Chapter 132 - Distilling Fundamentals & Commencement
Vern gnashed his teeth as the tunnel of oversaturated colors surrounded him, morphing into myriad fractals. Fuck. How did I fumble it so bad!?
He barely asked her any questions. Yes, she wasn't answering anything that could mess with his path as an observer, but there were thousands of other things she could've clarified for him.
Like, what’s the deal with First Observer? Is it really…? Because the conjecture he had terrified even him—a non-believer. Every fundamentalist knew who gifted the Insight Sphere to humans.
Lady Lennix.
If he connected the dots from Lady Sylphina’s words about the Insight Sphere being the First observer's ideal to Lady Lennix being the origin of the contraption, alongside the ‘First’s dissolution,’ then…
A shudder went down his spine. Lady Lennix is dead?
Again, he wasn't a devout worshipper, but her name had helped him through many dark times. Her sharing of the fundamentals was what allowed him to become the person he was today. It just felt…surreal that someone as omniscient and worshipped as her might not be around anymore.
Ughh…
He shook himself out of it. This wasn't the time to worry about any of that. His real problem was that he could've asked what would happen in this meeting. She…umm, Lady Sylphina seemed to know exactly where he was going. Who's to say she didn't know what would happen in there?
Damn, me!
As he tried and failed to expel the frustration, something finally changed. Dust detached from the tunnel and rushed towards him. Huh?
More and more such particles floated all around him, but he soon realized exactly what was happening. First, the dust coalesced to form his head, then his arms, then his torso, and finally his legs.
However, it was entirely different from the experience he had when Lady Sylphina…caressed him with one of her strips. This felt…mechanical, for it even reconstructed his clothes alongside shoes and everything.
Well, he wasn't going to complain about that. Meeting the' visionaries' and deciding the world's fate naked sounded like a terrible idea.
In another dozen seconds, the colors began to fade, and he regained control of his body. He clenched and unclenched his fist, and his body reoriented itself. Before he knew it, he was standing on…silver floor?
In front of him was a giant archway, bubbling with fog—blocking his view of beyond. Soon, a monotonous voice resounded in his head, "Dear Visionary, wouldst thou wish to conceal thy identity?"
Ugh, why is everyone using Old Celestine? He had to remind himself that, thou, thy, and thine all essentially meant you. Could it be some form of broken translation to Celestine?
That was a possibility.
However, the question it had asked was important, so he nodded seriously. Heck, he stopped gripping the mask in his coat and sighed in relief. His biggest fear coming for this confluence was being noticed by the wrong people.
He knew the effectiveness of such a mundane measure was next to nothing in front of the realm's observer, but he had to try something, right? This was why he didn't wear anything highly personal or bring Duality with him.
He even had plans of faking injuries and scars if need be.
Seems I won't need to mutilate myself. They've got measures for that. Which made some sense in a meeting of people from all over the planet. It would help them avoid political bias and unnecessary conflicts.
The fog in front of him suddenly turned into a reflective mirror, and he noticed that his face's features flickered ever so slightly, and he frowned.
He asked, "Is this it? Would this be enough?"
That voice resounded once again, "Please be assured that any and all form of scrying is prohibited in the nexus. Anyone attempting to breach the veil would have to contest with the nexus itself."
"I…see," he nodded. That indeed soothed quite a bit of his worries.
Vern waited, and when minutes passed by without the door in front of him unlocking, he asked, confused, "Are we waiting for something? What's the hold-up?"
The wait was tortuous, to say the least. His anxieties were piling up on top of each other as his brain conjured up scenarios. His experience with Lady Sylphina contributed to him feeling still on edge for some reason.
"Confluence necessitates preparations. Please practice patience."
Vern grumbled under his breath, tapping his foot repeatedly, Why did you pull me away from Lady Sylphina if you were going to make me wait here anyway?
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He rubbed his forehead. The havoc wreaked by the whispers had done a number on him, and this wait wasn't doing him any favors.
Hahh, he sighed and retrieved the notepad from his perfectly reconstructed coat. Better to spend the time productively than worrying over things outside his control.
Lady Sylphina's words gave him a newfound motivation to better analyze the relationship between fundamentals, observation, and reality.
Hmm, I think I should first find a more systematic way to categorize visions and viewpoints into different octants. He already had a concrete word to categorize his own Vision—structure, the domain of cryptic constructor. However, as things stood, he needed the rest of the picture.
Hmm, It might also help me partially 'comprehend' someone's vision. If that was possible, he might just be able to counter other's visions to an extent.
Fuck. Why didn't I think of that before? he groaned.
Except, he soon remembered that he'd only learned about the partial comprehension in the fight with Lucian yesterday and had been busy with work and anxiety over this meeting ever since.
He shook his head, Let's see. I need to find one word to describe each octant.
For now, he ignored all the glowing runes that beckoned him on pages that belonged to convergence note because he liked to tackle one problem at a time.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
He perused through his notes that detailed his experience with each octant. In some of them, he had ventured farther himself; in others, he used his colleagues' and seniors'.
Hmm, Lower North Western is where I found those foreign thoughts of Preservation which accelerated the rate of my thinking.
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If I remember correctly, most research on creation from thin air comes from Lower South Eastern octant.
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Right…Force related discoveries—including Gravity, Torque, and Steam propulsion, almost all were found in Upper South Eastern Octant.
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Ughh, how the fuck am I supposed to condense all the facets of this octant into one word?
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Should I just do a sentence for each of them?
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Nah, fuck that.
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After who knew how long, he headbutted the wall with a thump, a grin plastered on his face. He had all but forgotten about this meeting. If not for his immense self-control, he'd have written everything down on the notepad just to feel better about it.
Yet, unwilling to pen down his hard work, he focused on the eight keywords that revolved in his mind: Dissolution, Creation, and Preservation. Transformation, Cognition, Structure, Force, and finally Relationships.
This was his masterpiece attempt at distilling the primary essence of each octant of the Insight sphere into a single word.
He was already quite familiar with some of these, like structure—the primary fundamental of stability inducement or preservation or even force. The other five, however, made him wish he had three more brains.
It's done, now! he sighed. Even though he missed out on a lot of nuances by condensing them into a single word, he could now use them to dissect complex ideas far more efficiently.
He massaged his glabella and marveled at the brilliance of fundamentals for the millionth time in his life. This is such a well-thought-out system! If one simply mixed and matched these core fundamentals, they could explain almost any phenomenon in reality.
Such was the beauty of fundamentals. They were like the building blocks of the universe itself. At least in an objective world.
That's when the fog door in front of him bubbled—turning translucent. Hahh, finally!
However, he soon lost his train of thought, his eyes opening wide. His free hand reached forward involuntarily but was stopped by the see-through wall that this prior foggy mirror had become.
Before Vern lay a vast chamber whose sweeping architecture was sculpted entirely from glass. It was as if the very essence of sight had been frozen, its crystalline expanse catching the light in myriad reflections.
Directly ahead, a series of steps led to a circular platform, elevated and austere in its simplicity. Encircling it, eight tiers of seats rose in a meticulous slope, each row higher than the last, directing all focus to the center where a singular, distinguished seat commanded the space.
Above, an expansive dome mirrored the heavens themselves, stars and distant galaxies glistening within its clear surface as if holding the universe captive within its span.
That can't be real, can it!? Ari would've gone mad over something like this. Yet, he stopped that thought right there. He had to avoid fixating on her—for that would be an extreme, and he would get nothing done.
So he returned to appreciate the beauty of it all. At the heart of the dome, a luminescent column of light showered down upon the central seat as though it were the recipient of some celestial favor.
Around him, the air was still, the chamber's atmosphere imbued with a silent expectation. Though devoid of presence, the room whispered of watchfulness, each glassy contour and angle designed to observe and be observed, a silent sentinel over the exchange of visions and ideals that would soon unfold.
Vern made to push at the glassy wall barring his advance, but it didn't budge.
"Please wait. For the order of each Visionary's entrance is pre-ordained for thy own safety."
Vern creased his brows. My safety?
That's when one of the chambers on the far right of this circular entrance of many halls glowed with incandescent light before fizzling away into particles of light, and someone walked out.
Vern's pupils dilated, and he held onto the pillar on his archway to keep himself from losing his balance.
The whole amphitheater flashed red, and the silky curtains hanging from the high ceiling soaked with blood as horrifying screeches echoed to match his entrance.
Vern's whole body trembled, and for some reason, the case containing the blood infusion syringes, which he'd never bothered to take out from his coat, vibrated intensely.
He shoved his notepad back and gripped the case tight, the frown on his forehead deepening. Why does the blood react to him—
Yet, before he could overthink it, the man stepped on the stairs, and suddenly, the whole anomaly surrounding him was brought down a peg. Howls and screams grew muffled, almost as if someone had caged him inside a giant beaker.
The bloody curtains fluttered, and they were spotless once again after a blink. Even the decorations aren’t normal, huh? The domain of blood around the man followed him up, but it had clearly shrunk quite a bit.
As he ascended step by step, the red aura compressed further and further. Right when he reached the seventh set of seats from the bottom, where his aura was naught but entirely suppressed, he slowed down.
A clear look of exertion appeared on the man's devilishly handsome yet pale face, and his red coat fluttered as if blown by an unseen wind.
The man grunted and stabbed one of his nails into the other arm. A clear gash opened up, and as blood leaked out of it, he pushed higher, reaching the set of seats right underneath the mantle.
Ohh… Vern watched on in a mix of awe, fascination, and fear. It seems the higher stairs brutally suppress one's subjectivity.
More gears clicked together in his mind, and realization dawned on his face. Now I see what the voice meant when it said this order of entrance is for my safety. Observers with potent subjective influence were made to take the seat first—suppressing themselves so the weaker observers wouldn't have to bear their pressure.
Not just that, it almost looked like the man was trying to go higher to show off his prowess. Which made sense. Undoubtedly, many others like Vern were watching this display, and being able to sit higher was clearly a status symbol.
Zeeshhh
Suddenly, many more chambers unlocked simultaneously, and men and women in gorgeous and uncanny attires poured out—all kinds of phenomena following their trails.
A soft pulse radiated with every step of a woman who tapped in the air, her dress flowing behind her like some ghost—only to be brought back down to the ground when she floated over the fifth set of stairs. For another, every one of his steps transformed the floor into shapes as they rose and fell around him.
That's when he remembered his prior line of thought. Ah, damn! I didn't spend all those brain juices for nothing. I should try and figure out the primary fundamentals of each of their visions.
That was definitely a good plan.
So he refocused, hoping to figure out the primary fundamentals that might fuel their viewpoint. He tried but honestly had no clue about the ones that had already settled down.
So, his eyes sparkled when another person ambled up the stairs, and he had an idea of what it might be.
Lines grew with every step of this man, and the moment they became long enough, they cracked the floor. Hmm…it could just be dissolution, but there's also a pattern in which cracks expand.
They seemed to follow the structural lines on the floor. He smacked his fist on the other palm. Right, it's got to be structure—for the lines, and dissolution—for the damage.
He didn't know how far off he was from reality, but he liked being able to dissect what someone might be fundamentally doing with their viewpoints and visions.
This person managed to ascend to the sixth stair set from the bottom but didn't try too hard like the bloody man.
Vern's eyes sharpened, and he quickly found his next prey. A ravishing woman in a white flowing cloak and hair of the same color, donning a pointy hat, stepped through the auditorium like some diva, each of her steps turning heads.
However, Vern's eyes were focused on the ground. Flowers blossomed wherever she passed, and his mind whirled. That's primarily creation, isn't it? Vern closed in, his eyes mere inches from the glass door.
That's when a man in white robes entered the same area as her, and the flowers that were happily swaying due to all the movement in the hall suddenly froze. It almost seemed like they were statues.
The white-haired lady frowned, and the man sported a smug smile. Vern, however, narrowed his eyes—anger rising from within him. This attire and the powers of this man reminded him of a motherfucker. A cunt who would do well to die before Vern got his hands on him.
He's using preservation, Vern hissed.
His eyes turned cold, and he carved each inch of this man into his memories, never to be forgotten. His gut told him that this man also deserved to die under his hands someday.
However, that's when another person walked up to the center, and his breath hitched in his throat.
Is that…
Fuck!