Chapter 384: The Fourth Dimension
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Luo Yuan glanced at his experience and felt happy. After the experience upgrade, it had reached 197520/307200. After another three or four tasks, he would be able to upgrade one level higher. Unfortunately, the giant aquatic beast was not killed perfectly and he got only the basic experience amount, else the experience would have increased by another 19,200 points.
Anyway, this task was basically a bonus to him and did not cost him a lot of effort, so he did not care much about it.
At this moment, the calm surface suddenly stirred again, making it look like boiling water. There were large and small fishes swam that towards their direction and each of them looked ferociously grim. When he looked down from the top, the lake had become black in color as if it was dyed with black ink.
The giant golden bird was very miraculous. Its three tail feathers that glowed blue impressed Luo Yuan. He thought of taking up the piece of tail feather which was floating on the lake so he could identify it. However, once he saw the shadows approaching, he made an informed decision to give up his efforts.
Whether it was in the air or water, it greatly reduced his ability to move. A simple careless mistake would put him in danger. In this wilderness, there were much more materials as precious as this while he had only one life. Therefore, he would not want to take the risk unless it was absolutely necessary.
...
Luo Yuan waved at the mutated woman who hid behind the bushes. The mutated woman hesitated and only after a while did she bow down her body and climb over carefully.
"Sit." Luo Yuan said as he demonstrated the posture to sit.
She blinked and did not give a response. Instead, she stepped back.
Luo Yuan thought that she did not quite understand and patiently demonstrated the action several times.
The mutated woman looked hesitant. After a long pause, she slowly sat on a branch like Luo Yuan. She was not really sitting with her hip on the branch as her body was tensed while she looked around nervously.
Luo Yuan looked at her and suddenly he came to understand that she had lived in the wilderness for too long and was very alert to the danger in her surroundings. This posture of a human that was so relaxed in the face of danger would slow down her movement and put herself in danger. That was why she was so insecure when Luo Yuan asked her to sit down.
Luo Yuan did not force her. Instead, he opened the backpack and threw a bottle of water to her.
The mutated woman quickly came over and squatted down instead. She peeped at Luo Yuan and saw that he did not continue to correct her so she finally felt relief.
Luo Yuan did not bother her. He pulled out a map from the backpack and carefully studied the next journey and the time they would reach the sea.
While he was still on land, he could walk freely as long as he could reach the destination. However, the sea route was totally different and he could not afford a single mistake. The sea was too vast and there was nothing to be used as a reference point.
He had to be strict in following his planned direction in order to avoid any changes to the schedule and to find the island that could accommodate them.
The mutated woman looked at the bottle. She saw Luo Yuan's actions before. With the experience she had, this time she did not bite the plastic bottle but instead, tried to twist the cap. She found that it could be opened and was very excited about it. She continued to twist and in a short while the cap was removed.
She gently shook the plastic bottle. Like she learned from Luo Yuan, she lifted up the bottle and opened her mouth to drink.
And then she secretly glanced at Luo Yuan and saw that he was not paying attention to her, so she secretly hid the bottle behind her.
Unfortunately, nothing could be hidden from Luo Yuan's abilities. He was speechless with the intelligence level of a mutated woman. Even if she could hide it now, when they depart later, she would hold the bottle in her hand and everything would be revealed.
Of course, he would not mind the plastic bottle.
...
After resting for a while, they departed again. An hour went by and they passed through the lake and a hill before they finally reached a jungle that Luo Yuan familiar with.
He finally relaxed a bit after being tense for some time. As a living creature on land, he could only feel secure in this environment.
The Guizhou Mountains had many mountains and valleys in it. In a glance, he could see the tall mountains and deep valleys that riddled the region and some peaks were even surrounded by clouds all year long.
Even before the apocalypse there were very few people he visited as the land was karst with many sinkholes. Luo Yuan was not interested in exploring, so he only passed by in a rush.
As they were on the way, Luo Yuan suddenly felt dizzy and felt a kind of tiredness arising from within his heart.
His Physique was over 17 points and as long as he was connected to the earth via his Earth Stomp, he had an endless supply of physical strength in added up to a tremendous total of 23 points of Physique. Since he left the reconstruction area, he had never felt exhausted as he did now.
He immediately realized something was not right and quickly stopped to look at the system.
With just a look, his face became serious. Unknowingly, his Four-Dimensional Brain's capacity had already dropped to 2%.
"Four-Dimensional Drain"
"Dimensional Depth: 2%"
"Additional Abilities 1: Foresight (2 seconds)
"Additional Abilities 2: Four-Dimensional Visual Perception"
"Remarks: The four-dimensional world is colorful. Ordinary people can’t look at it with their eyes because they have simple brains. However, you who have the path of four dimensions opened for you, you’re no longer a simple minded human."
He felt slightly relieved when he saw that his unease was due to his Four-Dimensional Brain. During his journey, his ability to predict what would happen was very useful. He benefits from this ability several times by predicting what would happen when he was in great danger and was able to avoid risky moves that finally allowed him to kill his enemies.
However, he had no idea what this four-dimensional visual perception was.
Literally, it should be understood that it would be associated to his ability to see or access the four-dimensional world.
All this while, his ability to perceive the fourth dimension had no use to him except to provide him with useless information that made his brain slower. There were times when he felt enormous emotional and mental pressure with such an amount of information that flowed through his brain. In order to mitigate the effects of this, he had to do everything in his power, including his search for the wisdom heart to improve his Intelligence.
Even now, his four-dimensional vision was the biggest threat that he felt in his heart. It felt like it could explode at any moment.
Through the headband he was wearing on his forehead, Luo Yuan could vaguely see an incredible scene but it was not that clear because of the headband.
He started feeling stressed, he had to find a safer place. Moments later, he managed to find somewhere to stay for the night located just under a cliff.
There were caves everywhere in the area that was connected by a road that was covered with dense bushes and lush trees. When Luo Yuan found the cave, he thought he had found the home of an intelligent race but later realized that it was once the home of a human being.
Looked at the enamel bowls and plates that were still pristine even after several years, it would seem that people once stayed here.
There were only a few tribes that lived in the Guizhou Mountains. Some of them were isolated and inaccessible, so they were hardly influenced by secular civilization. Some of them still had a primitive, matriarchal society being practiced. Luo Yuan discovered that this cave definitely belonged to one of the tribes.
However, the human that once lived here should have already died, leaving only the cave here to continue its existence.
After checking the safety of the cave for around 10 minutes, Luo Yuan took off his headband, disregarding the fact that the mutated woman was still around.
Suddenly, Luo Yuan's vision became a blurry mess and he could see a strange light.
"So this is the fourth-dimension."
A new world unfolded before his very eyes. He stood up unconsciously and at the same time, an extraordinary aura spread out from his body.
Vast amounts of information from the fourth-dimension flashed in his mind. He suddenly came to understand the true nature of the world that had unveiled itself before him. The amazing part was, he did not feel a blockage in his brain after his four-dimensional visual perception was activated.
"So my previous guess on the fourth dimension was is wrong. This is the real deal. We have been living in a four-dimensional space all this while." He sighed and finally understood the theory of it in his heart.
Based on what he initially understood, a three-dimensional view was beyond the two-dimensional world. If there was life in a two-dimensional world, beings from the third dimension would be able to perceive them.
Anything that two-dimensional beings would want to hide would not be a secret to three-dimensional beings. According to that logic, beings from the fourth dimension that have access to four-dimensional vision could also see through everything in the three-dimensional world.
Luo Yuan found that such a logic was indeed true. However, his interpretation of the dimensions was different from what it really was in reality, so he did not see what he expected.
It was akin to the lack of two-dimensional beings in a three-dimensional world. Luo Yuan found that there were no specific three-dimensional beings in the fourth dimension. Specifically, the stones and soil on the earth were not the only things that were from the fourth dimension, human beings were also from the fourth dimension. It was just that, the fourth dimension was almost negligible as they could not perceive it. However, this negligible fourth-dimensional had totally changed his view on the three-dimensional world.
A single dot would be zero dimension. A line was in the first dimension. A surface was in two dimensions and space was in three dimensions, which also happens to be the environment that human beings lived in. The fourth dimension adds an additional dimension to that environment. Before his four-dimensional vision was available to him, he could only make guesses on what the fourth dimension actually contained. The only thing he could see were groups of phantasmagoric colors which he was finally able to see with his four-dimensional vision.
Luo Yuan found that what he saw was not what human beings understood of the fourth dimension. There was no strange, unpredictable presence there but only a warping of space-time.
For example, a two-dimensional surface could be turned into three-dimensional mountains and even valleys. A two-dimensional strip could be twisted 180 degrees to become a three-dimensional Mobius band. Similarly, three-dimensional space could be twisted to become a four-dimensional Klein bottle.
The warping of space was the additional dimensional that the fourth dimension added to the three-dimensional world.
Everything had gravity, but gravity creates spatial distortions. So, even in the third dimension, humans would still experience a certain amount of spatial warping. There were no clear boundaries set between the third dimension and the fourth dimension. The only difference was the degree to which people were subject to spatial warping as well as the existence of a sense for the fourth dimension.
Luo Yuan thought of Xu Zhiqiang who was a pseudo four-dimensional being.
His previous speculation of him was wrong, as he realized after his four-dimensional vision activated and the fourth dimension was unveiled before his eyes, removing all confusion.
He realized that the transformation by Xu Zhiqiang was not really him becoming a giant. Regardless whether he transformed or not, his three-dimensional length, height, and width had always been the same.
The only thing that changed was the spatial warping in the fourth dimension. When he triggered his ability, the space his body inhabited twisted and warped in the fourth dimension, resulting in the
As the space in his body shrank, the space surrounding him seemed to elongate and expand, resulting in the illusion of a giant body.
Of course, it was also due to the fact that humans still only possessed three-dimensional vision and was only able to perceive a sliver of what the fourth dimension had to offer. After Xu Zhiqiang went through his transformation, there was still a huge part of him unseen to human eyes.
However, it was not what humans understood of length, width and height so the changes cannot be categorized as big or small. From the perspective of a three-dimensional perspective, the size did not change. The only thing that changed was the spatial warpage in the fourth dimension.
Luo Yuan walked out of the cave and looked at the sky. He was shocked. At this point, to his eyes, the universe seemed to be infinitely larger. The sun had yet to completely set and through his four-dimensional vision, he seemed to perceive the sun to be bigger than when he only had three-dimensional vision. All celestial objects such as planets and black holes also appeared in the fourth dimension. Perhaps the world existed in the fourth dimension instead of the third dimension.
However, this was not something human beings could perceive and measure. What more could they do but speculate on the facts with mathematical equations?
In this vast, borderless space, planets were not the only things that filled the space but also an endless energy that was constantly surging, rolling in space like stars and clouds that constantly changed the color of the light they gave off. Luo Yuan came to a sudden realization. Perhaps this was the dark energy, unknown to human beings and was still currently being studied by the scientific community. This energy accounted for most of the mass that exists in the universe.
With his four-dimensional vision, space no longer held any secrets from him.
In his current state, he found that he could see farther than he ever could. His eyes could look beyond the mountains, the curvature of the earth and see beyond thousands of kilometers. However, it was a blurry image and he could only see a rough terrain.