Bai Ming was in the midst of relentlessly decoding the Elation Equation.
To her surprise, she found that fighting this shadow—a literal antithesis of herself—offered some incredibly novel experiences whenever their Paths collided.
These sensations became the very fuel she needed to break down the equation.
Aha, watching the spectacle from the sidelines, and HooH, acting as her opponent, could both clearly see what was happening: Bai Ming was using the shadow's hand to temper herself.
Aha remained true to form, having no intention of stepping into the fray or offering a helping hand.
THEY were strictly here for the laughs. As for HooH, who had initiated the strike, THEY surprisingly hadn't ramped up the difficulty yet.
Bai Ming continued to weather the shadow's offensive, constantly clashing energies to accelerate her progress.
Thanks to her relentless efforts, the Elation Equation, which was already mostly decoded, had now climbed past 98%. Only the final 2% remained beyond her grasp.
Strangely enough, the overall momentum began to drag at this final stretch.
It wasn't quite a snail's pace, but it felt as though she had hit a formidable wall. Bai Ming couldn't quite figure out what this hurdle was. It couldn't be a trap set by Aha, could it?
That didn't seem like Aha's style. If they were going to pull a prank, they'd likely jump out, mock her mercilessly, and then set the obstacle right in front of her face.
Unable to wrap her head around it, Bai Ming stopped overthinking and pushed forward with the decoding.
As more of the content came to light, Bai Ming's power grew steadily. However, the shadow—which until now had perfectly mirrored her growth, matched point for point—suddenly faltered.
Blade and hammer crossed once more, ringing out in a heavy clash. But after this exchange, Bai Ming felt a sudden jolt. Her eyes widened, locking onto the shadow.
Abandoning her defensive stance and discarding her plan to stall for time, she lunged forward with a sharp pivot, channeling every ounce of her strength into a single, devastating slash.
The overwhelming attacks collided once again. Compared to her previous cautious defense, the feedback from this strike was unmistakable.
The shadow across from her had grown weaker! Its rate of enhancement hadn't kept up with the power she had just acquired.
It actually works.
Bai Ming's eyes sparkled behind her mask. The situation, where even a moment's distraction resulted in being suppressed, had finally flipped.
Even while diverting her focus to decode the equation, she managed to push the shadow back with ease. She waited, but the shadow's power showed no signs of climbing further.
It was then she realized that HooH's control over the Path likely hit a hard ceiling at 98%.
So, what was the remaining 2%?
As she delved deeper into her understanding, reaching 98.5%, a sense of enlightenment began to dawn on her.
A Path is carved out by an Aeon; therefore, the Aeon's will represents the will of the Path itself.
Simultaneously, it is the empowerment of the Path that allows an Aeon to become a "god."
In this entire system, the Path and the Aeon fulfill one another.
The final, difficult 2% represented the individual uniqueness of the Aeon.
Or, to put it another way, the Aeon themselves represented that "unbalanced" 2%.
The portion Bai Ming was currently decoding represented the "divine vessel."
In simpler terms, it was like the various projections and images Bai Ming had tinkered with before to describe the Aeons—except this was far more sophisticated.
It was a shell birthed and shaped by the Path and the rules of the system itself. By comparison, while the forms Bai Ming used weren't lacking in power, they were slightly inferior in their intricacy.
As the progress hit 99%, an even more fundamental essence surfaced.
Upon touching that final 1%, Bai Ming had a startling epiphany.
This final 1% represented the original will of the Aeon of Elation, Aha, at the very moment of their ascension.
At this stage, Bai Ming realized she could go no further. The equation provided by her system didn't contain Aha's actual will; it was merely a piece of pure simulation code.
This made sense—if the system's character cards included the actual will of an Aeon, the character would probably undergo self-ascension the moment they appeared.
A message, seemingly left behind long ago, flickered from the stored 'Cipher' character card:
"In a complete Path, the final 1% represents the most fundamental essence of an Aeon's will and consciousness."
"This part cannot, and should not, be decoded."
At the very least, it wasn't something the current Bai Ming should touch. Doing so would likely result in her being tainted by the consciousness embedded in the code.
That was a will capable of shaking the world and ascending to godhood.
While decoding it might give her the power to truly stand on equal footing with Aha, the consequence would likely be turning into another "Aha" herself.
The system had even gone as far as sealing this final 1% into a locked "black box," preventing any prying eyes—even simulated ones.
Realizing this, Bai Ming abandoned the idea of digging deeper.
Even if the conditions were perfect, she wasn't about to ignore the system's warning and risk the consequences.
She couldn't even withstand Nihility the way Acheron did; she certainly wouldn't survive the psychic impact of an Aeon's moment of ascension.
Besides, reaching 99% was more than enough to finish off the shadow, even if it wasn't "complete."
On the other side, Aha watched Bai Ming stop abruptly at the critical moment and let out a boisterous laugh.
She actually held back? Right at the finish line?
Aha's laughter carried a hint of regret. It would have been so much better if she had kept digging.
Under the wash of that intense will, Bai Ming would have surely been molded into a true Herald of Elation.
Aha wouldn't have even minded sharing THEIR authority with her.
After all, the universe's greatest variable would have finally joined the faction of Elation.
What a pity.
Bai Ming had stopped right there, as if she had known all along what that 1% represented.
That was the strange part—she had never been an Aeon before.
HooH wouldn't have told her, because seeing Bai Ming fall into the shackles of Elation wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Equilibrium.
And while that big glowing ball might have said something, it had never ascended itself, so where would it get such detailed intel?
A literal question mark popped up over Aha's mask.
THEY had been staring at her this entire time, yet THEY had no idea where she had gotten the information. Aha felt like they were going to start scratching THEIR head in frustration.
I went through all this trouble and I still can't see through her?
Now that was a real blow to THEIR pride. Aha laughed at the absurdity of it, THEIR eyes filled with pure curiosity and a hunger for knowledge.
THEY were truly stumped. Even with this level of scrutiny, THEY couldn't capture a single shred of information. Is this girl even playing by the rules?
Aha was rarely shocked by others anymore; usually, THEY just laughed at mortals struggling to achieve the impossible. But this was different.
Even Aha was finding it hard to keep it together—how on earth did she do it?
THEY were actually starting to get anxious!
On the other side, Bai Ming couldn't care less about Aha's mood.
The guy had been playing the spectator, cheering for both sides at once; she was already being generous by not kicking THEM in the face.
Right now, she was busy overwhelming the shadow, venting the frustration of being pushed around earlier.
At the same time, she began releasing the power of Permanence, intending to use the shadow's dual nature to speed up her decoding of the Permanence Equation.
To that end, she didn't deliver the killing blow. Instead, she planned to drag this out for another few months to push the Permanence Equation to 99% in one go.
As for the fact that she might be "missing in action" for a few months?
She'd just have to apologize to everyone later.
After all, having an Aeon personally craft a perfectly scaled sparring partner isn't an everyday occurrence.
HooH's appearance was a complete surprise, and Bai Ming doubted THEY would show up again once her agreement with THEM was finalized.
To an Aeon, a few months was just a blink of an eye anyway.
With a "waste not, want not" mindset, Bai Ming decided to squeeze every drop of value out of this situation!
Consider it a little payback for HooH suddenly showing up to pick a fight.
As for HooH, they didn't seem to mind Bai Ming's opportunistic behavior.
If it made her more agreeable for their future negotiations, so be it. However, since the deal wasn't struck yet, HooH silently tweaked the shadow's power.
While the shadow still mirrored Bai Ming's growth, HooH's interference caused the shadow's version of the Permanence Path to shed all elements related to Abundance.
In exchange, the aspects of Propagation and Permanence saw a massive surge.
"..."
Bai Ming noticed the change immediately and couldn't help but snark, "Is that really necessary?!"
"..."
HooH remained silent, maintaining a stoic "take it or leave it" attitude. Bai Ming clicked her tongue and started grumbling under her breath, but her hands didn't stop.
Complaining was one thing, but a free meal was a free meal.
Another unknown stretch of time passed. Bai Ming's progress on the Permanence Equation reached about 70%.
The remaining parts all fell under the umbrella of Abundance.
She took a moment to sense her progress.
She could essentially command the currently fractured Path of Permanence now, and her grasp over the concept of Propagation was nearly complete as well.
But then again, when Propagation and Abundance split off to become their own Path, they had mixed in other concepts during the tearing of the original idea.
You couldn't master them 100% just with the Permanence Equation alone.
Not that it mattered.
What mattered was that after milking this opportunity dry, she could finally end this tedious, dragging battle!
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL