Facing an Ancient God for a Year

Chapter 2544: Chapter 2539: A Shared Melody

Neural synapse docking complete?

Even though that description was full of holes, in that moment Fu Qian still felt it was pretty fitting.

The manifestation efficiency could be called extremely high; in the blink of an eye, another Brain Jellyfish appeared in the previously empty cage.

And compared to Brother Thinker, this one looked even more pristine.

Skull, flesh, hair—those useless burdens had long since been completely discarded, leaving only a body untouched by dust, to the point that its appearance was almost identical to that batch he’d seen earlier.

So it really was these Olympic Math Observers who turned themselves into this?

All one can say is that no matter what form they take, they’re still thinking about taking notes; that kind of persistence is moving.

Also, although their appearance was the same, given how unrestrained the posture was, the visual impression was very different.

Although, just like Brother Awakener, it never actually exceeded the cage’s boundaries, given how the jellyfish’s legs were stretched perfectly straight, crisscrossing in all directions, at first glance it looked more like a shoddy spiderweb centered on the chair.

And clearly there was no direct physical connection, but Fu Qian, who had just deeply experienced and interpreted it in terms of academia, Olympic math, and even art, still easily sensed the resonance with that form in the cage below, confirming that a real link existed between the two jellyfish.

All in all, such a neat transformation seemed to strongly suggest that the guess about "standing on the shoulders of giants" was correct.

That unreachable answer wasn’t a conclusion the Thinker, a heaven-gifted genius, had brute-forced by himself, but the result of pooling many minds.

And right here in this place, there was a complete computation matrix, merely concealed in a special state.

He wondered if, given more time, Brother Thinker would also turn into this, integrating himself in a different way.

If it really came to that, this would no longer be called a lecture hall, but a supercomputing center made of countless wetware components.

And now that the critical node had been opened, the chain reaction seemed to have been triggered as well——

Fu Qian raised his head and glanced higher up; in a position not directly connected to either cage, he found a third jellyfish...

Then a fourth...

A fifth...

In the blink of an eye, like sequential ignition, jellyfish appeared one after another on the circular tiers—irregular, yet forming a beautiful pattern.

And each complex, abstract pattern, from afar, combined into a greater whole.

Mm... looks like he really did the right thing this time.

On this, Fu Qian also took on the role of a strict exam grader, imprinting each of these patterns into his mind, savoring and feeling them, until his gaze finally fell on a certain spot at his feet.

...

The impact point.

It’d been mentioned that Fu Qian didn’t actually know the algorithm, so wanting to derive the answer from a structure this complex was essentially just a self-congratulatory notion.

But the human mind can’t be too rigid; perhaps he couldn’t solve it forward, but he knew the answer, and back-substitution was much simpler.

What Fu Qian did in that moment was very simple: he directly plugged the previously locked-in impact point coordinates into the jellyfish matrix now lit up.

The conclusion was perfect; the Olympic Math Observers seemed to have really done it—though the price was enormous.

"Uh... ahhh..."

For example, when Fu Qian went back and drifted down lightly in front of the Thinker, the latter couldn’t even say "thank you" anymore.

The sound he forced out did not carry the Ecstasy of finding the ultimate answer; on the contrary it seemed full of pain, and then further dissolved into whimpers no human throat could make.

"Congratulations. Looks like you were right."

Fu Qian didn’t mind; he still gave them a perfect score.

"Hah... ah..."

Unfortunately, it seemed the test-taker was already completely intoxicated.

He made no response at all; instead, his movements grew ever more inhuman.

Considering he wasn’t using a normal mouth to speak in the first place, in just a few breaths even the concept of sound itself began to vanish, turning into some more abstract thing that reverberated outward.

Fu Qian didn’t interrupt, nor did he leave; he simply stood there and felt it quietly—and sure enough.

At a certain moment, he reached a conclusion.

This was the little tune Miss Wen had once hummed to him.

...

Before setting out on the scientific expedition, one of the preparations was to swallow what was, in theory, a pollutant: Kaldora flesh.

It did indeed cause pollution, for example the Engraving Wisdom that would pop up from time to time.

And before doing that, there had actually been a small extra gain.

He’d asked Miss Wen to try to feel whether there were any emotions inside that lump of flesh.

And she, having already advanced to High Tier, did not disappoint him; she not only said there were, she even translated them on the spot into a little tune—the very thing the Brain Jellyfish was humming now.

Though some of it had already gone beyond the realm of sound, Fu Qian was still very confident in his own judgment.

He wasn’t just pretending to be cultured; from just now he’d really been listening, feeling its inner content step by step.

In theory, at such a precious moment, the normal reaction should be to go and check what was happening at those coordinates as soon as possible.

But in Fu Qian’s view, compared to the answer, the process of seeking the answer was the truly fleeting, once-in-a-lifetime thing, so he wasn’t willing to miss even a second.

And now this savoring seemed to have paid off.

The melody echoing inside the Kaldora flesh was actually coming from the Brain Jellyfish?

There was every reason to believe this change was related to having found the impact point, to having found the ultimate answer.

In that case, could he draw a conclusion that this melody also involved "the beginning of the world" and "the end of the Transcendent"?

That was simply too wonderful a conclusion, and logically it seemed to hold up.

Don’t forget, the origins of the Kaldora flesh lay right here.

All he could say now was that, on this basis, a further guess could be made—that the Crystal Blessing infecting the Academy Exploration Team had a certain connection to the impact point.

And that still wasn’t the most wonderful part; there was another person who knew this melody—the Sage.

It had been the password, in a certain containment mission, used to open a confidential site of the Blind Eye Association.

So the value of that hole in his head had just gone up again?

Those seniors had even grasped certain terms related to the beginning and the end?

As expected, at the highest level, all paths meet.

Amid his admiration, Fu Qian was very satisfied with the choices he’d made.

And within the icy melody, Brother Thinker’s emotions grew thinner and thinner.

Jellyfish bodies began to flicker one by one, like flashes of wisdom appearing and vanishing.

This fragile matrix could collapse at any moment.

Easily seeing this, Fu Qian gave a light leap and had already landed on the correct coordinates, all obstacles dissolving rapidly under the erosion of Calamity.

Very soon, Fu Qian’s body reached that end point——

It was very clean, with none of that piled-up clutter, no flesh or Crystal, nothing at all.

It was also very quiet; this time, there was no notification about loss of SAN Points.