Chapter 170: Greetings from ???
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Upon seeing this series of numbers, Benjamin was slightly dumbfounded.
What was this?
Was it like those logical reasoning test where you were asked to fill in the next number by understanding the pattern of the series? Or was it some encrypted code which was used to deliver message from extraterrestrial beings to Earthlings through natural phenomenon?
This did not seem right. Wasn’t this a fantasy or magic genre kind of story? Why a mathematics question out of the blue?
But, Benjamin did not dare to take it lightly. He knew that this series of numbers might very likely hide the secrets of that world. Thus, upon seeing this series of numbers, he spent nearly an hour to study it.
Unfortunately, he could not figure anything out.
He could not find the pattern within this series. Nor did he know things like Morse code. So, he could not decrypt it. Moreover, it was also mentioned that this series of numbers was jotted from the memory of the Pope. It was possible that this series of numbers contained errors. So, there was nothing Benjamin could do about it.
But...
As if he had suddenly realized something, Benjamin calmed his thoughts which were running all over the place and regained his focus.
This series of numbers... contained errors?
According to the tone in the book, the Pope seemed quite confident with his memory. Therefore, Benjamin thought that even if there was any error in this ratio, the errors should be quite small. Surely the errors would not be more than two.
Moreover, looking from a different perspective, this could also be considered as a different line of thoughts?
If there were one or two numbers that were incorrect in this series, then he would only need to look for the numbers that were different than the other numbers in this series. In fact, from another point of view, this was the same as finding the inner pattern of this series of numbers.
All of a sudden, the whole question had switched from passcode decryption to searching for the problematic one.
Benjamin for some reason felt like laughing.
Now here was the question: who was the ‘traitor’ in these numbers?
This was not a difficult thing to do. From the shallowest point of view, there were four numbers which were even numbers, only the last one was an odd number.
If the one that the Pope had recalled wrongly was the last number, simply adding or subtracting it by one would give the right proportion of the particles.
Actually, if he thought about it carefully, for matters like ratio, if there was any minor error in one of these numbers, it might cause the whole series of numbers to change completely. The meaning derived from these numbers could also change drastically.
Like this series now, after doing the correction, Benjamin had numbers "16:10:24:24:28" or "16:10:24:24:30". After simplifying it by dividing everything by two, he would get "8:5:12:12:14" or "8:5:12:12:15".
... What did this represent?
Benjamin was dumbfounded once again.
Thinking hard, he decided to give it a try himself. Thus, he shut his eyes and entered the Space of Consciousness. He began collecting his Water Particles in five piles according to this ratio.
His affinity to elements was not adequate, so he could not collect all the particles. Thus, in order to do it quickly, he waited for the piles to become smaller sizes than those recorded by the Pope in the book in ratio. At last, he had five piles of Water Particles of smaller sizes.
He first adjusted the proportion of the particles by using the ratio given by the Pope of "16:20:24:24:29", but nothing happened at all. Then, he tried the ratio which he had corrected to. First, he tried the ratio of "8:5:12:12:14". No reaction occurred at all. Then, he changed them to "8:5:12:12:15"...
As he increased the ratio of amount of Water Particles of the last pile, he suddenly felt dizzy as if the whole world turned before him.
"This is..."
He suddenly became wide-eyed as he scanned his surroundings, dumbfounded.
This was a strange place. The sky and the earth were pure white. There were strange Runes that shone brightly of Holy Light everywhere. It was extremely similar to the world as depicted by the Pope in the book.
Shit...
After staring blankly for a while, Benjamin quickly came back to his senses.
He entered the Pure White World?
However, after a slight careful observation, he realized that something was wrong once again. This feeling was different to that when he entered the Pure Blue World. It did not have the sense of intimacy as if he did not truly enter this place. Instead... Instead, it felt like he was wearing VR goggles and watching a super realistic 3D movie with stereo sound equipment.
How would this happen?
He had never learn any kind of Divine Arts, so his had zero affinity to the Holy Light. Based on this reason, he could not have entered into the World of Holy Light.
Unless... he did not really enter this place.
Just as Benjamin was perplexed about what had happened, all of a sudden, he felt as if something crashed hard into him and a strange feeling surged through his body.
He did not have time to closely examine that feeling. And for no reason at all, he once again felt dizzy and returned to his Space of Consciousness in an instant. In the Space, the Water Particles in which he gathered according to ratio were still there. They did not disappear, so it proved that Benjamin did not zone out for more than one second.
This zoning and out took very little time. It was difficult for him to react to the sudden change. It even made him doubt whether he had just experienced hallucination.
What happened?
Could it be... Was this really hallucination?
Back to his senses, Benjamin was lost in his thoughts once again.
What happened just now was too sudden. He had so many questions in his heart. Why would he enter the Pope’s Pure White World instead of Pure Blue World? But... Why did he not feel the so-called energy of the "Origin of the Holy Light" when he was in that world?
Did he really enter that world?
Suddenly, Benjamin thought of what was written in the book. He thought of that particular experience that the Pope experienced when he entered the Pure White Space. That particular experience was exactly the same as what Benjamin had just seen.
If it was this way...
Could it be that he did not actually enter another world? Instead, could it be that that particular experience the Pope wrote about somehow reenacted in his mind in a very realistic way?
Benjamin quickly flipped open the book "World of Pure Holy Light" upon thinking of this. He read that paragraph again and again. He was right. What was described about that experience by the Pope was exactly the same as what Benjamin had witnessed just now. He actually did not truly enter the Pure White World, instead he simply experienced the memory of the Pope then.
This was truly miraculous.
The Pope of the fourth generation had passed away for who knew how many years. His remains were probably kept in good condition within the Church. However, the one mysterious experience he had gone through few hundreds of years ago was reenacted in Benjamin’s mind simply through this series of numbers.
What could have retained the memory and transmitted it to Benjamin?
This was a little strange...
After some thought, Benjamin turned his sight to the five piles of Water Particles which were starting to disperse.
He could confirm now that the piles of particles then represented the ratio of the series of numbers "8:5:12:12:15". However, the questions in Benjamin’s head had still not been answered. What was the meaning of the ratio of these particles? Why did they appear? Was their existence solely for the purpose of recording the past experience of the Pope?
If he combined the particles according to this ratio, would he be able to develop a new magic?
"Hmm... I think that what these numbers represent may not be a special constitution of the particles for building a bomb or anything similar." Suddenly, the System slowly rolled over and said, "I think, it may be delivering a message."
Benjamin frowned upon hearing this.
"Why do you think so?"
The System’s tone was a little hesitating. "I... I don’t really know. It is like a thought in me by intuition. I don’t know where it came from. It may be related to the ball that I live in now."
Ball...
Benjamin nodded thoughtfully.
The System, the "fish roe", also came from the Pure Blue World. If it was a thought by intuition, then this thought must be related to the Pure Blue World. So in fact, he thought what the System mentioned might have some value that he should take into account.
Delivering a message...
Suddenly, something clicked in Benjamin’s mind. He suddenly recalled that these five numbers might represent some sort of language. Maybe the abnormality of the particles the Pope found during that experience did not represent some kind of pattern. Instead, they represented a sentence or a word.
What would that be?
In that moment, Benjamin finally felt like he understood something.
The language system in this world had a lot in common with English although it differed from English. Like most of the names and some spoken words, the spelling of those words looked extremely alike with those in his original world. Moreover, the word here was also composed from the twenty-six letters.
...Twenty-six letters, huh?
Before the series of numbers was corrected, each number was more than twenty-six. So, Benjamin could not relate them to this. However, now that the series had been corrected, every number was just right less than twenty-six.
If that was the case, did a certain number represent a certain alphabetical letter?
This could also be a way to go about it.
Following this train of thoughts, it became faster to solve this question. Benjamin immediately returned to the reality and began the work. He exchanged every number with a letter according to the order of the twenty-six letters.
Soon, he found a series of letters:
H:E:L:L:O