Everything in the world comes from the Creator’s hands.
Therefore, from a practical perspective, the “Existence Outside of the Original” and the “Absolute Nothingness of Non-Existence” can be completely equated.
This is why these two symbols intertwine.
And the place where Lin Chuan found himself at this moment was an ancient Sefirah primarily formed by the aggregation and evolution of these two symbols.
However, from the conventional logic of the universe, the existence of this Sefirah itself is a paradox.
Since it is a Sefirah symbolizing the “Original Nothingness”, it cannot truly exist within the universe.
The Initial could possess the symbol of “Outside of the Original”, but the existence of the symbol of “Outside of the Original” itself seems rather unlikely.
The reason is very simple; that truly complete and Original Creator is indeed an unspeakable, agnostic omnipotence.
Conventional logic is meaningless to Him; He can be both split and aggregated, both inside and outside the circle.
Yet symbols and Sefirot are ultimately not the Original Creator Himself.
Their powers originate from the Original, but they cannot transcend logic like the Original.
Just as the symbol of aggregation is upon the Primordial Hunger, the symbol of division has always been unable to give birth to a stable Great Old One, because even if the symbol of division is no longer dispersed and an Great Old One is truly forcibly condensed, it would directly disintegrate the very instant it is born.
Therefore, even if the symbol of “Nothingness” existed at the very beginning of creation, it should still be unobservable.
Aside from the Original itself, no existence can touch it, let alone give birth to a corresponding Great Old One.
Until a meteor quietly streaked across the boundless Cosmos, right after Lin Chuan’s main body traversed into this world.
Within the Sefirah, the two symbols representing “Outside of the Original” and “Nothingness” produced an extremely subtle deviation.
Under normal circumstances, that symbol which could roughly be called “Outside of the Original”, although theoretically very important and able to hitch a ride on the Original’s reputation, had an extremely high potential upper limit.
Yet in reality, it was just an empty shell with nothing inside.
When the Original created the world, everything here came from the Original; how could there be an existence outside of the Original?
Therefore, “Outside of the Original” is a pseudo-concept; it can only sit at the same table as the symbol of “Nothingness” and the symbol of division.
It belongs to the kind of situation where everyone knows theoretically this thing exists, sounding completely imposing, but with an actual performance capability of zero.
Then, Lin Chuan appeared.
Then let me ask you, what is outside of the Original?
Is there anything that does not belong to the Original?
Do you see that person who doesn’t know where he came from?
Is that an existence outside of the Original?
Answer me!
Thus, the underlying logic of the universe exerted its power.
As the only entity in the entire universe that perfectly matched the concept of “Outside of the Original”, Lin Chuan was directly and forcibly aggregated into this Sefirah of “Original Nothingness”.
However, it did not end there.
Do not forget that the symbols of “Outside of the Original” and “Nothingness” were inherently two synonymous symbols of the same Sefirah.
Before this, one was a meaningless empty shell symbol, and the other was a symbol of non-existence, which could be considered harmoniously unified.
And what about now?
One symbol remained the “Original Nothingness”, while the other symbol changed from its original state equivalent to “Nothingness”, and the symbol of “Outside of the Original” became a state of existence.
Therefore, the situation at that time was that one symbol represented “the Original’s non-existence”, and the other symbol represented “existence outside of the Original”.
And these two symbols were still the exact same Sefirah.
Black and white, yin and yang, existence and non-existence.
Pure Yin does not last, Pure Yang does not grow, Yin contains Yang, Yang contains Yin, the union of Yin and Yang gives rise to Everything.
Two symbols that similarly satisfy the conditions of binary opposition, originating from the Sefirah of the Original—then pray tell, what would happen next?
By this time, Lin Chuan could no longer hold it together and directly laughed in anger.
Seriously, bro?
Am I really going to replace Tokiomi and become the root of all evil in this world?
However, things certainly did not develop into the worst-case scenario.
Otherwise, if the Original had truly fully awakened instead of stopping merely at the level of primordial chaos like afterwards, Lin Chuan would not have had the chance to stand here and review the past now.
What else is there to say?
Let’s roll with it, brothers, and drag the entire universe down to be buried with us.
After calming down, Lin Chuan realized that the Original had absolutely no possibility of awakening at that time, not to mention that he was still standing here safe and sound, while the Original was lying on Earth.
The more crucial reason was that the symbols of existence and non-existence could indeed serve as the perfect materials to synthesize the greater Original, even closer than the Mirror Original and the chaos of the nine Sefirot, but the premise of all this was that the two symbols must be “the Original’s non-existence” and “the Original’s existence”.
Instead of his “existence outside of the Original”.
Although both are forms of existence, the existence outside of the Original and the Original Nothingness are like two puzzle pieces whose materials and art styles are completely different.
Their corner gaps look seamless, but they can never piece together that correct pattern belonging to the Original.
When he truly opened his eyes from the perspective of his main body, Lin Chuan finally figured out his predicament completely.
Regarding this bizarre experience, he felt it could be completely summarized by a classic internet joke:
Symbol: Is the Sefirah in this photo you?
Lin Chuan: I’m a normal human, how could that possibly be me!
Symbol: That is you, except you hadn’t been born yet back then.
“So the moment I landed, I joyfully received a direct admission, directly activating the Sefirah to become half an Great Old One, and casually refreshing Klein’s speedrun record of ‘Three years to a True God, five years to a half Great Old One’.
Then my memories were wiped and I was reincarnated onto Earth, getting the face-slapping overpowered script of a modern urban rebirth protagonist—”
Those who believe can wait until the First Epoch to be assigned a wishing lamp and have a nice chat about anti-fraud guidelines with the Genie.
The real situation was nowhere near as glamorous, but it was not miserable either.
Lin Chuan transmigrated into the Lord of the Mysteries world.
Due to his characteristic as a genuine transmigrator, he directly aggregated with those two log symbols; the matter from outside the world belonging to his main body turned into a Sefirah after the Original failed to wake up, and his own soul became the first self-awareness born from this masterless Sefirah.
In a sense, he was indeed “admitted without examination”.
As long as he wanted to now, he could cross the threshold above the Sequence at any time and directly become an Great Old One or even a Pillar.
And then dissipate at the speed of light in that very instant, returning to nothingness.
Because although the symbol of “Outside of the Original” had an entity from outside of the world like him as its cornerstone and was no longer an empty shell, it merely propped up the upper limit of the status, while the essence of its power depended on Lin Chuan’s own upper limit.
The power of this Sefirah nowadays mostly came from the symbol of “Nothingness”, but this symbol was on par with the symbol of division, and the Great Old One of “Nothingness” ought to return to nothingness.
This is the reason why Lin Chuan could theoretically instantly ascend to an Great Old One, but doing so was practically impossible.