Chapter 4018  The Nature of Nature

WHOOSH

He teleported to the little chamber within her body that served as the headquarters of their task force. The changes were noticeable immediately, with most of the organic machinery disconnected and dissolved into organic tissue, making the familiar chamber feel bigger than it used to.

There were clear signs of a clean-up and a wind-down of operations, with only Mother Maeria and the Divine Doctor studying some data together. They turned towards him, noticing his presence immediately.

And noticing the differences in his very being, of course.

Having broken through to the Transcendent Realm, the very tethers of reality came undone around him, making them feel like they were in a real version of funhouse mirrors.

Mother Maeria, with her powerful senses in particular, could see the degree to which Rui's very presence caused the nature of reality to change.

She gazed at her hands with a sharpening gaze.

Even her own physical existence felt… Watery.

As if everything were a liquid.

As if everything was Water.

Beyond just his effect on reality, she sensed limitless power within him. He towered above all Martial Artists and all pathwalkers like a god of divine might, unchallenged and untouchable by any force within Gaia.

He was truly in a Realm by himself.

She turned towards him with a deep, knowing gaze. "…So this is a Martial Transcendent. Truly, you live up to the tales that you have told me about them."

Mother Maeria had heard lots about the Martial Transcendents of the Panama Continent. That they could do this and that. A lot of those tales were hard to believe, but she had experienced the power of the information dimension herself, so she knew what it was like.

However, she realized that he was much stronger than she had expected. Would she also be this powerful when she broke through to the Nature Path equivalent of the Transcendent Realm?

"Of course," Rui remarked. "However, the Nature Path to the information dimension is a little different."

Rui had only realized this as he gazed upon the near-Transcendent Mother of Nature. But with his Transcendent gaze, he could sense exactly what the nature of elven Transcendence was.

"Elven Transcendence is the power of the Noosphere," he spoke with certainty, calmly dropping a bombshell on the elder Mother of Nature. "You rely on the collective consciousness of your entire species to warp reality in your favor. The condition for elven Transcendence is phenomenological uniformity across elven consciousness."

Ultimately, phenomenological unity was the source of any consciousness changing the information of the information dimension. Whether it was internal phenomenological unity, such as the Enlightenment of Transcendence around a particular element or concept, or whether it was phenomenological unity across an entire sphere of thought.

Of elven thought.

That was the path through which the Nature Path guided elves to the information dimension. What was especially surprising was that individualism and the collectivism of the Nature Path and the Martial Path seemed to extend all the way even to the information dimension.

It only ironed out what Rui was now more certain of.

"There are multiple ways to change the information dimension."

This was interesting because it begged a very interesting question.

"What if a Martial Transcendent changed the information dimension using more than just the Martialverse? What if one tried using the Martialverse and the Noosphere of a population at the same time?"

It was a fascinating topic, but it was a question the answer to which he didn't know. While becoming a Transcendent had answered many of the more elementary questions that he had about the nature of reality, it had raised many more questions that were much more difficult to answer.

Mother Maeria seemed moved by his words as she fell deep into thought. "Phenomenological uniformity across elven civilization…"

Her eyes widened. "Of course, that's why I failed the first time. It was because there wasn't uniformity in the experiences of me as a figure across elven consciousness. It's because elven civilization is still divided."

That was the fundamental reason that she wasn't able to break through yet. She had wondered why, when she had come so close to breaking through the Transcendent Realm of the Nature Path, she had yet to make too much progress in taking that final step permanently.

"I must unite light and dark elves into one civilization."

Only then could she create a uniform elven civilization that would help her reach the Transcendent Realm. Her eyes lit up with clarity and understanding. She had been experiencing frustration over the seven years since she touched Transcendence for just the briefest of moments before losing it completely. Back then she had been assured that this was the natural path to Transcendence, but after stalling for the better part of a decade, she realized that she was missing something fundamentally to take the final step to the Transcendence Realm.

With this understanding, she knew exactly what she needed to do. She had already begun plotting a plan to get elves to unify as a civilization, in order to mobilize their Noosphere. What Rui was curious about, however, was whether or not they could tap into the information dimension without needing the Noosphere. Was it just impossible for someone like the Mother of Nature to achieve phenomenological uniformity within her own consciousness?

He wasn't sure.

To him, everything was Water at all times. However, the true nature of the consciousness of Mother Nature was different. Perhaps not as different from him as, say, the laminar integuments who possessed a photonic consciousness, but it was still quite different. Trees were fundamentally different from him.

He knew that trees, to an extent, had decentralized information processing systems. Maybe the decentralization of what information processing did occur made it impossible for Mothers of Nature to have an 'Enlightenment of Transcendence' the way that he did.

"You must reach Transcendence soon," Rui told her with a serious tone of voice. "The sooner you reach Transcendence, the more we can learn about it, and the stronger our civilization will be."

She nodded. "Thanks for coming this way to convey your insights. I will keep that in mind."

"I actually didn't come here for that." He turned towards the Divine Doctor with a serious expression. "I came here for you."

The Divine Doctor directed a knowing gaze at him.

"You wish to learn more about the insights I have made of laminar integuments, studying the manifold tree."

Rui nodded seriously.

Before he negotiated with the laminar integument leader once more about the future of Gaia, he needed to have more information on exactly what manner of entity he was dealing with.