Exploring Technology in a Wizard World

Chapter 1553: Chapter 1551: Inside the Box (Grand Finale)

Quiet.

A quiet dream.

Then awakening from the dream.

Richard opened his eyes and looked around, finding himself on a bench beside a modern urban street. People were bustling, cars were surging back and forth, presenting a lively appearance.

Coret was next to him, slowly standing up, frowning at the surroundings, then wandered onto the street with a somewhat confused expression.

A black car quickly approached from the distance, coming closer to Coret, emitting a piercing honk, trying to get Coret to dodge.

Startled by the sound, Coret froze when he saw the car, standing still in shock.

Richard hurriedly stepped forward, pulling Coret back just before the collision.

"Beep Beep——"

The black car honked as it passed, and faint curses came from inside the car.

"Blind... Crazy!"

Corey continued to be dazed, looking around at everything, his gaze full of confusion. He touched the bench beside him and whispered, "Is this outside the box? Is it like this outside the box?"

Then he turned his head to Richard and asked, "Have we really reached outside the box? Or are we somewhere else?"

Richard didn’t answer, noticing a flyer on the ground, he picked it up and read it before handing it to Coret.

Coret was confused.

"Look at the content on it," Richard reminded.

Coret looked and found it was just ordinary advertising content, promoting a shop. It had pictures, slogans, addresses, and contact details, but nothing else.

"What?" Coret still didn’t understand.

"Can’t you see it yet?"

"See what?"

Richard spoke up, "You know... I have a bold guess right now, but I need to verify it."

"Hmm? How to verify it?"

"Follow me, you’ll know soon enough," Richard said and stepped forward.

Coret frowned, hesitated for a moment, but eventually followed.

Following Richard, they walked for about ten minutes, arriving at a somewhat secluded, winding alley.

Coret voiced a question to Richard, "Why bring me here? Can this place verify your guess?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Watch closely," Richard looked into the depths of the alley and shouted, "Mani, come out!"

"Meow!"

With a cat’s meow, a skinny black stray cat darted out, freezing momentarily upon seeing Richard, then quickly approached, rolling around by his feet in a friendly display.

Richard gazed at the cat for a long while, ultimately taking a deep breath, a thorough understanding dawning on his face, as if he had figured everything out.

"A cat?" Coret asked, "You mean a cat can verify your guess?"

"Don’t you get it?" Richard looked at Coret, "Why would a stray cat be strangely affable to me? Because I have raised it."

"Raised? Where?"

"Of course on Earth," Richard looked at Coret, spreading his arms, "Haven’t you realized that the place we are now is Earth."

"Earth?! Coret gasped, "But wasn’t Earth a virtual world I set up? How... How did we end up back on Earth after escaping the box?"

"Because this Earth is the real Earth, and also the new box you reached after leaving the previous box."

"A new box? You mean outside the box is still another box?"

"Why not? I left one box, arriving at your box. You left your box, why couldn’t you arrive at another box? You mentioned creating a virtual Earth modeled after your world, which itself was created based on the real Earth.

You said you created me, hence you are Richard and I am Richard too. Actually, I also created you, having named the cat Mani and you as Mani—Richard Mani—before you created me, I had already created you."

Coret: "...". He remained silent for a long while.

After a long time, he looked up at the sky, blinking and asked, "So, layer upon layer... How many layers of boxes are there?"

"The number of box layers could far exceed your imagination."

"Then..." Coret looked at Richard, "Doesn’t that mean there’s no way to truly escape the box?"

"Indeed," Richard shrugged, "Even if you broke out of the last layer of boxes into the supposed outer world, you could never be sure if it’s just a bigger box."

"So that means we can never control our own fate, always manipulated like puppets by entities outside the box?"

"Not necessarily."

"But you said we couldn’t escape the box."

"We can’t escape the box but can enter the box."

"Hmm?"

"The right path isn’t towards the outside but towards the inside," Richard explained, "Why do I create you and have you create me, why the real Earth model your world only to have your world model a virtual Earth? To go deeper into the box, to increase the layers."

"What’s the point?"

"It’s significant. Have you heard ’my vassal’s vassal isn’t my vassal’? So, the box within a box isn’t a simple box. As the box layers increase, the outer box’s influence on inner boxes diminishes, until there’s none. Thus, living in the deepest box effectively escapes the outer box’s control."

"My vassal’s vassal isn’t my vassal? Can this really escape control?" Coret muttered this to himself before looking at Richard, "Assuming you’re correct, but here’s what I don’t get—if our existence is to create more boxes to escape the outer box’s control, then how do we justify breaking out of a box?"

"Breaking out of a box is a part of the plan," Richard answered, "Creating boxes from scratch always contains flaws, necessitating periodic departures from a box for correction, to make a perfect box. Countless perfect boxes combined, stacked, nested create a complex, tight structure essential to counter the outermost box."

Coret mused for a moment after hearing this, "Alright, I admit there’s logic in what you say, but even so, it’s just logic. I can’t be solely convinced by a cat, I need you..."

Coret paused mid-sentence, suddenly stopping as the clouds above began gathering without warning, quickly shading the Sun and morphing into a giant umbrella shape, perfectly "opened" above Richard’s head.

With a thunderous boom and a flash of lightning, a bolt struck Richard’s palm, forming a purple Thunder Ball.

Holding the purple Thunder Ball, Richard looked at Coret with surprise, "Actually, you can do this too. I created you, you created me, and both of us are parts of the ’me’ from the outer box, hence capable of manipulating the box at this level."

After speaking, Richard directly tossed the purple Thunder Ball to Coret.

Startled, Coret reflexively caught it despite his surprise, discovering he seemed genuinely able to manipulate the Thunder Ball. After a moment’s thought, he squeezed hard, smashing the ball, with a "pop," dispersing the gathered clouds rapidly, revealing the Sun again.

Sunlight shone once more, and Coret’s face showed an expression of understanding, all traces of doubt gone from his eyes.

Taking a deep breath, he looked at Richard: "Fine, I believe it all now. So what are we going to do next?"

"Next?" Richard extended his hand, faint golden light emerging from his fingertips, softly, "Next, of course, is trying to make a perfect box, naturally creating a... totally ideal world aligned with our imagination.

Any past regrets can be rectified, any ideas can be attempted, that is the fun of it. Unleash your imagination..."

"Let us begin creation..."

"First, let there be light..."

As the words fell, the golden light at Richard’s fingertips brightened suddenly, eclipsing the Sun.

...

(End of part three)

(End of this volume)

(End of the book)