Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 366 - 012. My World

Chapter 366: 012. My World

This time he miscalculated.

Originally, Li Aozi thought these subjects wouldn’t be too difficult, as they were supposed to be basic-level knowledge. With his experience, getting the knowledge to bachelor-level proficiency should have been easy.

Bachelor-level proficiency indicated that one had already mastered a subject, officially transitioning out of the elementary, intermediate, and advanced stages into practical application.

Typically, regardless of the exam, bachelor-level was sufficient. At least, Li Aozi estimated that passing the Magic Aptitude Test should be very secure.

Only at the master level would knowledge begin to enjoy attribute bonuses, which temporarily didn’t mean much.

However, three advanced books and one professional book unexpectedly came up, and all his accumulated experience was quickly depleted.

"The ’Basic Principles of Magic Construction,’ ’Rune Formula Study,’ and the elective subjects all fall under the knowledge of ’Universal Magic,’ benefiting from the Tanas People’s talent with a speed bonus in learning."

Li Aozi pondered for a moment, flipping through the textbooks, and finally discovered: "A Brief History of Magic" needed to be memorized.

——So it was a purely literary subject, that wasn’t an issue then.

Li Aozi promptly dumped all his experience into the other four courses. His current experience accumulation was enough to push all four subjects to advanced proficiency.

Because of the professional-level knowledge in ’Rune Formula Study,’ Li Aozi’s experience was directly bottomed out. At least until the players paid rent next month, he had to manage with the bit of experience provided in his asceticism status.

"I just hope, for the next month, I don’t encounter any fights."

Li Aozi prayed silently. He didn’t have a main profession now, and if he encountered someone difficult, it would be too terrible.

As for "A Brief History of Magic," he decided to memorize it himself.

That way, Li Aozi estimated he should be able to get into a decent academy, at least ensuring he could securely get into a university instead of a Magic Workshop.

Scheduling for the Magic Aptitude Test had to be done personally. Li Aozi used the information crystal to select the nearest city and then began to bury himself in memorization.

Though basically secure to pass the undergraduate threshold, Li Aozi still formulated a rigorous review plan for himself, seriously delving into the study of magic.

A long time ago, Li Aozi realized that the knowledge he was learning in this life had a traceable logic and system, unlike the mere ’entries’ in his past life.

The Pathway of the Meteor Fall Master was much like that of a Magician, with much knowledge sharing and being universal. Although not as best fitting as the Architect, many players were still willing to make Magician their secondary profession, mainly because it allowed them to learn a wealth of knowledge in the early stages.

Li Aozi had once learned a lot of knowledge and mastered a lot of Arcane Energy, but he had never understood what those things truly were.

He learned it, met the system’s requirements, completed the reading bar, mastered it, and unlocked new skills.

That was all there was to it.

Players couldn’t create skills by themselves, couldn’t customize the trends of skill changes, and couldn’t innovate using the knowledge they learned.

They didn’t know what the Lorecini Coefficient specifically was, what formula to use to derive the black hole radiation from the Meteor Fall Technique, or how the anomalous Boson rays specifically operated, yet they used the knowledge backing these constructs with ease.

It was just ’knowing how’ without ’knowing why,’ and players waited for the reading bar to finish, at which point they would receive a certification to release the skill.

But after Li Aozi came into contact with it, he increasingly felt that this world was incredibly real.

Saying it like this felt odd, after all, he had already been transported to the game world for half a year... What it should be said was that the magic theories he now mastered, along with the physics and biochemistry, all perfectly aligned with the rules of this world.

——And they also aligned with the rules of the real world in his previous life.

"Thinking like this, perhaps the ’Cognition Filter’ embedded in the game system is not just to protect players from mental harm."

Li Aozi pondered as he read the book.

Maybe it was due to the large boost in Intelligence, but his thoughts became incredibly broad and active, and he began to summarize details he never paid attention to before.

Did Qiqiao Network, a company specializing in games and information technology, not know the importance of internal voice communication?

Was it that they didn’t take it seriously, or did they think it was too difficult to implement?

Why could players only experience death three times a day per character? And why were the characters always recruited from local NPCs?

The cognition filter didn’t just filter out pain, blood, and inappropriate scenes; it also filtered out their knowledge.

Yes...

According to the knowledge Li Aozi currently grasped, if players truly mastered and learned the information of those skills, they could use magic in the real world as well.

Qiqiao Network almost had no professional game planners, but it had long been known that those play-testers were replaced with severe criminals, alongside numerous cases of sudden deaths from overwork...

Were they really dying from overwork or were they being dealt with for mastering information they shouldn’t have mastered?

A game that split players into electronic immigrants and normal players, with military supervision of game production sent by various governments.

"Damn it... The more I think about this, the more ridiculous it seems."

Li Aozi dared not continue thinking. Nonetheless, his high Intelligence led him to reason out a coherent logic.

——Starry Abyss was fundamentally not a game world, it was truly a real world.

"Without applying cognition filters to players, the game could mass-produce Transcendents because the rules of the real world and the game are interconnected!"

Qiqiao Network was fundamentally a disguise.

Li Aozi realized that with only 84 Intelligence, he managed to reason so many things. The cognition filters were likely filtering out not just knowledge but also their Intelligence as players.

He always thought Intelligence was useless, but now it seemed the game completely shielded the impact of high Intelligence on players’ gaming experience.

The game itself was just a guise.

"Starry Abyss was a real world... at least in terms of physical principles, identical to the real world."

Li Aozi thought of this and felt somewhat at a loss.

If he hadn’t been transported to the game world, where did the players come from?

Players crossed spacetime, directly entering the other world. They used the bodies of local people for entertainment, play, consumption, and combat. They resembled the native inhabitants but weren’t entirely the same, possessed the Pretender mode, couldn’t fully integrate, needing to develop slowly following the game progression, and were restricted by game versions.

This sounded similar to something.

Li Aozi felt a sense of familiarity but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

"In any case, I truly crossed over, arriving in this era, in this universe."

Li Aozi didn’t dwell on the questions of ’Why me?’ ’Who am I?’ or ’How do I get back?’

Thinking about why one crossed over was meaningless and only added vexation. As for ’Who am I’—he was Li Aozi, merged with the memories and consciousness of Li Zi, Leo, perfectly fitting into this current universe.

Return?

Li Aozi had never considered going back.

This was his stage.