Chapter 343: Knowledge That Should Not Be and Trouble

Chapter 343: Knowledge That Should Not Be and Trouble

Morning sunlight filtered through scattered clouds, spilling across the clean and tidy streets.

Jie Ming walked between Amy and Victor, Amy’s crisp voice chattering in his ear about their new university life, punctuated by Victor’s occasional short, calm replies.

On his face hung a perfectly measured smile—the exact blend of anticipation and slight nervousness expected of a young scholar stepping onto a university campus for the first time.

Yet deep in the core of his mind, ice-cold rationality spun at a frenzied pace, sorting through the suffocating predicament that now engulfed him.

“Suppression… total, all-encompassing suppression of every extraordinary power.” Jie Ming sensed the forces within his body, sluggish as if mired in deep-sea silt.

Whether it was the vast spiritual power of the Nascent Soul cultivator in his dantian, the tier-3 wizard mental strength in his sea of consciousness, or the body that had been tempered a thousand times by the Body Forging Art and should have possessed terrifying strength—all of it now lay dormant, as though it had never existed.

He was, at this moment, a completely ordinary mortal. And because of the inertial gap in his thinking, he felt even weaker than an ordinary person.

This plane was bizarre beyond imagination.

It was not an illusion—the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier, his protective treasure, had shown no reaction at all, proving this was not a mental hallucination.

Yet neither was it real.

Amy and Victor walking beside him—comrades he clearly remembered having fallen in battle—and the “parents” at home who looked and acted exactly like his parents from his previous life, all silently proclaimed the falseness of this place.

“Forcibly implanted identity and memory overlays…? But why didn’t the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier activate? This should count as some kind of mental interference…”

Jie Ming guessed that his awakening was probably the result of multiple factors stacking together.

First was the mysterious “adaptive evolution” ability granted by the Body Forging Art; after prolonged exposure to this memory overlay, it had finally developed resistance, like an immune system eventually recognizing and beginning to eliminate a virus.

Second was the appearance of Amy and Victor—the violent conflict with his true memories was like hurling a boulder into a calm lake, shattering the veil over his cognition in a tremendous shockwave.

“This is big trouble,” Jie Ming thought gravely.

The biggest problem was the distortion of his perception of time.

The ten-year deadline set by the eighth-rank expeditionary commander hung over his head like the sword of Damocles.

And he had absolutely no idea how much time had actually passed between falling into this plane and breaking free of the false memories.

One year? Three?

Or even longer?

His instinct was to connect to his inner world—inside were his preset timing devices, automated factories, the vast army of black giants, and the level-5 large-scale elemental pool that served as their energy core.

As long as he could sense his inner world again, the question of time would be instantly resolved.

But this plane sealed all extraordinary power; his connection to the inner world had been completely severed, like a signal jammed into total silence.

Still, it was not entirely hopeless.

Jie Ming could faintly feel an extremely weak, almost illusory pull coming from the location of his dantian.

It felt like a drowning man catching a glimpse of a single ray of light piercing down from the surface.

He knew that if he could guide even a single strand of spiritual power there, he might use it as a fulcrum to pry open a crack and reestablish contact with his inner world.

The difficulty lay in the fact that mobilizing spiritual power now was excruciatingly slow.

Spiritual power that once surged like rivers at a mere thought had become murky and viscous.

Moving even a trace felt like trying to push a mountain.

With his mental strength sealed as well, he had lost fine control and could only clumsily drag it forward using the most primal force of will.

“Jie Ming? You keep spacing out today.” Amy’s puzzled voice broke his concentration. She tilted her head, her eyes filled with concern.

Jie Ming instantly snapped back, putting on an embarrassed smile. “It’s nothing. Maybe I’m just… too excited about starting university. Didn’t sleep well.”

He inwardly heightened his guard—not only his powers, but even his mental processing speed had regressed to that of an ordinary person.

He could no longer multitask or process vast amounts of information in parallel as he once did.

Just now, simply thinking deeply had nearly caused him to reveal a flaw to the outside world.

Victor pushed up the bridge of his glasses and spoke calmly, “No need to worry. You were admitted with the top score. Your foundation is solid.”

His tone was exactly as Jie Ming remembered—calm to the point of being utterly undisturbed.

Jie Ming smiled and continued the conversation while rapidly extracting the forcibly implanted “common knowledge” and “settings” from his mind.

According to the “common knowledge” provided by the false memories, this world was a rare “galactic-scale plane.”

Stars, planets, galaxies… its structure was shockingly similar to the universe of his previous life.

According to that “common knowledge,” this plane was incomprehensibly vast, encompassing at least several galaxy clusters the size of the Milky Way.

“If this ‘setting’ is real and not just fabricated background by the plane…” A chill ran through Jie Ming’s heart. “Then the physical scale of this plane has already reached the standard of a super-large plane—perhaps even larger.”

Ruling this planet and the surrounding star systems was human civilization.

Its technological level was slightly higher than his previous life, roughly at the stage of large-scale extrasolar colonization.

And his current identity was that of a freshman who had just been admitted to university to study physics.

The version of himself in this world possessed clear and complete memories of family and growth—of course, now that he was awake, those memories felt as if viewed through frosted glass, filled with alienation.

Amy and Victor were his childhood friends who had been admitted to the same university together with him.

A sleek hovercar glided silently past them, the faint breeze it stirred brushing against his hair.

Jie Ming gazed at the vehicle brimming with technological craftsmanship, a deep, unmelting doubt in the depths of his eyes.

“It’s too real… And why this kind of setting?” he wondered silently.

The core principle of illusions—or any form of mind manipulation—was to make the false indistinguishable from the true, usually by constructing the environment most familiar to the victim to minimize dissonance.

Although the world before him bore traces of the sci-fi works from his previous life,

the details and atmosphere were not the “familiar” he had personally experienced.

Why would the plane construct an environment that was not “absolutely familiar” to him?

Was it to reduce the risk of detection through déjà vu, or was there some deeper meaning?

As they chatted, the grand university gates appeared ahead.

Jie Ming maintained an outward expression of excitement mixed with nervousness and followed the flow of people into the campus.

After parting with Amy and Victor, he followed his memories to the lecture hall where his first class would be held.

The familiar tiered layout gave him a momentary sense of déjà vu.

He chose a seat toward the middle-back, inconspicuous.

Before him was a smooth desk with an embedded liquid-crystal screen.

Almost instinctively, the instant he saw the screen, his palm pressed onto the designated area.

Bzzz…

A soft holographic interface instantly unfolded before his eyes, displaying course information, personal account, campus navigation, and other functions.

Jie Ming jerked his hand back as if burned, his heart contracting slightly.

Not because of the interface itself, but because of that movement just now—smooth and natural, completely the muscle memory and conditioned reflex formed by this body through long-term daily life!

“The situation is worse than I thought…” Jie Ming forced himself to calm down, pretending to casually browse the interface while his heart sank. “My body, my subconscious, has already deeply adapted to life here. The amount of time I have ‘lived’ here… is probably not short…”

Time!

Time was the most critical issue!

The external ten-year deadline and the uncertainty of internal time flow coiled around his heart like two ice-cold venomous serpents.

Once the deadline passed, those eighth-rank wizards at headquarters would not care about the specific circumstances of the trapped.

In theory, eighth-rank wizards would immediately attempt rescue the moment they acted, but the uncertainty was far too great.

With all intelligence unclear, heaven only knew what might happen the instant they moved. He might very well be obliterated along with the entire plane.

“I need to resolve this as quickly as possible.” Jie Ming took a deep breath, his gaze hardening once more.

He stopped paying attention to the noisy freshmen gradually filling the classroom, leaned back slightly in his chair, and closed his eyes as if resting.

But all of his focus sank inward, pouring into the deathly still dantian sea of qi, toward that faint yet vitally important pull.

Mobilize spiritual power!

Like a mortal using every ounce of strength in his body to push a truck stuck in mud.

Slow, arduous, almost imperceptible progress.

Moments later, the low murmur of conversation and the soft sounds of students operating their interfaces in the classroom abruptly ceased.

The sudden silence snapped Jie Ming out of his struggle to mobilize spiritual power.

He looked up and saw two young men wearing simple yet impeccably tailored instructor uniforms walk into the room.

Both carried themselves with steady poise and sharp eyes; though they appeared young, they gave off the aura of seasoned veterans.

Jie Ming instinctively swept his gaze across the classroom, and his heart skipped a beat.

He hadn’t noticed earlier, but now he realized the tiered lecture hall was nearly empty. Counting himself, there were fewer than ten students!

“This number… is too abnormal.” Doubt deepened in Jie Ming’s mind.

According to the “settings” in his false memories, the university he had been admitted to was a top institution in the field of physics—extremely popular. There was no reason for a single major to have so few students.

This severely contradicted his implanted memories of what a “prestigious university” should be like.

He suppressed his questions, quickly adjusted his expression, and assumed the posture of an earnest student eagerly awaiting the new lesson.

Jie Ming was perfectly aware that his current priority was maintaining the persona of an ordinary freshman and avoiding any possible attention.

From his earlier attempt, he estimated that if he concentrated fully, it would take two to three days to barely manage to guide that single strand of spiritual power and open a crack to his inner world.

Until then, he had to blend in here like a real student.

Even though he had no expectations for the course content—considering it merely fabricated information drawn from his own knowledge base by the plane—Jie Ming still forced himself to listen.

Yet as he listened, his pupils suddenly contracted, and a trace of irrepressible shock flashed across his face.

The lecturer’s explanation of a spacetime curvature perturbation model under the gravitational lensing effect of a specific nebula, including several key parameters and derivation formulas, was… knowledge he had never encountered before!

“This is impossible!” Stormy waves surged in Jie Ming’s heart.

He was absolutely certain he was not under an illusion, yet even the most advanced forms of mental domination could only construct worlds from the victim’s own cognition and memory.

In theory, this world should be utterly incapable of producing real, logically consistent knowledge that he genuinely did not know!

Unless… this false world was not false at all!

He quickly lowered his head, using the desk interface as cover to hide all outward emotion, but his heart pounded violently in his chest.

He rapidly recorded these unfamiliar knowledge points on the interface, forcing himself to calm down.

“I can’t confirm yet… I must verify the truth of this knowledge the moment class ends!”

With that thought, Jie Ming focused his attention and began listening carefully, occasionally jotting down notes on the interface.

Once immersed in exploring unknown knowledge, time seemed to accelerate.

The morning classes ended quickly.

The schedule showed two hours of free time next.

Instead of leaving immediately, Jie Ming impatiently pulled up the content he had recorded.

Using the interface’s built-in calculation modules and logical derivation functions, he began verifying those unfamiliar formulas and theories.

As the calculations progressed, his expression grew increasingly grave.

The results clearly and unmistakably showed that this knowledge was real, valid, and logically rigorous!

It was absolutely not the kind of carelessly fabricated false information he had initially assumed.

An immense shock swept over him once more.

Illusions or mental domination could not create genuine knowledge unknown to the victim out of thin air.

So how had this “false” world accomplished it?

Was it knowledge possessed by whoever was manipulating things behind the scenes?

Or was the world he now faced… not false at all?

The problems with this world were far more complex—and far more dangerous—than he had imagined.

He was wondering whether to return to that “home” to search for more clues or stay in the campus library to continue researching when Amy’s bright voice called from the classroom door: “Jie Ming! Come on, let’s go eat!”

Jie Ming gathered his thoughts, answered, and joined Amy and Victor outside.

The three of them naturally headed toward the school cafeteria.

After sitting down with trays of variously shaped meals, Jie Ming casually brought up, “There really aren’t many people in our major. The classroom felt empty. How about you guys?”

Amy tilted her head, thinking. “Not many? I think we have quite a few already. Way more than my biotechnology class. Though biotech is pretty popular too—we have… nine people! Victor, what about you?”

Victor pushed up his glasses and answered calmly, “Information engineering. It became a hot major this year—also nine people… Of course, still not as many as your physics program.”

Jie Ming inwardly pondered: whether Amy’s or Victor’s classes, the number of students was extremely small—none exceeding ten per class!

Using the motion of lowering his head to eat, Jie Ming concealed his furrowed brows.

The entire school’s student population was abnormally sparse?

This severely contradicted the macro “setting” in his memories of this plane having an enormous population.

It looked like a massive flaw…

Yet Jie Ming did not dare lower his guard.

In a plane this bizarre—one capable of silently trapping nearly two million elite wizards—any apparent inconsistency might conceal deeper logic he had yet to comprehend.

The scarcity of students might not be an oversight in design, but the manifestation of some rule he did not yet understand.

Just as the three finished lunch and were about to leave the cafeteria, a commotion suddenly arose near the entrance.

The ever-curious Amy immediately tugged them to a stop and stood on tiptoes to look.

Jie Ming had no desire to get involved and was about to detour around it, but the disturbance, as if guided by an invisible hand, rapidly moved toward them.

The crowd automatically parted, forming a path. Several young men and women dressed differently from the students—cold expressions, agile movements—followed behind a tall, grim-faced man as they strode straight toward Jie Ming’s group.

A bad premonition surged through him. Jie Ming instinctively wanted to retreat and melt into the crowd.

But it was already too late.

The tall leader’s hawk-like gaze swept over them, finally locking firmly onto Jie Ming. A furious, commanding shout exploded through the somewhat empty cafeteria:

“You’re Jie Ming?!”

In that instant, every gaze in the cafeteria—including the shocked and uncertain looks from Amy and Victor—focused on Jie Ming.

His body stiffened; he stopped in his tracks.

He could feel the accompanying youths subtly forming a encirclement, sealing off every possible escape route.

Unexplained trouble had suddenly come knocking.