Chapter 1030: Open the sky

Thus, when Li Qi decided to create the heavens, he fell into deep thought.

What kind of space-time did he want to create?

What rules, what underlying nature, what kind of life would exist, and what kind of possibilities would he open up?

Possibility, though it sounds profound, is actually very simple in essence.

So-called possibility is the path of 'what kind of future you can lead to'.

It is the probability of things happening, a quantitative indicator contained within things that foretells their development trends; it is an objectively existing phenomenon, not a proactively determined idea.

If you want to reach a certain outcome, for example, becoming a hero, there are many paths and many choices to becoming a hero. For instance, you can go to the most dangerous places to save people, or you can participate in a certain battle.

You possess thousands of paths, and each time you walk one of these paths, you realize a future and enact a possibility.

And now, a cage locks you in.

Then all your possibilities converge; you cannot go to the most dangerous places to save people, nor can you participate in any battles. You can only be trapped within the cage.

This cage will become a 'crucial node' in history.

If you want to do other things, you must first Breakthrough this cage, which means 'mastering the crucial node'.

If you can never Breakthrough, then you can do nothing. All your 'possibilities' will be confined within the cage. No matter what you want to do or what future you want to achieve, you must first Breakthrough the cage.

The cage is a crucial node in history.

And the form of the cage can vary greatly.

For example, a literal cage, using a Seal to imprison someone, is one way to restrict possibilities.

Others, however, restrict from another direction, such as 'aging'.

Why do toddlers have more possibilities than centenarians?

Because toddlers have a lot of time, which can be used to do things, while the elderly have little time left. As the available time decreases, possibilities also gradually diminish.

Restricting a person's future time and abilities through aging to block their possibilities is also a viable method. As the saying goes, 'heroes grow old, beauties turn gray.' After these restrictions, even the greatest heroes struggle to find freedom, and their possibilities naturally contract.

These are common methods used in manipulating history, all aimed at controlling the development of possibilities and directing them towards the desired outcome.

It's like a person: Li Qi wants to see him become a scholar, but doesn't want to see him become an athlete. This is a struggle of possibilities.

So, make him trip somewhere and break his leg.

This is a 'cage'.

Within the 'broken leg' cage, there isn't much he can do, and reading is one of them. This way, his possibility of becoming an athlete decreases, while his possibility of becoming a scholar expands.

This process is called 'convergence'.

If there were another Third Rank or Second Rank who wanted to interfere with history and stop Li Qi's actions, he might use coincidence to bring a doctor to heal the leg, or simply develop a new medicine and spread it throughout this space-time to counteract Li Qi's leg-breaking tactic.

However, the power required to bring a doctor and to develop a new medicine is not the same.

These things all require the expenditure of power, and the matters they wish to interfere with are not limited to just this one.

How much power is cost-effective to spend on one matter?

In the overall historical inclination, how much power should be invested where?

How can one achieve the greatest convergence of possibilities with the least amount of power?

This is what must be considered in the battles of historical manipulation, everything that happens behind the scenes.

Many of these gambits are very interesting. For instance, a certain Mortal is extremely valuable because he only needs a slight influence to then affect the entire space-time. Such a heroic figure can help those manipulating history save power, making historical alteration easier.

Originally, preventing a potential world war would require a significant investment of power from a Third Rank. But with this person, only a little initial capital is needed, and he can help the Third Rank prevent the world war and bring about world peace.

Then, revolving around this person, some event changes might occur.

How to find such people, how to utilize them, and how many resources should be invested in them—these are the things to consider.

And the opponent is the same; he might also seek such people, or seek other nodes.

In the past, Li Qi had a friend named Yan Ke, who was also a Young Master of Shaman God Mountain. When he was at the Ninth Rank, he possessed a miniature heaven and earth formed by unique cosmic light, and within this miniature heaven and earth, he practiced such matters all day long.

Thinking about it now, it must be that his Master was already laying the foundation for his Third Rank path at that time.

When Li Qi engaged in world-line wars with others, this was essentially what he was doing.

It seems ordinary and easy to understand, yet if the battlefield is expanded to every possibility across endless timelines, the computational load becomes staggeringly enormous, and the 'superiority or inferiority' among the Third Ranks becomes apparent.

Whoever has a deeper understanding of history, whose 'Dao' can influence reality more simply,

Every Dao Orthodoxy, and even every Dao lineage, has different means of influencing history. For example, the human Dao prefers to change the entire world, fundamentally altering the entire system on a given timeline, and then overpowering others with its grand trend.

This grand trend is not limited to a single timeline; they will change at crucial nodes, thereby making all future possibilities that develop part of their 'grand trend'.

The Demonic Dao, however, doesn't like to change so much. They prefer to induce subtle changes by altering 'thoughts,' thereby creating a butterfly effect to influence more and more places.

This struggle is also a manifestation of the Dao struggle, a variation of the path of cultivation, and a specific application of Divine Ability and spell arts.

When Second Ranks contend for such possibilities, they choose to spread out more branches, which is something Third Ranks cannot handle because their computational power cannot keep up.

So, summarizing all of this and applying it to the matter of 'creating the heavens,' what kind of possibilities should be created?

Li Qi fell into deep thought, summarizing the so-called possibilities he had created in the past, and what kind of possibilities were needed for creating the heavens, for creating a brand new space-time?

What kind of future?

First and foremost, it must be 'diverse'.

Li Qi acknowledged that this world possessed many possibilities, so 'diversity' was an important indicator. Perhaps parallel world-lines should be established, turning the world into something akin to a parent-child space-time with infinite branches.

Every decision would generate a branching space-time; infinite choices would lead to infinite parallel worlds, and infinite parallel worlds would bring about all sorts of possibilities.

From the very moment this independent segment of space-time began, possibilities had already started to differentiate.

This would impose some burden on Li Qi, but it wasn't a significant problem as he could fully bear it. However, Li Qi was concerned about another issue.

Often, the so-called 'diversity' of possibilities doesn't actually expand the scope of possibilities.

It might sound strange; with infinite possibilities, naturally every possibility would exist. How much more could there be to be considered 'diverse'? What could be more than infinite?

Of course there is, because infinity itself has different sizes.

Between one and two, there are infinitely many numbers, but none of these numbers are less than one or greater than two.

Because 'less than one, greater than two' is merely a classification of possibilities in itself.

Similarly, arranging infinite natural numbers, which are all natural numbers from 0 to infinity, this possibility can be described as 'the set composed of all numbers used for counting.' In other words, this set contains all collections of 'a certain type of possibility'.

This is a 'type of possibility'.

With this type of possibility, it is clear that other types of numbers also exist.

If other types of 'numbers' are added, then infinity will be greater than infinity. This is the relationship between apples and fruits.

Li Qi created all the apples.

As for apples, there will be infinite apples here; every kind of apple, as long as it fits the definition of an apple, will exist here. Infinite apples are laid out before you.

But you will never find a banana.

However, if Li Qi created 'all fruits,' then infinite bananas would appear, along with infinite oranges, infinite dragon fruit, and infinite pineapples.

The difference between infinite fruits and infinite apples is as great as the difference between infinite apples and a finite number.

It's like saying, 'Here are all the fruits,' but besides 'fruits,' there's nothing else here.

Then, expanding further, if Li Qi created 'infinite produce,' then fruits would also become an ordinary element within it.

At this point, infinite nuts, infinite walnuts, infinite almonds, and infinite cashews would also differentiate within the possibilities.

This forms three different sizes of 'infinity': 'apples,' 'fruits,' and 'produce'.

They each contain another, with one being larger than the next.

This difference comes from the varying number of elements within the sets.

It is highly probable that Li Qi would not be able to list these rules one by one, because the types of fruits... are very likely infinite as well.

The total number of these 'infinite types' might even be an uncountable infinity.

What is beyond produce, ultimately?

If something beyond produce is found, then what's beyond that?

The set of all real numbers is uncountable.

The set of irrational numbers is equipotent to the set of real numbers, and the set of rational numbers is equipotent to the set of natural numbers. Equipotent means the number of elements in the sets are equal, and the cardinality of the set of real numbers is far greater than that of the natural numbers.

Considering the generally non-linear nature of the Great natural world, this essentially condemns such a blind expansion of possibilities—even if the Universe can be quantized and discretized, the possibilities you face are still uncountable!

Therefore, even if Li Qi created infinite possibilities, he could not achieve 'true infinity'.

So-called true infinity means finding an ultimate set that can contain all sets.

Of course, this leads back to the old path.

Does such a set exist that can interpret all sets?

Of course not.

This is just like the ultimate Dao.

Li Qi had long since arrived at the answer, and even many Mortals could reach the same conclusion. Although the systems of mathematical axioms followed by everyone were not consistent due to the ability of Great Powers to modify reality, this did not prevent Li Qi from arriving at this answer.

Therefore, pursuing a 'new space-time' that contains all possibilities is not feasible; Li Qi cannot achieve this.

Under such restrictions, how then should Li Qi fulfill the 'diverse' possibilities he set?

Besides generating branching timelines, what other methods can enhance these greater possibilities?

Li Qi, deep in thought, furrowed his brow tightly.

He also had to consider whether his power could sustain it. Blindly pursuing diversity wouldn't work either. Or, should he just let go? Let the Mortals of those myriad heavens develop freely, allowing them to create their own possibilities.

But in that case, these myriad heavens created by Li Qi would become a public square, open for anyone to walk through, no longer belonging to Li Qi, and Li Qi would gain no benefits from it.

Just like the Desire Realm, Heavenly Demons cannot control it at all. This thing is essentially ownerless; anyone can take it. Moreover, Heavenly Demons themselves don't seem to have any desire to fully control the Desire Realm, at least Li Qi couldn't tell.

However, upon thinking this, Li Qi suddenly realized.

That's right, just like the Desire Realm.

What isn't good enough about the Desire Realm?

If speaking of possibilities, the possibilities of the Desire Realm are entirely worth Li Qi's study. Even though Heavenly Demons themselves cannot truly claim the Desire Realm as their own, what does that matter?

All Li Qi wanted was more possibilities, and making these myriad heavens his own was, in itself, a form of restriction.

Adding restrictions beforehand, yet desiring freedom—what kind of logic is that?

Thinking of this, Li Qi had his initial idea.

If that's the case, then he would create an open-ended myriad heavens. Within this space-time, the space-time rules would be extremely easy to change. This change could be divided into two types: one, similar to the Desire Realm, relying on subjective will, but with much greater difficulty than the Desire Realm.

The other type would be to make the space-time rules public as a 'thing' that could be shaped, allowing everyone to modify them, just like open-sourcing code.

But there was still another problem: could this truly create more possibilities? One must know that when free competition begins, 'homogenization' is the more likely state to emerge.

When an optimal solution appears, everyone will follow suit and imitate, and not necessarily innovate.

Therefore... some variables are needed.

Then, let's set 'Eras'.

Every Era, the various 'parallel space-times' would connect, and different possibilities would become interconnected.

And after that, it would be...

Li Qi began to slowly sculpt.