Chapter 645: Beyond the Astral Plane (Finale - Part 2)
This super-dimensional magic, carrying the hopes of everyone, was activated. A thin halo shrouded Ace’s body, but it vanished immediately. On the three-dimensional level, there seemed to be no change at all.
The super-giant seemed confused. Such a massive spectacle, sacrificing a world of such immense volume, just for a flash of light?
But it could not think effectively. The chaos brought by its billions of heads meant it relied mostly on instinct. This method of obtaining Overlimit Power was not quite suitable; one could even say it was flawed.
Ace looked at the super-giant, his gaze holding a trace of coldness, devoid of pity.
This super-aggregate of four-dimensional particles possessed formidable power far exceeding his own in both the third and fourth dimensions. However, this was like a civilization only capable of sub-light-speed navigation encountering a curvature-jumping civilization after entering the space age.
No matter how strong the attack power of the sub-light-speed civilization, it could never match the curvature-jumping civilization, because a fundamental generational gap had emerged in their decisive technology.
Ace seemed to have no intention of engaging the super-giant directly. In reality, he had already observed an infinite future—the various possibilities stemming from this current moment. His only limit was time.
The sacrifice of the great Wizard Multiverse only successfully activated the super-dimensional magic “Time Selection.” It did not grant Ace this ability eternally, only temporarily.
“But, it is enough. From the moment gunpowder roars, the old era ends, doesn’t it?”
The super-giant’s attacks remained terrifying, stirring up horrific ripples and even stormy waves in the space-time curvature. Naturally formed white holes and black holes carried astonishing destructive power.
Yet the tiny figure opposite it was exceptionally strange. His luck seemed incredibly good, always dodging at the exact right moment. Time after time, the super-giant gradually fell to a disadvantage, as if its own luck had been drained, making frequent mistakes.
Fissures unknowingly appeared in its four-dimensional aggregate, gradually collapsing. Finally, under a chain reaction, it turned into a completely broken mass of energy and burned to ashes.
Only a bright green seed was left, floating quietly.
Ace looked exhausted. Gazing at the seed, his eyes pierced through time, seeing countless possibilities.
“I see. You are the contingency left behind by the Overgod, Ao.”
A pitch-black mass appeared in Ace’s hand. With a light flick, it turned into a curve and crashed into the seed, swallowing it whole. Then, it transformed into a white hole, spewing out countless streams of neutrons, protons, and electrons.
Watching this brilliant firework and the incredibly empty Astral Plane, Ace let out a long sigh at the former location of the Wizard Multiverse.
Although he hadn’t achieved permanent dimensional ascension, Ace had, after all, entered five-dimensional space-time and possessed the ability to collapse the best choice from endless future selections. As long as he had enough energy and entered the fifth dimension multiple times, Ace would sooner or later become a true fifth-dimensional existence.
The seed was eradicated, but an information stream remained. After Ace read it carefully, his expression turned lonely and he sighed.
“Above this layer, there are no more layers? Like a grinding mill, eradicating everything?”
Looking up at space, the Astral Plane was pitch black, like a monster ready to devour people. This Astral Plane was only divided into four layers, and the topmost layer actually eradicated everything. Why did the structure of this world feel so artificial?
Everything seemed arranged and designed. Moreover, exactly where did he transmigrate from, and why?
In the lonely Level 4 Astral Plane layer, having defeated a strong enemy, Ace’s doubts only grew. He could explain where mana came from and could even perform “Time Selection,” but he still couldn’t explain where he himself came from.
“Perhaps it can be explained. The sixth dimension is the infinity encompassing all possible timelines, but this has a scope: all the timelines of this Astral Plane. Viewing the sixth dimension as a point and understanding it through dimensional nesting, the seventh dimension is the infinity of all possible other Astral Planes.
“And the eighth dimension is the intersection of two seventh dimensions. This means another world of all possibilities, completely different from the Astral Plane (not a world within the Astral Plane)—that is, the universe of my past life.
“Perhaps it was this intersection of eighth-dimensional space-time that produced the bizarre occurrence of transmigration.
“Actually, as long as one is in the fifth dimension, they can return to the past to rewrite the future, which is already a form of transmigration. The sixth dimension is transmigration across all possible timelines of the Astral Plane. The seventh dimension is transmigration across different Astral Planes. Understood this way, the eighth dimension is easy to grasp.
“Perhaps as long as I ascend in dimension, one day, I will return to my own universe.”
Despite understanding it this way, Ace still couldn’t explain what the “grinding mill” in the upper layer was. To know what it was, he could only go and see for himself, but doing so without any preparation was impossible.
Time flew by. It was unknown how long passed—perhaps 100,000 years, perhaps 1,000,000 years. Ace stayed quietly in the void of this Astral Plane. Of course, it wasn’t just him individually. Together with his quasi-plane and the 3,000 Dream Worlds, he was already stronger than an ordinary Level 4 world.
Stronger than the former Wizard World and even the super-giant. With this accumulation of energy, Ace had entered five-dimensional space-time more than once. It was just that he didn’t go far; whether collapsing the future or returning to the past, he didn’t travel far.
Today, he finally became an eternal fifth-dimensional existence. He returned to the past, to the node where he was born in Kaya. Actually, Ace traced back even further, but no matter how he observed, the information stream of his soul simply descended abruptly, without any omen or trace.
“Lower dimensions cannot observe higher dimensions; they cannot even perceive them.”
Ace said thus. Like a guardian of time, he maintained his past, observing quietly until the Giant Tree World broke in half and fell. Only then did he intervene. This intervention turned everything he had previously experienced into nothingness.
The timeline branched anew. With Ace’s pruning, a brand-new, even stronger Wizard Multiverse fused with Kaya and the Giant Tree World, establishing an even more powerful civilization.
In this timeline possibility, everything was quite beautiful. His incarnations accompanied his parents, and Athena, Daina, and Yamila each had incarnations by their side. Ace then began attempting his march toward higher dimensions.
He had long possessed the ability to ascend to the higher layers of the Astral Plane, but he delayed taking action. Instead, he diligently researched space-time and vibrating strings. Ultimately, he entered six-dimensional space-time, seeing the possibilities of this Astral Plane from its birth to its end.
Everything in the entire Astral Plane was known to Ace. He was also called the “Timeline Jumper” by the wizards. He had seen countless timelines where the Wizard World was destroyed, and countless timelines where the super-giant attacked the upper layers of the Astral Plane, never to be heard from again.
He had even reached the destruction of the Astral Plane and returned to the starting point. Yet despite all this, Ace never stepped into the upper layers of the Astral Plane.
He had doubts in his heart. Within a prosperously developing Wizard World in one timeline, Ace conducted an experiment. Based on the various scenes he had witnessed across countless timelines, from shortly after birth to the brink of the end, he imitated this Astral Plane and established identical ultra-micro Astral Planes.
The Big Bang, twisted layering, four-dimensional collapse…
The ultra-micro Astral Plane had smaller elementary particles and a faster speed of light, meaning time flowed faster. To prevent accidents, Ace isolated it with layers of twisted space-time.
Any possibility Ace knew of was added in. Relative to the ultra-micro Astral Plane, Ace was like a super-consciousness, observing everything within. The various layers of the ultra-micro Astral Plane began to birth “worlds,” and the worlds birthed various civilizations. Some civilizations stepped out of their worlds to roam the lonely Astral Plane.
10 years passed on Ace’s end, but tens of millions of years had passed in the ultra-micro Astral Plane. The first super civilization was born and began to ascend to the upper layers of the Astral Plane.
But the Astral Plane had no upper layer. This ascension was no different from suicide; they crashed into the twisted space-time barrier. At this moment, Ace noticed an interesting phenomenon: the moment the super civilization broke away from the entire Astral Plane, a massive amount of energy was released. This release was enough to power the currently highly developed Wizard World for 10 years.
Such a colossal amount of energy caught Ace’s attention. He continuously designed in this direction, and eventually replaced the twisted space-time outside the ultra-micro Astral Plane with a highly efficient energy absorption, conversion, and storage device.
At this point in the experiment, Ace stood up. Since he could jump freely from any timeline, Ace numbered each jumped Astral Plane. This was Astral Plane Z44332; the Wizard World here was peaceful and prosperous.
Ace was unified across all possible timelines. His destruction in any one timeline did not affect his existence, and he could choose to exist in any time.
Yet this kind of freedom still sent a chill down his spine. Perhaps there was also a super-consciousness that treated his Astral Plane as a “battery”?
Ace felt an indescribable loneliness and desolation. Bayen brought the Super-dimensional Wizards to visit him. Besides Ace, the wizards had yet to birth a second fifth-dimensional existence, let alone a sixth-dimensional one.
Ace had experienced this countless times, even seeing the laughable rebellions of some of them. Of course, Bayen was still relatively reliable. Across all timelines, the probability of Bayen rebelling was 2 in 100,000.
He wanted to say something but ultimately said nothing. Ace dismissed them and continued his experiments.
A year passed in a flash, and he recorded in his experimental log:
“A total of 21 high-energy conversions occurred. In other words, 21 advanced civilizations in the ultra-micro Astral Plane ascended out of this Astral Plane. This unique structure of the Astral Plane is wonderful; it seems to compress a massive amount of energy and, in a way I cannot comprehend, releases it the moment the ‘world’ inside breaks away from the Astral Plane. The converted energy is astonishing; it must be an extremely advanced applied technology.
“The technological gap with existing technology is immeasurable.”
Another 10 years passed, and Ace’s experimental log suddenly had a new update.
“I thought today would be the same as usual, but a surprise occurred. It seems an intelligent entity discovered the secret of dimensions and birthed a fifth-dimensional existence. And this birth also produced a bizarre change: the Astral Plane split.
“But this is normal. A fifth dimension collapsing the future will not spawn a timeline, but returning to the past and changing it means derivation.
“If it were the sixth dimension, I’m afraid the derivations would be even more numerous!”
Time continued to flow like a babbling brook, but the ultra-micro Astral Plane had undergone earth-shattering changes. The Astral Plane had split countless times. This splitting seemed to severely damage the original structure; no matter how many more “worlds” broke away from it, they could not provide high-energy reactions.
In other words, as a battery, the lifespan of the ultra-micro Astral Plane, or the ultra-micro Astral Plane cluster, had reached its end.
The hair on Ace’s body stood on end as he murmured:
“If the Astral Plane I am in is also a ‘battery,’ won’t the super-consciousness outside scrap or destroy it soon?”
To ascend or not to ascend?
If it truly was in a scrapped state, perhaps it would be removed from the energy extraction and conversion device. That might be his only chance to break away from the Astral Plane without being eradicated, to witness more of the unknown!
“I need more experiments to calculate various possibilities.”
Ace placed that ultra-micro Astral Plane in a larger sealed observation chamber, then manufactured more ultra-micro Astral Planes, imitating the variables of his own Astral Plane to search for possibilities.
50 years later, Ace established a unified observation and resonance device across the Astral Planes of countless timelines. This device had two functions: to observe the timelines and the overall changes of the Astral Plane, and to unify all timelines at the necessary moment, reducing all possibilities to one.
In the laboratory, millions of different micro Astral Planes were playing out various changes. Ace observed their internal changes to determine the state of his own Astral Plane. Finally, after 3.1 billion ultra-micro Astral Plane experiments, Ace finally observed a highly probable opportunity.
He unified all timelines, or rather, he destroyed all other split timelines, leaving only the one he was in. This was a quantum superposition state, much like the Mandela Effect.
At this moment, the entire Wizard World chose to ascend, breaking through the boundary membrane of the Astral Plane and completely breaking away from the entire Astral Plane!
Epilogue:
Wilton Space Habitat, Sector 31, Hill Elementary School.
“Class, do you know who invented the Spontaneous Infinite Energy Battery we use so widely today?” a sweet-looking female teacher asked with a smile.
Several children raised their hands. The teacher said, “Li Jiaxing, you tell us.”
The child named Li Jiaxing had yellow skin and was skinny, but his eyes were bright.
“It was Karl Lem, the greatest physicist. He invented the Spontaneous Infinite Energy Battery and discovered that high-energy particles would irregularly escape from it. Although a high-energy particle is small, the energy it releases is enough to power our habitat for 12 years.
“Our habitat currently has 10 Spontaneous Infinite Energy Batteries. But these batteries have had a chronic flaw since their invention. No matter how the ultra-micro universe constructed within it is designed, as time passes, the universe inevitably splits, and the high-energy particles gradually lose their high energy.
“In addition, accidents sometimes happen. The escaping high-energy particles explode, or a penetration event occurs.
“Some scientists believe that perhaps a single particle is a highly microscopic universe. There might exist civilizations as brief and brilliant as fireworks, and these accidental events might be the rebellion of ultra-micro civilizations.”
The female teacher nodded repeatedly and praised, “Li prepared very thoroughly; even I didn’t know that much. Next…”
Boom!
Violent tremors, chain explosions, the frantic sirens of rescue flying cars. A terrifying explosion occurred in the energy bay of the Wilton Space Habitat. No one noticed a high-energy particle pierce through the habitat at the speed of light, disappearing into the lonely universe.
(End of the Book!)
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