Chapter 56: Even Smaller Microscopic Scales

(Insufficient drafts, only seven thousand words today)

(Evening of the 1st day of returning to the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths)

If Taiyin's conjecture was correct,

Then, as the River of Time surged forward, the blocky man remained steadfast and immovable. The waves of the river constantly battered his rigid, unchanging body, yet failed to shatter him in the slightest.

Therefore!

The past and the future would be completely subverted!

The ripples of time, persistent at every single moment, could not erase the entity altering time due to the backlash of the Heavenly Tribulation's power. Consequently, they would continuously wash backward toward the past and the future.

The tributaries extending into the future would be severed, and even the entire River of Time would be directly broken by that unyielding, immovable meteorite!

Thus, the future would cease to exist, the past would remain unchanged, and the present would stand still!

The entire River of Time would be like a Flood Dragon nailed down by a divine spear; no matter how it struggled, it would never break free!

If it could be said that the greater the karma involved, the greater the backlash from the River of Time would be,

What if this backlash were so massive that even the entire River of Time could not bear it?

Then, a possible answer emerged—

"To prevent the River of Time from experiencing violent turmoil or even being entirely severed, the power of the Heavenly Tribulation's backlash took the initiative to fill the voids within the River of Time, transforming into Fang Zheng's projection located in the past!"

"The past is filled and maintained as unchanged by projections, while the future ceases to exist, leaving only the present standing in the current era!"

"Only in this way can the destruction brought by that unyielding boulder be prevented to the greatest extent!"

Amidst such deduction, Taiyin and Taiyang faintly comprehended a certain Dao defying the heavens!

If one could grow powerful enough to span across time, forcibly gathering their past and future selves into the present while resisting the entirety of the River of Time's backlash,

Would they not become like Fang Zheng—an unchanging boulder within the River of Time?

Thus, the epochs would change while He remained unchanged, and He could even freely traverse the River of Time against the current, walking into the past and shuttling through the future, using supreme mighty force to forcibly compel the River of Time to flow according to His will?

Of course, this was merely a conjecture.

Even with the cultivation of an Ultimate Supremacy, attempting to divine the past and the future would provoke terrifying backlash and the power of Heavenly Tribulation once it involved the karma of peers at the same level.

If a powerhouse truly could achieve that step, the backlash and Heavenly Tribulation power they would face was unimaginable in its magnitude.

While the Sacred Sovereigns Taiyin and Taiyang were engrossed in their deduction, the difference in their reaction speeds led to a stark contrast in their perception of time.

Only a brief moment passed by the time they completed their deduction, while Fang Zheng was still eloquently elaborating on his viewpoints.

The more he explained, the higher his spirits rose as he continued: "I watched a popular science video before, which mentioned that the Planck time is $5.39 imes 10^{-44}$ seconds."

"And this body of mine, made of blocks, runs at 120 frames per second, with each frame lasting about 0.0083 seconds."

"From this perspective, the minimum unit of time for my bodily movement is merely 0.0083 seconds. Compared to the minuscule scale of Planck time and Planck length, the gap is simply too vast."

"Therefore, my time and space scale might be utterly incompatible with the time and space of your world."

He suddenly grew somewhat puzzled. "Logically speaking, I shouldn't be able to make contact with your world at all."

As he spoke, Fang Zheng suddenly stopped, his train of thought jamming.

Even though he had now turned into a blocky man whose arms could not wave freely and whose fingers did not even exist, he suddenly felt a sudden urge to scratch his head.

Due to his limited knowledge, he simply could not comprehend why, if his deduction was correct, he was able to make contact with the matter of this world.

Although Fang Zheng guessed that the laws of the Minecraft world and the laws of this immortal-cultivation world might merge and produce certain interactions, he could not figure out the specific principles behind it at all.

In addition, another question troubled him—

Why was it that in the future divined by Taiyin, although he himself had vanished, the blocks he left behind still existed?

According to his own logic, shouldn't he and the blocks have vanished together?

Why hadn't he himself split into different tributaries along with the fragmentation of the River of Time, while those left-behind blocks still persisted within those time tributaries?

Just as Fang Zheng's thoughts were stalled and he was completely at a loss, the Sacred Sovereign Taiyang suddenly raised a question:

"Fellow Daoist Fang Zheng, what on earth are the Planck time and Planck length you spoke of?"

"Huh? You guys actually don't understand?" Fang Zheng snapped out of his daze, looking at them in surprise.

"Oh, right, it seems you really don't. I haven't mentioned it to you before."

Realizing that he had never explained the term during their chat, how could they possibly understand its meaning?

He then explained: "Planck time is what the popular science video I watched referred to as the minimum physical unit of time and space scale."

"It was already derived through calculations of relativity back in the 20th century on Earth."

Fang Zheng suddenly grew curious. "You guys are already capable of shattering planets with a single strike; surely you must know about this. At most, the name differs from the Planck scale I mentioned, but it should refer to the same thing."

Yet, facing Fang Zheng's curiosity, the Sacred Sovereigns Taiyin and Taiyang exchanged glances, solemn expressions evident in their eyes.

The minimum physical unit of time and space scale?

Although they could roughly grasp its literal meaning from the words, they could not truly comprehend the profound implications behind it.

"You mean a most basic time unit is $5.39 imes 10^{-44}$ seconds, and humans and everything in the world are composed of such time fragments?" Seeing that they seemed not to understand, Fang Zheng quickly offered a further explanation.

However, when Fang Zheng finished his explanation, the Sacred Sovereigns Taiyin and Taiyang exchanged glances once more, their eyes filled with disbelief.

Did time and space actually possess such a thing as a minimum unit?

Weren't time and space both infinitely divisible?

Taiyin slightly furrowed his brows and muttered to himself, "The minimum time for existence has meaning is $5.39 imes 10^{-44}$ seconds?"

He gazed at Fang Zheng, looking at that dull blocky pixel face, and watching movements formed by the seamless switching of motionless, static statues. The doubt in his heart deepened.

"In Fang Zheng's understanding, are all things in the universe just a comic strip composed of such fragments?"

For cultivators, the stronger their strength, the keener their powers of observation tended to be.

The tiny particles composing ordinary matter—let alone to supreme emperors, even to those at the level of saints—were like beans in size, holding no secrets whatsoever in their eyes.

They could freely dismantle these particles and spend a certain amount of effort to recombine them, thereby using these particles as raw materials to assemble ordinary matter at will.

However, aside from these ordinary matter particles, neither spiritual Qi, sun and moon essence, blood and Qi, malevolent Qi, nor divine power could ever be constituted by the massive material particles like atoms, protons, or even quarks that Fang Zheng mentioned.

They were composed of entities far more minuscule and much closer to the essence of the universe.

The various divine materials in the universe used for refining magical treasures and weapons were likewise far from being composed of those ordinary matter particles.

Then there was the primordial spirit; once any cultivator reached a certain realm, they would increasingly understand the importance and uniqueness of the primordial spirit.

As cultivation deepened, cultivators gradually reached the state where mountains were no longer mountains and waters were no longer waters.

Their observational powers grew increasingly profound, allowing them to perceive even smaller things and unearth the power contained within them.

Just like the various "gates" containing infinite potential within the physical body, these were the best proof of a finer scale.

Just like the five major secret realms most common to cultivators: Wheel Sea, Dao Palace, Four Poles, Dragon Transformation, and Immortal Terrace.

Although referred to as physical secret realms, they did not actually exist inside the physical body in a tangible sense.

On the path of cultivation, should one encounter great fortune, a cultivator could open the "gates" within their body and release boundless potential.

Many of the acupuncture points across a cultivator's body were precisely such "gates."

Such "gates" existed in the ethereal realm, either constantly drifting within the physical body or mysteriously communicating the forces of heaven and earth from outside the body.

Taiyin knew that in the vast universe, although the secret realm method was popular, it was far from being the only path of cultivation.

There were also many rare and minor cultivation systems, many of which were excavations of different "gates."

Similarly, those "gates" containing infinite power could never be formed by ordinary material particles.

Even if one were to completely dismantle the human body, grinding its physical particles apart piece by piece, the location of the "gates" would absolutely never be found.

Furthermore, the Planck time and space scale mentioned by Fang Zheng—a mere $5.39 imes 10^{-44}$ seconds—was still far too large.

After questioning Fang Zheng in detail, Taiyin could clearly realize what kind of meaning this order of magnitude of minuscule numbers represented.

For Taiyin, as an existence who had attained the Dao and proclaimed himself emperor, he could naturally and intuitively perceive the passage of time at this magnitude.

Indeed, within the limits Taiyin could observe, both spatial and temporal scales were vastly, infinitely smaller than the Planck scale Fang Zheng described.

Moreover, beneath the limit of the observation range accessible to Taiyin, he could still ascertain that even smaller things existed there just the same.

Because the existence of the primordial spirit—or rather, the soul—was the greatest evidence that even smaller scales still persisted!

Taiyin interrupted Fang Zheng's contemplation, furrowing his brows slightly as he said, "However, Fang Zheng, beneath the Planck scale you mentioned, we are still able to observe even finer scales."

"If you believe that the world you once inhabited, whether matter or life, is composed of countless Planck-scale time fragments and space fragments, then where is the soul of the living beings in your world?"

"Huh?" Fang Zheng was suddenly startled. "Oh, right, the underlying physical rules of your immortal-cultivation world might differ from those of my hometown world."

"The minimum time and space units of your world are perhaps even smaller."