Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1296: Chapter 1295: Unified Wave Hypothesis

To eliminate the evil cult followers in the wasteland and the ”sentinel” behind them is the truly complete measure, which Gawain is certainly aware of.

But those evil cult followers’ intentions are quite obvious: they know the vast and perilous Gondor wasteland serves as a safe barrier for them. If the armies of the mortal world were to fight within the wasteland, they would be at a severe disadvantage, and under this protective barrier, they are determined to cultivate their plan to fruition. They won’t initiate any action until their ”grand plan” is complete.

Currently, Cecil’s ”Project 115” is not yet finished, the Typhon Empire’s Mage Corps is still gathering, and the expeditionary armies from the Silver Empire are not ready yet. Before the most powerful military forces in the mortal world are prepared, will those evil cult followers complete their plan first? No one can say for certain.

”...Perhaps we’ll have to launch a counter-attack earlier than expected,” Gawain said, moodily rubbing his chin, ”Since we can’t make the evil cult followers come out on their own, we can only take the initiative... Even if it’s just to put some pressure on that ’sentinel,’ it might disrupt its judgment and preparation.”

”Charging at the wasteland without sufficient preparation?” The Goddess of Magic watched Gawain, ”That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

”...It’s one of the choices,” Gawain exhaled, ”I’ll communicate with Typhon and Silver, but if there’s no other choice, we’ll have to act prematurely underprepared.”

”Alright, I don’t understand much about warfare, the one who understood war has already died in stupidity,” the Goddess of Magic shook her head with a peculiar sentiment, before sitting back up again, ”I’ll find a way to crack the technical secrets behind those cubes, although they are things left by the Voyager... But since a group of resource-limited cultists can manufacture them through their crafts, that means the ’sentinel’ has adjusted this technology; there must be parts we can understand and use. It just takes time to find them... if there’s any progress, I’ll communicate promptly with the technical department.”

Gawain nodded slightly, then glanced at the place where the Goddess of Magic had been leaning against the tree. He saw many symbols and numbers floating in the air, automatically calculating, with geometric patterns appearing and disappearing like abstract models, making one feel dizzy at a glance—clearly, she wasn’t resting her eyes while resting there, but those rapidly calculating symbols and numbers were what she was actually doing.

He didn’t know what this former Goddess of Magic was calculating, but he knew it must be very important, even so important that it necessitated her ”seclusion.”

He couldn’t help but ask curiously: ”I heard that you have been researching the secret behind the Magical Wave Attribute lately? Was your earlier calculation related to that as well?”

The Goddess of Magic turned back to look at the symbols and numbers floating in the air, then turned her gaze back towards Gawain’s curious eyes. Noticing the thirst for knowledge in those eyes, her lips seemed to curl into a faint smile: ”You really have a spirit of inquiry... Yes, I am researching the secret behind the Magical Wave Attribute, I’ve been studying it for days, and I’ve written half the paper.”

Gawain’s expression was quite subtle; he felt like the subject of ”Goddess of Magic writing papers” was laden with opportunities for commentary but couldn’t find a point to start from, so he just chuckled dryly. His attention soon returned to the serious and important academic question itself: ”I know about your experiments in the War God’s Divine Realm—actually, part of the process was designed by Kamel and me together. We have now confirmed that Magic Power behaves like a wave, or at least exhibits wave properties, which has greatly encouraged the academic community. We finally have a real understanding of one of the most common natural phenomena around us.”

”Indeed, we have gained a deeper understanding of Magic Power... but this world is beginning to show us a completely unfamiliar side,” listening to Gawain’s words, the Goddess of Magic couldn’t help but sigh, ”You know, the confirmation we made that day wasn’t just about the wave nature of Magic Power, I saw some... other, more incredible things.”

”I’ve heard about your unique experience, but scholars are baffled by the phenomena you’ve described,” Gawain frowned, ”What exactly did you see?”

”...Have you ever considered this possibility,” the Goddess of Magic gazed into Gawain’s eyes, contemplating whether to unveil the veil of truth, but quickly abandoned her hesitation and spoke with an exceptionally solemn tone, ”Perhaps... the so-called material world doesn’t exist at all, and both we and the whole world as we know it originated from a tremor at some ancient ’origin point.’

Gawain fell into thought due to this statement, recalling the mysterious phenomena mentioned in the report he had read, observed by the Goddess of Magic, while Amber beside him couldn’t help but exclaim: ”The material world doesn’t exist?! What does that mean?!”

Clearly, she didn’t understand what the Goddess of Magic was talking about, but she was greatly shocked.

”Strictly speaking, the boundary between the so-called ’material’ and ’non-material’ might have been a false proposition from the start, a partial truth of the world we observers trapped by rules perceive in a narrow view,” the Goddess of Magic explained seriously, not overlooking Amber’s question due to her usual intellectual display, though her explanation was like a foreign language to Amber, ”We have long thought that the world is distinctly divided into various ’parts,’ having mutually isolated ’layers,’ but perhaps... the lowest nature of our world is actually ’unified.’

”...I can’t understand a word,” Amber blinked, feeling dejected after earnestly listening for a long time.

”It’s normal, the deer next to you doesn’t understand either,” the Goddess of Magic remarked seriously, absent of any mockery, drawing immediate dissatisfaction from Amon nearby: ”Hey, you’re talking, can’t you leave me out of it? If you’re capable, why don’t you compete with me in growing eggplants?”

The Goddess of Magic seemed not to hear Amon’s protest. She was lost in thought, and after a moment, she spoke again: ”At the end of that experiment, in the instant I completely understood the wave nature of Magic Power, I restructured my ’existence’. I attempted to understand the Magic Power that constitutes myself through the properties of ’waves’, but it triggered an unexpected phenomenon... My avatar disintegrated in the special environment of the War God’s Divine Realm, becoming a state neither material nor energy, more akin to the surrounding ’Thought Echo’. An unprecedented ’perspective’ emerged in my perception...

”In that perspective, everything around me appeared differently. Whether the bricks and stones of the War God’s Divine Realm or the bodies of the explorers like Kamel, everything in my sight was no longer a concrete ’object’, but countless intertwined, mutually influencing, exceptionally complex ’vibrations’. I myself was a part of this vibration, only due to some brief ’derailment’ did I acquire the ability to step outside my perspective to observe it all...

”In that state, I also focused on observing the Magical Power monitoring device set at the center of the test site. I saw that beam of pure, high-intensity Arcane Ray striking a vibration wave denser and with a higher frequency, and the ripples it excited spreading through space, which is what we observe as the light and dark stripes in the material world.”

The Goddess of Magic paused for a moment here, then continued: ”This is everything I observed—yet it is not the most accurate description. Unfortunately, the information conveyed by language and text is limited, and much of what I saw and perceived at that time exceeded people’s customary cognitive habits.”

She described a scene that, to mortals of this age, seemed utterly beyond belief. She chose her words as accurately, appropriately, and unambiguously as possible, yet she still worried that Gawain, Amber, and the Royal Mages listening intently might find it unimaginable. Indeed, she had already prepared herself for no one being able to understand these words, because she knew her discovery of the truth came... too early for most.

But Gawain fell into a thoughtful state with her description. Those bizarre and arcane words sparked associations in his mind, and after several minutes of contemplation, he suddenly broke the silence: ”So, you think that everything in our world may be formed from basic ’waves’, that at a level closest to ’origin’, the foundation of our material existence is actually non-corporeal and indefinite?”

The Goddess of Magic could hardly conceal her expression of surprise. She looked at Gawain unexpectedly: ”This... from a certain angle, it could indeed be described that way...”

”So it’s not just Magic that manifests wave properties. Theoretically, everything in the world is a form of vibration. However, due to the existence of certain restricting conditions—we hypothesize it as a critical point, a critical point in the microscopic domain. Because of this critical point, only Magic manifests wave attributes that we can observe, while the wave nature of other things is hidden beyond our ’observable region’...”

Gawain spoke while pondering, and though not comparable to experts like Kamel in Magic studies, his mind harbored another kind of wisdom. This allowed him to understand from a unique perspective everything the Goddess of Magic witnessed in the kingdom’s test site, even prompting theoretical extrapolations.

”The most critical link in this theory is that ’we’ ourselves will also be confined within this continuous vibration system,” he looked into the eyes of the Goddess of Magic. This ”Dominator of All Magic” now leaned forward again. Her bearing was majestic and oppressive yet also completely immersed in discussion and exploration, led by curiosity. Under her mysterious glow, Gawain’s mind became ever clearer. ”If all things are vibrations, then we ’observers’ will be bound by our own ’frequency’ or ’waveform’, fixed within some ’loop’ of the universe, and likewise, our sight. Even the observational tools we can contact and use will also be constrained by this and cannot surpass the critical point of the microscopic field...

”From a certain perspective, this issue will remain unprovable or unfalsifiable for a long time, thus, according to rigorous academic rules, it can only be a hypothesis...”

”Yes, it can only be a hypothesis for now, unless we find evidence to support or overthrow it,” said the Goddess of Magic frankly. ”Although I observed some phenomena that seem to prove this theory from a special perspective, my observation cannot be reproduced, cannot leave evidence, and there is no proof to confirm that the scenes I ’saw’ then were real and undisturbed. That cannot be evidence.”

Amber glanced between Gawain and the Goddess of Magic. She felt her head heating up but managed to keep up with the end of the topic, understanding a small part, with expressions of shock and incredulity on her face. After pondering a while longer, she pulled out her ever-present small dagger, tossing it in her hand with wide, confused eyes on Gawain: ”Wait a minute, so according to you, this dagger I have is fundamentally made of ’vibrations’? That kind of ’buzz—’ feeling, if that were true, how does this dagger stay in my hand? Shouldn’t it merge with me, fall from my hand, or even just dissipate...”

The more she spoke, the more confused she became. Then she looked up again at Gawain’s comforting gaze and shrank: ”Okay, my brain isn’t suited for considering this. Just pretend I didn’t say anything...”

”Thinking is good. You’re already thinking more deeply than most ordinary people, and you pointed out a key point: ’The appropriate vibration of everything has made our world present itself in this manner before us,’” Gawain laughed, feeling he should comfort Amber. After all, she looked much more thoughtful than before, and his words weren’t entirely consolation. ”The Goddess of Magic and I are talking about ’the material’s foundational level being wave-like’, not ’a particular object is a wave.’ This is a different concept. In the ’material’ domain we understand, this wave nature may only appear on a microscopic level. As for your dagger... this object is macroscopic.”

The voice of the Goddess of Magic came at that moment: ”If our theory is correct, then the boundary between ’micro’ and ’macro’ is actually already blurred. As ’observers’, our understanding of macro and micro, material and immaterial, is limited by our own ’foundation’. But if some external force altered this ’foundation’, then the entire world might present a different appearance before us...”

Gawain pondered, then suddenly spoke softly: ”If this is true, then the various phenomena caused by Magic, the material paradox behind transformative spells, the blurred boundary between magical power and material entities... even the chaotic wave, seems to have explanations... If all things in the world achieved ultimate unity on the fundamental level, if all this is the result of various waves interfering and superimposing on each other, then all this would be reasonable...”

Goddess of Magic seemed puzzled: ”Did you previously think these things were unreasonable?”

Gawain smiled. This question was difficult to explain to the Goddess of Magic, so he brushed it off, then with a serious expression, he said: ”Don’t you think we should give this hypothesis a name now?”