Chapter 206: Cosmic Radiation
Zyrus memorized the rune and began another experiment. This time, what he channeled was the concept of gravity.
Rocks and pebbles that were scattered on the moon floated on their own and soon converged on Zyrus's palm. His control over gravity had been improved to a great extent compared to the beginning. Not only could he increase the gravity of a certain area or an object, he could do so in reverse as well by freeing an object from the gravitational pull.
After checking out the concept for a while, Zyrus once again activated the eyes of annihilation and the heavenly eyes at the same time. He saw the rune that represented gravity. Unlike the case with the erasure, this one was much more stable in nature. The rune looked like a complicated sphere with tangled strings inside of it.
It was too complex of a structure since it existed in not two, but three dimensions. Zyrus took a brief moment of rest and repeated the process for the remaining concepts of oblivion, collapse, and nothingness. All of the concepts had their corresponding runes.
He wasn't proficient enough to use them for anything practical, however, the fact that he had found their existence was a huge discovery in and of itself. For the next two days Zyrus did nothing but use his skills, authorities, and concepts over and over again. He saw different runes and remembered all of them.
These two days were perhaps the most fruitful days in the entire past year. Now he had a better understanding of his own power.
His immediate concerns weren't solved since he was nowhere close to dealing with the hive that was still wriggling its way over to earth. Still, Zyrus believed in himself. He knew that he was close to the truth.
Done with the preliminary round of experiments, he decided to start reading the two new sections that were opened in the knowledge base.
The realm of order.
The words weren't unfamiliar to him since he had already learned about it from the mouth of Jormungandr. The latter had pointed out to him even back then that he would have to deal with the larger units of space one day.
With his laws of void, he was proficient in erasing things on a minuscule level, yet now his goal was to comprehend a different form of the void. A vast and infinite emptiness. Zyrus knew that the best way to go about it would be to experience it with his own eyes.
No amount of reading was going to help him comprehend what it felt like to be in an infinite void. He remembered as a child that outside the solar system there weren't many stars or planets. This wasn't a true void so to speak, but perhaps once he escaped beyond this region of space he would have a clearer understanding of what vast and infinite emptiness meant.
Still, he decided to read through the entire section on the knowledge base. He didn't understand much about the concept of vast void as he had thought, yet he now knew enough to deal with something on a planetary level. After all, that was something he could see and interact with.
One after another, the pieces of his knowledge were coming together to form a brand-new construct. A construct that would allow him to win the upcoming battle.
Zyrus took a deep breath and opened the cube's interface to write down his thoughts. With his intelligence he didn't have to do such a thing, however, the act of writing itself provided an anchor to his thoughts. The core of his plan was going to be cosmic radiation. Cosmic rays were not electromagnetic radiation but rather high energy subatomic particles that were made up of protons and atomic nuclei.
They traversed the universe at relativistic speeds and collided with the earth's atmosphere. This was what he had learned in school. The cosmic rays were divided into two parts, primary and secondary cosmic rays.
Primary cosmic rays were those that were accelerated directly at the interstellar medium. Mostly they were protons which have gained momentum via a supernova explosion.
The secondary cosmic rays are caused by the collision of primary rays with one another; or different objects. They are the nuclei of other elements such as carbon, boron, fluorine and the like. This was the most basic and surface level understanding.
Zyrus had to understand the source of cosmic rays before using them in his upcoming plan. After this, there were various theories regarding the speed and mass of the cosmic rays. The consensus was that they were generated as protons and over time they evolved into other elements.
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At the same time there was also evidence about the existence of anti-protons and other anti-nuclei. Humanity's understanding had only gone up to this point. Zyrus still remembered the incidents when humanity had discovered various cosmic rays with significant amounts of energy.
Some of them were literally named ‘Oh My God particle’ and ‘Amaterasu’. The energy contained within those particles was millions of times stronger than anything humanly possible.
But now Zyrus could do what the humanity couldn't. He didn't have to rely perfectly on the science. As long as he understood the general concept of cosmic radiation and cosmic rays, he would have the needed base for his next plan.
In the end what Zyrus cared about the most weren't the cosmic rays, but rather, the cosmic radiation. There was a distinct difference between the two. If cosmic rays focused on the origin of those rays, cosmic radiation focused on how those rays interacted with the earth's or any other planet's atmosphere.
For example, the way all life evolved on earth was also related to cosmic radiation; such as the usage of chirality in DNA and nucleic acids.
It took him three more days to note down the needed information about the cosmic radiation, particularly how he could use the concept of that radiation to change his own DNA.
As if to prove that he was growing in the right direction, another leaf had sprouted on the tree of void. He had comprehended the concept of cosmic radiation.
- Concept of Cosmic Radiation: 21.46%
Instead of proceeding with the plan as is, Zyrus decided to take a rare moment of rest.
He did nothing but simply slept on the surface of the moon, gazing at the sea of stars above his head. He needed some peace and quiet before this moon, and perhaps the entire solar system was destroyed.
No matter how strong he would become in the future, his home would be lost forever.
Zyrus looked at the brownish blue planet, the dying red sun and the other planets of the solar system. Every scene was engraved deep in his mind. Finally, it was time to take the final steps.
‘If I succeed, then everything I have known before regression would fundamentally change.’
Such a change had already occurred when he learned about laws and concepts, but this was far deeper than that. Zyrus considered himself to be a genius at utilizing mana, yet he had just realized that he was far from that.
His application had been crude to say the least. This coming from the one who stood at the apex of arcana was a surprising statement.
Zyrus dragged his claw on the space and drew a runic construct. The core logic was none other than the fundamentals of laws and concepts.
He recalled the first time he had learned about laws and concept and the first example was distinctly etched in his memory: Fire is a law. It's a phenomenon. What does fire do? It gives off light, it burns, it spreads. Those were concepts.
Lightning in the same vein could also be a concept of light. One could be burned by lightning, one could be burned by fire, and one could also be burned by frost.
Thus, the laws and concepts became intermingled. Later on he also came to know that objects and places also have concepts. Such as the concept of the ocean, the concept of the forest, and even the concept of the stars.
They were manifested by the various laws that governed the entire universe. Concepts related to places without sentient life forms remained as mere concepts. However, if willpower was added, then something unique was formed. For example, the will of the earth.
There was another thing he had learned as well. Whatever laws and concept one used should technically adhere to overall consciousness and will of others in the universe.
Something like fire that froze things was possible if one had strong enough willpower, as it was still within the acceptable range of rationality. But what about fire that was heavy? fire that grew trees and fire that burned time and space itself. Things like these were hard to imagine, and therefore, the requirement for willpower was higher if one wanted to accomplish such a feat.
If one's will was strong enough to go against every creature in the universe, then perhaps one could make any law and concept they desired. This was the hypothesis Zyrus had come up in the end.
He couldn't do something on a universal scale, but applying that on the planetary level was more than possible.
Rather than overpowering the will of the entire universe, it was easy to overpower the will of the creatures who lived on a certain planet. For example, Zyrus invaded a primitive world where people believed that fire burned. Then he created a fire that grew life. In such a case his will alone would be enough to change the perception of the natives.
The will of that world would reject him, but if his own willpower was strong enough then he alone could change the laws of that world. After all, this was how sanctuary operated. One might think like while interesting, these things didn't have anything to do with his current problem.
It was the exact opposite.
Now Zyrus had runes for every concepts he had comprehended. What if he created a new way of using mana? What if he mixed the concepts of various runes, merged them together, and created a brand new whole?
For example, law of fire along with the concept of burning, the concept of star, and the concept of gravity. A combination of all that should create a meteor shower; One that was far more powerful than the spell he had used in the sanctuary.
After all, now he was no longer just using mana to manifest something out of the air. No, he was rewriting the rules of reality itself. He was manipulating realm of order itself.
And going in this direction, couldn't he do the same thing with the law of void and the concepts he had comprehended?