"A single 'drop of water' from the Sea of Quanta really does fall like a mountain on a person..."
Lin Wei pointed a finger at the bizarre, kaleidoscopic space that, by common sense, should have been the sky, and said with a wry smile.
The feeling was like setting sail on a clear, hot summer day, only to be suddenly hit by a rainstorm, a typhoon, and a tsunami. Just surviving was a stroke of luck...
"...You're still so good at finding joy amidst suffering."
Seeing his half-joking, half-self-deprecating demeanor, Yae Sakura couldn't help but smile helplessly. Who could have expected such a sudden, major accident?
Perhaps it was because seeing Lin Wei wake up safely had allowed her highly tense nerves to suddenly relax. The moment Yae Sakura spoke, she felt a wave of darkness wash over her. An unprecedented fatigue surged from every nerve and cell in her body, coalescing into a tide that threatened to engulf her completely in an instant.
It couldn't be helped.
From before she left the native world, during the fights with Otto and Durandal, she hadn't had a moment's rest. After entering the Sea of Quanta, she was suddenly swept into this massive accident.
Lin Wei, who had taken the direct impact, was unconscious and completely defenseless against the elusive quantum shadows. To protect him from harm, Yae Sakura could only stay by his side, endlessly fighting those monsters...
Now, her persistence had finally paid off—Lin Wei was awake. Amidst her joy, her nearly depleted stamina instantly transformed into an indescribable exhaustion, making her eyelids feel as heavy as lead.
This is bad, Yae Sakura thought. Mustering her last ounce of strength, she thrust the cursed blade into Lin Wei's hand and said in a voice so tired it sounded like she was about to fall asleep,
"Sorry, I need to rest for a bit..."
The Sea of Quanta was too treacherous, too fraught with danger. She was truly worried about letting Lin Wei drift alone in such a place, but she was completely out of strength...
What a pity, she thought.
"I'm the one who should be sorry, Sakura."
Seeing this usually gentle and valiant girl in such a state of exhaustion, Lin Wei felt a pang of guilt. He gripped her hand tightly, lending her a small bit of strength and support, and said earnestly,
"You've worked hard. Leave the rest to me."
"Mm..."
Yae Sakura nodded wearily, her two long ears drooping listlessly as if she had already fallen asleep. Her body began to fade and disappear.
"Sakura."
Lin Wei couldn't help but call out.
"...Hm?"
The long ears twitched. Yae Sakura struggled to lift her head.
"...It's nothing."
Lin Wei's throat moved. The myriad of complex, unspoken emotions and worries in his chest all melted into a reassuring smile. He raised his arms and gently pulled Yae Sakura into his embrace, smiling as he said seriously,
"Get some good rest, Sakura. Don't worry, I'm here. It'll be okay."
"Mm."
Yae Sakura tried to move her lips into a smile, then finally disappeared completely, just like every time she had returned to her Stigma Space in the past. But this time, for some reason, it left Lin Wei with a hollow feeling, a sense of unspeakable loneliness washing over him.
Did he regret it? He didn't know. If he had stayed in the native world, he certainly wouldn't have encountered something like this.
But an arrow, once loosed, cannot be recalled. Since he had already set foot on this difficult path, he could only grit his teeth and keep moving forward...
Just then, Pandora floated up warmly, spinning around in front of Lin Wei as if to comfort him.
He smiled, gently cupping it in his hands, and said to Pandora as if speaking to himself,
"Until we get home, it's up to the two of us to push forward."
Pandora, of course, couldn't speak. It just lay quietly in Lin Wei's hand, offering him silent yet firm support.
Lin Wei smiled and, mustering his spirits, looked up at the "sky."
According to his agreement with Kevin, the moment he fell into the Sea of Quanta, Kevin should have intervened and brought him to the world bubble where he was.
Even with the unexpected enemy that had appeared, it shouldn't have affected this final outcome.
But now, Kevin was still nowhere to be seen. Otherwise, Yae Sakura wouldn't have been pushed to such a state of exhaustion...
Lin Wei didn't know why things had suddenly turned out this way, nor did he know if Kevin's absence was because this was a test he had set from the beginning or for some other reason.
But he knew that with Kevin having apparently stood him up, he had to learn how to "drift" in this "ocean" as quickly as possible.
Lin Wei frowned in thought for a moment, then reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small metal box.
This was the item Siegfried had given him in Alexandria before he had officially gone to face Otto, something he had requested from Anti-Entropy not long before.
"Heh, I never thought the preparations I made just in case would actually come in handy..." he muttered with a wry smile. He opened the metal box, which seemed to be made of paulownia wood. Inside, a small signal-transmitting device lay quietly.
"I hope it's not broken..."
Lin Wei pressed the button with a heart full of trepidation. In the next second, a strange female voice suddenly entered his ear.
"How surprising. To actually receive such a faint signal in the sea. I thought it was my imagination."
The voice came so quickly and so suddenly that Lin Wei, completely unprepared, was scared out of his wits.
With a CLANG, he drew his cursed blade and spun around to face the direction the voice came from.
Then, after a second's pause, he sheathed it again.
The newcomer was a woman. At least, she looked like one.
Half of her face was no different from a normal woman's, though it looked lifeless and dull. The other half was a completely translucent blue phantom, looking exactly like the quantum phantoms in the distance.
She stood calmly not far away, watching impassively as Lin Wei drew his blade and then, a second later, sheathed it. Only then did she speak, her tone unhurried.
"Just now, I thought this was a trap set specifically for me. But now it seems it isn't."
Her voice sounded somewhat similar to Einstein's—unhurried, calm, even lifeless.
"Nice to meet you, Dr. Schrodinger."
Lin Wei, of course, recognized the woman with the peculiar appearance. He smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I just didn't expect you to arrive so quickly and so suddenly."
"Is that so? I can accept your apology, stranger."
Schrodinger remained where she was, neither approaching nor retreating, simply continuing in her flat tone, "To ask such a question, it seems you know nothing about the nature of the Sea of Quanta. And yet, you still dare to walk in such a dimension. I really don't know whether to call you brave or foolish."
Although her tone was extremely flat, her words were an undisguised critique, even sarcasm.
"...If there was a choice, no one would be willing to fall from the stable material world into this strange and dangerous dimension. I'm sure it was the same for you back then, Dr. Schrodinger."
Despite the criticism, Lin Wei had no desire to argue. He stated his purpose directly. "I don't know why your response and arrival were so swift, but that should be a good thing. As you can see, I know nothing about this dimension, so before this journey, I asked Drs. Tesla and Einstein of Anti-Entropy to create this small beacon for me—"
He raised the small, open box in his hand and continued, "I was hoping that, if anything happened, you could act as my guide, so I wouldn't get completely lost in the Sea of Quanta."
He explained his purpose, his request, and most importantly, his "sponsors" in the shortest possible terms.
"Tesla? Einstein? Heh, those two are still as good at causing trouble as ever, even after so many years." Schrodinger shook her head expressionlessly, criticizing her old friends without reservation.
"Although I don't know why they let you come to this place, perhaps you have a special exploratory mission like that fellow I met before. But looking at your completely clueless state, my advice is—if you are indeed from the native world, then I suggest you return the way you came. The Sea of Quanta is not a domain that people from the material world can tread upon lightly."
Her tone was still just as flat. Though it was well-intentioned advice, the content of her words was somewhat harsh. Perhaps realizing she had been a bit too critical, she added, "If those two ask, just say this is advice from Dr. Schrodinger. They won't blame you for it."
Alright, that's even harsher. Is this how you scientists greet each other? Lin Wei thought helplessly. And her understanding seems a bit off, too.
"Judging by your expression, it seems there's more to the story."
Schrodinger's observational skills were indeed excellent. She shook her head and said, "Forget it. Let's put aside introductions for now. It's truly dangerous for you to remain here. Let's find another place to talk."
"Dangerous?" Lin Wei looked at the restless quantum shadows in the distance. "Are you talking about them?"
"Ah, they can indeed be considered part of the danger, but since you are standing here unharmed, their level of danger is not as high as you might think. The real threat comes from a place you haven't noticed," Schrodinger said.
"Time is limited, so I'll be brief. Weren't you just wondering why I arrived so quickly?"
Lin Wei nodded, genuinely curious.
"It's because you are using the inherent logic of the native world, or the macroscopic physical world, to understand the microscopic world. The Sea of Quanta has no stable macroscopic matter, no linear time, and no macroscopic scale in the general sense, which is to say, 'distance.' Here, there are only constantly surging energy tides and ubiquitous microscopic particles. Naturally, it only follows the laws of the microscopic world."
Schrodinger explained in the most concise and easy-to-understand way possible, "In short, because of the 'beacon' in your hand, the information I emit can cause an equivalent disturbance to the microscopic particles here. That is to say, in the general sense, I haven't actually come to you. But that doesn't prevent me from indeed appearing before you and having this face-to-face conversation. This is the law of the quantum world."
"...I think I understand."
Lin Wei wasn't a complete illiterate, after all. He could generally grasp Dr. Schrodinger's easy-to-understand explanation.
"Similarly, the energy tides of the Sea of Quanta are not the real rising or falling tides of a material ocean. A more accurate expression would be the concept of 'entropy increase' or 'entropy decrease'," Schrodinger continued.
"On a macroscopic scale, entropy increase is irreversible. But from a microscopic perspective, it's just that the probability of 'going from order to disorder' is much greater than the probability of 'going from disorder to order.' However, in a quantum realm that is almost infinite in scale, 'entropy increase' and 'entropy decrease' also tend to be balanced in terms of probability. This is why the energy tides of the Sea of Quanta can both give birth to some world bubbles and cause others to perish."
She used words Lin Wei could understand as much as possible to explain concepts that were difficult for him to grasp. "It's like having countless monkeys randomly typing on keyboards. One monkey will eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare. In the overall 'disordered' chaos of particles, some 'ordered,' stable, macroscopic matter will always be born. This is the 'membrane' of the world, and world bubbles are born because of it. But by the same token, 'order' will always follow the second law of thermodynamics and irreversibly evolve toward 'disorder,' so world bubbles will always perish. This is the law of the Sea of Quanta, and also your greatest danger at this moment."
On the clear, complete right side of Schrodinger's face, her eye, which seemed to be completely filled with rationality, stared fixedly at Lin Wei.
In a completely emotionless voice, she spoke words that would make one break out in a cold sweat.
"Having been stripped of the protection of the native world's system and fallen into the Sea of Quanta, you have become, in effect, an 'isolated system.' And compared to a complete world or world bubble, an individual's system is far too small. In fact, the fact that you can still maintain a macroscopic, objective existence is already a miracle."
Why is it so hard for an individual to survive after falling into the Sea of Quanta? Schrodinger explained it in extremely brief terms—
"An individual's entropy is finite, while the Sea of Quanta's entropy is infinite. This overly disparate gap is like a drop of fresh water falling into the ocean."
That's why when Seele and Schrodinger fell into the Sea of Quanta, they almost vanished in an instant.
That's why when Durandal and Rita explored world bubbles, they needed Gnus as a "guide" to ensure they wouldn't get lost.
"Lost" here didn't just mean losing direction; it held a more dangerous meaning.
"..."
Lin Wei was silent for a moment. He knew this place was very dangerous before stepping into the Sea of Quanta and had made ample mental preparations.
But when its true dangers were laid bare before him piece by piece, Lin Wei discovered that his so-called "mental preparation" was more just the recklessness of "ignorance is bliss."
Yes, the native world was fraught with danger, but it did provide the most important layer of protection.
And now, after he had audaciously walked out of there and stepped into the cold seawater, he finally knew just how terrifying the winds and waves of the sea truly were...
"Alright, Dr. Schrodinger, thank you for telling me all this."
Lin Wei quickly calmed himself and said seriously, "I probably can't go back to the native world for the time being. I need to find a person and get something in the Sea of Quanta. Doctor, please tell me what I should do."
"I can't help you with finding people or things."
Schrodinger gave him a deep look. Neither her calm tone nor the look in her eyes showed the slightest ripple of emotion. "I can only tell you that you need to find a world bubble to take shelter in as soon as possible, to use a larger system to protect your existence."
"A world bubble? How do I get there, and how do I find one?" Lin Wei asked.
"Simple. Jump." Schrodinger said.
"The Sea of Quanta is not a material ocean, and world bubbles are not isolated islands scattered in a real ocean. Everything is 'probability,' or a 'quantum cloud.' Even world bubbles exist in this way. And the so-called 'jump' is actually using your subjective consciousness to disturb this microscopic domain, thereby collapsing an objective entity from countless superimposed possibilities and making it appear in your space-time fragment. That's all."
A strange argument that made one scratch their head.
"Probability..." Lin Wei murmured to himself. After a moment of thought, he said, "Since world bubbles themselves exist in a superimposed state of being 'both connected and not connected,' does that mean if I disturb the microscopic form that constitutes this superposition, I will have a certain 'probability' of actually approaching the destination I want to reach?"
"Or perhaps, if another existence 'disturbs' this probability, then as long as I move forward in the correct way, I will approach the place where he is according to this 'probability'?"
He thought again of the terrifying enemy that had appeared not long ago...
A question arose—if Kevin and that guy were to "interfere" at the same time, in which direction would he be "migrated"?
"Prove you are worthy of standing before me."
Remembering what Kevin had said, he seemed to understand something. Is this what you meant by a "test"?
But a test doesn't mean being left to fend for myself. There must be some kind of clue for me to find the right answer, which means...
Lin Wei peeled back Kevin's intentions layer by layer. He couldn't help but grip the small box in his hand that had just "summoned" Schrodinger. He seemed to understand something...
Kevin, if you were to leave a "beacon" for me up ahead, what would it be?
[Author's Note: The latter half of this chapter made my head go bald writing it...]