Translator: AnubisTL
"The situation is worse than I thought..." Jieming forced himself to calm down, pretending to casually browse the information on the light screen while his heart sank. "My body, my subconscious... they've already deeply adapted to life here. I've probably been 'living' here for quite some time..."
Time!
The most critical factor was time!
The ten-year deadline from the outside world and the uncertainty of time's flow within this place coiled around his heart like two cold, venomous snakes.
Once the deadline passed, the eighth-tier wizards at the Command Center wouldn't care about the specific circumstances of the Fallen.
While in theory, an eighth-tier wizard's intervention would immediately trigger a rescue operation for all the trapped wizards, the uncertainty was simply too high. With no clear intelligence on any front, who knew what would happen the moment they acted? He might very well be "perished together" with this entire plane.
"I have to resolve this as quickly as possible." Jieming took a deep breath, his gaze hardening with renewed determination.
He ignored the noisy freshmen gradually filling the lecture theater, leaning back slightly into his chair and closing his eyes as if resting.
Instead, he plunged his entire consciousness inward, focusing on the dead-still dantian qi sea and that faint yet vital tug of attraction.
Mobilize spiritual power!
It was like a mortal using every ounce of his strength to push a truck stuck in the mud.
Slow. Arduous. The progress was almost imperceptible.
A moment later, the faint chatter and the soft tapping of light screens in the lecture theater abruptly ceased.
The sudden silence snapped Jieming out of his concentration as he struggled to channel his spiritual power.
He looked up to see two young men walk into the lecture theater. They wore simple yet well-tailored teaching uniforms. Their steady demeanors and sharp gazes gave them an air of maturity and experience that belied their youthful appearances.
Jieming's eyes swept across the room, and his heart skipped a beat. He hadn't paid much attention before, but now he realized the entire lecture theater was nearly empty. Including himself, there were fewer than ten students in the entire class.
This number... is too abnormal, he thought, his suspicions deepening.
According to the "setup" of his false memories, the university he'd been accepted into was a top-tier institution in the field of physics, highly competitive and popular. There was no reason for a major's class to have so few students. This completely contradicted his understanding of what a "top-rank university" should be.
He suppressed his confusion, quickly adjusted his expression, and assumed the look of an attentive student eager for the new lesson. Jieming knew his immediate priority was to maintain his persona as an "ordinary freshman" and avoid drawing any attention.
His recent attempt had led him to estimate that if he focused his spirit to the fullest, it would take roughly two to three days to barely manage to manipulate that sliver of spiritual power and open the rift to his internal space.
Until then, he had to blend in and act like a real student.
Though he held no expectations for the course material—viewing it as nothing more than false information constructed by the plane based on his own knowledge base—Jieming still forced himself to listen.
However, as he listened, his pupils suddenly constricted, and a flicker of irrepressible shock crossed his face.
The lecturer was expounding on a model of spacetime curvature perturbation under the gravitational lensing effect of a specific nebula. The key parameters and derivation formulas involved were... knowledge he had never encountered before!
"This is impossible!" Jieming's mind was thrown into turmoil.
He was absolutely certain he wasn't under the influence of illusion magic. Even so, the "material" used by more advanced mind control-type abilities to construct a world would inevitably be drawn from the victim's own cognition and memory bank.
Theoretically, this world should never contain real, logically consistent knowledge that he was completely unaware of!
Unless... this false world isn't false after all!
He quickly lowered his head, using the light screen on the desk to hide his face and masking all his emotions. Yet, his heart hammered violently against his ribs.
He hurriedly recorded the unfamiliar knowledge on the screen, forcing himself to calm down.
I can't be sure yet... I have to verify whether this knowledge is real. I'll do it immediately after class!
With this thought, Jieming focused his attention and began to listen carefully to the lecture, taking notes on the screen from time to time.
Once he immersed himself in the exploration of this unknown knowledge, time seemed to accelerate.
The morning classes soon ended.
The schedule showed he had two hours of free time next.
Jieming didn't leave the classroom immediately. Instead, he impatiently brought up the notes he had just recorded.
Using the light screen's built-in calculation module and logical deduction function, he began to verify those unfamiliar formulas and theories.
As the verification deepened, his expression grew increasingly grim.
The results were clear and unmistakable: this knowledge was real, valid, and logically sound!
It was absolutely not the kind of fabricated falsehood he had initially assumed.
A massive wave of shock swept over him once more.
Illusion magic or mind control could not create a reality unknown to the subject out of thin air.
So how was this "false" world achieving this?
Did the mastermind behind the scenes possess this knowledge themselves?
Or was the world he was currently facing... not false after all?
The problems with this world were far more complex—and far more... dangerous—than he had ever imagined.
He was just debating whether to return to that "home" to search for more clues or to stay in the school library to consult more materials when Amy's clear voice called out from outside the classroom door, "Jieming! Let's go eat!"
Jieming composed himself, replied in the affirmative, and met up with Amy and Victor outside.
The three of them naturally headed toward the school dining hall.
After sitting down with a tray of various dishes, Jieming brought up the topic as if in passing. "There aren't many people in our major. The classroom feels so empty. How about your side?"
Amy tilted her head in thought. "Not many? We should have quite a few by now. There are way more of us than in the Biotechnology major. But my major is considered popular too—there are... nine people in my class! Victor, what about you?"
Victor pushed up his glasses and answered calmly, "Information Engineering. It became a popular major this year, so we have nine people too... Of course, that's still not as many as your Physics major."
Jieming pondered inwardly. Both Amy's and Victor's classes had an extremely small number of students—no class had more than ten!
Using the motion of lowering his head to eat, Jieming concealed his furrowed brow.
The entire school's student population is abnormally small?
This created a severe contradiction with the macro-setting of this plane's "massive population" in his "memories."
This looks like a huge flaw...
But Jieming dared not let his guard down.
In such an eerie plane, one that could silently trap nearly two million elite wizards, any seemingly unreasonable detail might hide a deeper logic.
The sparse student population might not be a design oversight, but rather a manifestation of some rule he had yet to understand.
Just as the three finished their lunch and were about to leave the dining room, a sudden commotion erupted at the far entrance to the cafeteria.
Ever-curious, Amy immediately pulled the other two to a halt and stood on tiptoe to peer into the distance.
Jieming wanted no part of it and tried to bypass the crowd, but the commotion seemed guided by an invisible hand, swiftly moving toward them.
The crowd parted automatically, forming a path. A group of young people, dressed in attire distinct from the student uniforms, their expressions cold and movements agile, marched straight toward Jieming and his companions, led by a tall man with a grim face.
A bad feeling washed over Jieming. He instinctively tried to step back and blend into the crowd.
But it was too late.
The tall man leading the group scanned the area with the piercing gaze of a hawk, his eyes finally locking onto Jieming. A thunderous roar, laced with fury and leaving no room for doubt, exploded through the spacious dining room:
"Are you Jieming?!"
In an instant, every pair of eyes in the dining room—including the bewildered stares of Amy and Victor—was fixed on Jieming.
Jieming froze, his feet rooted to the spot.
He could feel the accompanying young men subtly forming a perimeter, sealing off all his possible escape routes.
Trouble, he thought, has found me.
(End of the Chapter)
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