Liu Qing paused, then went on. "Or take zombies, for another example. My immortal-cultivation world had them too... Don't ask me why they were Western zombies rather than Eastern jiangshi — who knows what that author was thinking. The point is, they appeared. They didn't need to eat, didn't need to absorb spiritual qi, and could still run about everywhere as though they had a bottomless supply of energy. I was extremely curious at the time how the Mirror had made a thing like that reasonable, so once my cultivation reached great accomplishment, I caught a few zombies and studied them. And what I found was that the worm inside a zombie's body... was connected to an ore deposit somewhere in the depths of the universe, drawing energy straight from it to feed the zombie."
"Can you understand how shocked I was? The two places were nearly ten light-years apart, yet the worm had exactly that kind of special gift: it could open a channel through higher dimensions and, at extremely low cost, draw energy from a deposit ten light-years away to feed the lowest grade of zombie... Put that way, you should understand. The Mirror makes every setting in a game reasonable. As for how it makes them reasonable — it has its own methods."
"The Unique Traits, the Common Traits and the rest are all the same. For example, in single combat the body secretes a certain hormone, one's strength grows fiercer and one's ability to take a blow increases — that is 'Duel.' Or take 'Martial Might': roughly speaking, it overawes others with sheer presence. If the enemy quails at heart, their body secretes some strange substances that stiffen the limbs, which in turn causes the so-called 'decrease to all attributes.' That's more or less how it works. Those things are real and effective. You can trust in the Mirror's grip on the world."
"Besides that, you will probably keep the ability to 'Observe.' At least, when I reached that world, I could still use 'Observe' to see other people's base attributes. But you can only see the attributes of characters who were actually 'made' back when this game was still a game. Do you understand?"
Ji Zhao said, "In a game, maybe only a few hundred people ever actually appear, but the world as a whole has people numbering in the hundreds of millions. I can see the attributes of the few hundred who actually appeared."
"Correct. Remarkable how quickly you grasp my meaning." Liu Qing nodded. "The same goes for the attributes of cultivation methods and martial techniques. Anything that exists in the game, you can see. I'm not entirely sure why — perhaps because we and that world are still caught in the crack between the real and the false... Also, this Observe isn't an active skill you can use just by clicking on it, as in the game. You have to rely on your own careful observation to see anything, and you won't see everything in one go either. How much depends on your powers of observation and your strength."
"Is that so... That's good news, at least."
"The targets it works on may be one in ten thousand, but something is better than nothing... Is there anything else you want to ask?"
Ji Zhao asked, "After Liang Xing failed, the Mirror activated again. Why? And once I'm inside, might the Mirror suddenly activate again?"
"That I don't know either." Liu Qing shook his head. "But my guess is that it's because Liang Xing was in too poor a state. He had been locked up so long that he had no strength at all to break free, and there was scarcely a moment when he could keep hold of his own will. Perhaps the Mirror judged that the 'one thread of life' of his world had vanished, and so our world was truly acknowledged by the Mirror as 'real'... After all, in all the tens of thousands of years I spent in that other world, the Mirror never activated again."
"So even if I succeed in turning the Mirror this time, it could still activate again?"
"Yes. No one can guarantee otherwise. Even so, all we can do is turn it, again and again."
"...True. There's no point thinking about that now." Ji Zhao paused. "Once I enter the Mirror, where will the game begin?"
"Wherever the 'protagonist' began back when it was still a game, that's where you'll begin."
"Does this count as seizing someone's body?"
"That part is actually rather interesting." Liu Qing smiled. "When Liang Xing entered this world, he didn't seize your body. But when you and I entered our games, we each seized the body of the corresponding character... The difference is that the protagonist of 《The War God Raising Plan》 was fixed as 'Ji Zhao' from the very start, whereas in both of our games the protagonist could be named by the player."
"So my guess is that before we 'started' these games, the two people called Ji Zhao and Liu Qing might not have existed at all. It was only because we created characters that these two appeared along with them — to serve as our containers."
"Of course, that's only a guess. I have no proof."
Liu Qing paused, then spoke again. "But since we're on the subject, I'll mention one more thing while I'm at it. When we go in, we inherit the original body's memories, along with a small part of its lingering obsession. Liang Xing had neither the memories nor the obsession, because he started from birth. But we will."
"The memories go without saying. As for the obsession, it will be especially strong at first and then fade little by little. You'd best fulfill it for him, or at the very least not come into conflict with it — by killing the people the original body wanted to protect, say. If you must kill them, wait a while first. As for exactly how long, you'll be able to feel it for yourself when the time comes."
"...I understand."
After that, Ji Zhao asked a great many more trivial questions, and Liu Qing answered every one of them down to the last detail, and gave Ji Zhao some advice besides. It went on for about four hours.
"Come to think of it, I went through no small amount of hardship back then... Before I entered the game, I was entrusted with this heavy task and stayed alone in this black-and-white pixel world for nearly twenty years, cramming every kind of knowledge I could until I was very nearly mad. I tested myself, and only put down the books and went in once my mind had reached its limit — and then I discovered that the natural laws and the makeup of matter in that world were completely different. Apart from mathematics, basically nothing I had learned was of any use. I truly was about to go mad then, wondering what all those years had been for, and why Liang Xing hadn't noticed this... Thinking about it later, it was probably down to the game's settings and background."
"But you don't have that much time to study. You have to enter the game before I dissipate, because I came back by relying on the Bell — I'm a 'stowaway,' so to speak. If I dissipate, you won't be able to inherit that 'one thread of life' from me. As for the time, it's before midnight tonight."
"The Mirror's form changes in countless ways; it changes along with the setting of the world. But one thing is certain: it cannot be destroyed. No power, however great, can ever destroy it. That should count as the most important clue."
"Lastly... It isn't only our side that has a thread of life. That world has one too."
"After Liang Xing entered 《The War God Raising Plan》, an old Daoist cast a divination and said that someone might destroy this world. But who that person was, how they would do it, whether man or woman, old or young — he couldn't say at all. He simply kept insisting on it for no reason anyone could see. It was only later that we realized he might have meant Liang Xing. But what truly convinced me that this sort of 'thread of life' exists was my own world."
"After I entered that immortal-cultivation world, a cultivator named Tianjizi divined my existence and was certain that someone would destroy the world. But just like that old Daoist, he hadn't the faintest idea who I was or how I would do it, man or woman, old or young — he could divine nothing at all. I imagine that in your world, too, there will be some odd sort of person who senses something. But what they know certainly won't be anything as clear as what we know — probably no more than a vague feeling that 'someone will destroy this world,' with no proof of any kind. You needn't worry about it too much. As long as you don't tell anyone, nobody could ever guess such a thing. You only need to know that it exists and keep half an eye out for it."
At this, Liu Qing glanced at the clock hanging on the wall.
"It's about time... You should be on your way, Ji Zhao. Is there anything else you want to say?"