Chapter 1 A Silent Ascent

The Landwalker quietly and rapidly ascended, sliding along the mountain for several thousand meters towards an even more desolate direction: Hao Ren didn't want his actions to lead anyone to the cave where Nolan was hiding. He found the spaceship's acceleration to be much slower than expected, and it lacked smoothness in operation, which indirectly confirmed his guess: this was not the real Landwalker.

It was just a spaceship that looked very similar on the outside, simulated based on his memories by some vast program. Since the psionic equipment manufactured by the Xi Ling Empire was incomprehensible to mortal civilizations, the core of this ship was completely fictional and could not exceed the knowledge base of the simulation program itself.

"Do you really think we can smoothly reach the 'boundary'?" The data terminal watched the spaceship accelerate clumsily away from the atmosphere, and couldn't help but mutter, "Will the controller behind this world allow anyone to explore the edge of the stage?"

"We might be stopped, or encounter some other obstruction," Hao Ren nodded. "Even if this world is controlled by a pure program, it should have some kind of self-protection mechanism, which will definitely prevent data overflow. But before that, we can observe the 'incongruous' parts of this world."

The Corpse Ji Terminal oh-ed and asked curiously, "What do you think is the essence of this world?"

"Maybe it's some kind of computer program, a virtual world or something," Hao Ren said casually. After realizing the falsity of the world, he immediately had this guess, and there were many similar conjectures. "Program theory" was one of the most reliable. "The resetting process of the world, and the various details Nolan mentioned in his memory, these are all very similar to the characteristics of a virtual world. And the state of the Landwalker and the psionic pistol can also corroborate this."

"The spaceship we're on now is virtual, so where is the real Landwalker?" The Corpse Ji Terminal asked a crucial question. "Is it still in your portable space?"

Hao Ren waved his hand: "No, I've confirmed it, there's no spaceship in the portable space. But I suspect that I haven't actually opened the portable space from beginning to end—we need to free our minds. We're in a virtual world right now, and everything we experience here is actually isolated from reality. The act of 'opening the portable space to take things out' is likely just a process that happens in my mind. Remember when we first went back from Zhuom and found that the mercenary badge couldn't be taken out, and the dirty clothes were as good as new? Because all the processes are simulated by the program... although we can't find the interface of the program here at all."

The Corpse Ji Terminal oh-ed again, and then continued to sit on the console in a daze: her original position on the spaceship was a slot on the console, but now she couldn't get in. Having nothing to do, she had to sit on her slot and pretend to be useful. Hao Ren looked at such a terminal, and couldn't help showing a thoughtful look. Perhaps this expression was too obvious, and the latter couldn't help but glance at him: "What are you thinking?"

"I roughly understand what's going on with you," Hao Ren pointed to the other party's body, "Like why you turned into this look."

The terminal's eyes lit up: "Why?"

"Didn't I say, this world can only simulate what it can understand, because its simulation function is a program, and programs are rigid. It can't understand my psionic pistol, so it simulated a pirated version that can eject bullets, and it can't understand the principle of the Landwalker, so it simulated a messy shell," Hao Ren pointed to the terminal. "Similarly, it can't understand what a lively, talkative PDA with a lot of ideas and more noisy than people is..."

The Corpse Ji Terminal stared with stiff expression and touched her own body: "...Damn it..."

"I guess this world hasn't seen an artificial intelligence of your level, or even if there is artificial intelligence, it has different principles from you, so the simulation program of this world is confused," Hao Ren rolled his eyes. "Maybe it determines the shape of an individual by scanning the soul. Your brain is too much like a human, so the world simulated you as a human, but you're an inorganic thing, so the world simulated you as a dead person, and since you never keep quiet, the world set you up to be restless even when you're dead..."

Looking at the blonde girl's dumbfounded look, Hao Ren leisurely finished the last sentence: "The above are all my guesses, but I guess you can't come up with a more reliable guess than this, so this process is the only explanation at present."

The terminal jumped off the console: "Then why was this body chosen for me?! Are other images not okay?"

"You ask me, who am I going to ask?" Hao Ren rolled his eyes to the sky. "Maybe it's the default emoticon pack of the system?"

As he said this, he suddenly had an idea: "It's also possible that you're really like this on a soul level... Holy crap!"

The terminal was startled by this "Holy crap!": "What are you doing!?"

Hao Ren stared at the other party: "You're really wasting such an image! Can't you have a better personality normally?"

Terminal: "...So what are you talking about?"

Hao Ren waved his hand and turned around, ignoring this messy and unbelievable PDA, and instead focused on observing the situation outside the spaceship. He was still very confident in his own speculation, although he had not yet understood the true rules of this world, he had determined the "simulation" mechanism of this world through the experiment with the psionic pistol and the observation of the Landwalker, so the mutation of the data terminal was not a possession, but a complete "appearing with a different image", just because the simulation function of this world was not perfect, the PDA became a dead girl.

Currently, the data terminal was the most severely mutated of all his tools. Even the Landwalker, with its interior turned into an abstract maze, was not as severely mutated as the human-shaped terminal. Hao Ren guessed that this was probably related to the high degree of personalization of the terminal: a living soul is more complicated than any high technology.

Thinking of this, he suddenly felt a little awkward, and couldn't help but mutter to himself: "A tool..."

When he usually argued with the data terminal, he couldn't help but treat the other party as a person—otherwise he couldn't argue with a PDA so seriously. But after entering this world, the terminal was obviously regarded as a tool by the judgment mechanism of this world. Although it was simulated as a human appearance, the process of "simulation" itself meant the non-human attributes of the simulated object, because "human" does not need to be simulated here.

The terminal's noisy voice sounded next to him: "What are you talking about again?"

Hao Ren said casually: "Do you think you are a tool or a person?"

As soon as he said it, he felt that the topic was a bit inappropriate. It seemed that he asked too directly, but he didn't expect the terminal to care at all: "Is there a difference? The Xi Ling God System doesn't study this, because everything in the world is a part of the Empire. But if you have to entangle it... This is definitely a tool, a precision tool! The super awesome kind!"

Hearing this guy proudly announce that he was a tool, Hao Ren slapped his forehead: "I knew it was a waste of feelings to worry about you."

The terminal's attention at this time had shifted to the outside of the spaceship. Although this half-baked "Landwalker" was running strangely, it at least really had the ability to fly into space. Now the spaceship was in the vast universe, and Planet Zhuom was in the corner of the porthole below the spaceship, and had shrunk into a blue ball the size of a fist. Looking at the starry sky outside, the terminal was thoughtful: "I originally thought that this world would take more active defense measures... such as simply prohibiting our spaceship from taking off, or even more severely, limiting all aircraft to only operate within the atmosphere."

"Since we successfully flew out of the atmosphere, then this confirms one of my guesses," Hao Ren nodded lightly, "There is a major premise for the virtual scene of this world."

"What premise?"

"It must conform to the laws of nature, it must be 'real' enough," Hao Ren pointed to the increasingly distant Planet Zhuom. "In order to improve the 'authenticity' of this world, a certain program must completely restore all the details of nature. Since there is a sky, there must be a way to reach the sky. Since there is a universe, the spaceship must be able to use it. It can use meteorites or natural disasters to prevent humans from launching spaceships, but it cannot formulate a non-existent natural law to invalidate the principle of spaceships—because there is no such natural law in the real universe, so it cannot formulate it."

"Well, that makes sense, but since we took off, we don't seem to have encountered any obstacles," the terminal was a little puzzled. "Does this world just let us explore the boundary?"

Hao Ren frowned slightly: "I'm also wondering... but let's not worry about it for now, the current thing is to continue to drive forward. Let's see if this dream has an end!"

The terminal pointed to the picture from the external monitor: "Perhaps... that's the end."