Chapter 148: The Other-Plane Hypothesis

"There's no sudden windfall. Our project team has been assigned a new supervisor from above. She holds a distinguished position, and all these instruments have been prepared for her arrival. When she comes, don’t be startled—make sure to cooperate fully."

"Of course, of course. Since the team leader isn’t objecting, we’ll definitely cooperate. After all, it’s for these instruments that we should work together properly."

"Good, that’s the right attitude. This approval comes from the highest military authority. I’ve heard that over a hundred military academy students have registered here to break new ground, using the opportunity of communicating with the source of energy to help us trace energy origins."

"That sounds impressive. Just who is this new supervisor that the higher-ups care so much about?"

"Did you see the news recently? She’s that temple saintess."

"I didn’t watch it. Who does?"

"I did. Apparently, she’s an intern saintess, under thirty years old, probably here on a tour?"

"Don’t be ridiculous. Although she’s young, she cultivates the myriad laws of time and space. I hear she’s already reached at least the fourth realm of time and space."

"Time and space, fourth realm? That’s no small feat."

"Team leader, rest assured. We’ll cooperate fully with the young lady in this scientific endeavor. Once she loses interest, she’ll leave naturally. These instruments won’t be taken away."

"Remember what I said. According to the higher-ups, we’ve already been listed on the Sunset Glow Association’s support roster. In the future, some elders will come to help us."

"I’ll treat them with more respect than even the institute director!"

Because the military had given advance notice, when Sang Sang arrived at the Energy Origin Tracing Project Team, no one was surprised by her age. Everyone maintained a respectful attitude. Sang Sang’s initial show of strength was unnecessary. The Heavenly Emperor shrugged and went off with Shan Feng to the special forces, and Sang Sang began her scientific career.

Though called research, it was essentially cultivation. Energy origin tracing involves deducing the fundamental laws that govern an energy’s attributes. Completing the tracing of one kind of energy can improve the success rate for those attuned to that energy when condensing its origin.

For the Heavy Water People, condensing origin is not especially difficult. What they need more is a way to extend their lifespan, not help with cultivation. So, the Energy Origin Tracing Project Team was often neglected, barely able to sustain basic experiments—until Sang Sang’s arrival changed things.

Sang Sang’s purpose in joining the energy origin tracing research was not to improve the Heavy Water People’s success rate in condensing origins, but to conduct comparisons.

She aimed to compare the fundamental laws of the Heavy Water World’s origin with those of the Greater World. So far, the temporal breaths intercepted from Shan Feng had yet to be matched with any known origin.

In the past, Sang Sang would have assumed that the time-space origin lay at the unreachable end of the origin river. But after arriving in the Heavy Water World, none of the collected energies—common ones like wind, fire, water, earth, and stars—could be perfectly matched with their origins. Only similar origins were found, never exact fits.

Logically, all energies and matter in the Greater World derive from the Source Sea of Origins. Even a leaf or a flame could be traced back to its fundamental origin.

Why then can the energies of the Heavy Water World not be traced to their origins?

Ruling out bad luck or flawed talent, only one possibility remains—the Heavy Water World does not belong to the current dimension; it originates from another dimension, or the creator who gave rise to it was an interdimensional being.

The vast cosmos contains three thousand major worlds, and the Source Sea holds three thousand rivers of origins. No matter how strong Sang Sang’s talent, she can only tune into and attract the fundamental laws within her own origin river. Crossing dimensional boundaries to enter another river is impossible.

Sang Sang did not rashly join the project’s research. Instead, she let the team proceed according to schedule while reviewing their past achievements, especially the fluctuating data of origins already traced. Using her soul projection, she searched the Source Sea for origins of the same attribute to compare.

One or two origins might show slight differences that are negligible, but when tens or hundreds exhibit differences with common patterns, the issue becomes nearly certain.

Sang Sang kept her findings to herself and began participating in the research on Taoist energy origins.

One by one, military academy students entered the laboratory to condense origins. Under instrument monitoring, they would break through the profound level, carrying soul arrays capable of scanning and recording to communicate with the origins and collect data from the Source Sea.

Several elders even exposed their most vital, vulnerable core—the origin star core—for study. When necessary, dangerous experiments were conducted, linking their star cores with corresponding origins in the Source Sea.

They showed no resistance or dissatisfaction, acting as though this work were as ordinary as eating or drinking.

Sang Sang watched in awe. It turned out that using the attraction law to maintain origin connections was not the innovation of the Hundred Flowers Saintess. From experimental records, many soul samples had been sent into the Source Sea via attraction. However, the longest sustained consciousness record was only five days. No one had yet succeeded in splitting their soul to forge an avatar to enter half, leaving the other half behind as Sang Sang did. Even then, the consciousness duration was extremely short, and incomplete souls could not exist in the Heavy Water World’s origin river.

Experiments to attract origins, even if successful, only extended life by three to five days at best. It was pure consumption of test subjects. Yet many Heavy Water elders volunteered to participate. Recent surveys showed that over seventy percent of elders chose to enter the lab as test subjects, dying in the experiments.

Not to mention starry-level experts, even profound and primal-level masters—those who could destroy stars with a gesture—would laugh and chat in the small laboratory, awaiting researchers to call their names, then line up to enter rooms where countless compatriots had been lost.

Such scenes were never seen outside.

Sang Sang did not know whether to be moved by the Heavy Water People’s spirit of self-sacrifice or to marvel at the Heavy Water government’s brainwashing techniques. In an era of advanced star networks and open minds yearning for freedom and independence, no one had objected for millions of years.

Sang Sang was no moralistic neat freak; this environment helped her greatly. Her mastery of the attraction law progressed by leaps and bounds, the lines of attraction in her mind growing thicker, longer, and more resilient. Eventually, she personally participated in experiments, sending elders onto attraction devices. With their permission and a promise of confidentiality, she used anti-synchronization to synchronize consciousness with them, splitting off a small thread of soul to enter the Source Sea alongside their souls.

It’s like a person cannot step into two rivers simultaneously; likewise, a soul cannot enter two origin rivers at once.

The small fragment of soul Sang Sang split off felt immense pressure upon entering the origin river. The next moment, an inexplicable will materialized as a spoon, scooping her soul from the elder’s protection as if digging jelly, then wiping her consciousness, transforming it into energy to nourish the Source Sea.

This was annihilation!

Rubbing her forehead, Sang Sang felt sharp pain pulsating in her head. Fortunately, the soul fragment was small. With avatars extracting nourishment from the Source Sea and careful maintenance, she would recover soon.

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