at everything before him as a sudden wave of familiarity washed over him.
His thoughts instantly flew back to San Dales — that abyssal city fabricated by the Tower of Logic. He rembered Crown, the countless citizens screaming in despair through the blizzard, and the Consciousness Faith Departnt.
Yes — Cheng Shi recalled that a similar "Creator" experint had been conducted by the Consciousness Faith Departnt. And now... the man standing atop the experintal platform, looking down at him — Volent, the first Grand Scholar of the Erudition Presidium — was the very pioneer who'd founded the Consciousness Faith Departnt!
He was intimately familiar with this kind of experint!
So everything Cheng Shi had experienced was a lie — nothing more than an experint!
It all made sense now. The power of [Ti] had been contained within this experint, and as the experint's controllers, the Grand Scholars had been silently observing everything from beyond its boundaries.
They were likely searching for the right mont to move against the players. They just hadn't expected a minor verbal slip to trigger a cascade of unpredictable experintal deviations.
Now the variables within the experint seed to have uncovered this massive deception. So what would the Grand Scholars do?
The real Tusnat.
In the underground laboratory beneath the western timber warehouse, the six Grand Scholars listened to the sounds of the Afterglow Church's pillaging and slaughter outside. They stared at the massive observation screen before them in collective silence.
After a short while, one of them spoke: "Just as the Benefactor said — they are not foolish. Volent, what do we do now?"
Standing at the experint master's station, Volent raised his eyelids calmly and replied:
"No need for alarm. We can deal with this after we complete the task our Benefactor has bestowed upon us.
The second activation of the Ritual of Truth also requires ti. Let them fumble about in their fear a while longer. Once the fuel has been marked... you and I shall have new identities to accompany our Benefactor once more.
Peer into essence, walk to find truth!
We are no longer far from the real [Truth]."
...
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