Chapter 3: No Transmigration

"Ah~ where am I? What happened to me?" After Wang Fan's consciousness recovered, he found himself lying blankly on the ground. Looking around, he saw grey-blue buildings. "I'm still inside the Bao-Tong Army Officer Academy. So, I didn't transmigrate after all." He searched carefully around his body for the black stone that had hit his forehead, hoping to keep it as a souvenir, but he found nothing. A muttering curse lingered around Wang Fan's forehead like the horns of an elder demon, brandishing a black triangular pitchfork to cast spells upon him. Regret, annoyance, anger, ridicule, and other emotions filled Wang Fan's brain. "Forget it, there's no such thing as transmigration in this world anyway. What am I thinking? Let's go back." Inheriting the spirit of Ah Q, Wang Fan quickly adjusted his emotions and strode toward the station.

Three hours later, Wang Fan had returned to his cramped dwelling near the Third Ring Road in Jinhai City. Looking at his second-hand desktop computer and listening to the pop music playing from his Manbu Ren speakers, he dazed off slightly. His stomach growled faintly, but Wang Fan truly couldn't muster the interest to eat; he planned to just make a bowl of instant noodles to get by in a bit. At that moment, a "beep" sounded in his mind, and immediately following that, Wang Fan's vision went black and he fainted.

If Wang Fan could have remained conscious and possessed a "Bird Language" translator, he would have been able to hear the following sounds

"Confirming safety of host's surroundings. System startup initiated." "Confirming host is unconscious. Commencing non-harmful extraction of host's memories." "Memory extraction successful. Confirming this plane is a technology plane. Commencing analysis of technological level." "Technological level determined. Analyzing danger index." "Danger index low. Commencing awakening of master's memories. 3, 2, 1... Error occurred. Activating second backup. Commencing repair. Warning! Second backup has also encountered damage." "Analyzing damage ratio. Performing emergency fusion of first and second backups." "Damage percentage determined. Core zone loss: 13%. Peripheral zone memory loss: 56%." "Following the principle of survival first, commencing forced awakening of master's memories." "Awakening successful. Commencing connection between master's memories and host's memories."

"What's going on? It feels like I've fainted again. Where am I?" Wang Fan "woke" up, but everything around him was grey and hazy, as if he were in an unknown world.

"Hello. I apologize for the intrusion into your body," at that moment, a white ring of light appeared before Wang Fan's eyes, and an unknown creature stepped out from within it. It had green, ribbon-like substances on its head resembling branches, and stood about 3 meters tall. It had no legs, but instead possessed octopus-like tentacles. Its color was as white as jade, devoid of any sense of ugliness, filled instead with an unknown aesthetic beauty. Its face was somewhat human-like, with a pair of parallel eyes. The area around its eyes was filled with regular, line-like green blood vessels, and like hair, a liquid flowing with spiritual light moved through them, much like glowing light-emitting diodes. It had no nose or ears, but it did have a mouth and hands. The overall impression it gave was one of surprise and curiosity, yet it was not terrifying or dangerous.

"Who are you? Where is this? And why can you talk to me?"

"To use your Earthly phrasing, my name is Yadi Weilan. According to the naming rules of the Yanhuang Republic, Yadi is my surname and Weilan is my name. This is the depths of your consciousness. Using Earthly knowledge, it can also be understood as the cerebral cortex's electrical wave circuits formed through the action of brain cells. I communicate with you through these electrical wave circuits—that is, direct communication via consciousness—which avoids the troubles caused by language barriers. Of course, because I extracted your memories first, I was able to construct a knowledge tree to communicate with you effectively. This was done without your permission, but it has not caused you any harm. Please understand!"

Wang Fan looked at this well-mannered alien creature (or so he thought) and said, "You must be that little black block that hit me this morning. Why did you appear here?"

"My memories have suffered a rupture; it seems they were already lost at the time of awakening. Based on my existing memories, I infer that I entered this plane through a planar barrier. I am not originally a biological entity from your plane."

"What is a 'plane'? Is it like those various cosmic dimensions in fantasy novels?" Wang Fan had read many fantasy novels. Under the nourishment of various "fast-food" literatures like transmigration and infinite flow, while his scientific knowledge curve had declined, his delusional knowledge curve had risen linearly. In other words, this guy was incredibly bold when it came to accepting strange and novel matters like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." "Aren't you an alien?"

"According to the definition of alien biological entities described in your memories, that should refer to other intelligent life forms living outside of Earth but within this universe, such as other intelligent life in the Milky Way. However, I am an intelligent life form from outside the plane where your universe resides—that is, from another plane, another universe. Strictly speaking, I am no longer a life form, but a segment of memory, and that segment of memory has suffered loss."

"Oh. So what do you want to do? What do you want to do inside my body?"

"My entry into your body was a random event, not targeted at you; it could have happened to any intelligent life form. By 'intelligent life form' here, I mean those with a considerable level of logic, action, and manual capability. Based on my existing memories, I deduce that my original body encountered a major crisis, forcing me to record my memories within a Planar Ring to escape. I know that my original body left a base in a certain plane, which can restore my physical body and the memories backed up at that time. Now, I need to find a way to reach that base, activate the command, and reconstruct my body to truly come back to life! Therefore, I need your help to store Planar Repulsion Energy."

"Planar Repulsion Energy? What is that?"

"To put it simply, Planar Repulsion Energy is the energy required to leap from one planar system to another. The distribution of planes also follows a pattern. Generally speaking, expressed in your Earthly language, technology-type planes and cultivation-type planes do not stay together; they repel each other. Therefore, if one wishes to transmigrate from a technology plane to a cultivation plane, or other major categories, Planar Repulsion Energy is required. However, traveling within the same planar system does not require Planar Repulsion Energy; it only requires Planar Matter. Earth's knowledge system has not yet discovered this substance. My knowledge system defines it in the language of the Yanhuang Republic as 'Yu' matter—where 'Yu' means the space in all directions."

"If one transmigrates between technology-type planes within the same planar system, the greater the difference in technological level, the further apart they are, and the more 'Yu' matter is consumed for the crossing. The closer the technological levels, the closer the distance, and the less 'Yu' matter is consumed."

"Planar system? Yu matter? Planar Repulsion Energy? I don't have any of that here. How can I help you?"

"Obtaining Planar Repulsion Energy is relatively simple. Using the coordinates of your current plane as the origin, you must perform transmigrations into surrounding planes to alter their historical processes. The more you change, the stronger the resulting planar repulsion, and the greater the Planar Repulsion Energy produced. For example, according to Earth's history, if you transmigrated to World War II and helped Germany defeat the Allies, thereby changing the course of the world, you would obtain a massive amount of Planar Repulsion Energy."

"According to what you said, transmigrating within the same planar system requires Yu matter, which Earth simply doesn't have. What am I supposed to use to transmigrate? Besides, for a working-class guy like me to go back and change the outcome of WWII... you're giving me too much credit. Even if I really did go back, I'd probably just be a waste of someone's bullet. I'm interested, but it doesn't seem reliable!"

"Based on the fact that the internal space of the Planar Ring in which my memories are inscribed contains a large amount of Yu matter and nothing else, I speculate that my original body discovered a plane containing vast amounts of Yu matter and conducted partial mining. However, for some reason, a crisis occurred, forcing me to perform a memory recording and a cross-planar system escape. According to my residual memories and databases, I currently possess partial data on cultivation-type planes and technology-type planes. However, due to the protection of this plane's rule chain, I cannot change the laws and rules of this plane, otherwise I would be annihilated by the rule chain. Thus, all I can give you is some knowledge from the technology-type planes. But since there are no other devices in the ring besides the Yu matter, given Earth's current technological level, material science, and processing precision, a technological leapfrog development is impossible. After all, the era I come from has long since entered the Great Universe Era, with communication across many galaxies; I only know how to use many commodities without knowing how to manufacture them. However, after analyzing and calculating based on the data of the world in your memories, I have thought of a feasible method."

As Wang Fan listened and listened, the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter...