Strongest Hammer God

Chapter 1186: Thanks

After around 500 years, Kyle stopped his experiments.

He looked at the little cabinet in front of him, which showed three intense flames combining into a bigger flame. The Energy of the bigger flame was siphoned out, and three smaller flames appeared, which combined again, and so on.

This display was supposed to be about as tall as a regular human, but the cabinet in front of Kyle didn't even reach his knees.

'Still a bit big for ants, but definitely too small for humans,' Kyle thought with amusement. 'Just the right size for a small dog.'

Then, Kyle looked at the Formation Array he was supposed to design.

Once more, the design didn't make sense. This time, the ratios were contained within the instructions, but one of the Connections was missing.

'I guess I'm supposed to fill in the last Connection. If this were a regular Formation Array, this would be pretty simple since Connections almost always have clear shapes. A curve, a straight line, a sine wave, stuff like that. However, the Connections of these strange Formation Arrays are chaotic and illogical. They could have any shape.'

'Well, let's just try it out.'

Kyle created the Formation Array and filled in the last line. When he activated the Formation Array, he noticed how the Energy Wave distorted more and more until it reached the start. And then...

At the same time, Kyle noticed that the components of the Formation Array were taking damage. They were designed to support these Energy Waves.

Kyle quickly deactivated the Formation Array, replaced some damaged parts, and created a new Connection.

Once again, it remained chaotic.

'I'm not sure if I'm actually learning anything,' Kyle thought as he recreated the Connection once again. 'This is like a completely different language. In fact, that's putting it lightly. When you hear an alien language, you can still sense that there is some kind of rhythm and logic behind it. With this Formation Array, I can't sense anything like that. It's just weird noise.'

Nevertheless, Kyle kept experimenting.

Several years passed.

'Nope,' Kyle thought as he deconstructed the Formation Array. 'I have learned zero. I have learned fucking nothing. Even after looking at it for years, it seems just as nonsensical as when I first looked at it. I don't even know what I'm searching for since the design doesn't include any infused Laws.'

'I'm pretty sure I'm missing context. Maybe this shit makes sense to the people from the other Cosmos. Their Laws are completely different. Laws define how reality works, and reality is just a set of rules that dictate attributes, cause, and effect. Reality is logic, and when reality is different, the very concept of logic is different. To understand this shit, I probably need to learn a new framework of logic.'

'That's way too much effort for too little reward.'

'I'll just go with the regular way.'

Kyle grabbed the remaining materials and left his Workshop. Once more, he walked to the big hall with all of the False Immortals.

"Hey," Kyle said as he approached a group. "You wanna buy a Formation Array that fulfills the second task?"

One member of the group looked at Kyle with boredom. "Do I need to infuse it with Laws?"

"Yeah, but you only need some insights into Major Metal, Major Earth, and Minor Fire," Kyle answered.

Another guy in the group snorted. "Your Formation Array needs three different Elements, and you expect us to pay you for its design?"

"You don't need many insights," Kyle answered with a shrug. "It's really simple. You can also use it as a reference."

"Reference for what?" the guy asked with annoyance. "Your Laws are confusing and illogical. I'm not going to learn a new framework for logic when our Formation Arrays are better."

"Better?" Kyle asked. "How are they better?"

"Your Formation Arrays are concrete while ours are abstract. They're designed with our logic, but part of the logic is fluid while all of your logic is solid. Your Formation Arrays only work in this Cosmos, while most of our Formation Arrays work in several Cosmoses. If I learn how your Formation Arrays work, all my accumulated knowledge will become worthless as soon as this Cosmos is destroyed."

When Kyle heard these words, he realized that this guy wasn't completely wrong but also not completely right.

'He's speaking English, while I'm speaking German, metaphorically speaking,' Kyle thought. 'English works almost everywhere, while German only works in a couple of countries. Why learn German when you can speak English? I can see his point. However, in this metaphor, we are currently in Germany. Knowing English is enough here, but if you can speak German, life will become much easier.'

'It's the smart choice to learn how this Cosmos works, but if you're leaving soon, there's no point. Well, assuming you're actually leaving soon. If you keep staying here, you'll just make things harder for yourself.'

"How low does the complexity have to be for my Formation Array to be worth something?" Kyle asked.

"You want to sell useful Formation Arrays to us?" another guy asked with a ridiculing tone. "You would really have to push down the nonsense in your Formation Arrays to make them worth anything."

"How much?" Kyle asked.

"Not more than twenty infusions," the first guy said.

"In what context?" Kyle asked.

"The total number of different Law Infusions should not surpass twenty," the guy explained in an annoyed voice. "Compartment A of Subset Four of the First Strata of Minor Fire for 17 standard-lengths of a Connection? That's one Infusion. If you infuse the same part in a different component, that's also an infusion. The total shouldn't surpass twenty."

"Wait, what?" Kyle asked. "You care about the number but not the number of different infusions?"

"We don't," the guy answered with an annoyed sigh. "We don't know your Laws, which is why we can't use infusions. We brute-force your infusions. More complex infusions need more Energy to brute-force, but we need to brute-force every infusion separately. We can't reuse brute-forced insights and infusions. Have I dumbed it down enough for you?"

Kyle didn't feel insulted by the comment. He had expected these people to be antagonistic to him. The fact that this guy was explaining anything to Kyle was already a surprise.

"What is the maximum complexity that you can brute-force?" Kyle asked.

"Level Eight Laws, but we need a lot of Energy for that," the guy answered. "Keep Level Seven Law infusions to fewer than ten and keep the maximum number of infusions below twenty, and you might just have something worth selling."

"And keep the materials low!" another guy shouted like a rowdy guest in a bar. "We can quickly generate Energy Stones, but we can't make new materials. Nobody will buy your Formation Array Design if we need all of our materials to set it up!"

"It should be small!" another guy shouted. "The greater the area we have to brute-force, the more Energy we need to spend! Nobody wants to consume a Grade Nine Energy Stone just to build your Formation Array!"

"In fact, nobody wants to build your Formation Array!" a guy from another team shouted, eliciting laughter from the surrounding people.

Kyle furrowed his brows as he thought about all of the requests.

'Twenty total infusions...'

'I usually use between 12,000 and 40,000...'

"Thanks," Kyle said absentmindedly as his Avatars walked back to his Workshop.

When the others heard Kyle's words, they just laughed again.

"Thanks, he says," a guy shouted.

"Everyone laughed at him, and he says thanks!"

The people in the hall laughed.

Yet, there were a couple of people in the hall who didn't feel like laughing. In fact, they were a bit impressed.

This guy had been the subject of ridicule by so many people, but instead of being affected by it, he noticed the value of the things he had learned and gave his appreciation. This meant that the value he had gained from the interaction far outclassed the detriment.

Either he had received tremendous value...

Or the detriment had been almost non-existent.

In this case, the answer was clear.

To this guy, the ridicule of the onlookers had the weight of a feather that touched his hand for a moment before floating away again.

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