A long silence.
"Perhaps... everything you say is correct." "Cyrene" finally spoke, her voice heavy with exhaustion. She slowly closed her eyes, as if unwilling to face this despairing truth.
Yet, when she opened them again, the confusion and doubt within had completely vanished, replaced only by a light representing steadfast resolve.
"But... as I've said, I—no, 'we'—will stake everything for Phaethon, for that 'miracle' born from the experiment!"
"You...?" The plural meaning hinted in "Cyrene's" words seemed to cause a momentary pause and contemplation within Lygus's computational core.
Then, a trace of faint interest seemed to seep into his icy voice. "...Interesting."
"Cyrene" said no more. Her figure began to fade; she withdrew completely from this realm beyond the myth. She left behind only that unshakeable determination, echoing intangibly.
Witnessing this, an extremely subtle 'smile' even appeared on Lygus's originally expressionless face.
"How... nostalgic." A wave of what seemed like sentimentality even tinged his cold voice. "During an experiment, those results entirely unexpected by the designer, arising from accidents or the agency of variables themselves... the value and fascination they contain are often more captivating than the experiment's predetermined final answer."
This kind of situation had become exceedingly rare ever since the Aeon Nous, the Erudition—who anchored countless laws of the universe with absolute rationality, bringing everything into calculable trajectories—ascended to reign.
However... this did not prevent Lygus from recalling and savoring that sense of exhilaration a scholar feels upon discovering experimental results completely different from expectations—the thrill of breaking through cognitive boundaries and touching the unknown.
He had thought, in the eons since Erudition's birth, he would never experience this joy again.
...
Inside the Dawn Device.
Phaethon sat on a stone-backed chair he had created. Here, with his ever-growing authority over the world, he had constructed a "haven" that could accommodate only himself—no one else held any memory of this place.
As for Nous's designs... Phaethon had long been aware.
Granted, the words Hyacinthia spoke at the end of the 23,750,000th cycle, carrying a healer's compassion and insight—
Those metaphors about "seeds" and "sprouting" did indeed lodge like a fine splinter in his ice-like mental defenses, leaving a barely perceptible crack.
But the greater reason stemmed from Phaethon's own paltry self-awareness.
He, Phaethon, at his absolute best, possessed nothing more than some untimely "cleverness."
In a peaceful era, he might at most manage a decent diploma, find a respectable job, nothing more.
But... come on, what kind of grand promise was Nous dangling before him now?
To become an Emanator of Erudition! A member of the Genius Society! Nous's chosen spokesperson!
What level of existence was that?
Those were the geniuses, numbering no more than a hundred, born from countless billions upon billions of living beings across the universe, from the rise and fall of innumerable civilizations!
What qualifications did he, Phaethon, have to be that kind of genius?
For answering one philosophical question?
Don't make him laugh!
Just look at what the documented or rumored geniuses had accomplished?
Many among those geniuses existed far beyond the mortal understanding of "genius."
Take the example he remembered most vividly, the one that made him feel most powerless—the Net Weaver of All Creation, Sserkal (member #29 of the Genius Society), from the game's texts.
She, or perhaps it, took only twenty-nine standard days—less than a month!
To forcibly elevate her own originally primitive, instinct-driven spider civilization to at least a Tier 2 civilization, possibly higher!
With her help, that civilization mastered interstellar travel technology and the Phase Flame technology—which would drive countless physicists to despair—in under a month.
What was the complete Phase Flame? It essentially allowed near-instantaneous teleportation across any distance within the known universe!
Was it useful? Of course it was, a strategic-grade artifact. But aside from Sserkal herself, no being had ever successfully replicated this technology. Not even other geniuses.
So... would he, Phaethon—an ordinary university student with "clear, innocent eyes" before transmigrating—dare to compare himself to this kind of genuine, Aeon-certified "conceptual-level genius"?
What a cosmic-level joke!
If he truly possessed that level of intellect, he wouldn't have transmigrated so inexplicably from a university dormitory in the first place.
At the very least... it should have been from some ultra-secret research base with sky-high security, located in the Earth's core or even inside the sun, due to some earth-shattering experimental accident, to match the "genius" persona!
And don't give him that nonsense about "with enough time and enough accumulated knowledge, anyone can become a genius."
Given enough time, one could indeed achieve many things, he conceded that.
After all, theoretically, give a chimpanzee infinite time to randomly hit keys on a typewriter, and it might coincidentally type out the complete texts of Harry Potter and Hamlet. Even all works in human history.
But would you therefore honor that chimpanzee as a genius writer?
No, it would just be a chimpanzee.
A true genius is one who spends less time than you, invests fewer resources than you, yet achieves results that completely crush you, leaving you unable to even see their taillights. That deserves to be called a genius.
As for those so-called "inversely heaven-defying" existences who rely on "vast time accumulation" or "massive resource stacking"—in Phaethon's view, that's more about a different emphasis of talent, or luck in finding the right "direction," not their inherent talent reaching a reality-defying level.
Moreover... Phaethon felt that some of those chosen by Nous and admitted into the so-called "Genius Society" were less "intelligent" and more like "living Curios" within the universe.
They were born with certain inexplicable, unreplicable "skills" or "abilities." Some couldn't even explain the principles themselves, only knowing instinctively "how to do it."
Therefore, the core value of Genius Society members likely lay more in their "uniqueness" and "irreplaceability." Of course... their learning capacity or logical thinking was undoubtedly extremely strong.