“Honkai Energy? Do you mean its ability to damage the genes of organisms unable to adapt to it, or its capacity to break down and recreate real physical phenomena?”
Hearing the name Mini Herta had come up with, the puzzled Herta assumed she had named this imaginary energy herself.
“Uh… I didn’t think that deeply about it.”
Mini Herta scratched her head.
Even she hadn’t known the name Honkai Energy could be interpreted that way.
“A name you came up with without any thought?”
“Forget it. It may not be as simple and direct as ‘energy-that-can-do-anything,’ but since it came from you, we’ll call it ‘Honkai Energy’ for now.”
Although Herta didn’t find the name sufficiently straightforward, she accepted it and extended her hand toward Mini Herta again.
“Give me some more.”
“…”
Mini Herta silently tore open a packet of Trick Snack snacks.
A moment later, Herta obtained another clump of Honkai Energy from her.
This time, Herta didn’t manipulate it with her hands.
Instead, she fixed it in midair before her.
With a wave of her hand, her key-shaped staff appeared.
It looked thoroughly magical, but its inner workings were entirely technological.
“Its properties and dangers are clear now. Next, we find its source.”
The key-shaped staff spun in Herta’s hand before she lightly tapped the gathered Honkai Energy.
In an instant, the Honkai Energy began rotating and converging toward a central point.
Then, blue bands of imaginary light poured from Herta’s key and enveloped the Honkai Energy.
After a dazzling display resembling sorcery, a transparent crystal glowing faintly white hovered in midair.
Herta beckoned gently, and the crystal floated toward her.
Just before landing in her hand, it stuttered twice, then plopped into her palm and went completely dark.
“A failure? It seems something is still missing.”
Herta frowned slightly at the dull crystal in her hand.
“What failed?”
Mini Herta was baffled.
She couldn’t tell what Herta had done at all.
All she knew was that Herta had created something resembling a glass Gem.
“They possess the property of mutual attraction. I wanted to use that to create an imaginary singularity and determine the exact imaginary coordinates of their source space.”
“As you can see, some conditions are still missing, so it failed. Consider it a half-finished product.”
“Hup~”
Mini Herta caught it, then continued asking,
“Imaginary coordinates? Doesn’t all imaginary energy come from Imaginary Space? Why would it need imaginary coordinates?”
“Who told you Imaginary Space was a single, unified space?”
“Huh?”
Mini Herta tilted her head, utterly confused.
“Listen carefully. The material universe we inhabit, which our bodies can directly perceive—including space and time—is composed of extended dimensions. In other words, real-number space.”
Herta raised a hand, and a cube formed from blue lines appeared in her palm, containing a projection of a miniature Herta.
“Conversely, all compactified dimensions that we cannot perceive constitute Imaginary Space.”
As Herta finished speaking, another cube appeared directly beside the first.
Chaotic gray matter flowed within it.
“Imaginary Space itself holds no meaning. Space and time can be regarded as nonexistent there. It is only given meaning when its energy flows into real space, or when real entities or information enter it.”
The projected miniature Herta stepped out of her cube and into the chaotic cube Herta used to represent Imaginary Space.
In an instant, the chaotic matter transformed into ground made of red flowing sand, and the miniature Herta stood firmly upon it.
“Like the concept of a Path?”
Mini Herta raised her little hand as she asked.
“Clever.”
Herta praised her, then expanded on Mini Herta’s example.
“The concept of a Path holds no meaning by itself. It is given meaning only by the Pathstriders who practice its concept, the Aeons who blaze that Path, and the corresponding phenomena that exist.”
“Therefore, within the Imaginary Space known as the realm between Paths, Paths whose concepts do not intersect each occupy mutually independent Imaginary Spaces. The imaginary energy of every Path also originates from a different ‘Path coordinate.'”
Cube after cube appeared.
They stood beside one another, yet remained separated by blue lines.
“The singularities that connect these special Imaginary Spaces to reality and allow their energy to flow out are known as ‘imaginary singularities.’ Every Pathstrider is a living ‘singularity’ for their corresponding Path.”
Lines extended from the different cubes and connected to the cube representing reality.
A small figure appeared at one end of each line, representing a Pathstrider.
“So an imaginary singularity is a passage connected to a corresponding Imaginary Space, one that can directly obtain the corresponding imaginary energy from it?!”
‘Isn’t that just a Herrscher Core from Honkai Impact 3rd?!’
Mini Herta looked at the ‘glass’ Gem in her hand and blinked her mechanical eyes.
In terms of appearance, the only difference between the glass Gem in her hand and those Herrscher Cores was that this one was transparent and didn’t glow.
Looking at this half-finished Herrscher Core, she once again understood just how incredible the word ‘genius’ was in the universe of Honkai: Star Rail.
Herta had attempted to create a Herrscher Core by hand simply to locate the Imaginary Space coordinates corresponding to this particular imaginary energy.
Only a genius like Herta would dare conceive of such a thing, much less put it into practice.
Even if she had only managed to create a half-finished product.
At the same time, Herta’s explanation helped her understand why the protagonist could spend so long in the realm between Paths, only for a single instant to have passed upon returning to reality.
Time itself didn’t exist within the realm between Paths, as it was part of Imaginary Space.
Only when the protagonist’s time-perceiving consciousness entered did time begin to pass according to his subjective perception.
“All right. That’s enough of this pointless lesson and time-killing experiment.”
Herta waved her hand, and all the cubes she had projected vanished.
She then warned Mini Herta,
“Remember, Honkai Energy is extremely dangerous. Avoid releasing it into the air whenever possible. If you must, at least make sure every living person nearby is a Pathstrider. Such a tiny amount of your energy won’t affect them.”
As she spoke, Herta walked toward the laboratory doors.
“Okay.”
Mini Herta nodded, then called out to Herta’s retreating back.
“Where are you going?”
“The records of Nous’s algorithms that you provided should have been decoded by now. I’m going to see the results.”
Herta stopped and looked back at the unmoving Mini Herta.
“What are you standing there for? Hurry up and follow me!”
“I’m going too?”
Mini Herta pointed at herself.
“Who else?”
“All right.”
Mini Herta put away the failed Herrscher Core and followed Herta.
Before long, Mini Herta followed Herta into her office—the room that served as the entrance to the Simulated Universe in the game.
There, she also saw the projection of a familiar character standing before the Simulated Universe.
Genius Society member #76, the Intellitron Monarch and ruler of Planet Screwllum—Screwllum.
★ ★ ★
T/N: If you spot mistranslation, do tell me!