Chapter 2381: What am I supposed to see? |
"You really are crazy."
Nux complained but—
"Stop complaining and get to work, Nux Leander."
The Seer just laughed.
Nux looked at the branch, it stretched through the darkness, splitting from a larger silver branch, which itself split from another, which came from another, which came from another and so on...
Nux followed it with his gaze.
One branch to its parent.
Then to the parent of that parent.
Then farther back.
Then farther.
Then farther.
It was not difficult.
At least... not at first.
All he had to do was follow the line, the branch always came from somewhere, every Universe had a parent, every parent had its own parent, every line led back.
The problem was not difficulty.
The path... did not end. .
Nux followed one split after another, hundreds, thousands... millions of them.
The branches became thicker the farther he went. Some parts of the path were buried under countless other branches, some were so bright that they blinded his sight.
Still, he followed them without problems.
Branch after branch, Universe after Universe, at this point, ordinary beings would have lost themselves.
But Nux was different.
His mind was far more developed even when compared to an Infinity, so he continued.
Time passed.
Or... something like time.
After all, time did not exist here, his mind only felt the weight of effort he was putting in.
He kept tracing back, at last, the branches grew fewer, then fewer, then fewer, until the path reached a massive, ancient stream of light.
And—
The instant he saw it—
He understood it.
This was it.
The First Universe.
The Main Universe.
The Origin of all Universes.
The first existence.
The Seer’s voice came from beside him.
"You found it."
The Seer, who had been silent all this while, commented with a light smile on her face. Nux didn’t move his eyes away from it, almost as if he was scared he would lose it.
The Seer’s smile widened when she noticed what he was thinking and—
"Now do it again."
She commanded.
And in an instant, Nux turned towards her with a surprised look on his face.
"What?"
She pointed toward a black branch as if nothing had happened and—
"Trace that one."
"You... aren’t kidding..."
"I am not."
The Seer shook her head.
"But I found the Root."
Nux frowned.
"Only once."
"Once is enough to understand the path."
"No."
The Seer shook her head.
"Once is enough to know that the path exists.
It is not enough to understand it.
Now get back to it."
She ordered, this time in a firmer tone. Nux looked at her for a moment, then he turned toward the new branch and began tracing it.
This one was longer.
Its path twisted through strange regions of the Multiverse. It came from a black branch, which came from a crimson one, which came from a silver one, which came from a dead-looking greyish branch and so on...
Nux followed the line as he moved further and further.
All the way until he reached the First Universe again.
"Again."
The Seer commanded and this time, Nux did not argue. Even though he couldn’t see how exactly repeating the same thing would help, he traced another Universe back to the First Universe like she told him to.
Then another.
Then another.
Then another.
At first, every path took time.
Some took years, or at least what felt like years.
Some even took centuries.
One had to understand that Nux’s mind was far quicker than a normal one, calculations that would take a normal mind days, months or even years to solve, Nux could complete them in an instant, even if he did not understand the concept behind them.
All he needed to do was look and his mind was so quick that it would first see the pattern, then find the concept inside that pattern, then find the solution to the particular problem he was presented—
All at the same time.
A menial task like finding branches was like a breeze for him, no matter how blinding the light was or how dense the network was—
Nux only needed a gaze.
Then why did it take so long?
It was because of the sheer number of branches he needed to go through. This was also the reason Nux complained so much at first, more than understanding, this felt like thankless labour.
But Nux did it anyways.
Every time he reached the First Universe, the Seer gave him another branch.
Again.
Again.
And again.
And with time—
Nux became faster.
His mind had once again started realizing patterns, this time, at a bigger level than before, some branches split in similar ways, some regions of the Multiverse had common flows, some lineages carried certain shapes, some ancient trunks always led toward the same deeper paths.
Nux’s mind noted it all, then it adjusted.
A path that once took years began taking months.
Then days.
Then moments.
Then he could look at a branch and trace its outer lineage back to the Single Root almost instantly.
The Seer watched him and for the first time, she nodded.
"Good."
Nux glanced at her.
"That’s all?"
He asked.
The Seer laughed at that question.
"You learned the first step."
"It took me years..."
Nux spoke in a low tone.
"Don’t worry, the Multiverse doesn’t count."
She chuckled, then, she pointed toward the branches again and—
"All this time, you were looking at the branches."
"Yes."
Nux nodded.
He had looked so much that he was sick at this point.
What he didn’t know was that this was the easiest part.
There was far worse coming.
"Now look at the Universes."
The Seer directed.
"...huh?"
Nux frowned.
"I thought the branches were Universes."
"They are."
"Then what are you talking about?"
The Seer looked at him and—
"What you are seeing is just the Universe’s outer body, its depiction in the Multiverse.
Now I want you to look inside the Universe."
"...what?"
Nux blinked. He turned toward the closest branch. A silver and blue flowing quietly through the dark.
To him, that was all it looked like, a beautiful stream of light.
He focused on it and...
Nothing changed.
"It is still a branch."
He commented.
"No. You are still only seeing a branch."
Nux’s eyebrow twitched.
"You are very fond of saying things like that."
"And you are very fond of being wrong."
Nux slowly turned toward her.
The Seer kept staring at him with that same smile on her face.
For a moment, Nux wanted to punch her, but then he sighed and looked back at the branch.
"What am I supposed to see?"
He asked with a defeated look on his face.