Chapter 1960: The Mystery of the Ghost Skull 21

Mm

As soon as the words fell, everyone was instantly astonished. Even Qing Kai couldn't help but question.

How is that possible!? The prediction system released a what mission? Even a Death Star-level civilization can't do that!

If they can even divine this, aren't they invincible!?

No wonder Qing Kai reacted strongly; according to what Shen She said, how is this any different from cheating? Not to mention foreseeing various disasters, just completing a large number of low-level tasks is enough to accumulate a huge amount of rewards!

Pile up the resources, and even a trash civilization can rocket up to the Fifth Stage!

Lord Qing Kai, I know this is absurd!

But that civilization really can do it! And it's not just one person; nearly the entire populace has precognitive abilities. Of course, they're stuck at the Fourth Stage precisely because their abilities are too strong—so strong that everyone clings to life, fears death, seeks profit and avoids harm.

Moreover, because everyone divines, each time they make a choice they are influenced by others, forcing them to divine repeatedly!

She let out a bitter laugh, Shen She swallowed a mouthful of saliva, then continued:

After discovering this, we were also extremely shocked. To figure out exactly how they managed it, we used spatial transmission to forcibly capture a group of diviners.

After capturing them and undergoing repeated interrogations, we finally figured out what was going on.

In their civilization's long history, they never took either the technological or religious path. Instead, they turned to the mystic side. From the early days of their civilization, whenever they traveled, hunted, or did anything, they relied on throwing stones to judge.

After long evolution, they even summarized a large number of divination formulas, just like mathematical formulas, determining outcomes based on whether the stones landed face up or face down!

To make it easier for everyone to understand, Shen She simply grabbed the broken stones on the windowsill and began a demonstration:

They marked the obverse and reverse of the stones as 'yes' and 'no,' i. e., 0 and 1; the more stones they threw, the more accurate the divination result. Of course, they didn't limit themselves to stone divination; they also developed over ten thousand divination methods, each equivalent to a different mathematical law.

While speaking, Shen She casually tossed up three stones;

In their view, all things are one. Within the light cone, everything is fate. Just as a butterfly flapping its wings far away can stir a storm elsewhere.

Therefore, the obverse/reverse result of their thrown stones must be influenced by all things. Even if it seems unrelated, there must be a connection somewhere in the countless chains of causality.

For example, they divine whether they will fall when going out, and there just happens to be a stone right outside the door.

That stone must have tripped someone in the past, and that person, having fallen, would inevitably have triggered a butterfly effect that influences their current divination action.

By this reverse reasoning, they believe that every object in the world, even a grain of sand, is affected by other things and thus carries infinite information, waiting for them to interpret.

If a cup slips from our hand and shatters, we can predict the outcome before it breaks because we see the cup falling and know its material.

But if we're separated by a wall and our eyes can't see it, we have no way to judge. Just like fate in the dark, we cannot see the information that influences fate, so we cannot foresee.

But divination is different; it is another kind of observation method that only needs to go through the connections between all things, bypassing that door to obtain information.

It's like the sound emitted after a cup shatters—you can't see it, but you can hear it.

The logic was hard to follow; as soon as the words fell, the ever-silent ogre suddenly interrupted Shen She:

What an interesting theory.

This theory is actually very much like the holographic universe theory, and also very like the black hole event horizon.

It's like looking at a table in a room; at first glance we can tell its material.

For example: the age of the wood, where it came from. If computing power is strong enough, we could even determine when it was cut down, whether it had been insect-bitten, how long it had been sun-exposed, whether solar flares occurred during that exposure! From this we could infer its civilization's stellar strength, stellar grade, exact coordinates!

In theory, any matter carries a huge amount of information; as long as we have the corresponding observational means, we can decode all that information! Of course, decoding is too difficult, and with these signals superimposing and interfering, it's almost like gibberish.

That's right, that's basically the principle.

So they relied on abundant experience and racial talent to summarize divination formulas. Just like arithmetic, you just plug the information in.

Shen She nodded, indicating everyone look at the stones on the table:

We can see things because light reflects off them and transmits information to the eyeball. Thus, for diviners, they consider divination prediction to be the same as using infrared rays, microscopes, etc., as observational means. Likewise, by throwing stones this way, they see information they themselves cannot see.

As long as there is information, it can be calculated. They plug the information obtained from divination into the divination formulas, and they can likewise obtain a result.

To quickly calculate the result, they summarized many divination formulas, just like mathematical laws: the area of a square is side length times side length; knowing the side length yields the area.

Like blind men feeling an elephant? Observing the world from different angles?

Jin Niu couldn't help but silently praise, feeling that the civilization Shen She encountered was truly a genius!

Meanwhile, Qing Kai, who had been deep in thought, couldn't help but counter:

Logically speaking, that's correct; they use this method to foresee the future, which is equivalent to using information that was originally invisible to calculate a multitude of possibilities. But once they make that prediction, doesn't it itself change the future?

Or rather, the butterfly effect—any tiny change will lead to alterations in other information.

Faced with Qing Kai's question, Shen She nodded, sighed, and replied:

Yes, Lord Qing Kai, this is unavoidable; otherwise they'd be invincible. But this isn't really a big problem—at least under normal circumstances it doesn't affect the accuracy of the result.

According to their understanding of precognition, they regard the future outcome as a house on fire. No matter where the fire starts in that house, or which item inside burns first, these details don't affect the fact that the house will end up as ashes.

Thus, the greater the time span, the farther the divination target, the more accurate their results actually become!

It's somewhat like wave function collapse: theoretically, quantum particles move randomly and cannot be predicted, but we can compute them in bulk according to probability.

If it weren't for the fact that this ability requires their own talent to cooperate, they would still be punished by the system. To be honest, I even want to take this path....

Having said that, Shen She unconsciously glanced at the result of his casual divination. Although he had only learned the basics, using it occasionally is still not bad.

But as soon as he lowered his head, Shen She's expression changed; he saw that the stones he had thrown were all showing the reverse side.

Damn it!

The result turned out to be all...!?

Ominous! Ominous! Ominous!?