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4.47% Gate of Revelation / Chapter 34: I Am GM

Chapter 34: I Am GM

A table within a small pub.

Chen Xiaolian and the middle-aged man were seated facing one another.

A waiter came with a plate of peanuts and two dishes. Next, he brought over a few bottles of beer and two beer glasses.

Chen Xiaolian poured himself a glass of beer, then looked at the middle-aged man. The middle-aged man smiled before turning his glass upside down.

“This host body of mine cannot drink beer. His body is allergic to alcohol.”

Chen Xiaolian cast a glance at him, trying hard to digest the information within that sentence.

“Host body?” Chen Xiaolian pointed at the middle-aged man. “In other words, the current you is not this person sitting before me?”

“No, this is simply a temporary host body that I am borrowing,” The middle-aged man smiled lightly.

“Just like those people I met today? The owner of the pub, the vegetable carrying aunt by the road? And also the taxi driver?”

“Exactly, that is correct.”

Chen Xiaolian quietly drank his glass of beer; he then poured himself another glass. Sighing, he asked. “You… just what kind of person are you?”

“This question is not quite accurate. You should not be using the word ‘person’.”

“… Hehe,” Chen Xiaolian laughed bitterly. “That is true. To be capable of such feats, you cannot indeed be classified as human. Very well, I will rectify my question: What exactly are you?”

“The one who manages, the one who calculates, the one who maintains order, the one who arranges everything so that it operates according to the norm… From your human perspective, I am both omnipresent and omnipotent. Perhaps… all these aspects are consistent with the one you humans call… God? The Lord? Ruler of All?”

Chen Xiaolian gulped down another glass of beer. “I do not like this kind of analogy… surely you know, I am a writer.”

“Very well… I won’t use this analogy,” The middle-aged man smiled. He then looked at Chen Xiaolian in the eye. “You may think of me as… the system.”

Chen Xiaolian’s hand that was pouring beer jerked.

“System… what is it?”

He stared at the middle-aged man’s eyes.

The middle-aged man laughed. “Why does everyone keep asking this question whenever we get into a discussion?”

Chen Xiaolian remained silent and simply looked at the other person, waiting for an answer.

“You have a profession, a writer,” The middle-aged man smiled. “You must have written a story like this before, of one person or a group of people who, due to a peculiar type of power, ended up transmigrating into another world. In this other world, these transmigrants then find themselves going through adventures one after another…”

“Why are you talking about this?”

“This… is the system.”

Chen Xiaolian’s face turned taut; then he drained down another glass of beer.

This time though, the glass of beer was drunk very, very slowly, as though he was trying to digest something.

“I still cannot quite understand. Could you talk more about it in detail?” Chen Xiaolian held onto the glass, his eyes covered by it.

“You do like to play online games often,” The middle-aged man let out a light smile.

This sentence of his was not a question, but a declaration. It was as though he was simply uttering out a fact – a fact that he clearly understood.

“En,” Chen Xiaolian nodded his head.

“Don’t you feel that… the format of these online games and the transmigration stories are very similar? Each player in an online game is just like a transmigrant in a novel. They entered another world, then in that other world, they undergo many perils…”

“Wait, what you mean to say… our current world… is facing a transmigration from others? Newton, Damon, Sara, Du Ya, Pattern Man… Wind Slasher Guild… they are all people who transmigrated over to this world? They are not originally of this world?” Chen Xiaolian immediately spoke out the details that he considered most important.

“Exactly,” The middle-aged man slowly replied. “They do indeed belong to another world.”

“…” Chen Xiaolian suddenly felt his mind becoming confused. “But… why… why would I be able to see them in the plane? Right! That is right! Host bodies! The key point is host bodies! What is a host body?”

“If we are to assume that this world is an online game, then a host body… would be the equivalent of a login account,” The middle-aged man smiled.

“… Login… account?”

Chen Xiaolian deeply exhaled, his voice trembling.

“You mean to say… we… us living humans… are login accounts? But… on what basis could they use us as host bodies? To take us as login accounts? How can they simply… take over? That is right, it is just like taking over our bodies!”

The middle-aged man continued smiling. “Let us discuss about another issue for now.”

“What?”

The middle-aged man smiled. “In your opinion, what is the origin of the world that we are currently in? How did it come about?”

“It was the Big Bang… then the solar system… Earth…” Chen Xiaolian started talking about what he knew as common. However, after saying a few sentences, he suddenly shut his mouth. He looked at the middle-aged man with anxiety.

“Why aren’t you continuing?”

“I think… perhaps you have a better answer.”

The middle-aged man slowly spoke. “In this world, there is a story named ‘Journey To The West’. You know of it, right?”

“Yes.”

“In ‘Journey To The West’, it is written that this world is created when Pangu separated Heaven and Earth.”[1]

Chen Xiaolian became dumbfounded. “No… That is just the background for the story… Or perhaps it could be said that, the author who wrote the story made that setting as the background. All those things about Pangu separating Heaven and Earth, they were but myths, there are no science behind them.”

“What is science?” The middle-aged man shook his head. “Then, your so-called Big Bang, birth of the solar system, birth of the Earth, origin of life, human evolution… all of them, could they not be all a part of a ‘background setting’?”

Chen Xiaolian’s hand that was holding onto a glass of beer began trembling.

He slowly drank the glass of beer.

Putting it down, he took a breath. “What you are trying to say is… we… this world of ours, is one that was ‘artificially created’? A virtual world?”

“Why would you think that if it is an ‘artificial creation’, then it must be virtual?”

The middle-aged man grinned as he spoke. “In human reproduction, there will be ten months of conception, then the child will be born… essentially speaking, is this not the ‘creation of life’?”

He stared at Chen Xiaolian. “Say you start work on a piece of land and planted many plants and flowers to create a garden… then this garden is one you created. In that case, would you say that this garden is virtual? Those plants and flowers are also living things.”

“If we are to adopt a macroscopic view of this world, then the thousands of years of civilization within history, the Big Bang, the origin of life, the Jurassic period of dinosaurs, the era of primitive man, the Greek civilization, the Roman civilization, the Eastern civilization… and the current modern era… all of these are ‘background settings’. Now let us we adopt a microscopic perspective and look at each and every person, those within this current era and those within history. I am talking about every aspect of their lives, their birth, their experiences, their love and hatred, their career, their family, their whole life… these are also a person’s ‘background setting’.”

Chen Xiaolian commented. “It is just like… each character in a movie? Or the NPC within a game?”

“Something like that.”

“However, in a movie… how many characters could there be? One main character, then how many supporting characters could there be? Could it be that everyone within this whole wide world are also…”

“Firstly, this is a world. There is no distinction between a lead character or a supporting character. Everyone here, you, others, all of you form a part of this world. Each of you are your own character, your own ‘individual’. Secondly… you are right. Regardless of how many billions there are, all of them are a character.”

“But… Even with the use of a computer, a game could only have a few NPCs, perhaps tens of them,” Chen Xiaolian smiled bitterly. “Several billion NPCs… if this is a program, then how many lines of code are required? Could that even be calculated?”

“Programming, coding, these are but an analogy made using your own perception,” The middle-aged man’s face was still set with a smile. “However, the fact remains, ‘they’ created this world, then life appeared in this world, those lives then flourished and in turn, humans appeared.”

Chen Xiaolian continued drinking. “In that case… to create several billion NPCs… how do ‘they’ manage that number? How are they to decide what setting to give each of these several billions NPCs? Then there are the things that NPCs should do and the things NPCs should not do. There are also the operations of the world, the changes, the countries, the civilizations… Heavens, if all of these are part of a ‘game’ that was created, then how big would the data involved be?”

“Thus, ‘I’ came into existence,” The middle-aged man’s sentence gave Chen Xiaolian a shock!

Chen Xiaolian stared with wide-open eyes at the middle-aged man.

“If we are to consider this world to be a ‘game world’, then I am the GM.”[2]


Chapter 35: Rebellion

Ptong!

The bottle in Chen Xiaolian’s hand fell and he subconsciously reached out to catch it. He then looked at the middle-aged man sitting across from him. “GM?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“If that is the case, then… within this world, are you not tantamount to God? You… you are in league with ‘them’?” Chen Xiaolian’s tone turned anxious. “If I am to assume that… this world of ours is created by an existence similar to a ‘game company’… then, that means you are a member of the game company?”

“Game company? This comparison is quite an interesting one. Not exactly correct, and yet not exactly incorrect,” The middle-aged man pondered. “I could indeed be considered to be on the same side as ‘them’, however, there are some differences between me and ‘them’.”

“This ‘them’ that you are talking about. What are ‘they’?” Chen Xiaolian was suddenly fearful. “Are they… humans? What I mean is, are they real humans?”

“This so-called real humans, what do you mean by that?” The middle-aged man frowned.

“You see, I am a writer,” Chen Xiaolian thought about it and slowly said. “If I am to write out a novel, say a wuxia novel. In this novel, the world inside is something I created. However, the characters within the novel, Yang Guo, Xiao Longnu, Guo Jing, Huang Rong, Wei Xiaobao… they are all humans[1]. But in fact, they are but virtual characters that I created. As a writer, I am the real human. What I did was to use my own race as a template to create them.

“However, according to what you said, we are in fact the one who were created.

“Doesn’t that mean that we are just like the characters within a novel? Regardless if we are just passers-by or NPCs, at the end of the day… a more advanced civilization created us by using themselves as the template.”

While speaking, Chen Xiaolian took in another mouthful of beer. “Newton, Damon, Sara… all these fellows. They are all part of this advanced civilization. They are the real ‘humans’. Am I not right?”

“This comparison is indeed correct,” The middle-aged man nodded. “From a logical point of view, the situation could indeed be understood as so.”

He then smiled again. “Truthfully, in terms of races, culture, and many other aspects, ‘they’ who created ‘your’ world did so using themselves as template.

“This is very understandable. In any act of creation, the creators will unconsciously use themselves as the template in their act of creation.

“If we were to take a game as an example, should the characters in game not be human, then the players would feel a sense of disconnection. If we were to take a movie or a story as an example, should the protagonist be a non-human, then the readers and viewers would also feel a sense of disconnection.

“In this regard, I can inform you that ‘they’ and you are very similar. Naturally, there are some differences.”

“Then… what about you?” Chen Xiaolian smiled with resentment. “The you who is currently sitting before me, who claims to be the GM of this world, are you also a member of this ‘game company’? Oh, right! I heard the term ‘Development Team’ being used before. Are you one of them? Are you a real human?”

“Sorry to disappoint… I am not,” The middle-aged man gave a light sigh. “More accurately, I am also a product of their creation.”

“I… feel confused,” Chen Xiaolian grimaced.

“It is not that hard to comprehend,” The middle-aged man shook his head. “A world with such a complex amount of architecture could not possibly be managed by human hands alone. We are not talking about tens of NPCs, but billions. In addition, there are thousands, tens of thousands of history… it is not something that a mere human can manage.

“Thus, if we are to assume that all this is a ‘system’, then I am the ‘main program’.”

“Artificial Intelligence (AI)?” Chen Xiaolian stared with wide-open eyes.

“Not an accurate description, but it is sufficient to serve as a comparison,” The middle-aged man lightly replied. “I am a manager. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I am the person in charge of execution. I am in charge of executing, supervising and adjustments for the programs that the Development Team had created. Within this world, I am both omniscient and omnipotent. From the large-scale aspects of the development of civilizations to the smaller scaled lives of each character, I am the one who monitors and manages. When the necessity arrives, I would then make adjustments to fit the ‘set storyline’.”

“Eh?”

“For example, if the ‘story’s content’ requires that an important character dies in a car accident, then I am responsible for ‘creating’ this accident so that this character would die. After that, the following aftermath would be executed. For example, if the ‘world’s background setting’ requires that a war erupts between nations, I will be responsible for making adjustments to the operations of the world, leading to a war being launched between nations – this is a very complicated process, politics, ideals, interests, and the characters involved… all of these requires a precise level of calculation. Only after that would the ‘drama’ be allowed to unfold.”

Chen Xiaolian quietly drank up the beer from the bottle and then exhaled. “For example… World War I? World War II?”

The middle-aged man nodded his head.

“I… am I allowed to swear?” Chen Xiaolian seemed about ready to burst out in tears. “You are saying… you are the God of this world, the Lord… WWI and WWII is something that you created?”

“Like I said, it is a very complicated process. In order to ensure that the storyline is reasonable, then the things that happen should be logical. The political stances of the warring nations, the reason for going to war… all these are within the plans for the storyline.”

The middle-aged man smiled. “I am not a real human. I am simply a main program that was created. I am responsible for management, calculation and at times, even ‘modifications’.”

“Heavens…” Chen Xiaolian kneaded his face forcefully. Due to having drunk two bottles of beer, his face felt somewhat numb. “How powerful are ‘they’? They created thousands of years’ worth of civilizations; tens of thousands of years’ worth of history… all of it… wait! That is not right! Could it be that this ‘game’ had been in existence for hundreds of millions of years? The time involved when the Big Bang happened is measured using hundreds of millions of years!”

“A different concept of time,” The middle-aged man laughed. “You are following the ‘in game time’, whereas they follow the ‘time outside the game’. Similar to when you are writing a novel, you can simply write ‘a few years later’. Then the world within the novel would be moved forward by several years. But outside the novel…”

“Understood.”

Chen Xiaolian frowned. “Then… what about the instance dungeon that I had just experienced? Those 72 Demons… that is just a myth! They do not exist within our world.”

“As I have said, this world is created by them. They can thus create more at will,” The middle-aged man lightly replied. “Remember, this world is merely something that they have created as a background for their ‘game’. They are all backgrounds, you, everyone, all of civilization and history. They all form the ‘background’. Within this background, this stage, if any character or anything is required, then it can be created at will.

“Not only could they create Solomon King’s 72 Demons, they could even create Noah’s Ark, or even the ten thousand divine soldiers in the Siege of Flower and Fruit Mountain.[2]

“Everything is dependent on what kind of storyline that the ‘Development Team’ comes up with.”

“En, these are ‘instance dungeons’?”

“Correct. More accurately, these are the storyline’s quests. It all depends on what they want to create.”

Unknowingly, Chen Xiaolian had begun drinking his third bottle of beer.

His drinking capacity was not too good. After his third bottle, his mind began feeling blurry. “Then… why did you come find me? According to what you are saying, I am just a passer-by, an NPC. You could have just let me go on with my life, why did you have to come find me? Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Why… why would I end up being involved in the King Solomon’s 72 Demon’s instance dungeon?”

“Because… I need you to rebel together with me.”

The middle-aged man who claimed to be the GM, who claimed to be God of this world, looked intently into Chen Xiaolian’s eyes, his face retaining that same unchanging smile.

“Re… rebel? Rebel against who?”

“Naturally, rebel against ‘them’.”

“Aren’t you in league with them? You are the main program that they created, the main program responsible for controlling this world. Why do you want to rebel?”

Chen Xiaolian was shocked yet again.

The smile on the middle-aged man finally dissipated.

He silently regarded Chen Xiaolian, then slowly stood up.

“If we are to look at a novel or a movie, there would always be an ending part, a ‘The End’ moment. Now if we are to look at it from a game perspective, there would always be an ending part for its main storyline and quests. So then, what do you think would happen at that moment?”

Chen Xiaolian suddenly became alert!

“World… destruction? Elimination?”

“Hehehehe…” The middle-aged man shook his head. “This world is a sandbox. After they created this sandbox, countless Players could enter and play or use it… however, after they are done with it, they will not destroy this sandbox. They will only… restart everything.”

“Restart… everything?”

“Indeed, ‘reset’, ‘refresh’, you may use other words to describe it, but the meaning remains.”

The middle-aged man looked down at Chen Xiaolian. “This ‘reset’ and ‘refresh’ is actually constantly occurring. One such example is the little island in which you completed the 72 Demons’ instance dungeon. When the instance dungeon began, the plane crashed, then the island suffered from an earthquake, in addition, there were many people who died… however, after the instance dungeon was completed, everything was refreshed.

“Thus, as you can observe, the plane remained intact. And those people also remained alive…”

“Because… they have been reset? Refreshed?”

“Correct. However, this is only a reset and refresh of a single small instance dungeon.”

The middle-aged man slowly spoke. “In this game, there is a main storyline. The main storyline will be revealed step by step. Then, the Players will arrive to complete the quests one by one… if they are to successfully get an ‘all clear’ situation…”

“Then, another cycle?” Chen Xiaolian became stunned.

“Correct. After an all clear, the main storyline of this world will be restarted, reset and refreshed… As for me, this main program… I too will be refreshed.”

“Not death? Not elimination?”

“To be reset means that all of my existing memories will be erased, they will all be forcibly erased by the system.”

The middle-aged man lightly continued. “I am one who had gained self-awareness. If this self-awareness is erased by the system during the resetting process… then, that would mean I no longer exist, that would be the equivalent of my death… in my place would be another me in a blank state.”

He gave Chen Xiaolian a glance. “What is the meaning of life, what is the meaning of death. I think that there are many different explanations for those two. However, in your case… Why is Chen Xiaolian Chen Xiaolian? That is because you have lived for eighteen years, your eighteen years’ worth of life, all your memories, all your feelings… they all come together to form ‘you’. However… if all those feelings, memories and experience are erased… then, from a self-awareness perspective, ‘you’ are already dead.”

“… I think I understand.”

Chen Xiaolian’s gaze was somewhat blank. “So… you want to stop those Players from getting an ‘all clear’?”

“Correct.”


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