"So transmigrators came before me. But what did he mean by depends and effectively? There was at first Toshiko then there was Mikitaka and finally me."
Chizuru whether his mental state had been affected by his template or not was in deep contemplation. Simulating what scenarios he could imagine within his head with the limited information he had.
"No that doesn't make sense. No, no... There must be more transmigrators in the future. The pattern holds. three transmigrators have appeared sequentially. All I can do now is watch out for any of them in the future..."
Outside everything happened according to Chizuru's plan. Hamura and Hagaromo discovered the true nature of the world tree and learned sage arts, Kaguya was ruling over the world. Everything was going normally.
Chizuru eventually began creating anomalies. His reality warping concepts were transformed into missingo like monstrosities. He wanted to set a foothold for himself into the world before he finally got his rotting body out of that cacoon in the tree.
These glitches would all be vastly different. Some would be intelligent and aware of him others would be bestial or more like a phenomena. They could benefit people or harm them. It really depends but it would benifit him as he could create a twisted spacetime labyrinth called a void as his foothold in the world.
~
Hagaromo crushed a glitch entity with his shinra tensei.
"What are these things?!"
To Hagaromo who had distant memories of Kagaku when he was young or his now more primitive life under the god tree. He had never encountered such a bizarre asthetic of creature.
All sorts of bizarre things were appearing more and more over time. He was currently walking along the "Long Road" It was an endless highway that appeared in the desert one day. Once you started walking on it, you could walk forever and never reach the end. But if you walked outside the road you could get to the other end in half a day.
On the road all sorts of these beings would appear as well. So Hagaromo was investigating by walking along the Long Road and trying to pry whatever information he could out of the creatures. As he had heard rumors that some of them could talk from some villages.
As Hagaromo kept on walking the Long Road the environment became more and more surreal. The desert environment scenery around the road had long dissolved into a glitchy static mess with lines and words of data. More and more of the monsters that he decided to call the Formless. Few other names were able to properly convey his thoughts on the Formless.
Hagaromo kept on walking for hours. Those hours turned into days and those days turned into weeks and months. He couldn't properly perceive the nature of the Formless even with his rinnegan. His brother Hamura couldn't even discern their inside and out with his Byakugan. But he was sure that if he kept on walking he would reach somewhere. That's all he could discern with the rinnegan.
Occasionally he would recover corpses who had attempted the Long Road. Eventually the Long Road lost all Coherence as Hagaromo sped along at maximum speed until.
Ring ring
Hagaromo looked behind him as the road dissolved into the static background. The sound of digital ringing echoed everywheren as he was confronted by the most coherent Formless he had ever seen. It had a humanoid silhouette though bizarre and shapy and its body glowed a solid cyan almost white color. He looked at its and it moved its head as if to make eye contact.
"It looks like I've reached the end of the road... Shinra Tensei!"
The static faded until all that was left was a glowing grid for a floor and a black void. As the repulsive force pushed away the static and the Formless slid back.
Hagaromo was hit by a glowing blue block that had manifested in the air and ignored the relpulsion. Right after these blocks appeared everywhere in the space and began closing in to crush him.
In response he threw a black rod forward and it gravitationaly pulled him forward out of the way.
He threw a punch with the power of a shinra tensei tightly wrapped around it applying a massive force towards the Formless despite it being just outside his melee range.
The Formless reached out its hand shape. A circle with lines of code and geometric signifiers appeared around Hagaromo and he felt dozens of attacks on his body all at once, both sharp,blunt, internal, and external.
This exchanged happened in just a few seconds and continued for a whole minute.
And then suddenly, everything disappeared. The grid the void and the Formless he was fighting just disappeared as Hagaromo was left standing at the end of the road where the other side was in reality.
"What?"
~
Chizuru was reviewing his fight with Hagaromo.
"Not bad, by reducing the resolution and coherence of the simulation infecting reality I can much more reliably alter variables for tangible effects. In terms of power I can also make my anomalies match Hagaromo when I puppet them. Not bad."
Chizuru had constructed the Long Road void specifically to lure Hagaromo, just so he could spar with him for one minute to collect data.
The original Mastermind would not have needed to collect data in reality and could just simulate Hagaromo as it pleased. But Chizuru found it difficult to get data on very powerful individuals. Simulating them to get data took time as well. So real life data was a great way to speed things up. And Chizuru also just wanted to do something. And properly make sure that his power would work in reality and not just the simulations he endlessly ran.
"Kaguya is going to get sealed soon. And I can just slowly increase my template using void's and anomalies without the god tree."
Chizuru sank further into the chair he was sitting in. In front of him were various monitors that showed data from all the simulations.
"I thought this would be more exciting. The Mastermind template was absolutely perfect for sitting still and gaining godlike power. But now I've become so powerful and I've lost all my opportunities for adventure and wonder. This world is already solved... Even as a puppet master I barely need to interact with the world. I can just invisibly simulate and expand my power."
He leaned forward, his hands clasped together.
"But when I complete my template in those thousands of years Toshiko spoke of. And Eventually I'll figure out the mystery of Mikitaka. I'll just have to be patient."