Chapter 900: Nature Response, Ascension of State

The moment he came into contact with this massive amount of information, Xia Duo decisively terminated the Mind Link, while Yatewude seemed unaware of this, remaining immersed in his interaction with Nature.

Seeing this, Xia Duo did not wake him, but instead leaned back into his chair, the solid texture providing him with a great sense of support.

At the same time, waves were already surging in his heart; after a brief analysis, he knew exactly what that massive amount of information was!

It was almost entirely Yatewude's perception of Nature.

From a drop of water to a blade of grass, from a tree to a forest, from an animal to a species, from a piece of land and an ocean to an entire Plane, and even the sun, moon, stars, and the myriad weather phenomena.

Everything, absolutely everything, was covered.

Truly, he was a pioneer who had thoroughly implemented the New Natural Philosophy!

However, there were problems within it.

Xia Duo easily discovered the differences between his and Yatewude's perceptions of certain specific things, with the most significant ones concentrated in the field of Magic.

For instance, in Yatewude's view, the Magic Net was filled with mysterious, unknown energy, and the Magic Net String was not as easy to manipulate as Xia Duo understood it to be.

Additionally, Yatewude believed that the entire world consisted only of the Main Plane, with no concept of a Sub-plane at all, and on a microscopic level, he was completely unaware of the elemental energy essence of matter.

As for his perception of forests, while it might have contained some things unique to the magical world, in Xia Duo's view, errors and omissions were still easily found.

Concepts such as food chains and ecosystems were completely misunderstood by Yatewude; his perception of forest ecology remained very static.

It could be said that Yatewude's perception of Nature, or rather, his perception of this world, was incomplete, one-sided, and held strong personal biases.

A considerable portion of it was even incorrect.

Could this be what is called "Nature Response"?

If not, Xia Duo found it hard to believe that Yatewude could share so much information with him in an instant; it was almost as if he had opened his entire body and mind to him, while simultaneously filtering out information related to personal privacy, sharing only information related to his worldview. (Personal privacy was actually shared as well, but it was not part of this specific stream of information.)

Is this possible?

But if this is what is called "Nature Response," could it be that Nature feeds back Yatewude's worldview in the same way?

Yet this so-called "Nature" was a concept artificially created by Xia Duo himself; the mainstream Netheril concept of Nature still refers to the Elf concept that "Nature is the forest."

If a Natural Will truly exists, why would it not feed back information about the forest, but instead feed back the 【Great Nature】 (the world, or the Universe) described by the "New Natural Philosophy"?

Could it be that one receives feedback based on what one believes?

Then this "Natural Will" is truly arbitrary!

For a moment, Xia Duo fell into chaotic contemplation.

In truth, he already had a vague judgment in his heart, but this conclusion challenged his worldview, making it very difficult for him to accept.

That is, concepts like thoughts and philosophies might indeed form some kind of mysterious objective entity, manifesting as a Quasi-God-like will.

Here, Yatewude had perceived an objective entity formed by the New Natural Philosophy and mistaken it for the Natural Will; later, perhaps Natural Holy Power would even appear.

But this conclusion would lead the essence of the world toward idealism, which was very hard for Xia Duo to accept, even more so than when he previously learned that the essence of this world was energy.

After all, energy is essentially matter, or rather, it is an objective existence, whereas the foundation of an idealistic world is very illusory.

At least to Xia Duo, who was accustomed to the primacy of matter, it was very illusory.

This even gave him the illusion that his transmigration was merely a dream, making him feel that his current efforts were meaningless, and that perhaps he would forget everything upon waking.

This situation reminded him once again of a fact he had been very unwilling to recall in the past: that this world was very similar to a game he had played on Earth!

To delve even deeper into the terror, perhaps Earth did not exist at all, and everything was just a hallucination!

"No, I cannot keep thinking like this!"

Glancing at Yatewude, who remained immersed in his state of Perception, Xia Duo stood up and paced back and forth, yet felt he could not find relief.

He walked out of the Study in quite an agitated state, flew out via the terrace at the end of the corridor, and reached the sky; the unobstructed cold wind pierced through the weak Element Balance Domain of his Mage Robe and blew onto Xia Duo's face, causing his spirit to perk up.

He simply deactivated the Element Balance Domain on his Mage Robe, letting more cold wind blow against his face, and deliberately flew at high speed against the direction of the north wind.

It was not until he approached the village south of Savile Territory that Xia Duo finally calmed down; he did not return, but stopped in mid-air, lost in thought.

Just as he had said before, what the essence of the world truly is meant nothing to him right now; he was far from reaching the time when he needed to study the essence of the world in depth.

As for the question of whether this world or even his memories from before his transmigration were illusory, it was actually quite easy to solve; in Xia Duo's memories, there was a way to resolve it—

"I think, therefore I am!"

As long as one can still think, what does it matter if everything outside of consciousness is virtual? At the very least, it proves that the subject of thought—the self—exists.

And existence itself is meaning; there is no such thing as being completely meaningless.

Even if this world is illusory, he can still perfect himself here, and that is also meaning.

There is no such thing as being meaningless.

After calming down, Xia Duo's reason regained the upper hand; even in an idealistic world, it is merely a question of whether spirit or matter is primary.

It has no absolute connection to whether it is real.

Blindly falling into self-negation is what is truly meaningless.

Furthermore, his current perception of the essence of the world is not comprehensive; it is merely based on some theories from Earth, and whether they can actually be applied to the magical world is still a question mark!

How could it possibly serve as an absolute guide to negate the meaning of his own existence!

People should actively seek the meaning of existence, not negate the meaning of existence.

In this instant, under the Baptism of the cold wind, Xia Duo's state of mind had undergone an Ascension.

In fact, tracing the various theories in his memory, he did not find content that taught one to negate everything; on the contrary, there was plenty of content that was positive and pursued a beautiful future.

In the past, Xia Duo often prided himself on being a representative of progress, but now, by obsessing over illusions, he was no longer progressive himself.

However, this was indeed the strong impact brought to him by the so-called "Nature Response"; after thinking all this through, Xia Duo was once again full of anticipation for the future.

With all sorts of variables and all sorts of unknowns, the future is more challenging and more worth looking forward to, isn't it!