Chapter 39

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Chapter 39:

Li Chunzhou wore a veil hat, holding a little chick in her arms, whispered to him, "Any news?"

"Jian Hou publicly revealed in the group chat that he is the Administrator." Qi Leyuan whispered with a voice only the two of them could hear, while opening the group chat interface to show Li Chunzhou.

[Jian Hou](Astronomical Bureau), "I am the person in charge of managing this Dungeon. The progress of the Dungeon has already passed halfway, but please be extra careful, especially experienced players. Whether for yourself or others, try not to die in this Dungeon. There could possibly be exiled creatures here with strong mimicry and learning abilities. If you are not sure you can defeat them, try to avoid them as much as possible."

[Liang Jiayou](Fourth Prince), "Wait, I’m a bit confused, what kind of creatures?"

Jian Hou from the Astronomical Bureau said, "The exiled species, which was greatly captured and exterminated a long time ago, were beings who could travel through time. About three cosmic years ago, the gods declared this species extinct. However, it seems that a few have transferred their consciousness to this timeline."

Jian Hou from the Astronomical Bureau said, "I have searched for a lot of information about their timeline in this world and found detailed supporting evidence:

Ancient divine language, between the two corners, the Candle Dragon can move its eyes, day and night towards the west of the Candle Dragon, dividing into four seasons, opening its eyes, transforming day into night, blowing clouds, ushering in winter, sighing, and a hot wave sweeping the world. Its shape is tens of thousands of feet long, its mouth always containing innate fire essence, illuminating the vast darkness, hence the name Candle Dragon. According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Candle Dragon is the mountain god of Zhongshan, which is the highest void. Its peak pierces nine concentric realms, covered in ice and snow. Some say the Candle Dragon comes from between heaven and earth, some say it is created by it, some say it is hidden by sages, others say it ranks below the Panlong Dragon.

The Supreme Emperor Jiang also known as Chaos, in orthodox divine language, the central heaven and earth, opened by the divine bird, the only one in the world. According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, its form is like a crimson cloth bag, exceptionally round, with four wings and six legs, lacking the features of ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, yet can hear melodies and dance with songs. In the divine language of the primeval era, it will surely transform the blood essence of the giant god Pangu into the Twelve Witches region, creating a great brain, thus being able to wield great power."

Linlang, the palace maid, said, "There were indeed legends about the Candle Dragon and Emperor Jiang in ancient times. The Candle Dragon could control time, while Emperor Jiang mastered space."

Jian Hou from the Astronomical Bureau said, "That’s right. These records should be the result of humans from that time accidentally encountering the exiled species and recording them as divine beasts. It should have been thousands of years since then. If my guess is correct, the timeline had reached the era of the Twilight Gods, with various immortals and divine powers gradually disappearing. Those exiled species had no more strength to travel through time, most likely completely extinct. Only leaving behind a consciousness in an incubation period, which is the thing I saw in this Dungeon World."

Yan Qingze, the merchant, asked, "Do they not have names?"

Jian Hou from the Astronomical Bureau said, "Their species name does not belong to this dimension. Even if I say it, you won’t understand, and it might affect you mentally. Let’s call them ‘Time Beasts’."

Li Chunzhou stared at the screen without blinking. Her dark eyes remained motionless due to her intense focus.

If Qi Leyuan looked up at that moment, he would see Li Chunzhou’s smile like a porcelain doll, her lips slightly curved upwards, but her eyes devoid of any joy, cold and lifeless like a porcelain doll, the smile almost like it’s carved into her face, appearing innocent but with a hint of creepy horror in the details, like a carefully crafted mask hiding an indescribable sense of terror, sending shivers down one’s spine.

The chat records end here, Li Chunzhou stopped her finger slowly on the screen at this sentence, and asked Qi Leyuan, "What does this mean? What is a dimension?"

"Hmm, let me think about how to explain it to you," Qi Leyuan pondered with his head down for a moment, "If we say the world we live in now is a three-dimensional world, then a one-dimensional world only consists of points, these points have no length and width, so in a one-dimensional world, there is no concept of size, just points; a two-dimensional world has length and width, but no height; a three-dimensional world has length, width, and height, creating the three-dimensional world around us."

"Are there higher dimensions? A fourth dimension? A fifth dimension?"

"Of course, but we simply can’t imagine it, nor can we know the components of the fourth dimension."

Li Chunzhou blinked, "The fourth dimension, could it be a world with an extra timeline compared to ours? After all, this cycle is a repetition of time."

Qi Leyuan shook his head, "It’s not like that, if we were two-dimensional beings, with only length and width, we might think that the third dimension is time, but in reality, we can never imagine that the third dimension is height."

"How can we enter the fourth-dimensional world then?"

"In theory, as long as we take a step in a direction where there is neither up nor down, nor left nor right, nor forward nor backward, we can enter the fourth dimension."

Li Chunzhou tilted her head, not understanding what he meant.

Qi Leyuan scratched his head, gesturing as he spoke, "Let’s imagine that a two-dimensional world is a flat surface. If a three-dimensional ball passes through this two-dimensional world from top to bottom, what would the two-dimensional creatures see? They would first see a point appearing out of nowhere, then slowly see a larger circle until the ball is halfway through, when the circle is at its largest. Then, it would gradually shrink back to a point and disappear again. Do you follow? Because the ball is moving along the ‘height’ of the third dimension, but they have no concept of ‘height’, so to them, it appears to materialize and then vanish into thin air."

Li Chunzhou nodded, and Qi Leyuan continued, "Now, let’s consider that when a four-dimensional object passes through a three-dimensional world along the fourth dimension, we would see a spherical object appearing out of nowhere, growing larger and then shrinking back to nothingness. Similarly, if we were to enter a four-dimensional world from our three-dimensional world, we would also ‘vanish on the spot.’"

Li Chunzhou lowered her eyes and nodded gently.

After a moment of silence in the chat channel, new messages quickly popped up:

[Gu Cai](Trader), "You’ve said so much nonsense, why should we believe that you are truly the Administrator and not just bluffing?"

[Jian Hou](Astronomical Bureau), "I created and manage this Dungeon. I have all your information. If you don’t believe me, you can private message me for verification."

[Cheng Yingchu](Prostitute), "Is there only one Time Beast in this Dungeon World?"

[Jian Hou](Astronomical Bureau), "As far as I know, there is only one, and it’s a young Time Beast without an adult to guide it. Therefore, it can only learn in the most primitive way – by devouring the consciousness of other beings. If it devours your consciousness, it will read your memories and learn useful things from them."

Shi Gu (a beggar) asked, "Do you have a photo or a description of him? If not, won’t it be hard for us to avoid him?"

Jian Hou (Astronomical Bureau) replied, "No, it is related to the Main God and they are unobservable beings. They have no dimensions of consciousness, and are trapped only in bodies. They originally survived by inhabiting the bodies of local species to escape destruction and pursuit by the gods. Therefore, it can project its consciousness across time and replace the host’s thoughts with its own."

Li Chunzhou touched Qi Leyuan’s head and asked, "What does ‘unobservable’ mean?"

Qi Leyuan explained concisely, "The meaning of ‘unnameable’ is that we can only see their projection in the three-dimensional world, making them unnameable. Imagine slicing yourself in a 2D world, you would also be unnameable."

Li Chunzhou curious again, asked, "What is the 2D world like?"

This time, Qi Leyuan thought longer before answering, "In theory, different dimensions have difficulty interacting with each other. Not only is it hard for 2D to observe 3D, but we in 3D cannot observe 2D either. If we must give an example, in 2D, there is no height, thus no mass. As long as there is mass, there will be thickness. Therefore, the closest we can visualise a 2D form is a shadow – without height. But this explanation isn’t entirely accurate."

Li Chunzhou listened fascinated and excitedly asked, "What about the 4D world?"

"I encountered a powerful player in another Dungeon, I don’t know how many Dungeons they have conquered. But they told me about higher dimensions, where the Main God exists. The amount of information there is unimaginable. Our brains cannot process that level of information. In the 4D world, there are no enclosed spaces or objects in the sense of 3D."

After a pause, Qi Leyuan continued, "In the higher dimensions, the human body is transparent to 4D beings, completely exposed. They can easily see everything in 3D, even extracting any organ from a person without creating any wounds – the heart, lungs… oh my, even the brain! Retrieving the brain of a deceased player from a distance must also be a higher-dimensional being!!"

Qi Leyuan suddenly realized why Jian Hou said Time Beast was very dangerous. He thought that Time Beast could travel freely between different dimensions.

Li Chunzhou timely reminded, "But you haven’t told me what the Fourth Dimension looks like, Li Li…"

Qi Leyuan regained his senses and nodded, saying, "The Fourth Dimension, I’m not sure. Players are brought from one world to another by the Main God System, so they might be moving in the Fourth Dimension. Also, there is an interesting theory that our universe could be a projection of a higher-dimensional world, as it originated from the Big Bang and has been expanding uniformly from a single point…"

Li Chunzhou didn’t quite understand what he was saying, but she found it fascinating and whispered, "The outside world is so interesting…"

You Rurong (Scribe), "So, Candle Dragon and Emperor Jiang have different appearances… Is it because Time Beast projected its consciousness onto different creatures?"

Jian Hou (Astronomical Bureau), "You can think of it that way."

Bi Yuansi (Young Master Bi), "Can these creatures be destroyed?"

Jian Hou (Astronomical Bureau), "As long as you find their ‘heart,’ you can destroy them."

Wang Ruyu (Miss Wang from the Wang family), "What about the consciousness of those three who died in this Dungeon?"

Jian Hou from the Astronomical Bureau said, "Yes, the consciousness of those three people has probably been swallowed by the Time Beast."

Wang Ruyu, the second daughter of the Wang family, asked, "So their brains didn’t disappear, they were ‘eaten’? Why would someone eat their brains?"

Jian Hou from the Astronomical Bureau explained, "The brain is the container of consciousness, different time and space have their own rules. In this time and space, consciousness cannot stay in void for a long time, so it needs to rely on actual physical existence, which you humans call the brain."

Wang Ruyu, the second daughter of the Wang family, asked, "I have one more question, why are they hunting down this species?"

This time, Jian Hou remained silent for a moment before answering, "Because the Main God does not need new gods to be born."