Chapter 379: In the Cloud
Translator: Strivon
From Luo Nan's perspective, President Ouyang's Logic World was a complex structure channeled through the mental plane. It pulled the distant plane over, forcefully linking it with the material world. It was like casting a fishing line. It appeared to be a very casual action, but its aim and logical nature were extremely powerful. It was just that outsiders had no way of knowing.
And under the form of the atrium cyclotron, Luo Nan's bestowed order was the core. Luo Nan stirred hard with his order, causing the surrounding region to warp and weave, pushing outward layer by layer. It was like holding one end of a bedsheet then twisting and moving it with force. This allowed the other end to whirl along, pushing distances close and far.
On the other hand, the Logic World had already finalized its blueprints. It was only a matter of building upon them. The atrium cyclotron had to first transform itself from the inside out before ascertaining distance. One was the construction of a house; the other...
A telescope.
However, the soul strength was applied differently between the two. The structures and algorithms were different. It was highly likely that the difference in results would be the difference between heaven and earth. Luo Nan had suspected, all this time, that his extraordinary increase in his mental sensing range after that night was due to the telescope structure.
At the time, as the telescope was gathering information, gradually becoming plentiful, the gray-white light spread and weaved on the mental plane. The scene gradually grew concrete, revealing a wonderful landscape of high clouds.
But as the perspective of the telescope drew nearer, Luo Nan was still separated from the real environment by a layer. He was stuck here last time.
It was impossible for Luo Nan to truly touch the cloud world, which he yearned for day and night, just by relying on the telescope structure.
But now, he had the external neuron.
The external neuron didn't have any clear reactions during the initial stages of the telescope's formation. But the process was influenced by the external neuron along the way. An odd cloak had just formed, already revealing special characteristics.
Within the high speed revolution of the atrium vortex, the cloak rippled and warped. But it also maintained its inconceivable flexibility and independence from beginning to end, while continuing to display interference effects toward the mental and material planes. Precisely because of this, the myriad of curtains flapping on the mental plane realized a connection with the surrounding material environment through the cloak.
It was just a little smaller, but it was just like what had happened with the formation of the cloak. A breakthrough was realized. It allowed Luo Nan the ability to achieve a small result similar to the Logic World, a warped independent region existing next to his soul body.
The problem was that the most powerful attribute of the Logic World still resided in logic, the decisive element in its construction. Luo Nan didn't possess this sort of logic. Upon realizing interference between the mental and material planes, the relevant region could no longer be considered that of the telescope structure. It didn't possess order; it was something that was purely superfluous and increased the burden to the soul.
The cloak turned a bit sluggish in a few seconds. The superfluous structure directly influenced the efficiency of the soul strength conversion rate. As the situation turned serious, the external neuron, which acted as the transformation center, was finally stimulated.
Signs of instability appeared, for the first time, upon the Condensation Ring structure constructed from the external neuron. A line whipped out from the Condensation Ring. It reached out from the core of the Condensation Ring, engaging into a new fabric on the microscopic level.
This action was done completely independently by the external neuron. Luo Nan was not consciously involved at all. In fact, the scale of this fabric delved below the micron level, outside the precision of his senses. If it weren't for the fact that the external neuron and his consciousness were tightly linked together, Luo Nan wouldn't have even been able to sense the finest details.
Even so, Luo Nan's heart gradually turned from pounding emotions to high-spirited ones. Though the fabric of the external neuron was unclear to him, the chilly flowing energy and the changes in the curtains were clear and easy to see.
As the rotation accelerated, the chaotic order from the distortion and interference between the mental and material world began to reveal sections with rules. The corresponding interference power no longer clashed and fused against itself. Instead, it accumulated layer by layer, revolving and cycling, realizing a certain projection with the telescope structure.
If the angular velocity of the telescope was considered to be a 'ten', then the region where Luo Nan could interfere and warp would have an angular velocity of 'one'. For every ten revolutions of the telescope, the interference area would have one revolution. They accurately followed a rhythm, but the tempo was gradually increasing.
10:1, 10:2, 10:3....
The angular velocity of the telescope was relatively stable, but the angular velocity of the interference region continued to increase. Clear signs were already forming on the material plane.
Within the center of the atrium, rays of light clearly distorted the void. They cried like the plucking of strings, vibrating without end. If Luo Nan hadn't angrily destroyed the majority of the lighting monitoring system two days ago, these rays of light would not be hidden from anyone.
How would Luo Nan have the leisure to attend to this?
Luo Nan's soul resided in the core of the distorted void. He experienced the scope and speed of the distortion first hand. The cloak was no longer sluggish, instead it accumulated astonishing quantities of potential energy with increasing speed. Luo Nan's emotions were pushed to greater heights as well. He was trembling inside and out, in both body and mind.
Luo Nan had guessed right. No matter the state of the external neuron, its existence had an extremely important significance toward Gear.
It was like a key. It was inserted into the keyhole and twisted in accordance with the corresponding rules. The heavy door was slowly opening toward him.
10:4, 10:5!
In other words, when the telescope structure, which was driven by his soul strength, made two revolutions, the interference region then made one revolution. Their angular velocities were perfectly rhythmically connected in this moment, and Luo Nan's consciousness instantly went white.
Because in this very moment, the piles of gray clouds that had always been in his mind collapsed downward without any warning. It was as if the entire sky was falling heavily down upon him!
Luo Nan only realized it in the next second; the heavens hadn't turned over. Instead, he had pierced through the cloud-filled skies.
Heaven and earth had swapped places.
Luo Nan crashed in the depths of a few unbounded cloud layers of gray. With the existence of the cloak, Luo Nan still had some real experiences in his perception of the external world.
Under the backdrop of dull lighting, clouds piled in layers upon layers, mist flew around, and cracks were ground upon in the clouds, revealing a coloration akin to blood. At the same time, a chill was let out, as well as the ear-piercing scream of winds.
This place was like a high-altitude region. It was probably the upper troposphere. The air currents were intense and violent, bringing about an endless tsunami of mist. They carried mist, water drops, and ice crystals that rumbled across fiercely and wildly.
The astral winds split apart the cloud layer at their gaps with their gale. Luo Nan could see a vaster space below the thick layer of clouds. It was like the fields below were covered by a conflagration. Blood-red light shone through the gaps between the clouds. This was the light that shone upon here.
"Yes, this is it! This is the place!"
Luo Nan looked all around with his eyes. He saw the cloud world that appeared in his dreams time and time again and he was taking in this incredible yet real scene. Even if he didn't know his bearing, finding it hard to distinguish between east and west, the pressing and wavering emotions that had built up over the course of ten days were finally knocked dead. Like hammering in the final nail, they were slammed to the ground.
Luo Nan yelled once more, spurred by passion and excitement. This time the cloak lifted mist and ice crystals that rumbled into a gray-white wave of air. But soon, the wave was leveled by the whistling astral winds of the high skies. The wave was destroyed amongst the flowing clouds, disappearing without a trace.
A portion of the vileness of the environment was seen here.
Well, it didn't matter how terrible the environment was. Luo Nan had entered this place with his soul body. The impact he received was tantamount to nothing. It wasn't like last time, when he came here confused yet effortlessly in his fleshly body. The fleshly body didn't have the ability to fly, so he just plummeted straight down from the dusky sky to the ground. He couldn't help but feel panicked. He braced himself for several dozen seconds as he feared crashing into the ground and being pulverized down to his bones. He could only eject himself out from this world.
Back then he never thought that it would be this hard to come back inside.
In any case, it was hard for his imagination not to go wild when faced with this vast expanse of land and as he experienced such a strange situation.
In the final stages, Gear's atrium transformed from a telescope to a launching silo under the magical effects of the external neuron. Luo Nan had been transported directly to this unknown base, somewhere in the middle of the clouds. God knows how far away he was from Xia City, from Gear.
A few hundred kilometers? Luo Nan had never heard of such an environment near Xia City. Over ten-thousand kilometers? Well, this was quite a fantasy. This was an arrogance on the level of extraordinary powers.
It was useless to indulge in flights of fancy. Though this time it was quite difficult to enter, after entering, things became easier than last time by a thousand-fold. Luo Nan decided to carefully observe everything and collect as much information as possible, so as to provide a basis for subsequent judgments.
Observation and reconnaissance had always been Luo Nan's forte. Pure observation combined with the living starry sky allowed for an effective observation radius of over twenty kilometers. Aside from Extraordinaries, whose powers were impossible to grasp accurately, Luo Nan's sensing range was considered to be of the most top-notch category in today's world. Plus, Luo Nan now understood himself quite well. The moment Luo Nan comprehended the principles and applications of the telescope structure, there was a clear target for the channeling of Luo Nan's soul strength. Luo Nan made conscious calibrations for optimizations as well. There was also a great deal of potential still waiting to be unearthed.
"Continuing like this, it wouldn't take too long to observe an area with a radius of twenty-five kilometers... But can anyone tell me where in the world are the layers of clouds in the skies over fifty kilometers in thickness? There's no end in sight."
Luo Nan's faculty of memory was at the peak stage of a youngster's; his knowledge of geography was passable. He remembered from a previous course that it was impossible for the thickness of a cloud layer to surpass the height of the troposphere. The troposphere was the highest along the equator of the earth at around eighteen kilometers. The troposphere at the poles was around eight kilometers in height. What the hell was up with this fifty kilometers of cloud layer?
Yes, he had been too cowardly last time. He only lasted a dozen seconds before he was pushed out. From looking with his clairvoyance, he realized that he could have been falling for a full five minutes and still not be out of the thick cloud layer.
His soul body floated in the middle of the cloud layer, stupefied. At this time, the cloak interfered on two sides, coalescing mist for him. The mist formed a fuzzy outline of a humanoid figure. It was highly likely for this figure to become more lifelike with the passage of time.
Luo Nan didn't care about this. He felt that something was off.
The thickness of the clouds needn't be mentioned. The blood-red color shone for ages, never retreating, within the warped split gaps among the clouds. He had believed that this color was due to a great flame burning below, or perhaps the effects of a volcanic eruption. He was prepared to use this to further clarify his specific coordinates.
But right now his mental senses, which he was oh so proud of, weren't able to sense anything other than the cloud layer, let alone being able to verify the presence of some volcano... In other words, was there really a volcano?
Luo Nan sank deep into puzzlement.
He continued observing. The living stars unfurled before him revealing the ecology of this misty area within his sensing range in the form of a simple picture. Several believers, around the core star cluster of the Self-Format, began to display their effects. But the living beings further away were different from those in the past...
This was quite an embarrassing batch of living beings. The vastness of the cloud area was inconceivable, but the density of living beings was truly worrisome. Luo Nan was only able to discover a couple of kittens within his sensing range of two dozen kilometers in radius. There were just very few.
Right, what were they just now? Kittens?
Before Luo Nan's thought became clear, a thick sheet of mist exploded silently around a dozen meters away, the smoke dispersing in all directions. A shadowy streak of dark-crimson flared out of thin air. Its haste was like lightning as it struck the cloud layer and threw itself toward Luo Nan in the blink of an eye. The thick and solid arm came over like a storm, its sharp claws warping Luo Nan's perception.
Boiling killing intent only now exploded in manifestation. A terrifying attack, akin to a volcanic eruption, was launched not on the material plane but on the mental plane.
Calamity was on Luo Nan's doorstep, leaving no room for the workings of thought. Luo Nan could only perform the most instinctive reaction of all. He used the cloak to interfere with the mental plane to the maximum, caring for nothing else, and his soul body simply escaped to the deepest accessible depths on the mental plane.
The fuzzy figure formed from the coalescence of mist shattered to pieces with a rumble, becoming water and smoke once more. The attack on the material plane had struck thin air.
However, the most fatal of attacks still lay within the mental plane.
Luo Nan had been thinking of volcanoes just now, and right now there truly was a volcanic eruption on the mental plane. It was as if Luo Nan had returned to the very beginning when he had experienced the terrifying might of the Human-Faced Arachnid. He watched the enormous wraith burn and expand in the void as it roared toward the skies. The enormous wraith's claws came slashing over, creating a smoking and flaming column, akin to a real volcanic eruption, as it slammed through the cloudy skies.
The mental plane jolted and shook. The burning demonic claws, full of desire to destroy, chased the tail of Luo Nan's soul body. The wraith crushed several hundred layers of the mental world's curtain structure in its wake, moving like a shadow behind Luo Nan.
Luo Nan could feel the breath of the grim reaper.
However, the grim reaper's scythe was unable to hook onto its target. Luo Nan didn't know just how deep he had dived into the mental plane. He just knew that the burning claws had finally reached their limit after crushing through nearly a thousand curtains.
No matter how explosive its killer action was, burning and warping most of the mental plane, it was ultimately unable to slam its way into the layer where Luo Nan's soul body was located. It had just missed him by a tiny margin, but this made all the difference.
And in reality, the powerful attack struck nothing but air. The dark-crimson shadow ignored the laws of physics completely, the figure stopping at will. It was like a steel nail hammered within the clouds. It seized the space where Luo Nan's mist figure once resided, glaring at it with fierce and sinister eyes.
What was that?
Luo Nan was both startled and furious. He was stressed way past normal by now. He had relied on the luck of his soul body to escape. If he had come here with his fleshly body, wouldn't he have been smashed into meat just now?
No, based on the speed and power of the attack just now, Luo Nan would have simply been completely destroyed. Not even a corpse would remain. It was very fortunate that last time he had not encountered these circumstances. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a today to speak of...
Right now, it was like Luo Nan had entered a wildlife sanctuary. He had sat in a fully-armed tourist bus and had close contact with a dangerous beast, separated only by transparent glass.
As for the beast, it crouched among the cloud layer, revealing its sinister body. It was probably between five to seven meters in height. This huge discrepancy was due to the beast’s stooped body. Its body was akin to an ape's; its forelimbs hung down, making it hard to determine its height.
In any case, it was a giant monster.