Faced with 'Georios's' question, Yufei nodded truthfully.
"Yes. Ever since the official title of the Arbiter of Myriad Distinctions was announced, a craze for collecting Originium has swept across the entire Xianzhou Alliance."
"Oh? So that's actually a thing, huh," 'Georios' replied, a grin spreading across her face.
Well, that certainly made things easier.
"Have Dan Shu take a piece of Originium and try to perceive it with her mind. Once she gets a reaction, she just needs to follow the prompts."
"..."
Hearing such a far-fetched suggestion, a complicated expression flickered across Yufei's face.
She found it hard to imagine how something like this could possibly be linked to curing blindness.
After all, she was a doctor; in her eyes, treating blindness should be a matter of medical expertise. Even if it involved an Aeon, she expected it to be something like a divine blessing.
But being told to find a shard of Originium and "follow the prompts"... it was all a bit too abstract.
Still, considering the Path of Elation was involved, Yufei felt there was an equal chance of either a miracle or a cruel prank. Then again, she knew she didn't really have a choice.
Why would the other party help her out of the goodness of their heart for no reason?
So, despite how ridiculous it sounded, Yufei nodded and accepted the terms. It was a "dead horse as a living horse" situation—a last-ditch effort. What if it actually worked?
"My thanks to the Arbiter of Myriad Distinctions. I'll go right—"
Yufei bowed her head in gratitude and prepared to rise to find Dan Shu. Right then, Dan Shu's voice rang out from behind her.
"Yufei, I believe I told you not to do this. If you offend the Arbiter of Myriad Distinctions and cause the cooperation with the Xianzhou Alliance to fail, our lives wouldn't be enough to atone for the mistake!"
Dan Shu's voice was dead serious, even angry. But beneath the anger, it was impossible for her not to be moved.
Her best friend was willing to take such a massive risk just to beg for a cure for her blindness. On a personal level, it was hard not to be touched by such an act.
However, wrong was wrong. She couldn't act as if nothing had happened just because she was moved or because of their close bond.
That was why Dan Shu had rushed over the moment she heard Yufei speaking.
"Dan Shu..."
Yufei remained in her kneeling position, her eyes lowered, not daring to meet Dan Shu's disappointed gaze.
Dan Shu looked like she wanted to say more, but 'Georios' stopped her.
"Dan Shu, why don't you try it my way first? I just had an idea, and you're just in time to be my test subject."
"This..."
Dan Shu hesitated for a moment but chose to follow 'Georios's' instructions.
As for the Originium, she did have a piece—not that she'd collected it herself, but one of her subordinates had picked a prime specimen and gifted it to her.
Dan Shu fished the Originium out of her pocket and, following 'Georios's' lead, began to focus her senses on the stone in her palm.
At first, she felt nothing but the smooth texture of the Originium. But then, at a certain moment, a voice suddenly surfaced in her mind:
[Visitor's consciousness confirmed. Please log in with a username—]
Along with the voice, a standard line of text and a flickering input symbol abruptly appeared within the darkness.
"..."
Dan Shu froze. The text appearing directly in her mind had caught her completely off guard.
She had imagined many scenarios for what "following the instructions" would entail—perhaps a trial or a series of grueling medical conditions.
She hadn't expected the first prompt to look like she was logging into a video game.
After a brief stunned silence, Dan Shu whispered, "Login name: Dan Shu."
--+--
[Username confirmed: Dan Shu.]
[Binding user consciousness. Please do not release the login Originium during this process.]
[Binding—]
--+--
Dan Shu tightened her grip on the stone. She could even "see" a progress bar appearing beneath the text. It loaded quickly, and within moments, a notification appeared:
--+--
[Binding complete. Please confirm login location and faction affiliation—]
[Login location confirmed: Xianzhou Luofu; Faction confirmed: Xianzhou Alliance.]
[Editing shaders—]
[Loading visuals—]
--+--
Soon, as the characters flashed before her eyes, the pitch-black void began to fill with streaks of light. These lines wove together to form something resembling a warp tunnel.
At the end of that tunnel sat a structure that looked like a gateway.
--+--
[Please click anywhere to confirm connection—]
--+--
Click?
Dan Shu was baffled. In this state, how was she supposed to click? And click where?
She puzzled over it for a second before simply imagining herself moving toward the gateway and pushing it open. Suddenly, the world rushed forward as a burst of white light flooded her vision.
Following that, what appeared before Dan Shu was Yufei—still kneeling on the ground and looking at her with a worried face—and Hyacine, who was watching her with curiosity.
There was also the white-haired dragon girl looking at her with a smile.
However, floating above everyone's heads were names, titles, and even health bars!
To Dan Shu, who was focused on research and never played games, these bits of information were merely strange, but they didn't trigger any specific thoughts.
She was simply overwhelmed by the realization: Was the Arbiter of Myriad Distinctions truly such a gentle and wonderful person?
Dan Shu stared blankly at 'Georios', momentarily speechless.
Meanwhile, Yufei—who hadn't stood up yet—noticed Dan Shu's eyes beginning to focus and even move. She suddenly realized something.
"You can see?! You can really see me?! Look, how many fingers am I holding up?!"
Yufei practically sprang off the ground like a coiled snake, her face still streaked with tears as she rushed in front of Dan Shu with frantic excitement.
She held up her fingers, desperate to test if her friend truly had her sight back.
"It's three. That's enough, Yufei. We can do this later."
Dan Shu reached out, steadied Yufei by the shoulders, and moved her to the side. Then, she bowed deeply toward 'Georios'.
"Thank you—"
"Whoa, hold it right there!"
'Georios' reached out to stop Dan Shu before she could finish.
"I didn't actually cure you. I just let you log into the new 'Aeon Challenge' game I've been developing. What you're seeing now is just the game's interface. You should see a few options in the top-left corner of your vision."
"...I do see them. But... a game interface? It doesn't seem any different from the world I remember."
Dan Shu looked genuinely puzzled.
"That's because the game's visuals are constructed from real-time, zero-latency reality data. It's beamed directly into your brain via the Originium, allowing you to 'see' what's in front of you. In reality, your eyes are still broken."
"But I saw Teacher's pupils focusing, and her eyes were moving," Hyacine chimed in.
"That's just human instinct. Her brain tricked her eyes into thinking they could see, so they moved accordingly," 'Georios' explained with a laugh.
The reaction was simply because Dan Shu felt she could see, so her instincts took over her eye movements. In truth, even if her eyes didn't move at all, she could still see whatever she wanted.
In fact, if Dan Shu could adapt to it, she could even have the Originium project a 360-degree field of vision into her mind.
Of course, 'Georios' kept that last part to herself.
Just as a human turned into a machine might struggle to adapt to a non-human body, shifting one's perspective like that could easily cause a cognitive breakdown.
A look of confusion crossed Hyacine's face. "So, you're saying Teacher's brain is just receiving high-fidelity data? She's not actually seeing what's in front of her?"
"Exactly. Though, the Originium picks up light from all directions, so the image it builds is actually more detailed than what a human eye can perceive."
"Ugh... I just finished talking about my goals, and then you do this, Mean Bai Bai!"
Hyacine pouted at 'Georios', though the spark of joy in her eyes was impossible to hide.
She wasn't actually upset; she just wanted to lighten the mood. Otherwise, Dan Shu and Yufei looked like they were about to collapse into each other's arms and sob.
'Georios' caught Hyacine's drift. After a quick exchange of looks, the two turned and made their exit. They left Dan Shu and Yufei behind to process their whirlwind of emotions.
A little while later, once they were far enough away that the other two were out of sight, Hyacine spoke up curiously.
"I bet Teacher and her friend are having a good cry right about now."
"...You sound like you really wanted to eavesdrop," 'Georios' teased.
"Hehe~ Don't say it out loud! She's my teacher, after all. I couldn't possibly peek." Hyacine giggled, covering her mouth. "By the way, Bai Bai, was that game you mentioned for real?"
"Of course it's real. I felt like just handing out Originium wasn't exciting enough. The barrier for entry was too high, and most people were too intimidated to try."
Granted, it was only a basic version right now—essentially just a leaderboard with some rewards and achievements. She'd add more content later as ideas came to her.
"But there's not much to it yet."
'Georios' planned to officially announce it once the rewards were finalized.
As for now, people would probably discover it on their own, but since the content was sparse, the 'Emotion Points' she'd gain would likely be limited.
After a stroll along the shore and some catching up, Hyacine started worrying about her teacher and decided to head back to check on her. 'Georios' decided it was about time to head back as well.
Meanwhile...
After 'Georios' added the new trigger mechanism to the Originium, most people didn't notice a thing. However, the universe is never short of eccentric or imaginative types.
As a result, in less than half a day, someone on the interstellar net had already gone public with their discovery.
Initially, the finder thought they were having a mental breakdown and posted a plea for help on a forum.
At first, people laughed, thinking the commenters claiming to see the same thing were just playing along for a joke.
But as the news spread further and wider, more and more people actually registered accounts and saw the leaderboard for themselves.
The news ripped through the cosmos like a hurricane.
And with it, that white-haired figure was once again etched into the collective memory of the universe.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL