Chapter 311

What is the essence of “magic”?

Kraft had previously entertained fragmented, unsystematic preliminary thoughts on this.

He once believed all anomalous phenomena were abstract, manifestations of a deep, chaotic, and unfathomable aspect, and human attempts to exploit them were like picking up seashells on the shore—testing cautiously along the still-stable margins, their own limitations ensuring they could never truly comprehend them.

After personally experiencing how a specific anomalous phenomenon arose, his thinking advanced and deepened.

Like early studies of biology, limited knowledge often confused researchers with complex phenomena, leaving them dazzled and lost, eventually constructing elaborate systems out of thin air to force-fit the observations.

But in reality, it could be fully explained from a mechanical perspective, broken down into just a few simple modules:

【Central, Signal, Effector】

Just as the brain commands an arm to lift, achieved through three parts: motor center, peripheral nerves, and muscles.

The effector is the part that realizes specific effects; known celestial remnants are the most typical example, using oscillatory waves perceptible only to spiritual entities to produce a series of effects, including manipulation of biological tissue and dimensional shifts.

The specific effect expressed by the effector can be regulated, depending on what signal the central system sends.

The spiritual entity plays the role of the central system, the source of signal regulation. A simple directional nudge is a signal; conceptualized pain is also a signal.

But signals differ among themselves. A simple directional nudge to a lunar remnant can achieve the most basic dimensional depth shift, like electrically stimulating a muscle to produce a basic contraction.

To achieve a specific action, however, the signal must be far more complex. Take the balance reflex: when unbalanced, the body simultaneously commands abdominal and back muscles to adjust torso posture, leg muscles to alter force output, the sole to grip for support, and arms to swing and adjust center of gravity.

All signals are emitted instantaneously, involving the entire body; upon close examination, they are exceedingly complex, requiring precisely calibrated contraction or relaxation of corresponding muscle groups to form what appears to be a simple, natural balance response.

Just as the human body instinctively mobilizes muscle groups to maintain balance when unbalanced, the beings created by lunar remnants instinctively seek to escape the present world and return to their origin, generating complex signal commands from pain that transform the simple ability of dimensional shift into complex dimensional tearing.

For them, this is an innate, natural reaction, analogous to the human balance reflex.

But for “postnatal” “pseudo-deep beings,” it is different—they cannot even fully integrate the spiritual entity, body, and lunar remnant, remaining at the level of “electrical signals trigger muscle contraction.”

Like slipping and falling, lacking innate signal encoding, one must actively coordinate and issue commands such as: slight contraction of rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis, contraction of erector spinae, strong contraction of quadriceps, mild relaxation of hamstrings…

Such complex signals are virtually impossible to self-organize.

Even Kraft, with his modest insight, only reached the level of consciously releasing restrictions during dimensional transit to induce localized dimensional chaos—a technique with very low controllability.

He once suspected that the heretics’ research into the deep had already outpaced him by a generational gap; otherwise, how could someone whose mind was already barely lucid manipulate dimensions to produce such specific, targeted tearing effects?

Now it seemed the matter was not so complex—merely “copying homework,” and passively at that.

The entities active beneath the lake naturally tended to spread their will and attract aggregation; conceptualized pain, as connections formed, transmitted directly to any consciousness it touched.

The efficiency and intimacy of this process were such that one might think of certain viruses’ transduction ability—directly injecting foreign genetic code into a host’s genome upon contact, becoming part of it and causing cells to express traits unique to the pathogen.

For ordinary spirits, these things were utterly incomprehensible and uncarryable—merely an unbearable experience of pain, followed by subtle, subconscious psychological effects.

But for “postnatal deep beings” who possessed both a special spiritual entity and an embedded lunar remnant, the missing signal component was completed.

What followed was straightforward: phenomenologically, any person who had implanted a lunar remnant and whose spiritual entity had been altered by the deep, if frequently or closely exposed to the lake’s entity, had a chance to acquire similar abilities.

Of course, acquiring the ability and controlling it were entirely different matters.

Most would lose self-control under the pressure of pain, unconsciously striking and tearing at the present world, producing those smooth, elongated, chaotic cuts, eventually becoming misaligned and overlapping with surrounding matter in dimensional chaos.

Before death, the consumed consciousness etched its most profound impression into the mind—endless hexagons rising from the lakebed.

Then, the embedded body would extract biological matter from the corpse and construct a new organism.

A few would survive by luck or individual uniqueness, but the pain was permanently imprinted on their spirit.

They became aware of the world’s narrowness and crowding, the celestial body suspended in the deep forever calling back its portion.

Just as Kraft now felt it: a sense of claustrophobic confinement, a constricting, compressing pain clinging to every thought.

Previously, such discomfort would fade over time after disconnecting the spiritual senses, but now it ceased to lessen beyond a certain point—like tides that once ebbed and flowed orderly, now never receding below ankle-depth.

This made it difficult for him to muster the willpower needed for coherent logical thought, and even harder to handle the several fixed gazes locked onto him.

Though he could not clearly see, he knew from their stances that the rest of the team had subtly formed two lines—front and back—ready to strike, restrained only by the narrow width of the boat from forming a full encirclement.

As for why they had not acted immediately, perhaps one reason was that, having just been rescued, the high moral standards instilled by the Father made it hard for them to act against him; another was uncertainty over whether the professor could replicate the effect again.

There was no room to dodge in such a confined space; if conflict erupted, it would likely end in disaster—the entire team perishing here, sinking into the lake and merging with that thing.

And Kraft was no better off. He knew that at this distance, even a pistol would be no slower than a sword, let alone facing multiple opponents.

Greene and the monks were no longer the rabble he had faced before—they possessed both the will and the readiness to pay a heavy price to eliminate him.

He needed to immediately devise a convincing argument, at least enough to temporarily ease tensions—but given his current mental state, this was difficult.

With time running out, he drew on past experience to formulate a simple strategy: to demonstrate something’s safety, one must highlight several key points—long-term usage history, numerous documented cases, examples acceptable to both sides, ideally framed from the other party’s perspective.

Fortunately, his memories remained clear, and the relevant content surfaced in time. His chaotic thoughts, without much filtering, coalesced into words and spilled out:

“The Church did it too.”

Something felt off—the atmosphere had eased slightly, but not in the way he intended.

Among them, one gaze was especially sharp—belonging to Father Greene—a look that wanted to strangle him but had no way to do so.