"If you do this, won't Kiana get angry?"
Elysia felt that Noldrei was being too irresponsible, like letting a child go out into the world before they've even come of age.
"So what if she's angry? It's not like we'll never see each other again. Given our current lifespans, isn't it perfectly normal to be apart for a few hundred years before meeting again?"
Noldrei felt these people were making a big fuss over nothing.
Their lifespans were practically limitless. They didn't need to worry about whether they would see each other again in the future.
Elysia couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you supposed to be fighting against that... Proliferationism thing? Why are you leaving now?"
Noldrei felt this Pink Elf must have a screw loose. He said, "I have to wait until the people here have experienced the suffering brought by Proliferationism before I can come back and ask them how they plan to solve it. Before that, I have to wait for them to develop on their own. These people are all acting like they've found the cheat code to solve the problems of the old era. They won't listen to my advice."
He actually felt that since his time travel had failed, he had to proceed at a normal pace.
He certainly couldn't just jump right in and foolishly continue to fight Proliferationism from the start.
He, Noldrei, was a future human with dignity!
To lose so much face in front of these primitive people, to have his long-boasted identity as a future human collapse just like that—how could he face his friends from the future?
Imagine telling others in the future, "This is how I fought Proliferationism."
The thought of receiving pitying looks from everyone filled Noldrei with a wave of sorrow.
Tears, they started to fall uncontrollably from Elysia's face.
Elysia wiped away the tears and complained, "What are you doing?! Use your own body to cry!"
"No way, it's too ugly. I don't want to do this kind of thing in a primitive form." Noldrei shook his head and sighed. "You know what I mean. I just want to see if I can continue my work in other places."
Elysia unconsciously asked, "With your abilities and lifespan, you clearly don't need to keep searching for other life. So why do you insist on creating a world with so many lives?"
"People have already tried what you're talking about," Noldrei explained. "If life becomes completely devoid of emotion and desire, you get beings who are completely insensitive to their surroundings. They become like the paramecia and viruses you know, like AI that can't construct its own intelligence."
"Feelings of happiness, emotions—they can only be felt through the interaction of human hormones. So, no matter how a human's external form changes, they will never abandon the ability to interact with other life. Affection and desire can only be born from the interaction of information between people."
"Without my own kind to interact with, I would, in effect, become pure matter. I'd become something like a metal, or a stone."
"The most fundamental aspect of Proliferationism is that humans need this 'own kind' to make themselves human."
"But Proliferationism also accelerates the rate of ideological differentiation among humans, making one's own kind a cheap, replaceable existence. That's why in the future, every one of us will live in a state of struggle, with the goal of returning to the subject of 'our own kind.'"
Noldrei's words didn't make Ely feel that the future would be any better. Instead, they made her feel the desperate loneliness of future humanity.
All the technological innovations, all the social progress, all the ideological development—none of it could reduce humanity's craving for its own kind. And the overly rapid pace of progress also meant that before they could unite, they would once again go their separate ways.
Elysia realized something incredible. She asked with suspicion, "Doesn't that mean that in the future, there will be many humans who sacrifice their own lives for the sake of other life?"
She had already foreseen what would happen next. These humans would then resurrect the "people" who had already been sacrificed, re-solving the loneliness and despair of that loss, and then it would be another endless cycle.
Noldrei didn't know if that struggle would ever stop. He said nonchalantly, "It's more of a perpetual, uninterrupted struggle. Don't worry about such troublesome things. By the time you feel lonely, you'll still have to wait for tens of thousands of years."
I've already waited for tens of thousands of years!
Elysia, with the company of the Elysian Realm, didn't feel such cruel loneliness. But in Noldrei's original future, this wouldn't happen. The dissipation and aggregation of life were a normal part of every struggle.
We can't just let humanity remain in a state of no progress, can we?
Elysia had to start thinking hard about this troublesome problem.
The problem of future humanity wasn't about whether they could survive, but the problems created after the need for survival was met.
"Let me process this... I need to think more."
Elysia put herself in Noldrei's shoes, trying to get a feel for the psyche of a similar situation in that future.
Ely thought for a long time, but in the end, she still couldn't figure out why things were like this.
Since she couldn't figure it out, she simply gave up on such a brain-burning thought process.
"What about you? Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for your own will?"
Noldrei nodded and explained, "Of course. Life should be lived for one's own will. The humans of the old era just barely survived, weak and pitiful, with twisted minds. This isn't because life is inherently like this, but because at that time, there was nothing in the human will worth sacrificing for. So, humans at that time would turn inward, looking for meaning in their own bodies to anchor their existence."
Hearing Noldrei's explanation, Elysia suddenly felt that future humans were all good people.
But then Ely reconsidered. This way of distinguishing "good people" from "bad people" was based on her own attitude as a primitive person. The future humans didn't play by this set of rules at all.
Elysia couldn't tell if future humans were good or bad, but she did look forward to the existence of such a new human society.
"Then how about you take me with you when you leave? I don't want to walk the same path as the Previous Era again. You can tell me what future humans should be like."
"I'm a memory construct of Elysia now. It's only natural for me to make a different choice than Elysia, right?"
"Where do you want to go? Space travel? Parallel worlds? The Sea of Quanta?"
Elysia really wanted to go to those places she had never seen.
Noldrei actually felt quite lost himself. He felt that there wasn't much to see in the universe; it was mostly filled with cosmic dust.
In reality, empty space far outweighed places with life.
But then Noldrei had another thought. Since this world had both Imaginary and Quantum beings, it was only natural that there would be other human life in this universe.
Noldrei suddenly felt re-energized. He said happily, "You have a point, Ely! The humans here couldn't figure out the problem, but there might be other humans in the universe, sages who can crack the code of Proliferationism!"
He was once again full of confidence in his actions. Noldrei prepared to seek an answer from the sages of the universe, like the Quantum humans and Imaginary humans.