Chapter 960: The Future

"Don't belong to this era?" Null looked at Li Pin. "What do you mean I don't belong to this era?"

"In your database, there should not be detailed information on the Eternal. Yet, Miao Ya, Yong Yao, Black White, and the others all claimed they were searching for the Eternal, seeking contact with the Power of Eternity, but their understanding of the Eternal did not even scratch the surface. The true Eternal..."

Li Pin thought of the conjecture born from his halted attempt to ascend into Eternity.

"The true Eternals were beings that transcended the past, present, and future. Mass, spacetime, and reincarnation are merely components of their bodies. Or rather, they themselves are the avatars of mass, spacetime, and reincarnation. They could use the past to interfere with the future, and likewise alter the past from the future."

He traced an invisible line with his hand.

"If they had a thought in the past, they could follow the timeline to glimpse the outcome of that thought and then directly take that result for use. For them, time was a dimension they could fully control and alter."

"To transcend the past, present, and future..." muttered Null.

As she listened to Li Pin's words, every star in the Ocean of Time began to flicker brightly.

"They have a thought, and then follow along time to glimpse the outcome of that thought, taking the result directly for use..."

It was as if she had suddenly realized something.

"A single thought, and a result would be born... completely bypassing the process... and they could freely place that result into the past, the present, or the future at will..."

"Yes." Li Pin nodded. "According to your database's description of the Dao Realm, in addition to the Dao Realm materials held by God Huang Sha and the Dao Realm I first pioneered... I have every reason to believe that our understanding of the Dao Realm perfectly matched the evolutionary process of the three forms of this cultivation system—the past, present, and future, three forms!"

He continued firmly. "But to Eternals, directly bringing the result of the future into the present, or even placing it into the past, was something they could do effortlessly. Without even paying much attention, a slight touch could use the future to alter the past... Combined with the Dao Realm information in your database... I have reason to believe..."

Li Pin gazed at Null, this mysterious intelligent lifeform that even in the memories of the Supremes of the starry cosmos was shrouded in enigma. "You... came from the future! Because of some special reason, an Eternal interfered with your existence, and thus, you appeared in this era!"

"This is an incredible conjecture. It is so incredible that... it is utterly whimsical," Null remarked.

Her tone was already rather tactful, just short of saying Li Pin was spouting nonsense.

"In fact, proving this is simple. Aren't you already trapped in a fundamental logic error? Since the error has already appeared, why not try inserting this variable into your core logic—the variable that you are from the future—then try running again," Li Pin suggested.

Null, hearing this, immediately understood. "So this is your true purpose in seeking me?"

Li Pin nodded. "Yes."

"You were not completely certain of this conjecture yourself, but only wished to use me to confirm it? But..." Null responded. "Although my core logic has errors now, I can still barely maintain operations. But once I introduce the variable you mentioned, no one can predict the consequences. If your conjecture is true, my functioning may improve. But if it is false..."

She paused. "I would collapse."

Li Pin remained silent. He believed in his conjecture, but a conjecture was still only a conjecture. Without sufficient evidence, he could not demand that Null risk her very existence to test his theory, so that she could restore the database and allow him to completely see through the future.

For a moment, he could not help but turn his gaze toward the Ocean of Time. After a long silence, he finally spoke. "Do you know, all this time I have always felt that your Ocean of Time contained something wondrous and mysterious..."

Null followed his gaze as well, looking at the Ocean of Time that had shrunk countless times compared to its peak, now... on the verge of completely closing.

"I am aware of this. I also know that this research is very important. For as long as I can remember, I seem to have been studying it. But what it truly represented, what secrets it contained... I still have not figured it out to this day," Null said.

"Perhaps, I can give you an answer." Li Pin replied.

Null was startled and looked at Li Pin.

"I said earlier that once Eternals have a thought, they can directly see the result it represents. They would then take the result they were satisfied with and use it immediately. If unsatisfied, they would either let it collapse or change their thought, so that the corresponding result would shift."

Li Pin said this while gazing at the countless planets. Each of them had the same environment, the same origin, the same civilization. From this same source, due to different variables, these civilizations would head down different paths. As the variables multiplied, the differences between civilizations grew greater, until they ultimately diverged completely.

Yet most civilizations in the end would head toward destruction, and very few could continue to exist for eternity. Once all civilizations perished, the experiment would begin anew. After tens of thousands of epochs, Null had carried out such attempts countless times.

𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

She did not know what exactly she was experimenting with, only that she repeated it day after day, year after year, seeking to uncover its meaning.

"Don't you think your experiment was very similar to how Eternals use their power?" Li Pin suddenly asked.

Null froze slightly. "My experiment is similar to the Eternals' use of power?"

The next instant, she suddenly realized something, and countless pieces of information she had never accessed before surged endlessly out of her database.

Li Pin continued speaking.

"When an Eternal conceives a thought, it naturally gives rise to countless possibilities, which over time, would branch into countless outcomes... But unlike your experiment, in their eyes, there are no possibilities and no process. When their thought emerge, the result immediately comes into being. Thus, they would immediately take the best result.

"As for the rest of the possibilities... if they were interested, they would erase them, preventing them from chasing a doomed path. If uninterested, they let them follow the wrong path to a wrong outcome."

Li Pin looked at the Ocean of Time.

"But we are different, because our vision cannot transcend spacetime. When a thought is born, we can only wait step by step for its development and its potential changes. This process may take a hundred years, ten thousand years, an epoch, or even tens of thousands of epochs... And yet, even if we devoted endless effort to carrying it out, the final result might still be wrong..."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "Worse, because we cannot transcend reincarnation and karma, countless new ties are born to interfere with our thoughts as we carry the process out. The longer we pursue it, the more karma we accumulate, until one day, when that karma erupts... all that lies before us is countless possibilities, countless results... At that time, how could we still find the truly correct one among them, the one we truly wanted?"

At these words, it was as if a hundred million stars detonated simultaneously within Null's database, releasing radiance and energy that almost swallowed her entire system.

"Eternals..." Li Pin let out a long sigh. "They transcended mass, so matter and energy no longer hold meaning to them. They transcended spacetime, so the concepts of time and space are scales they could toy with at will. The moment a thought arose, they could obtain the result they desired and use it to perfect the original thought. Beyond that, they even transcended karma..."

Here, he suddenly paused.

He finally realized why the Eternal had vanished from countless people's memories.

Void Creaturs had already told them the answer. Void Creatures only disappeared from matter, energy, time, and space. Unless they revealed themselves, they could not be detected through these means.

But for Eternals, they not only vanished from matter, energy, time, and space, but also detached themselves from karma, from reincarnation.

They fixed their own karma. They gathered all, reduced all, and made themselves the eternal one, the only one.

They transcended mass, spacetime, and karma. And then, from a higher-dimensional level, they incarnated as mass, spacetime, and karma, interfering with all other mass, spacetime, and karma.

So, no matter how they manipulated time and space, reversed cause and effect, or altered the past, present, and future, no traces would be left behind, nor would it cause any impact on themselves.

They had no fear of the so-called "karmic backlash" because their true selves already existed in a higher form. It was an eternal and unique form.

"This is simply a perfect lifeform... a truly ultimate lifeform." Li Pin sincerely voiced his admiration.

The clearer his understanding of the Eternity Realm became, the more he felt the perfection and greatness of such a life.

How could one defeat such a lifeform? How could it ever be defeated?

Just as Li Pin was immersed in the awe of the Eternal, the Ocean of Time before him suddenly underwent a tremendous change, releasing dazzling and resplendent brilliance.

Immediately after, he sensed from the depths of the Ocean of Time an aura that, in theory, should have been undetectable by him, an aura that even its wielder seemed unable to fully control, rising rapidly.

And the owner of this aura... was Null.

This characteristic...

Her underlying logic was being restored.

This also meant that Li Pin's speculation had been correct.

Null truly did not belong to this era—but instead came from the future.