The Martial Unity

Rui frowned as he studied the information of the substance. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was so extraordinary that it seemed to defy the laws of reality as he understood them. It was as if someone was actively using Verse to make such an impossible substance exist.

The strong nuclear force in the prothanite sample was orders of magnitdue superior to the ordinary strong nuclear force that he was familiar with in everyday matter and in some forms of esoteric matter. How was that possible? The strength of the strong nuclear force was determined by a constant which, by definition and observation, was constant.

Then how in the world did the arakai create a stable compound with strengthened gluonic fields that could be deployed on the hulls of ships and remain stable?

”I don’t see it,” Rui frowned, drawing closer to the sample that was locked behind an exceptionally durable chamber mean to protect the dwarf from any explosion. ”What is the secret?”

Dwight furrowed an eyebrow. ”You are unable to see it? I thought it was rather obvious, no? You are looking into the information dimension, right?”

”Of course,” Rui scoffed. ”There’s never a time when I don’t look into it. It’s too valuable as a source of information. And it cannot be corrupted thanks to the laws of nature.”

”…Hm, interesting that you aren’t able to perceive the secret of this material.”

”Just spill the beans.” Rui flashed an impatient look at him.

”The arakai have strengthened the strong nuclear force by essentially transferring all of its hyperdimensional components into three-dimensional reality,” Dwight remarked. ”When I use my Creationverse to look into the twenty-one curled dimensions of reality, I can clearly see that—”

”Wait, wait, stop,” Rui interrupted him with a surprised expression. ”Twenty-one dimensions? As in, like in String Theory?”

Rui was aware of the theory from his days as John, but he was also aware that the theory had been re-proposed in the modern age. However, the predictions of String Theory were so beyond empirical verification, either due to how minute they were or how vast they were, that even in the modern era it was impossible to prove or disprove it. It became a purely theoretical theory.

”Er, yes. Like in String Theory. Now, as I was saying—”

Much to his irritation, he got interrupted yet again.

”Hold on, don’t just brush past that like that isn’t the craziest thing to confirm.” Rui stared at the man with a stunned expression. ”You’re telling me that String Theory is actually true and that there are twenty-one dimensions of reality that are curled up so small that we can’t even detect them?”

”…What have you been doing with your Martialverse for you not to have realized that in the past thirteen years?” Dwight stared at him. ”From the moment I broke through, I was aware of the twenty-one dimensions, even if investigating them was not easy. How could you possibly have failed to notice them?”

Rui stared at the dwarf who directed cast dubious glances up and down his body, before revisiting the information dimension with a surprised expression. Had he missed something before? He had spent a lot of time investigating the information dimension, but he had never noticed anything that resembled the twenty-one dimensions.

”What in the…” He closed his eyes with a frown on his face, diverting his full attention to the inquisition.

The information dimension was like an ocean, not a surface. It had depths and layers within it, describing layers of reality.

The surface level of the information dimension was a pure description of reality. What particles were where, what momentum they had, etc. It was essentially a surface filled with highly dense data. A layer below that, almost as if it was an abstraction of the first layer, was the layer of physical laws, essentially. These were like the operating system of material reality.

Equations such as F = ma, E = mc², and other such equations and approximations were inscribed, even if indirectly, upon the information dimension, at least if one interpreted them correctly. They were essentially the patterns of reality that humans codified into laws of physics. Deeper beyond that were even more fundamental patterns to reality.

The laws and mathematics and the law of causality. They were an abstraction beyond material reality.

Beyond that was the domain of the laws of logic. This was where Rui’s consciousness, even with phenomenological uniformity, was unable to go further.

If A, then B. A, therefore B. The modus ponens. This was a law so fundamental that even a Martial Transcendent was slave to it. Trying to reach it was like a diver trying to go beyond the depths of the depths that were physically safe for humans with his or her bare body.

Yet, within the depths of the information dimension that he would swim, he didn’t see anything that resembled twenty-one dimensions. When he tried to identify the ’laws’ layer, he couldn’t see any information that described twenty-one dimensions. And in the surface layer of the information dimensions that described only the immediate material description of the state of physical reality, he wasn’t able to spot components that stretched into other dimensions beyond the three dimensions.

That was why prothanite was so odd to him. It violated the laws of reality as he understood it without anybody using a Verse to make it so.

He turned to the dwarf with a raised eyebrow. Was the old dwarf pulling his leg?

”When I look at the substance with my Creationverse, I can see signs that its configuration across twenty-one dimensions has been altered. The strong nuclear force has a much lower presence in the remaining eighteen dimensions, and is correspondingly heightened in the base three dimensions,” Dwight informed him. ”The arakai are ingenious. Strengthening forces by altering their twenty-one dimensional configuration. What extraordinary technology!”

He turned towards Rui with a curious gaze. ”Fascinating that you aren’t able to sense them. Perhaps this is simply a matter of difference in Verse.”