Zero's brain crashed instantly.
'What is Akivili talking about?'
Why couldn't he understand this sentence once it was put together? What did it mean that Guanliang took his clothes?
Was the language the Aeon was speaking recorded in the Synesthesia Beacon? Was it the interstellar common language?
Akivili took one look at Zero's face and immediately fell silent.
That face usually only showed two kinds of expressions.
Either a cold expression that made people feel intimidated and instinctively avoid meeting his eyes.
Or a flawless, gentle and harmless smile that made people feel extremely close to him.
This was the first time the Aeon had seen his best friend show such a… not very intelligent-looking expression.
Akivili carefully asked, "What's wrong… you don't know about this?"
Zero slowly shook his head.
He punished Guanliang for two reasons.
After discovering the truth, Zero quickly remembered many details he had previously ignored.
For example, the Director who suddenly resigned, and Guanliang who took the initiative to ask Lan to do work.
Zero couldn't spare attention to deal with trivial matters in life, and Guanliang had worked with him for nearly five thousand years.
The other party was the most likely person to know the truth.
In addition, after Guanliang learned that he brought along the Abundance Emanator Shuhu, he showed an inexplicable resistance.
After sorting out his thoughts, Zero used the "Galaxy Rangers" who were following him to directly give Guanliang punishment, suspension with pay.
He believed that this decision could already be considered extremely generous.
Guanliang didn't have to work and still received patrol currency. Wasn't that basically the same as paid vacation?
It was just that during this time, Guanliang was not the Chief Strategist, only an ordinary Xianzhou citizen.
An ordinary Xianzhou citizen couldn't meet Hua, couldn't meet the "Reignbow Arbiter," and couldn't deploy troops.
Besides that, Zero had another goal.
He didn't want to involve others because of his own selfish desires.
Death was a decision he made himself. If the Galaxy Rangers continued following him… after he died, those people would inevitably be questioned by his subordinates.
But he never expected that Akivili would tell him such a… hard-to-describe piece of news.
The negative emotions that had just appeared in Zero's heart instantly disappeared.
For a moment he didn't know what to say, so he picked up the jade communicator and sent Hua a message.
[Eric: Guanliang's salary is gone]
Zero didn't want to think about this matter carefully. After sending the message, he put down the communicator.
"Forget it. The punishment has already been given. Let it stay like that."
Akivili: "…Best friend, you really have a good temper."
Zero nodded in strong agreement.
He also felt that he had a good temper.
Working nonstop like a 007 employee for nearly five thousand years, with resentment enough to feed who knows how many evil sword spirits…
If you compare it, it's like a student who wakes up at five and sleeps at midnight, repeating senior year of high school nearly five thousand times, sitting at a desk all day being forced to write math exam papers.
If it were someone else, they probably would have destroyed the world long ago, right?
But Zero didn't. His emotions were extremely stable.
In a way, didn't he save the world? Didn't that make him a savior?
The god and the human chatted for a few more sentences.
After repeatedly confirming that his best friend had controlled his emotions, Akivili finally relaxed.
The Aeon knew that the other person would never want to show weakness in front of others.
His friend would only suppress his emotions and treat such weakness as shame.
Akivili stood up and left, thoughtfully leaving space for Zero to be alone.
Only Zero remained in the room.
His gaze uncontrollably fell onto the two pieces of paper on the table.
At the moment he learned the truth, Zero's thoughts were chaotic.
His thinking wandered. Even he himself didn't know what he was thinking.
Zero thought about the first version of himself, the one who created the system in the first run.
He tried to explore the true purpose behind setting the system rewards.
Soon, Zero faintly had a guess.
To verify this guess, he conducted two IQ tests.
Once while wearing the "mara-struck" debuff.
Once after removing the debuff.
The two test results in front of him were completely different, 110 and 140.
According to the unified standards of the star sea, 110 was considered normal, while 140 could barely be called genius.
After seeing the difference of thirty points, Zero instantly understood.
The real purpose of the debuff set by his first-run self was to lower intelligence.
Zero began reasoning backward from the result to infer his own purpose.
From the result, the debuff affected his mental state and interfered with his judgment.
Then what was the purpose?
To hide the truth.
To let him continue maintaining the mindset of a "player."
Just like the saying in the fable: only by abandoning all humanity and emotion could he live easily and happily.
Zero suddenly thought of the "Aether Phase Engine."
Although this world had Aeons and didn't look scientific at all…
Even if he wasn't good at science, he still knew the law of conservation of energy.
Energy cannot appear out of nowhere, nor disappear out of nowhere. It can only transform from one form into another.
So the question came.
What exactly caused the failure of dimensional ascension and the repeated restarts of the world?
Was it because the rank of the Aeons or the "Imaginary Tree" he drew power from wasn't enough? Or… their energy wasn't enough, and the converted energy wasn't sufficient for ascension?
Yes. He was a "high-dimensional invader."
How could the Aeons of a lower-dimensional world, or the "Imaginary Tree," help him ascend dimensions?
Zero's thoughts jumped again and he considered another question.
If the flesh and blood of him, a "high-dimensional invader," became nourishment for that tree, what would happen afterward? Could it allow ascension?
He didn't continue thinking about that question.
It had no meaning anymore.
He couldn't go home.
Just like his name, Zero.
Standing by the abyss, envying the fish, with nothing but empty longing.
All of this was nothing more than his delusion.
Zero stayed in Yaoqing and watched the moon for several thousand years.
Unfortunately, it was never the moon of his hometown.
After reaching the conclusion, Zero's heart remained completely calm.
He was already used to separating emotions and analyzing problems from the most rational and objective perspective.
The moment he discovered the problem, his brain had already thought of a solution.
Reason told Zero that this problem was easy to solve.
Either take out "Feather Dust" and find Hua, or make a deal with his best friend Fuli.
As the Marshal of the Xianzhou, wealth and power were easy to obtain. He could erase his memories and remove the pain.
That way, he could live very easily.
Zero would rather suffer than live in ignorance.
He felt more and more impatient.
For him, every second of breathing was torment.
Zero had two plans.
The first was to activate the engine and start over from the beginning, leading the Xianzhou people to obtain longevity.
This time, Zero would no longer freeload from the Aeon of Abundance. What he wanted was longevity without mara.
Of course, if it were possible to obtain "eternal life" like the Vidyadhara, that would be even better.
The second plan was to end this endless cycle of reincarnation.
Zero leaned toward the second option, obtaining permanent peace.
But no matter which plan he chose, he had many problems to consider.
If he chose the first plan and reversed time, how could he guarantee that his memory-lost and naturally suspicious self would feel goodwill toward the Xianzhou?
How could he guarantee that he would arrive at the Xianzhou before the Xianzhou people obtained the blessing of Abundance?
This wasn't something that could be solved by speaking in riddles.
Zero began thinking about the second plan.
He needed to solve the problems of the Xianzhou and Hua first, then Zandar, and finally his own funeral arrangements.
The Xianzhou problem was easy.
Now very few Xianzhou people knew his name or past.
The only ones who remembered Zero were his close subordinates and his successor.
He had already written wills for them long ago.
As for Hua… Zero knew he owed his successor a happy childhood, but he had made Hua's life full and unforgettable.
If you round it up, there wasn't much difference. Not a big problem.
Zero really wanted to attend his successor's coming-of-age ceremony. He wanted Hua to have a perfect birthday without regrets.
But he probably wouldn't last until that day.
Not a big problem. When the time came, he could record a video and send Hua his blessings, showing a scene of a loving father and filial daughter in front of his subordinates.
Thinking about it carefully, it was really killing two birds with one stone.
It would mess with the successor a little and also allow his subordinates to smoothly complete the transition with Hua after he left.
Unfortunately, Zero wouldn't be able to see Hua's disgusted expression.
Next was Zandar.
The one who had cooperated with him and experienced who knows how many cycles… his teacher.
At first, Zero didn't understand why his first-run self would deliberately set the intelligence-reducing debuff.
Only oneself truly understands oneself.
He would rather suffer than live in confusion.
Then the existence of the debuff became very questionable.
His first-run self already knew he couldn't go home, so why didn't he die?
Could it be… to make up for regrets? To save someone? Was that person Zandar?
Zero knew nothing about this.
But he believed that with Zandar's ability, he could easily hack into the Xianzhou system and activate the "Aether Engine."
He hadn't interacted with many scholars, but he was good at putting himself in others' shoes.
Zero replaced reviewing documents with doing experiments in his mind and quickly reached a conclusion.
Zandar's mental state… was probably not much different from his own.
After all, where is there learning that doesn't drive people crazy?
Even a genius would go insane after studying for thousands of years.
Especially Zandar, who created an Aeon by hand and was older than the Aeon of Erudition.
Zero guessed that the other person probably wasn't someone with much empathy.
Please. The guy literally created an Aeon.
A genius of that level probably only cared about unsolved problems.
After experiencing who knows how many cycles, Zandar was still insisting on collecting experimental data for the "Aether Phase Engine."
At first, considering this, Zero had thought about dismantling the system and helping Zandar find a new partner, and he even learned programming for it.
Unfortunately, plans couldn't keep up with reality. Zero couldn't dismantle the system and couldn't find someone with strong enough willpower who could obtain the resources needed to build the Aether Phase Engine.
He could only find a way to persuade Zandar.
Zero temporarily had no ideas, so he moved on to the next issue.
He only wanted to stay somewhere no one could reach.
When the time came, who should handle his funeral?
Akivili?
For an Aeon almost pathologically obsessed with "Trailblaze," that would be too dangerous.
Soon, Zero thought of his best friend Fuli.
The Aeon of Memory was the best witness. They had known each other for who knows how many cycles.
If Aha wanted to use his remaining body parts to mess with people's minds, Fuli would definitely step in to stop it.
After all the trouble the Aeons went through to finally roll a cycle where Zero didn't choose dimensional ascension, how could they allow Aha to mess things up?
After thinking about it, Zero decided not to deal with the funeral arrangements.
His flesh and blood couldn't possibly destroy the Imaginary Tree.
…Probably not, right?
In the materials he left earlier, this possibility wasn't mentioned.
He stopped thinking and stood up from the sofa.
Soon he sharply noticed a gaze. When he turned his head, he met Shuhu's eyes full of hatred.
Zero smiled faintly. He stepped forward, bent down, and grabbed the collar around Shuhu's neck hard with his leather-gloved hand.
"Why are you looking at me with that kind of expression?"
"The 'Abundance' gave you a lifespan far beyond ordinary people."
Zero frowned slightly, as if looking at a disobedient child.
He sighed and said, "Only I gave you immortality."
"I gave you an indestructible body."
"And yet you look at me like this… like I'm your enemy."
"You're looking at your savior with hatred."
Shuhu looked full of disdain and sneered.
"Savior?"
"Hah. You're nothing special either."
"Your interrogation methods aren't even as good as the lowest-level people of the Ten-Lords Commission."
Zero straightened up and looked down at Shuhu kneeling on the ground.
The lowest-level people? At least stand up before saying that.
Zero remained expressionless and then let out a light laugh.
"I don't like your wording."
"Of course, I'm indeed not very good at interrogating prisoners."
"But fruits like the one you ate before… I still have many."
"If I use them sparingly… I can probably let you die a few hundred times."
Shuhu's face suddenly changed.
Zero casually grabbed Shuhu's collar and dragged him to the most open area of the room.
"Let's change places. If we stain the wall, Pam will get angry."
Shuhu's hands were tied behind his back, and being dragged like this made him look extremely miserable.
Zero bent down. His movements were almost gentle as he placed his hand on Shuhu's shoulder.
With his leather-gloved hand, he first patted Shuhu's shoulder, then tidied Shuhu's slightly messy collar.
"I'm very curious."
A friendly and harmless smile appeared on Zero's face as he raised his hand and lightly placed it against the side of Shuhu's neck.
He frowned slightly, as if encountering a difficult question, and asked softly, "Will the undying Emanator of 'Abundance' one day begin to long for death?"
At the same time, in Akivili's room.
The Aeon sat in a chair, facing an empty cabinet.
Akivili fell into deep thought.
Originally, he had placed all the fruits gifted by the "Abundance" in the cabinet for storage.
But his best friend had taken all of them.
Akivili suddenly felt troubled.
Should he ask his best friend to return them?
Maybe he should forget it… his best friend was already in a bad mood. If he mentioned the "Abundance" again, wouldn't it make him feel worse?
Besides, his best friend would definitely keep them safely.
Akivili quickly threw the matter out of his mind.
Later that night, when dining with the other Nameless passengers, he saw his best friend.
His best friend seemed to be in a good mood and even thanked Pam for specially preparing dishes that replenish blood.
Akivili cautiously asked about it.
Zero took a sip of wine.
"I've become very interested in gardening lately."
Pruning trees could count as gardening, right?
Akivili felt relieved inside.
He carefully invited his best friend to join his journey.
"Alright." Zero thought for a moment, then added another sentence. "In exchange, you also have to accompany me somewhere."
Akivili scratched his head and asked, "Where are we going?"
Zero smiled, "Xuling."