Chapter 252
Chapter 252
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 252
Chapter Title: A Different Sky (2)
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Mark looked back and forth between Shirone and Iruki, buzzing with excitement.
“Shirone's got the advantage, right? Right?”
“It's about even. If this keeps up, Pascal will overload. If he can hold out until then, the match will be back to square one. Dante will have lost his strongest weapon.”
Mark was so happy he could cry.
Just a moment ago, he had thought Shirone's defeat was a foregone conclusion. He had even been thinking it was incredible enough just to fight on equal footing with Dante, the kingdom's most promising talent.
But Shirone had turned the tables as if to prove him wrong.
“That's Shirone for you. Does this mean he's surpassed Dante in information processing, too?”
Iruki didn't answer.
When Mark turned with a puzzled look, all the seniors sitting in a row were watching the duel with serious expressions.
Iruki kept stroking his chin.
It was true that Shirone had seen through Dante's system, but he couldn't figure out how it was possible.
If Dante's automaton were something so easily analyzed, Shirone wouldn't have struggled from the beginning.
Amy gave up trying to figure it out and asked.
“How did he analyze the pattern? Honestly, I don't even know how Dante's automaton functions. I can't even begin to guess. Nade, what about you?”
“Same here. It's not that it's complicated, but the system is just too massive. It's like trying to picture an elephant by only seeing its leg.”
Amy thought Nade's analogy was perfect.
“Exactly. It's not a system designed just for Shirone. Its range of application is incredibly wide depending on the opponent, so how could Shirone read the whole thing?”
Iruki proposed a hypothesis.
“It might not be mathematical.”
Mark tilted his head.
“Not mathematical? Then what is it?”
Iruki frowned, searching for the right word.
“Intuition... I guess?”
“In-intuition? You mean like a gut feeling?”
Mark was baffled. Dante's system was the pinnacle of cutting-edge information magic. If you could understand such a system with a gut feeling, why would anyone need to struggle through life?
But Iruki was serious. No matter how he thought about it, that seemed closest to the truth, and it wasn't something as simple as Mark imagined.
“Intuition isn't some kind of superstition. It's more like an evolved form of inductive reasoning.”
You don't need to count the eyes of every person in the world to prove that humans have two eyes.
Most people are certain humans have two eyes because their family and friends don't have three.
Amy said.
“Shirone's insight is transcendent. He can understand the whole with only a small amount of data. But even that has its limits. He still needs to gather a certain amount of information.”
Iruki said.
“But there are exceptions. I'm talking about the quality of the data. You can't imagine an elephant by just seeing its leg, but if you've assembled its skeleton, you can predict its general shape.”
Nade also saw the truth in Iruki's words.
“Shirone must have collected special information that could only be obtained by risking his life to infiltrate Dante's system. He analyzed the entire system based on that information.”
Mark recalled something Headmaster Alpheas always said. Insight is faster than effort and more accurate than knowledge. If Dante had the ability to read channels, Shirone had the insight to pierce through all things.
Every time Shirone moved, the Number Two Thousand bracelet heated up. It was said to have a safety feature, but wearing it continuously felt like it would cause a first-degree burn.
Dante was horrified to see Shirone survive for over five minutes inside the Pascal system.
It was an automaton that could overwhelm any opponent with firepower within five seconds once it locked on.
It was the very heart of a hell manifested by the system.
A normal person would be paralyzed with fear, yet he was moving around as if it were his own private playground.
*'Why? Why isn't he wavering?'*
Insight, as the ultimate form of inductive reasoning, doesn't provide a 100 percent accurate answer. Therefore, it's highly likely to cause anxiety about an uncertain future.
But Shirone didn't lose his composure. His was the mental fortitude of the Adamantine Form, unchanging in any situation.
As Pascal began to overload, Dante felt a sting in his nose. If he kept this up, he would self-destruct along with the magic circle.
But he didn't stop.
The first defeat of his life awaited him at the bottom of the cliff. The blade in his heart had sharpened with each victory, and a single loss would be enough for that blade to cut him down.
*'I absolutely cannot lose!'*
Instead, Dante increased Pascal's processing speed.
As he stepped into an unknown world he had never experienced, another wall crumbled, and an astonishing world unfolded.
The light of the Pascal magic circle blazed intensely, and the speed of the mansions increased even more.
A long procession of binary numbers flowed through his mind like a torrent, chipping away at his brain.
The change in Pascal was immediately noticed by the students. Functions that had been at least two tempos slower than Shirone were now catching up to his speed.
Dante was certain.
*'I can do it! I can still do more!'*
Pascal didn't need to process everything in parallel. If it focused on the most critical calculations, its localized functions could be enhanced several times over.
*'Start with Slow Mansion. Then Fire, Bolt, and Press, in that order.'*
Dante prioritized specific addresses among the cells listed in Pascal's memory. It was like jumping from the 352nd operation to the 2,987th. When he finally reached the stage of traversing from one end to the other in a single leap, a deafening roar erupted from the Pascal magic circle.
*'This is it! This is what I wanted!'*
Dante felt the freedom of his consciousness slipping away.
He could no longer see Shirone, nor could he hear the sounds of cannon fire from the battlefield. Only an infinite procession of 1s and 0s, passing at electrical speed, filled his mind.
Olivia trembled with emotion.
*'Dante...'*
She knew he would overcome his limits someday. She hadn't expected the catalyst to be a student of Alpheas, but it didn't matter.
Having reached the realm of local computation, Dante had achieved growth as astonishing as a chrysalis turning into a butterfly.
“Ouch.”
Dante lifted the finger that had been pressing down on the ant. The ant, which had been biting his index finger, struggled and then fell to the ground.
Olivia glanced at the ant on the ground and asked.
“Oh dear. It looks like you were bitten. Does it hurt much?”
“Haha! It's okay. This happens all the time.”
Dante put his finger in his mouth, sucking on it while he watched the ant. Ant number 1111, having lost its purpose, seemed to realize its kingdom had collapsed and spun in place, not knowing what to do.
“All the channels are connected. If one specific channel is cut, everything collapses. But...”
Dante gently picked up the frantic ant and surveyed the chaotic state of the kingdom. After observing carefully, he placed number 1111 somewhere, and stability gradually began to return, centered on that spot.
Dante didn't stop there; he placed several more ants at key points. The sight of the kingdom, once on the brink of ruin, rapidly rebuilding into a solid system filled Olivia with wonder.
“Hehe! Sorry, ants.”
Dante looked up at Olivia and smiled brightly.
“It's okay now.”
Olivia smiled back at Dante. She gazed into the boy's clear, transparent eyes as if trying to unearth something, and finally made a decision.
“Dante, would you like to learn magic?”
That was the day the bond between Olivia and Dante began.
From that day on, Olivia never once doubted that Dante would become the kingdom's greatest mage.
He wasn't just a machine that processed information. He was a human being, fully capable of breaking through any limit.
Shirone was certainly a remarkable child, but no one in the same class could defeat the Dante who had now overcome his wall.
“Grrrgh...!”
Dante struggled with all his might to maintain his consciousness. His information processing speed was accelerating to a level he had never experienced in his life.
The magic spewing from the 86 mansions now spread in all directions, rendering direction itself meaningless.
The slightest misjudgment from Shirone would end the match, and now even the students couldn't predict who would win.
Dante's mental energy was rapidly depleting, but Shirone was also chaining together over two thousand teleports.
*'Damn it! Why? Why can't I hit him?'*
Dante was dumbfounded.
Even though he had pushed Pascal's functions to their absolute limit, Shirone was still moving through the system. It was clear that Shirone's thoughts were accelerating to match the gear Dante had shifted into.
Dante's five senses were completely open, to the point where he couldn't distinguish between visual and auditory information.
It was an incredible experience.
As information about Shirone mixed together, he felt a sense of unity, as if his mind and body had become one.
*'Damn it! This is the last thing I want to experience with another guy!'*
Regardless of his feelings, Dante experienced a supreme sense of exhilaration. His reaction speed reached a level he had never before achieved, and all information about Shirone broke down into signals and flooded into him.
The two were having a conversation of existence. A raw communion, devoid of lies or truths. At that point, Shirone and Dante shuddered. Flashes of light exploded in their vision, as if they had become electricity itself.
The dialogue between the ultimate talents of induction and deduction was conveyed to all who watched, taking the form of magic. The students watched the battle between the two without even blinking.
Combat is a clash. But right now, the two of them looked as if they were dancing. A dance blended with all sorts of magic and knowledge.
Alpheas smiled.
“One must travel a long and winding road to know what is right. Only after being certain, then denying it, and then being certain again can the spirit inhabit the body. It is fine to struggle as you please. After all, are you not under a different sky?”
Olivia's gaze grew calm.
The combat simulation system, Number Two Thousand, was a place for students to experience real combat and a stage to display their superiority.
But was that what its developer, Jacobin, had intended?
Perhaps he had given the students the freedom to fail as they pleased.
Olivia clenched the fists resting on her knees.
Alpheas's philosophy was certainly correct. But she didn't want to compromise, not after coming this far. Once a battle begins, only the victor is recorded in history. Dante had to win. He had to be the student she prided herself on as the best of her teaching career.
The information exchange between Shirone and Dante reached an extreme level, and the students spun their unbearably hot bracelets.
86 mansions and a single streak of light.
Watching the hundreds of information exchanges per second created by that combination made the world feel like it was spinning.
Maria's eyes grew moist. Talent that transcended the human realm. When two people possessing such talent clashed, it created this absurd spectacle.
“Dante... he's truly incredible.”
Mark turned with a surprised expression. He'd expected Maria to be cheering for Shirone, of course. Even setting personal feelings aside, the incident where she was humiliated by Dante's group was surely unforgettable.
“Maria, what are you talking about?”
“This duel... it will probably be recorded in history.”
Mark realized something and fell silent. Just as Maria said, the duel between Shirone and Dante had surpassed the level of a mere practice session.
“I used to hate competition so much.”
Mark knew. Hadn't she failed to operate the bridge mechanism, unable to bear the pressure of competition?
“But now... I think it's a truly wonderful world. Shirone was just a genius. Someone you could just look up to without a second thought. But Dante is making that same Shirone fight with everything he has.”
Mark looked at Maria with a pang of pity. Her feelings seeped into him, heart-wrenchingly poignant.
He felt the same way. But he couldn't let himself think that. If he went that far, he would never be able to get back up.
Maria lowered her head, a sad expression on her face.
“I'll probably... never get to experience something like that in my entire life.”
Mark gritted his teeth. Shirone's image was a perfect match for his own ideal of a mage.
What must it feel like? To display one's skills in a celestial realm. The feeling of grabbing the ultimate opponent and falling to the very depths of hell together.
He couldn't even begin to imagine it, but it had to be the greatest ecstasy a mage could ever feel.