A golden figure was floating in the middle of the circular auditorium. Hundreds of silver seats circled around her, with students listening attentively. They stared at the hologram in front of them as a white sphere slowly split and turned into innumerable smaller spheres.
"The Dimensional Paradox Theorem suggests that immediately after the Big-Bang, the universe split into many separate dimensions, beyond what we think of. Not just into single, stable dimensions like the third or fourth dimension. In between the large-stable dimensions, there exist innumerable"
"Look at him, he's drooling."
"This is almost a routine now"
Hearing the murmurings in the back, the golden figure in the white suit paused and turned around. It was just as she had guessed. It was him, once again.
Her podium slowly floated up.
“Shang Tian”
“Mmmm, let me sleep a bit more.”
Faint murmurs and laughter resounded in the large circular auditorium. Many humanoid and non-human figures sitting in front of the silver black desks stared at him in amusement.
“SHANG TIAN! Wake up.”
Long Tian woke up in a daze, rubbing his cheeks as he looked up at the golden face above him. She was looking at him with a pair of large white eyes, her purple pupils full of annoyance.
“Why do you attend my classes if you are just going to sleep?”
For attendance marks, of course!
Long Tian smiled sheepishly. She was wearing an elegant off-white suit. Other than her pale gold skin, she looked almost entirely human. Except for those disproportionately large, watery eyes. Even the livid expression on her face looked cute.
“I am sorry, Ma’am Elina. It won’t happen again.”
“THAT’S WHAT YOU SAY EVERY SINGLE TIME! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE DONE THIS? THIS IS THE SEVENTH TIME THIS MONTH.”
Staring at her fuming face,, he turned silent. He knew that any excuse would be like adding oil to a fire. He started feeling dizzy again as the golden figure kept barraging him with complaints.
“How many times do I have to tell you? You are privileged to even get a chance to study among the best of the best. Do you even know how many people dream of admitting their children here? Some even give up all of their assets just to pay the fees. But look at you, you have only slept and fooled around since you got admitted.”
Gazing at the sleepy face that barely listened to her, Elina Winston felt blood rushing towards her head.
“You are not going to take anything I say seriously, are you? Fine, Shang Tian! I am going to report this to your grandfather.”
She stared angrily at the Long Tian that had roused up again.
“And I will be lodging a formal complaint-”
Long Tian panicked at her words. His insomnia had gotten even worse than before. However, no matter how many times he explained it to her, she would just brush it off as an excuse.
He stared at the glowing diagram floating on his desk. A bunch of complex math and models of spatial dimensions kept morphing and changing into different colors of spheres, turning more and more complex with each change.
The theorem of dimensional paradox.
Even though his grandfather had advised him against catching any attention, he did not care anymore. He would do anything other than face Ria Ambert again.
“against you in the Student Council”
“Ma’am, what if I can solve this?”
All the students sitting around him gaped at his words. However, their incredulity soon turned into derision as they scoffed. He was really testing Ma’am Eliana’s patience today.
She paused at his boisterous words. Before long, her face morphed into a smile, as if she found it very amusing. Everyone in the room shivered.
“It’s over for Shang.”
A human with a glowing white rectangle in the middle of his eyebrows whispered in a small voice, his white pupil full of amusement.
Let alone him, even Ma'am could not solve this equation in one go. Since Sir Rix Robert proposed it, only a few have gotten close to solving it. The models and diagrams got too complex after step 4, and only Alex Walton has been able to successfully solve the entire theorem in one go.
This sloppy student who kept dozing off certainly did not seem like the second Alex Walton.
“Right? Give it a try. If you can even successfully get to step 5, I will let you slide this time. Not only that, I will also give you full marks in this course.”
Long Tian felt rejuvenated, his eyes sparkling with renewed vigor. However, her next line ruined his mood again.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“But if you fail to get to step 5 of the theorem, I should not see your face again this semester. You can stay home and sleep as long as you wish.”
Long Tian's expression became resolute. It seems like he had to show off a bit.
*Buzz*
A white bug floated out of his smooth white leather jacket, quickly transforming into a white headband. Soon, the circular model settled, turning into a whitish sphere with smidges of other colors in between. The model in front of everyone changed as well, now under the control of Long Tian.
All the students stared at the changing sphere with an air of indifference, clearly not convinced that he could calculate up to step 5.
After a few seconds, the diagram became volatile, evaporating and separating into ten strands of vibrant smoke. Each of the strands turned into a smaller white sphere, each slightly different from the others.
Step 2!
Soon, they changed once more, transforming into a thousand smaller glowing spheres.
Step 3!
Too fast!
Everyone in the room inhaled a sharp breath, gaping at the speed of change between each step. Madam Eliana seemed to be the most astonished one, her expression betraying a hint of surprise . She knew that Shang Tian had been admitted to the Institute of All-Heaven through a quota. Every year, a spot was secured for the almost extinct, original ‘homo sapiens’ in respect for Sir Alex.
As a result, she found him a bit of an eyesore, even more since he was not even using this opportunity.
The vibrant round spheres kept splitting again and again, turning into millions of colorful small spheres, some of them even black. The entire class turned silent as the diagram kept changing.
Step 5!
Everyone watching could no longer follow the number of changes. The round diagrams split even more, turning into an innumerable number of spheres, hovering like a sea of atoms over the entire auditorium. All the students stared at the kaleidoscope of vibrant colors. Even though they had seen this before, watching it live filled them with a sense of awe.
Soon, the spheres started merging into each other again. Each of them converged into the closest one. Eventually, they turned into seven single-colored spheres.
Red. Purple. Black. White. Blue. Yellow. Golden.
Step 9!
Everyone in the auditorium knew that they had witnessed something tremendous. A level 8 student calculating almost the entire dimensional theorem was unheard of.
They watched with anxious faces as the seven spheres merged into two.
A black sphere rotated clockwise, while a white sphere rotated counter-clockwise. However, just before they could stabilize and merge once more, both of them broke down. The model reverted to its original state, turning back to a mixed white sphere.
Sighs of regret resounded within the room.
The Law of Nature.
People only feel jealousy when someone close to or below their level is surpassing them. However, once someone has surpassed them by an unimaginable margin, they will unconsciously start rooting for them to do something even more momentous.
Like Alex Walton.
After staring at Long Tian's tired face for a while, Madam Eliana went back to the podium again, this time with a smile on her face.
********************
Long Tian woke up, finding himself in an old, brown bed. A musty, damp smell hit his nose. The brown room looked quite cramped in comparison to the one in Long Manor. The only similarity that could be found within the two was the reddish black table, and the black journals above it.
Even though he felt a faint metallic taste on his tongue, it was not as severe as before. He turned on the yellow tungsten light.
> 26th February
>
> HuaXia calendar year, 9302
>
> M.F 56.2
>
> This fragment seems to be from my later teenage years, probably from the time when I was 16–17. I seemed to have just transferred from Earth to Metalaran after getting admitted to Institute of All-Heaven. However, I could not find out the exact years. As usual, none of these dreams have allowed me to make any sort of additional movements of my own. I am more of a spectator of my own dreams. In the last two memory fragments, I did not even realize that I was dreaming until I woke up.
>
> Ironically, I was also sleeping within the dream.
He stopped writing and walked towards the white board on the left.
*Rippp*
Taking out another sticky note, he added it to the pristine white board, A brief timeline of his past life was itched into it now.
As a kid, he had grown up in an orphanage. He barely had any good memories from this period. His most bittersweet days were when the day of adoption came each year. He got ready every year, with a belly full of hopes. And every year, he ended his day full of disappointment.
That is, until the age of seven, when Grandpa adopted him. He was the first one to give Long Tian the warmth of a family. For five years, that warm coziness filled his soul, and he would not have minded if life just went on like that. Small, cozy, and a bit warm.
However, it seemed like his happiness was not written for long, as a cruel grasp snatched it away again. He had endured innumerable difficulties and pain from twelve to sixteen. Luckily, only a couple of the memory fragments were from that time, limiting his pain to the bare minimum.
After that, he only knew what the memory fragments showed him.
Prior to this, he did not have a strong wish to know about his past life. He largely hated the memory fragments, as they reminded him of his miserable life. However, everything changed after memory fragment no. 57. He had to know.
Did he choose to go to Lab Eighteen? And what happened to his family?
As the old elevator brought him back up to ground level, he stared at the small, cozy room with a bit of love and reluctance. If possible, he really did not want to leave this place. However, his life never went as he wished it to.
Walking towards the fridge, he brought out a small red bottle.
Breathing in the strong smell of lime and raspberries, he chugged it down entirely. A strong heat transmitted from his throat towards his belly, leaving him with a sense of dizziness. This bottle, although small, had a dense Qi infused in it.
Sitting on the black couch, he stared at the picture of him on his mother's lap. His eyes were full of love as he whispered.
"Mother, my world has turned two shades darker without you."
A thick, deep Mandarin full of reminiscence echoed throughout the small room.
"Ever since you left six years ago, my world has turned upside down. I started having these weird dreams that have been slowly killing me. The ghosts of my past haunt me, mother."
Soon, His eyes watered, and his entire face slowly got soaked in tears.
"The language you are hearing now is from my past life. It has a pretty intimidating name, you know. MANDARIN. HA!"
He laughed, trying to control his own mood. However, that only seemed to aggravate his repressed pain.
"I am tired, Mother. I am tired of destiny stringing me along."
His tone turned softer and softer.
"I hate that I am being left WITH NO CHOICE."
*thud*
He abruptly stood up and threw the bottle in his hand towards the wall with full strength.
Only a few bits of plaster fell. There was not even a single scratch on the bottle.
"HMPH"
Long Tian scoffed at himself.
"SHANG TIAN, YOU ARE WEAK. IN BOTH OF YOUR LIVES, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE MOMENT WHERE YOU WERE FULLY IN CONTROL OF YOUR OWN FATE!"
As the entire room reverberated with his cracking voice, he fell down groggily. A loss of control over his five senses caused him to lose his balance. Staring up at the picture with great difficulty, his eyes were full of conviction.
"I will not allow myself to be controlled by fate this time."