High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2668: Chapter 889: World and Universe

In the ”Magic Wand” Great Arcana Sequence, Zheng Qing’s title is ’World’.

He also has a Forbidden Curse Sapling.

And the Forbidden Curse is a magic that transforms the concept of ’World’ into a spell through ’convergence’, a spell-based world and universe.

Therefore, from a very early time, he has been particularly sensitive to the word ’World’.

World and Universe are two different concepts.

Zheng Qing is aware of this.

In the ”Wizard World Encyclopedia”, the void worlds are categorized into four levels according to size, the strength of laws, etc.: Secret Garden, Secret Realm, Small Thousand, and Great Thousand.

And the sum of all worlds, along with what lies beyond them, is what is called the Universe.

Xiao Xiao, when explaining the basic postulates of O’s Time-Space Theory, emphasized two words that continuously stirred the fragments buried deep in Zheng Qing’s memory—such as the first time he entered the Secret Garden Hunting Ground during the school hunting competition in freshman year; listening to stories of the Giant Griffin in The Land of Void from the teacher; and delving into Furry Bean’s identity and learning about curved space-time and angular space-time.

These memory fragments collided with each other in his mind.

He then realized, without knowing when it had started, that he had already gained so much understanding of the world.

”I know this concept!”

Xin Fat Man’s slightly surprised voice came from beside him, clearly highlighting the way Xiao Xiao’s explanation using O’s Time-Space Theory also activated many of his own memory fragments: ”... I remember that in one of the campus newspaper’s Magic Popularization articles, it mentioned that the Universe is like a piece of transparent jelly, expanding in all directions, during which the places with impurities in the jelly will be torn open into tiny spaces, and our worlds exist within these small spaces...”

He waved his arms as if trying to touch that massive transparent jelly.

One has to admit, the metaphor suits the Fat Wizard’s tastes very well, no wonder he remembered it for so long.

”Although ’jelly’ is a word worth mocking, this metaphor indeed makes it easier to understand.”

Xiao Xiao adjusted his glasses, imagining the jelly in front of him expanding, nodding reluctantly: ”This metaphor is probably at the level a middle school student can grasp... In fact, using O’s Theory to understand, the more serious term for ’jelly’ is ’a medium that fills the universe evenly’... The impurities hidden within the jelly, in the universe, are akin to celestial bodies like Earth, the Moon, the Sun. With the expansion of the jelly (universe), the places where there are ’celestial bodies’ (impurities) will be pulled out into small bubble universes... Relative to the evenly expanding medium, the environment inside these bubbles is relatively static... This relatively static environment lends itself to the birth of life and civilization.”

”Want to apply to be a teaching assistant?” Xin Fat Man suddenly gave the doctor a fresh suggestion.

Zheng Qing nodded repeatedly.

”Guiding and enlightening, bringing the complex into the simple, vivid and captivating.”

The teaching assistant from Edge Academy used four idioms to express his admiration: ”I think you explain things much better than the Magic Universe Study teachers at school!”

”I don’t have that much time.”

Doctor Xiao made a modest hand gesture, yet his demeanor became more earnest, as though he really was giving a lecture in class: ”...After saying so much, how much did you guys understand?”

Zheng Qing exhaled a breath, pointed outside the window, and spoke first: ”The starry sky we see actually contains many different ’bubble worlds’.”

Xiao Xiao frowned, first shaking his head, then nodding: ”Not precise, but it can be understood that way... Correcting a word you just used, ’see’... We don’t see the real starry sky, most of what we see are the silhouettes of those great existences in the deeps of the starry sky.”

”The universe near ’celestial bodies’ differs from the universe in the empty spaces away from celestial bodies in terms of the medium.” Xin Fat Man seriously raised his hand to speak.

Doctor Xiao snapped his fingers, turning around as if wanting to write something on the blackboard.

But instantly, he realized with a melancholy that he wasn’t in a real classroom.

”That’s also why laymen divide the analysis of world rules into ’low-speed classical mechanics’ and ’high-energy quantum mechanics’.” Doctor Xiao regained his spirit: ”...Because universes with different mediums adhere to different mechanical rules.”

”What about those Secret Gardens, Grotto-Heavens, and even the Great Thousand Worlds we discovered?”

”That involves a finding from the Deeps of Space Laboratory: the bubble expansion theory. This theory posits that as the universe expands, so does the medium in the universe, which causes bubbles formed around celestial bodies to also expand. The Deeps of Space Laboratory, a collaboration between the Great Wizard Conference and the First University, through observing changes in magic power tides, supernovae, blue consumption, and other phenomena, posits that these small worlds we discover all belong to cracks formed during the expansion of bubble universes. These cracks are particularly prone to occur between two bubble universes.”

”It sounds unstable.”

At the word ’crack’, Zheng Qing inexplicably thought of angular space-time within the curved space-time gap, an oddly satisfying ’all roads lead to the same end’ feeling surged within him.

Xiao Xiao, unaware of Zheng Qing’s sentiments, continued speaking on his own: ”...From a macroscopic perspective, these cracks, with a lifespan of only a few billion years, indeed appear unstable. But to us short-lived monkeys, these cracks suffice for everyone to fool around until the end of time, then move on to another bubble to continue living.”

”It’s hard for wizards to be of a short-lived kind,”

Xin Fat Man picked up Tuan Tuan, who was strolling across the table, scratched its chin, and added: ”And we are wizards, wolves, bats, foxes, or some other species... not monkeys.”

Zheng Qing, seeing the Fat Cat in its comfortable state, couldn’t help but scratch his own head too.

Then he finally remembered the question that started this rather profound seminar.

”So,” he looked at Xiao Xiao with a few traces of bewilderment in his tone: ”you said so much... why does thought affect the time dimension?”

”Weren’t you the one who asked me to elaborate more?”

Xiao Xiao retorted crossly, explaining Zheng Qing’s final question with a straight face: ”As for the time dimension and thought... Simply put, different dimensions interact and influence each other. Albert left a very ingenious comment while studying O’s Time-Space Theory—’Delve into the starry sky, touch time’—if you go far enough in the universe, you can touch real time.”

”Too profound.” Zheng Qing frowned: ”This sounds more like Philosophy of Magic than Magic Universe Study.”

”Which means he doesn’t know either.” Xin Fat Man summarized.

Xiao Xiao snorted, squinting at the view outside the window, not bothering with his two infuriating roommates.