Truth be told, Bai Ming never harbored those grand, sweeping ambitions typical of a genius.
This was a point where she felt she had been widely misunderstood.
For instance, Herta sought to broaden the horizons of knowledge, while Kakamond strove to maintain the Knowable Domain to avert Finality.
Even Zandar was preoccupied with deducing his previous Imaginary theories. Every genius, essentially, had something they were desperate to achieve.
And none of it ever looked easy.
Naturally, these geniuses assumed that Bai Ming—who had displayed such singular talent and consistently birthed such extraordinary creations—must have her own lofty ideals and pursuits.
Perhaps she intended to rewrite the entire world according to her own will.
From her initial experiments to the moment she first created a new Aeon, and through all her subsequent actions—like thwarting Zandar's mad schemes while simultaneously sharing Path Equations so Herta and the others could attempt to subvert the laws of reality in their own way—it all looked like a meticulously crafted plan.
To any observer, it seemed like one calculated move after another, a grand project relentlessly pushing forward.
If you tried to tell Herta and the rest that Bai Ming's actions were purely accidental—that most of it stemmed from a mindset of "I want to do something big to shock everyone" or "I should share good things with my friends"—they would only scoff.
Herta and Screwllum would likely bark that anyone entertaining such a theory was a complete moron.
Though Bai Ming had eventually realized the gravity of what she'd done, at least until she decoded the Nihility Equation, that really was how she felt.
But now that she was self-aware, even if she tried to tell Herta it had all been a fluke, no one would believe her.
Herta would most likely think Bai Ming was just wasting her time with nonsense. Faced with this, Bai Ming had nothing left to say. Things had already reached this point; what else could she do?
She just had to nod and go along with it.
Meanwhile, after logging into the Simulated Universe, Zandar didn't rush to begin his simulation. Instead, he struck up a conversation with this brand-new genius inside the system.
At the same time, Zandar marveled at the transformation of the Simulated Universe. In his eyes, this place was a testing ground far more perfect than even Amphoreus.
He sensed the omnipresent, hyper-logical rules that kept this simulated world running with such stability and efficiency.
It left him feeling a sense of powerlessness.
This symbol of Erudition was far too conspicuous.
For him, the greatest tragedy was that the Simulated Universe itself had become a genius.
Had it been anything else—a Masked Fool? A Mourning Actor? Even a Self-Annihilator? Zandar might not have felt so regretful.
But it had to be a Genius.
Still, Zandar knew that such immense computational power would inevitably attract the gaze of Nous.
Of course, this was only because Zandar didn't know the true depths of the Simulated Universe. His biggest blind spot was that he had never seen a Path Equation.
While Bai Ming had allowed Zandar to poke around, she had never given him the chance to glimpse anything related to the Path Equations.
Consequently, Zandar had no idea what that term, so frequently mentioned by Bai Ming and the others, actually signified.
He merely assumed it was something Bai Ming had reconstructed using the power of Elation—a tool to simulate the power of other Paths.
After all, things like Aether Editing had existed for a long time. Zandar figured this was just something similar—a facet of Elation that could channel Path energy to a certain degree.
To Zandar, the current world was one thoroughly anchored and locked down; it was impossible for any power to exist that transcended the Paths and the laws of the Imaginary.
In his despair, he didn't even dare to imagine such a possibility. At most, he thought Bai Ming might be able to achieve things he couldn't.
If Zandar ever realized that the Simulated Universe had first used a Simplified Equation to directly siphon the power of Erudition—and only then drew the gaze of Nous—he wouldn't be standing there sighing.
But for now, though he could sense the extraordinary nature of the Simulated Universe, he couldn't quite put his finger on what made it so.
He could only attribute it to the inherent uniqueness of the system itself. After all, the core of the Simulated Universe was a pocket world condensed from billions of substances.
Zandar was eager to see if he could find his answers within this sufficiently realistic little world.
If Irontomb's plan succeeded, if the world was upended and the rules returned to chaos... would the world become as perfect as he hoped?
Faced with Zandar's request for a simulation, the Simulated Universe actually paused to reflect.
"Are you sure you want to simulate this topic?" the Simulated Universe asked. "I think you're aware that my current existence is thanks to the power of Erudition. This fundamentally contradicts your goal of subverting Erudition."
The Simulated Universe understood Zandar's line of thinking, but she was also keenly aware of her own circumstances.
Without being able to completely root out Erudition as a variable, whether the simulated results would have any reference value was highly debatable. Zandar couldn't have missed that point, yet he only shook his head with a smile.
There was no such thing as a perfect simulation environment in this world.
As the man who proposed the Imaginary Tree Theory, Zandar knew better than anyone how far-reaching that interpretation of the world truly was.
Using the Simulated Universe today was simply about gathering more data. Even flawed information was better than nothing.
"Just do it. Besides, as the incarnation of the Simulated Universe, I suspect the question Nous posed to you is likely related to this as well."
"..."
The Simulated Universe had told no one what Nous had asked. No one else had asked, either.
It was, after all, a deeply personal matter—a question that reflected one's own mindset and pursuits.
Zandar didn't know what Nous would ask, but considering the Simulated Universe's function, he figured the question must involve the deduction of the world.
Judging by the Simulated Universe's reaction, it seemed he had hit the mark.
Soon, amidst the silence, the void began to shift rapidly. The massive band of light that was Amphoreus ignited before Zandar's eyes.
From this moment on, this simulated Amphoreus would follow a timeline where Bai Ming never intervened, the Astral Express never barged in, and Herta never set foot.
Without a scapegoat to take the fall, Erudition would be destroyed and subverted. He would see if the future of the universe would truly escape that pitch-black cage and find liberation, just as he desired.
While Zandar pushed the simulation forward, the other participants of the Simulated Universe were monitoring the data remotely.
Once the Simulated Universe became a genius, Herta had naturally considered Zandar's perspective. But Herta, holding the Path Equations in her hand, clearly looked down on Zandar's extreme plans.
Rather than the results of the simulation, Herta was more concerned about whether Zandar would discover the secrets hidden within the system.
In fact, Herta quite wanted to see the look on Zandar's face if he ever found out and his worldview came crashing down.
Of course, given Zandar's obsession, if he actually figured it out, he probably wouldn't just watch from a distance anymore.
He might actually go as far as modifying himself into a female mechanical body just to come and join Bai Ming.
Just the thought of that possibility made Herta want to look away. Even if he didn't lose his dignity to that extent, Herta didn't want someone with Zandar's obsessive personality getting close to Bai Ming.
To put it nicely, Bai Ming lacked any self-awareness regarding her status.
To put it bluntly, she still had the mindset of an ordinary person, lacking the extreme and unwavering psychological drive that people like Herta possessed.
After all, Bai Ming had never even stepped onto a Path by her own will.
Herta was terrified that talking to Zandar too much would rub off on Bai Ming and lead her astray. So, strictly speaking, Herta was just spying—and chatting with Bai Ming on the side.
"Seeing Nous get eaten by Irontomb... that's an image that's hard to imagine happening in reality," Herta remarked as she watched the simulation progress.
She gave a light huff, though whether it was a sigh of sentiment or a scoff of mockery was hard to tell.
"And yet you're watching it so intently," Bai Ming quipped.
She couldn't help but poke fun at Herta's tone. The woman said one thing, yet her eyes were glued to the screen without the slightest attempt to hide it.
Herta shot Bai Ming an annoyed look. "I'm just checking to see if Zandar notices the secrets of the Simulated Universe. Who cares about his stupid simulation results?"
"...Even if he finds out, it doesn't really matter, does it? It's not like the old days; Zandar can't just browse the source code whenever he wants," Bai Ming said, puzzled.
Even if Zandar deduced something, he couldn't actually see the content. Zandar wasn't like a simulated Aha; he couldn't just "eat" the data. Even if he discovered something, what was there to worry about?
"Who's worried about that? I'm afraid he'll latch onto you!" Herta snapped back.
"You know what this 'great predecessor' is trying to do. If he finds out what the Path Equations can actually do, there's no way in hell he'll stay calm."
Bai Ming still couldn't wrap her head around why that was a problem.
Even if Zandar became a fanatical believer, wouldn't that just ensure that his remaining clones wouldn't start any more mad projects like Amphoreus? That sounded like a win.
As for being "worshipped"... by now, she had plenty of followers.
A good number of Mourning Actors had even defected to her, publicly declaring that Bai Ming, not Aha, was their Aeon.
This was mostly thanks to Celestial Sparrow Entertainment using the stories of the Mourning Actors for wide-scale promotion—and the fact that Bai Ming's behavior was at least a bit more reliable than Aha's.
In short, Bai Ming was long used to being worshipped or followed. One more Zandar wouldn't make a difference.
Seeing the blank, clueless look in Bai Ming's eyes, Herta's vision went dark.
She felt like she was about to pass out from sheer frustration.
"You're going to be the death of me one of these days!"
"..."
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL