When Star Gods began existing in this world.
This was a rather strange question—not because it was too difficult, but because it was too simple.
In the Honkai: Star Rail universe, even children just starting school could easily give such an answer.
"According to the Interastral Peace Corporation's statement, the currently known most ancient Star God is Qlipoth, the Preservation. His ascension to godhood is considered the decisive factor in ending the Dusk Wars. The day He ascended to godhood was Year 1 of the Amber Era, which is 2,157 Amber Ages ago from now."
Herta first gave such an answer.
The Amber Age was one of the galaxy-wide universal calendars promoted by the Interastral Peace Corporation. Each time Qlipoth, the Preservation, swung His hammer once, it marked the end of the previous Amber Age and the beginning of the next.
Because the intervals of Qlipoth's hammer swings were inconsistent, the length of each Amber Age fluctuated considerably.
Converting to the Trailblaze Calendar, one Amber Age was approximately 76 to 240 years.
It was currently the 2,157th Amber Age, so Qlipoth's lifespan could be directly judged from this.
"However, in my judgment, the Corporation's propaganda is quite watered down. Based on materials I've investigated, after Qlipoth ascended to godhood, the Dusk Wars didn't immediately end. On the contrary, the ancient beasts remained active for at least over a hundred Amber Ages before completely disappearing."
Speaking words that could be called greatly treasonous and enough to be silenced by the Interastral Peace Corporation, Herta pouted in dissatisfaction, then added.
"Originally I was still somewhat interested in this period of history, but after the Interastral Peace Corporation noticed my research, they kept causing me trouble, not wanting me to destroy their propaganda. Later, because those people were too annoying, I didn't continue researching."
Only she was qualified to make the Interastral Peace Corporation so entangled. If it were others researching these matters, they'd probably have disappeared from the world long ago.
For fanatical believers of Preservation, questioning these things was tantamount to challenging their faith.
And for members of the Interastral Peace Corporation, Qlipoth was their facade. Once matters damaging the Star God's image were exposed, it would directly affect the Corporation's profits.
Touching interests was easier to provoke hatred than touching faith.
Even Herta couldn't act unilaterally.
"Setting aside the Dusk Wars, according to existing materials, Qlipoth's age can already be calculated. There's no problem with this point, is there?"
Ryuga questioned back.
During the waiting time earlier, he had already reviewed all publicly available materials at the space station through Huby, gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the Star Rail world. Combined with intelligence obtained in his previous life, he had quite deep inferences about this world's truth. This was why he dared to directly contact Star Gods.
"That point is indeed correct."
Herta nodded.
The Amber Era Year 1 was a calendar established based on Qlipoth's first hammer swing. Although it was just deduced time, the margin of error wouldn't be too large.
Regardless of what happened back then, a calendar built by Qlipoth Himself wouldn't err in the same coordinate system.
"2,157 Amber Ages, converted at most to five hundred thousand years."
Following the answer Herta gave, Ryuga extrapolated such a fact.
"That is to say, even the known most ancient Star God is at most merely five hundred thousand years old."
Five hundred thousand years, for ordinary worlds, could already be considered quite a vast number. Even gods in the Campione world generally had ages of only a few thousand years. Star Gods' ages were a full hundred times that.
However, compared to the universal-level stage, this time period was too short.
In Earth's calendar, humans walked out of Africa one hundred thousand years ago, established civilization just ten thousand years ago, the most ancient tribal gods were merely over ten thousand years old. Gods born on this time basis averaging several thousand years old—this was a very reasonable number.
But for interstellar society, several hundred thousand years was too short.
The universe's birth was over ten billion years ago, and terrestrial planets were born at least several billion years ago.
In the Star Rail world, there was no lack of civilizations that had been born for over several million years.
On such a vast timescale, five hundred thousand years was merely a fleeting moment.
"As such young existences, Star Gods immediately possessed power capable of affecting the entire universe, and there's more than one such existence... Don't you have doubts about this?"
Ryuga raised this question.
In the preceding 13.7 billion years, not half an existence capable of influencing the entire universe's scale had appeared, yet coincidentally in this recent less-than-five-hundred-thousand-year brief period, so many Star Gods had emerged all at once.
Beings capable of shaking the universal framework had all come out in a swarm during such a short time.
For ordinary people, Star Gods' existence might be something self-evident like common sense or universal rules, but upon deep investigation, one would discover its extreme irrationality.
Why did Star Gods concentrate their appearance in this time period?
Why could They possess power affecting the entire universe?
If Star Gods' birth was natural, why hadn't even one Star God appeared in the previous ten-plus billion years?
Hearing Ryuga point out these questions, Herta fell into brief contemplation.
Several seconds later, she spoke.
"Regarding Star Gods, there's currently a relatively niche hypothesis believing Star Gods have always existed from beginning to end."
"Individual cases indicate that in the ancient era when the Xianzhou Alliance hadn't yet left their home planet, they discovered representative symbols of the Hunt Star God, but at that time, the Hunt Star God hadn't yet been born."
Ryuga pointed out a problem that couldn't be ignored, but her understanding of Star Gods was equally broad.
"If Star Gods always existed and only recently manifested one by one due to unknown reasons... well, though quite forced, it can explain why They possess universe-level affecting power—They are beings that always have been and always will be."
Speaking to this point, Herta was also dissatisfied with this far-fetched explanation, but she didn't have a better explanation.
Regarding this explanation, Ryuga shook his head, holding a negative attitude.
"Research on Star Gods must not only consider Star Gods' changes with time, but also Star Gods' interference with time."
"For example, Terminus, the Star God who travels counter to time. Even if He was born from the distant destructive future, He could still cross the river of time and trace back to the past. Other Star Gods might not be able to do this to this degree, but very likely they also have means to unconsciously affect time."
Hearing this, Herta pondered for a long while, then said in surprise.
"You mean the divine traces of Star Gods before their birth are influences they unconsciously exerted on the upstream of the time river after their birth?"
Concepts involving time interference were often complex, but for her, this hypothesis had no comprehension threshold—it just tested imagination somewhat.
According to Ryuga's meaning, the Hunt Star God's prehistoric divine traces were relics formed through distant spacetime sensing after the Hunt Star God's birth.
"That's right. For gods, this is basic operation."
Ryuga answered quite calmly, his expression somewhat accustomed to such things.
Interfering with time to strengthen one's own existence, deepening one's imprint on the world, enhancing one's own power—this practice might be quite rare for those unfamiliar with it, but in the mythological field, this was basically standard operation for developed mythologies.
Just like the Father God Zeus introduced earlier, through predetermined fate and theological patches, packaging gods who were born later as the sole god who had been born long ago and had always secretly controlled all things in the world.
This way, not only would this god's sense of presence in mythology greatly increase, once this hypothesis was completely accepted, this god could truly become the sole god penetrating all time and fate.
Like practicing falsehood into truth, clearly a god born later could become a "self-existent eternal" existence through this operation.
Turning an originally incorrect hypothesis into correctness.
In this field, compared to the Greek mythology that failed at the last step, the already successful Christianity clearly had more experience.
With Ryuga's professional level in the mythological field, he could see through the reason for this phenomenon at a glance.
"A very valuable hypothesis."
Even Herta, after thinking it through, had to admit Ryuga's statement was more plausible.
Not only could it reasonably explain phenomena crossing time, it also wouldn't fall into that kind of cure-all theological explanation.
Always existing in the universe but not manifesting for some reason... what difference was there from not existing at all!
"According to your statement, this phenomenon is just one of the Star Gods' own interference information on the universe. That is to say, you also believe Star Gods are newly emerged existences born only in these recent several hundred thousand years?"
After realizing Ryuga's thinking had considerable value, Herta pressed on with great interest.
Clearly, Ryuga had previously said that overly young Star Gods suddenly achieving heaven in one step and obtaining strength exceeding limits was unreasonable.
But looking at his meaning, he still supported the fact that Star Gods' birth was only several hundred thousand years ago?
Wasn't there a contradiction between the two?
"That's right. Star Gods' ascension to godhood already has numerous indelible records. Their concentrated explosive birth in these several hundred thousand years is also an undeniable fact."
Ryuga acknowledged this foundation, then changed his tone.
"On the basis of this fact, I've had a rather simple question."
"That is—are Star Gods truly appearing from nothing, without roots, without traces, without reason, out of thin air?"
"Or does their existence itself possess some other foundation, just that under suitable conditions, transmutation occurred, finally ascending to become power capable of interfering on a universal scale?"
Unlike ordinary-level evolution, transmutation refers to a phenomenon where a substance changes at an exponential rate within an extremely short time, finally completely transforming into another completely different substance.
This transformation's magnitude is more intense than a supernova explosion, the required time shorter than lightning.
That is a complete leap in life level.
For example, if the current Ryuga randomly found a wild little bird with unopened spiritual intelligence and directly bestowed upon it the divine authority of a monotheistic god, elevating it to a supreme deity, this transformation's magnitude could barely be called transmutation.
According to existing materials or legends, Lan the Hunt, Nous the Erudition, Tayzzyronth the Propagation, etc., all satisfied the conditions of transmutation, ascending to Star God positions from mortal bodies.
Although Lan's deeds still had disputes, other Star Gods' trajectories had no problems.
Though such things weren't commonly seen in the macroscopic universe, in the microscopic universe, similar phenomena weren't rare.
Herta was naturally no stranger to this.
"Transmutation... this statement indeed has no problems, but what you want to say shouldn't be simply the ascension phenomenon, right?"
Herta looked directly into Ryuga's eyes. She keenly sensed that Ryuga's research target wasn't individual Star Gods themselves, but some more essential power.
"Yes."
Ryuga nodded calmly.
"The ascension phenomenon has nothing worth researching. It's merely individuals satisfying the conditions for opening a Path, being accepted by the Star God's position, and becoming the corresponding Star God."
"Actually, as long as the same conditions are met, any individual can become a Star God."
"Therefore, when researching Star Gods, the individual Star Gods themselves aren't important. What's important is the Star God position itself—where does this status originate from?"
To be continued...