Chapter 876: Subjective experiment

Cocoon clearly recognized the crisis of this world.

Therefore, she incited Mortals to industrialize, covering the sky with endless exhaust fumes, thereby obscuring the Mortals' ability to gaze at the stars.

At the same time, her 'The Orthodox Church' vigorously suppressed and even arrested those Mortals who wished to gaze at the starry sky.

Furthermore, she established the current organization, training enforcers to capture other oddities and suppress the large number of demonic thoughtss that manifested due to industrialization.

Everything was for the continued existence of this world.

Although it seemed somewhat contradictory, these were all her efforts to ensure this world could continue to exist.

"So... are you the Incarnation of that destined future of destruction?" Cocoon looked at Li Qi, her voice involuntarily tinged with intense fear.

She couldn't help but be afraid.

Stopping time, something like that...

Even if she could destroy an entire city, she couldn't do something so inconceivable.

"No, to be precise, I am a passerby, but you should know that sometimes an ordinary passerby can actually bring many benefits and add many good variables to one's life," Li Qi said. "I want to get answers from you, and I hope to get your cooperation. Of course, if you are unwilling to cooperate, I will also leave on my own."

Cocoon then said, "So... cooperation means answering your questions, right?"

"For now, yes. Please rest assured, I have no covetous intentions towards your world whatsoever. I do not wish to invade here, nor do I wish to interfere with your lives," Li Qi emphasized.

Then, Li Qi reiterated the three questions he wanted to know.

Why support industrialization?

Why establish this organization to hunt other psychic phenomena?

Why prevent these Mortals from reaching for the sky?

After listening, Cocoon said with some difficulty, "Your questions, I have already answered."

"Yes, but it's not detailed enough. I want to hear the real story and reasons," Li Qi said.

"These are the true reasons," Cocoon said.

"Oh... so, you actually don't know the real reasons either," Li Qi nodded slightly. "No wonder I couldn't read it. If you don't even know, then I certainly can't find it."

"However, fortunately, I still have plenty of time. So, can you let me move freely? I want to walk around and see this world. A few years should be enough. Your world is very small, and it won't be difficult to figure it out," Li Qi said.

"Do we have the right to refuse?" Cocoon asked.

"Yes, if you are unwilling, I will leave," Li Qi said.

"Alright, please observe as you wish. I will provide you with the necessary permissions," Cocoon immediately made her decision.

"Thank you," Li Qi smiled and nodded, expressing his gratitude.

Time flowed again, and Cocoon also returned to her calm state.

The surrounding observers did not notice any abnormalities. In their records, these two oddities got along quite well.

Cocoon even asked everyone to cooperate with Li Qi as much as possible.

The surrounding staff discussed secretly for a while. They couldn't imagine why Cocoon would be so close to the oddity in front of them, but based on Cocoon's past behavior, the organization ultimately chose to trust her, not forcibly contain Li Qi, but instead granted him permission to act independently.

Li Qi expressed his gratitude for this and then began his plan.

After that, he began to push some things in this world, for example... he started researching some technologies in the secret church with Professor Caroling, following this world's technology tree, but mainly focusing on artillery, seemingly truly studying how to launch people with cannons.

He would also occasionally visit The Orthodox Church, observe the organization of its followers, and sometimes join the enforcers to help them deal with some troublesome oddities.

Li Qi lived in a residence, observing this world, watching their daily lives, talking to them about their specific situations and hardships, and then witnessing their struggles for everything they pursued.

But these were merely Li Qi's interests and had nothing to do with what he truly wanted to do.

Regarding the main task of observing the Demon of Death's remnants, he had been seeking a position within this world and funding Caroling and her secret church for research in this area.

He was unwilling to interfere with this world's original technological progress with 'heaven-sent' technology, but... giving it a slight push with resources was not a problem.

He opened a small crack for the suppressed science building, allowing these secret scholars to reach higher levels of technology through their own efforts, and even possibly create a truly meaningful 'astronomical telescope'.

It's just... Li Qi himself didn't know what the outcome would be.

Because this was not a 'scientific world'.

If it were in the Reality Universe, then all of this would be natural, without any ripples. Observing the Universe and stepping into the Star Domain is inherently a necessary path for most civilizations.

Cultivating to the end in isolation within one's own world is a situation encountered by only a very small number of worlds with extremely vast civilizations.

But this is the Desire Realm.

The Desire Realm can change the world through subjective cognition. This is inherently a world composed entirely of subjective consciousness; there is no 'objective fact' to speak of in this world.

In other words, when you truly believe that light is a particle, then when you conduct experiments, you will see particles a thousand times in a thousand double-slit interference experiments.

On the other hand, another scientist who insists that light is a wave conducts experiments, and he will see waves a thousand times in a thousand attempts.

This has nothing to do with the nature of light; their 'firm belief' alone is enough to change the experimental results.

Similarly, in engineering, if they build a building whose mechanical structure is wrong, it would definitely collapse in the Reality Universe. However, because the designer is a very skilled architect, he made a mistake in his calculations and didn't notice it. He himself believed it wouldn't collapse, and everyone else followed suit, believing the building could stand firm.

Thus, the building truly would not collapse and could exist indefinitely. But if someone discovered that the building's mechanical structure was incorrect, told everyone, and convinced everyone, then the building would immediately collapse.

This is the situation in the Desire Realm.

What the reality is doesn't matter; what matters is what everyone thinks.

And as is well known... there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes, everyone's thoughts are different, and the final result is the 'greatest common divisor' of everyone, which is the synthesis of everyone's thoughts.

This is also why the Desire Realm can maintain 'balance' and 'stability'.

The underlying principle is that the measure of most phenomena is always determined by the 'addition' of countless factors. This seems like a platitude, but this addition is addition in the ordinary sense, the '+' in 1+1=2, not multiplication or some other operation.

The occurrence of each factor can be described by 'probability', i.e., the law of large numbers. These two points combined create a world full of Gaussian distributions, just as if Karma and everyone's 'trust' truly existed, then it would most likely satisfy a normal distribution. So, doing this adds one Karma, doing that subtracts ten Karma, merits and demerits can cancel each other out, and finally, countless factors converge to form a normal distribution, creating a relatively stable world.

Therefore, the Gaussian distribution also seems to be able to be used as a reasonable gauge to test the measure of a Desire Realm. Adjusting scores towards a normal distribution means that the score differences between different people can always appropriately reflect the differences in their diligence, intelligence, ability, and other factors. The sum of countless people's thoughts forms the basic stable state of the Desire Realm.

However, overall stability does not mean fluctuations in certain specific areas. In this world, the results of subjective research might truly affect the Demon of Death's suppression of the surrounding Star Domain.

Anyway, no matter what, Li Qi is now very curious about what the Universe explored by the scholars of this world through their own efforts will turn out to be like, and how it will collide with the area covered by the Demon of Death.

To achieve this, Li Qi even reined in his distracting thoughts, making himself not think about anything related to cosmic space.

This is impossible for Mortals, as Mortals simply cannot control their distracting thoughts, but for Li Qi, it is very simple; controlling thoughts is too easy for him.

Moreover, during this period, he wasn't entirely doing these things. In his spare time, he had been stabilizing his third-grade abilities.

Regarding this, Li Qi still feels very surprised.

He knew that he was not a complete third-grade and still needed to wait for his cultivation to stabilize, a process that could even last for millions of years.

But... is the gap from fourth-grade to third-grade really that big?

In a sense, with each passing day, Li Qi could instantly defeat his yesterday's self with a single move.

His power was constantly climbing, and although he was only 'stabilizing his cultivation', it was like the rapid expansion after the Big Bang; every minute and every second, his progress was terrifyingly fast. Li Qi himself couldn't figure out why there would be such a degree of change.

The third-grade, as a qualitative leap in cultivation, still held secrets that Li Qi did not understand. Even Prince Changqin said that he couldn't tell Li Qi and that Li Qi had to find them himself.

Then let's take it slow; there's still plenty of time, anyway.

Li Qi thus slowly influenced this world while waiting for his own changes.

In the blink of an eye, twenty years had passed.

Professor Caroling's identity was exposed in an incident, and he was caught by The Orthodox Church and burned to death. The cannon launch plan could only be shelved, but he had a student who inherited most of the hidden manuscripts.

The three-person enforcer team, during an operation, saw the veteran severely injured and the emotionless girl lose control and go berserk. The remaining young man rescued the emotionless girl and, using some unknown method, suppressed her loss of control, but it also caused the emotionless girl to lose her supernatural abilities. However, she was no longer that emotionless face; a few years later, they got married. Li Qi even attended the wedding. At the wedding, she had already gained the ability to express emotions and even welcomed Li Qi, with a beautiful smile.

When the emotionless girl became natural, she naturally lost the ability to twist reality through her mind. It can be said that all supernatural abilities originally came from 'mental illness'; when the mental illness is cured, the supernatural abilities also disappear.

Power comes from distortion. To gain power, it's impossible to be a natural person. This is also a manifestation of the Desire Realm, perhaps.

Cocoon continued to do her work during this period, even resisting Li Qi several times, but Li Qi always chose to back down.

He completely respected this world's own choices. Although he would push for certain things to happen according to his own will, if other existences expressed resistance, then Li Qi would not be stubborn.

Otherwise, it would become him controlling this world to touch the Demon of Death, which would be meaningless. It would be more convenient to just brainwash the entire world directly.

He wanted an autonomous world, to view the sky from its own perspective, rather than controlling a Puppet.

There were as many Puppets as he wanted; it didn't necessarily have to be this world. Li Qi could even create a world on the spot and make it touch the Demon of Death, but that would be meaningless.

Just like how the Demonic Lords made Li Shiwei break Li Qi's Dao Heart, if they had directly brainwashed Li Shiwei, it would have been useless and would not have affected Li Qi.

So, Li Qi slowly waited, pacing in this world, conversing with various people, helping the enforcers deal with some difficult matters as a contained 'oddity', understanding information and their thoughts, and waiting for them to proactively pierce through the mist of the sky and come into contact with the Universe above.

Another twenty years passed after that.

The world erupted in a great war. Various nations, due to the problems caused by industrialization, unanimously chose the same solution.

That was, to shift the conflict abroad.

War broke out, and the influence of 'The Orthodox Church' plummeted. Cocoon also fell into an extremely weakened state. She was no longer able to control human civilization, but through the enforcers and prior arrangements, she remained the most powerful existence in this world, silently protecting civilization in the darkness.

Or rather... imprisoning civilization.

Forty years of time, Li Qi had seen it very clearly. Her name was truly appropriate.

She was 'Cocoon', the obstacle the larva had to overcome to crawl out, but at the same time, it was precisely the existence of 'Cocoon' that protected the larva.

Breaking out of the cocoon to become a butterfly must be a step the larva has to take.

At this moment, Li Qi was sitting in the 'Enforcer Headquarters'. For decades, to avoid disturbing the Mortals of this world, he had always lived here.

Beside him were the 'veteran', who had retired and become a high-ranking enforcer, and Cocoon.

"Your Excellency Li Qi, then, about the last encirclement mission regarding the war—" The veteran scratched his head at Li Qi.

"Was it not good? No one died," Li Qi said with a smile.

"An encirclement mission, and no one died, isn't that a bit... Although you subdued both sides and knocked everyone out, the war won't end because of that," the veteran sighed.

"If they died, would it end? Not necessarily, right?" Li Qi retorted.

This left the veteran speechless.

However, at this moment, Cocoon spoke.

She suddenly interjected, "I'm dying."