“Ah, Lady Daoli. I never expected that someone as unreasonable as you would belong to the Bulai Kingdom.” Shuxue took the Limit jade slip off his forehead and sat up in his chair. “Are you part of the panel here to propose changes to my Infinity Sector?”
“Yes.” Daoli straightened her dress as she took a seat at the front of the conference room. “I will be presenting methods to resolve diplomatic issues peacefully, and proposing the formation of a committee to manage such affairs.”
Shuxue looked at a guard. “Get her out of here.”
“Yes, Patriarch!” The guard saluted before dragging Daoli out.
“Hmm… these laws of Limits are such a letdown. The only use they have is to make my attacks more continuous.” Shuxue grumbled. “When I become a mathematical lifeform, the Laws of Linear Algebra will far outstrip that of the early Calculus stage.”
After a little while, the entirety of the Infinity Sector’s ministers had been gathered, as well as Xiaobai, the Sphinx, and Jijian. Xuezhe, the king of the Bulai Kingdom, entered along with another dwarf and Minister Fengshui.
“Ahem.” Fengshui walked to the front of the conference room, dragging a strange device with her. “As you all know, planar war is imminent.”
“Yup.” Shuxue drawled. “You say that a lot.”
“Yes, I do. It has come to my attention that we are not adequately prepared for some aspects of the planar war. For one, I propose that we begin relocating the Infinity Sector’s base underground.” Fengshui pointed downwards.
“What? Why would we do that?” Zhujiao shouted. “I don’t want to live under a rock!”
Xuezhe coughed. “Zhujiao, planar wars are very, very dangerous for those that live on the surface of a plane. Not only can the people on the planar battlefield go to the bottom of the planar battlefield to bombard us, planar wars can also cause fluctuations in gravity.”
“No way!” Zhujiao yelled. “How does that work?”
“I’m glad you asked, Zhujiao.” Fengshui nodded solemnly. “As everyone knows, our world is flat, 10,000 kilometers thick and with infinite length and width. The part of the plane that is saturated with mathforce is like a leaf on the top of an ocean of mathematical space.”
“Yeah! Of course our plane is flat!” Zhujiao pounded the table. “Hurry up!”
“By gathering mathforce, our leaf becomes denser and sinks deeper into the ocean! This is equivalent to the plane rising up the Tesseract.” Fengshui smiled. “When our leaf drifts past another nearby leaf, planar war occurs. At that point, the two leaves are locked together until the planar war is concluded, and they will rise up the Tesseract together.”
Fengshui unrolled a poster. “But at the conclusion of the planar war, the winning side will get a boost in gravity, whereas the losing side will for a short period of time lose gravity or even acquire negative gravity! What that means, is, just by jumping during this time period, you will fly out of our plane into boundless mathematical space.”
“Wait, what?” Jijian leaned forward, drinking in every word. “What does gravity have to do with planar war?”
“Gravity is essentially the rate of acceleration our plane has as it rises up the Tesseract.” Fengshui explained. “Along with the Laws of Mathnetism, the Laws of Gravity are the two great forces governing the Tesseract. The Laws of Mathnetism are obscure and unfathomable, but it’s said that their effects become more apparent the higher you are in the Tesseract. Anyway, if our plane stops accelerating, gravity will instantly disappear! Let me repeat: if you jump while we are in zero gravity, you may never even return to this plane!”
“What? That’s completely strange!” Jijian shook his head. “Gravity in the Multiverse is totally different.”
“Yes, well, the density of our plane, which regulates the rate of our ascension through the Tesseract, is dependent on the mathematical formations that contain mathforce. Currently, all these formations are on the surface of our Weakest Plane!” Fengshui’s face looked worried now. “All the Trash Plane has to do is go to the bottom of the Planar Battlefield, which will fly circles above our Weakest Plane, and launch attacks. If they destroyed enough mathematical formations, gravity could stop or even be reversed! We would instantly be obliterated!”
“The reason why we are the Weakest Plane is that every single person here lives on the surface! In all other planes, the people live underground so that the fluctuations in gravity resulting from warfare do not impact them as much.” Fengshui explained. “Thus, even if they lose a planar war or even half of their mathematical formations gets obliterated in internecine warfare, they would be fine.”
“Hold up!” Zhujiao yelled. “But no gravity is only a problem if we lose the planar war or some mathematical formations, right?”
“Uh… correct.” Fengshui nodded.
“Then whatever! We never lose!” Zhujiao yelled. “Next problem!”
“Zhujiao, please take this seriously.” Fengshui looked quite annoyed. “Going underground is the safest option for all-”
“Nuh-uh!” Zhujiao folded his arms. “I don’t want to live under a rock! We are going to trash the Trash Plane and every single other plane we fight and we will never sink.”
“Only the Strongest Plane and the Weakest Plane can live on the surface!” Fengshui complained. “Before, we wouldn’t have problems with gravity because we were too weak to have planar wars. Now that we are transitioning past the rest of the planes in the Tesseract, we will no longer be able to live on the surface with impunity.”
“We are the Strongest Plane!” Zhujiao smiled. “Next problem!”
After a moment, Xuezhe came forward, shuffling through some papers. “Very well, Grand Ancestor. Currently, our plane’s gravity is 3.4 meters per second per second. It is expected-”
“What? More gravity talk!” Zhujiao yelled. “Next!”
Shuxue took his legs off the table. “Let’s go over the battle preparations, Fengshui.”
Fengshui sighed. “Yes. We will need to equip our Corps with the proper mathforce channeling equations, derivative artifacts, and proof rods. Xuezhe’s dwarves are installing proof artillery into our Infinity Pillar, to be used for bombing the Planar Battlefield when the time comes.”
“Aye.” Xuezhe nodded. “I will do a demonstration when this meeting concludes.”
“Oh, right.” Shuxue pointed at Zhujiao. “You need to get rid of your factorial channeling equation. It’s the most inefficient and wasteful mathforce channeling equation I’ve ever seen, and is completely useless against derivative artifacts.”
“Fine!” Zhujiao shrugged. “Then what do I get?”
“I suggest y=50000. That way, you can put 50,000 points of mathforce into each attack, rather than 1, then 2, then 6, then 24, then 120, then 300,000.” Shuxue scratched his head. “I’m sure there are several in our Infinity Treasury. As for myself, I will be going with y=7000 since my mathforce pool is low.”
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“You should mathivate more, Shuxue.” Fengshui eyed him exasperatedly. “Our Infinity Sector is in no shortage of pearls.”
“How do I do that?” Shuxue sniffed. “My left hand is always pressing jade slips to my forehead and my right hand isn’t under my control. There’s simply nothing I can use to eat the pearls.”
“Fine, fine. Let us look at my telescope.” Fengshui pointed at the strange device.
“Wait, what? We’re indoors, why would we look at a telescope?” Jijian’s eyes bugged.
Fengshui looked at Jijian as if he was an idiot. “I have focused the telescope on the Trash plane, which is fast approaching. You can count the number and position of the mathematical lifeforms by looking at it.
Zhujiao rammed his head into the telescope. It disappeared into his forehead.
“Damn!” Zhujiao said, annoyed. He pulled the telescope out again. “What are all these shiny specks of light, big sis Fengshui?”
“Stars, obviously. You’ve never seen stars?” Jijian asked, a befuddled expression on his face.
“Stars? I only see stars when I get punched really hard. And I never get punched really hard!” Zhujiao shouted.
“They’re not stars, Jijian has clearly taken too many of the Sphinx’s pills.” Fengshui sighed. “Those are the mathematical lifeforms of the Trash plane. If you could count to 320, you’d find that there are 320 mathematical lifeforms.”
“But I can only count to 10!” Zhujiao said. “So then there must only be 10 mathematical lifeforms, because if I counted to 320 by counting up to 10 and then restarting from 1, then I would leave off with 10!”
“… Did you just do a fairly advanced division technique?” Xiaobai asked. He had been keeping a cool silence this entire time, but now he was so surprised that his eyeballs would pop out of his head if they could. “Well done, Zhujiao!”
If anyone else said this, it would have been laced with sarcasm. But Xiaobai said it straightforwardly and with such earnestness that the entire room couldn’t help but believe his sincerity.
“Eheheh…” Zhujiao laughed delightedly.
“Right.” Shuxue pushed Zhujiao out of the way to look into the telescope. He could see three distinct clouds of what appeared to be gas. Within those clouds shined numerous dots of light, like twinkles that would never vanish.
“The Trash plane is quite interesting.” Fengshui began speaking again. “It seems that their wars have caused the plane to separate into three zones that are cut off from each other by unsaturated space. It is likely that they have long lost contact with each other. Thus, when the planar war begins, we can pretend we are part of the Trash plane, and kill them much more easily.”
Shuxue smiled viciously. “That’s a good idea, Fengshui. That’s exactly what we shall do! Now, let’s go see the new proof artillery Xuezhe has set up.”
The proof artillery was like a vine crawling up the side of the Infinity Pillar. It stretched up all the way into the clouds and beyond. To be honest, it was so high that even if they shot it, it was possible that the people on the ground would not be able to see anything. With such a device, bombarding the planar war continent would be a cakewalk.
“All right. Let’s fire it already!” Zhujiao hopped in excitement. “Point it at the Trash plane!”
“The Trash plane is very far away.” Xuezhe cautioned. “Hitting it, even with this incredible Q.E.D. 9001 Tribulation artillery, would be like being born with the physique of the scion of math. It won’t happen.”
“Let’s fire it already!” Zhujiao repeated.
Xuezhe opened a capsule to reveal a large red button. Taking a deep breath, he pressed it. Sirens began blaring, and all the mathforce in the area seemed to be disturbed.
“Uh… you sure you pressed the right button, Xuezhe?” Jijian asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. “I mean, even if that was a self-destruct button, we’d still be fine because Zhujiao has Plot Armor, but the pillar might get destroyed.”
“The self-destruct button?” Xuezhe snorted, flipping open the capsule next to the red button to reveal another red button. “That’s this button. Only an idiot would mistake the two. Anyway, the Q.E.D. 9001 is charging up. At any moment now, it will fire.”
Right as he finished speaking, a giant flash of light appeared at the top of the Infinity Pillar. Crackling sounds rang out, and then a great beam of light shot off into the sky, leaving behind only a twinkle. A thunderous boom rolled over them several seconds later, sending a few weaklings falling onto the ground.
“Wooooowwwwwww.” Zhujiao breathed. “That’s so cool!”
“Yes.” Xuezhe said smugly. “This is the pinnacle of our achievements in rigorous mathematical proofs. If you know how to prove certain theorems, then you too can shoot this tribulation lightning.”
“Okay, we’re done here.” Shuxue said, his eyes gleaming. His mouth twisted into a cold smile. He was just about to say something when suddenly, the ground trembled and the sky above turned crimson. Something shocking was happening, and the side-effects were spreading out to cover the entire Weakest Plane.
An earth-shaking boom rumbled out from the heavens.
The source of the sound wasn’t close, but seemed to billow forth from quite some distance. It wasn’t directed toward the location of Shuxue and the others, but rather seemed to cover the entire Weakest Plane. At this moment, everyone could hear the massive roar.
A small dot appeared in the sky, fast falling down.
“What’s that?” Zhujiao gasped. “Is it a bird?”
“No.” Xuezhe gaped. “It’s a plane. The Trash plane!”
It was a giant turtle the size of a continent. It slammed into Ocean 29 tens of thousands of kilometers away, sending water shooting so high into the air that they could see the geyser with the naked eye.
In the skies above their heads, the mathforce began to swirl, violently congealing into a solid.
The Planar War Continent was being formed!
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The last few paragraphs were taken from ISSTH's book 1 chapter 61. I thought it would be a nice transition to the Planar War xD
That said, I am really sorry for the lack of chapters lately. I've been busy, and I've been more interested in writing Hegemony, and I had a bit of writer's block up until today for Math God Plane, and I downloaded Hearthstone again xD
I'm still going to be busy for the next two weeks, so the release schedule might continue to be erratic. Sorry again!
For the future, status updates are posted frequently on the blog, whose url can be found in Math God Plane's description.