Li Gang smirked. "I guess I am right. So, how far in the future?"
Meng Xian glanced at him deeply and said no more. He never imagined that the clues he revealed could be traced back to his biggest secret. There were two main reasons. First, he never thought Li Gang could see through the noise of Mental Radiations.
There is actually a huge difference between Brainwaves and Mental Radiations. Though these terms are often used interchangeably in this world, there is a crucial distinction. This arises from the cultivation system of this world.
As we know, in this world, Warriors cultivate the Soul, which improves their intelligence. But how does it work at a fundamental level?
Mortal souls are mindless. Once they die, and if their souls somehow do not dissipate, they turn into mad ghosts, wandering the world purely based on instinct. Their souls completely lack any subconsciousness. All of their thoughts are generated in the brain, and the soul merely enjoys the brain's hard work—it is more indulgent in nature.
Beginner Warriors, Rank 1 to Rank 3, don't experience major changes from Soul Cultivation—only improved synchronization between body and soul. Some memories begin to get stored in the soul. When memories are stored in the soul, the brain accesses them faster. These memories are transmitted via Soul Essence, which has effectively infinite transmission speed.
When a Warrior reaches the Intermediate stage, Rank 4 to Rank 6, their soul begins to develop its own subconsciousness. It forms its own thoughts. Due to this, the brain and soul can process information in parallel and formulate ideas, leading to a drastic increase in cognitive ability.
Souls are even stronger than the brain. This leads us to the final stage: Advance Warriors. Their souls evolve to have both Consciousness and Subconsciousness. Their souls develop independent thought—placing them in a league of their own. It must be noted, however, that the soul does not directly control the body. Only the brain does! The soul uses the brain as a medium to influence the body.
Now, here comes the importance of Mental Radiations and Brainwaves. Brainwaves are generated solely by the brain due to the synchronized electrical activity of billions of neurons. Meanwhile, Mental Radiations are the Soul Essence lost during the transmission of memories and thoughts to the brain.
Consider Soul Essence as a form of energy. When energy is transmitted, there is always some loss. Mental Radiations are these losses—filled with noise and lacking clear patterns. They don't offer clues about a person's thoughts. Only high-quality Mental Radiations from Rank 9 Warriors can contain meaningful data, but ironically, they become strong enough to suppress any readable clues. For a Rank 6 Warrior like Meng Xian, his brainwaves were tainted with noisy Mental Radiations.
Even someone like Meng Xian, with his peak Rank 8 cultivation, couldn't filter the noisy brainwaves corrupted by Mental Radiations in his past life. Thus, he never expected Li Gang to make sense of them. Eventually, he realized that Li Gang could only vaguely sense his thoughts—his anger, fear, and other emotions. He was well aware of how difficult it is to interpret brainwaves—let alone corrupted ones.
The second reason was the impossibility of reversing time. Even Meng Xian knew it was simply impossible—unless the Heavenly Dao intervened. Thus, he never thought of the possibility of someone deducing this illogical phenomenon! Even someone as perverted as Li Gang shouldn't have this ability.
Li Gang possessed vast knowledge from Lin Fan's memories. So this possibility shouldn't even have occurred to him. Then why did he think so?
There were several reasons. First, Li Gang never processed all of Lin Fan's memories. Many were lost. He only processed the important ones—alchemy, formations, and similar knowledge useful to him at the time. He could only access information up to Rank 9; the rest were encrypted, appearing like noise. Li Gang wasn't smart enough to decode them with his current cultivation. From 100 million years of memories, he extracted just 10,000 years' worth of useful knowledge. There was more he could have grasped, but for various reasons, he didn't process it and discarded it.
However, he did know that reversing time was impossible, even for the strongest existences—because the past and future themselves do not truly exist. To reverse time, one would have to reverse the entire state of the universe back to a prior condition. But that was also impossible, due to the presence of Heavenly Dao fragments that have fused with the world itself. Interfering with these fragments is impossible without the Heavenly Dao's permission.
Then why was Li Gang able to conceive of such a possibility? It contradicted the very foundation upon which every Warrior's reasoning is built.
Our reasoning is built on foundational assumptions or "mental axioms" that we rarely question—especially when making deductions like a detective. These axioms are based on physical laws, causality, object permanence, and accumulated experience.
Let's consider a few examples:
Law of Non-Contradiction: If a person is in the room, they cannot simultaneously not be in the room.
Object Permanence: If a knife is placed in a drawer, it remains there unless moved—even if no one looks inside.
Cause and Effect: If a window is shattered, something must have caused it—wind, a thrown rock, or a person.
Intent: If someone lies, they likely had a reason.
Laws of the World: If blood drips downward, gravity pulled it—not magic.
Information Consistency: If one witness says it was raining and another says it was sunny, at least one is wrong or lying.
Law of Time: If someone is seen alive at 8 PM and found dead at 9 PM, the cause of death must have occurred in that interval—not before or after.
Fixed Dimensionality: A coin slipped behind a cabinet doesn't vanish—it still exists, just unseen.
Li Gang had once faced a situation that subverted these basic premises. Since then, he always wondered: what if the common sense itself could be subverted again?
It happened during the Monarch Inheritance, when he witnessed a Soul Spring emerging from nowhere. It had no source.
At that time, Huang Ling—now Li Yuxong's wife and Li Gang's sister-in-law—asked him, "Must everything have source?"
Li Gang had already deduced then that the world was not merely three-dimensional. It was at least four-dimensional, and they were just three-dimensional beings. The boundaries that sealed this world were actually protecting it from Immortal interference.
These boundaries were not simple. They had the ability to block anything harmful to the Divine Spirit World while still allowing wind, water, and light to enter naturally.
That's why there was no conservation of mass. That's why people needed water-attracting attributes sealed in utensils to keep water from vanishing. And that's why people couldn't control elemental attributes beyond certain limits—because they assumed these elements were purely three-dimensional. But whether it's water, wind, fire, or lightning, their true forms exist beyond this assumption.
This also explained why, during daytime, light could illuminate even a closed room—because light came from a higher dimension. We can understand this from the following analogy.
In a 2D world, a circle is a perfectly closed object. There's no way to enter from outside. But from a 3D perspective, it's open from infinite angles.
Similarly, a sphere appears closed in our 3D world, but from a 4D perspective, it's open. A completely closed room can still be illuminated during daytime because the light is entering from a higher dimension. Even when we light something in a closed room, it will have reflection outside the room. This light goes to the higher dimension, and from their, it is reflected back outside the room. Thus, there is no concept of "Opaque" in this world, only "Translucent"!
So, the question arises: why can we even see objects then?
Shouldn't light directly enter our eyes with overwhelming intensity, blinding us—unable to be blocked?
Here comes the existence of the Soul.
Every soul possesses Yin attributes, while Light possesses Yang attributes. They repel each other. Through evolution and adaptation, the human and Warrior soul—existing in a higher dimension—has positioned itself such that it blocks excess light from entering the eyes. This enables all beings to see clearly.
This experience taught Li Gang never to trust even the most basic premises or common sense. Over the last seven decades of observation, he had come to understand: these assumptions are useful, but they must be questioned when necessary. He began to doubt the idea that the world is only three-dimensional. Maybe a coin behind a cabinet can vanish.
In fact, every Rank 7 and above Warrior has deduced this. Even some Rank 5 and 6 Warriors are aware. The reason most Warriors take so long to realize this is because they've internalized a "common sense" over a lifetime—not everything appear from a source, not everything has a cause. People believe light has no source and no destination. This information is highly classified and protected by major factions.
Why? Because this truth can directly improve one's Special Techniques. No faction wants outsiders to grow stronger.
However, after the last catastrophe, this "classified" information has started leaking in numerous places. It's no longer the closely guarded secret it once was.
Meng Xian didn't respond immediately. He waited for a moment.
Li Gang kept staring at him with a smile, patiently awaiting his response.
Meng Xian said slowly, "You are smart."
Li Gang smiled. "Well, did I succeed?"
Meng Xian said thoughtfully, "I don't know. I died before that."
Li Gang looked at him intently and said directly, "Come under me."
Meng Xian immediately nodded, as if he wouldn't miss such an important opportunity. "Alright."
He thought, 'As they say, we should be close to our friends—but we should keep our enemies closer!'
Li Gang said meaningfully, "Keep an enemy closer. You have some nasty ideas. Do you think I'll allow that?"
Meng Xian was also clever. He replied calmly, "You will."
Li Gang laughed.