198: Chapter 198: Causal Shift, Causal Substitution, Causal Exemption

"Example..." Jiang Zhe pondered slightly, a series of Level 4 causality technologies emerging in his mind.

"Level 4 causality technology civilizations have already begun to attempt to touch and modify the operating laws themselves of the invisible, intangible, yet all-defining power of causality in the universe."

"By Level 4, they can even break the speed of light in the macroscopic world!"

"After all, the speed of light is an unshakeable fact of the universe."

"But..."

"The laws themselves?" Xiaoyu took a light breath, her eyes filled with disbelief.

"Yes, the laws. They are no longer limited to changing the causal order or closed loops of specific events, but can edit the rules of causal associations."

"For example, the most basic logic: I swing my fist at you, that is the cause; your cheek takes the force, nerves transmit pain, tissues may bruise, that is the result—a strict law, right?"

Xiaoyu touched her steel cheek and nodded.

"But in the eyes of a Level 4 civilization, this strict law can be tampered with."

He raised a finger, drew a line in the air, and then used a hand-knife motion to cut it at the end.

"They can use specific machines, or high-dimensional operations that we, a Level 0.5 civilization, cannot comprehend, to directly tamper with the causal laws of local space-time."

"The causal relationship between [Applying fist force to target B] and [Target B suffers damage] is dissolved and re-bound as: [Fist force A applied to target B] becomes [Fist force transferred to the wall ten meters behind target B, borne by wall C]."

Speaking of this, he nodded slightly, "In this way, if I punch you, you will feel the contact, perhaps even be pushed to stagger, but you will not feel pain, nor will you be injured; all the kinetic energy and destructive power will eerily skip over you and act directly on the unrelated wall behind you."

"Because [Cause: I swing a punch at you] still exists, but [Result: injury] has been replaced with another result: [Wall injury]."

Hearing this, the netizens all squinted, feeling it was a bit supernatural.

"Causality editing? This is literally rewriting the laws of the universe!"

"This isn't transfer anymore, this is causality hijacking! Kidnapping the [Result] of an event and swapping it with a [Hostage]!"

"Programmers rejoice, the universe's bug has been found, turns out it can be patched!"

"So a Level 4 civilization could actually be called a universe civilization, right? With this kind of technology, isn't breaking the speed of light just a matter of course?"

"Right, use basic technology to build a ship capable of light-speed flight, and after starting the ship, rewrite the ship's speed limit: [After I start the ship, this ship will fly at light speed, super-light speed]. If the materials support super-light speed... then you can travel the entire universe at light speed!"

"..."

"Brother!"

Xiaoyu's eyes were full of light, "Is this causality transfer? No, it's even more fundamental than transfer—it's causality replacement!"

"Very close!" Jiang Zhe nodded approvingly, "But replacement still seems passive; more accurately, it's a rewriting of causal relationships."

"In reality, everything within our physical framework is rigid and specific; Cause A almost inevitably leads to Result B."

"But in the operating interface of a Level 4 civilization, causal associations can be dragged, deleted, and modified."

"They use the Time Stream to perform temporary tampering!"

Reaching this point, he narrowed his eyes and asked back: "Remember the Level 3 civilization's Causality Sniper Rifle?"

"Now, suppose the soldier, Xiao Ming, who used that sniper rifle, has had his civilization promoted to Level 4, and he himself has become a member of the higher-level [Coupling People]."

"He faces a grave task: to rescue a top scientist A who is about to be executed by extreme kidnappers. This scientist is crucial; his death would cause that civilization's causality technology to stagnate for a hundred years!"

"After the think tank evaluated it, they didn't send an army, but instead provided a plan: use the newly developed [Causality-Breaking Sniper Rifle]."

Xiaoyu and countless netizens listened intently.

"The principle of this gun is based on the causality editing capability of a Level 4 civilization."

Jiang Zhe drew a simple sketch on the tablet while speaking, "Xiao Ming locks onto scientist A from a distance—not locking onto the kidnapper, but the scientist A himself. Then he pulls the trigger, and the bullet shoots toward scientist A. Note, the [Cause] here is very clear: Xiao Ming fires, the bullet flies toward A—according to common sense, the bullet hits A, A dies, this is the [Result]."

"But the [Causality-Breaking Sniper Rifle] will start a program the moment the bullet leaves the chamber, or rather, in the [Causality-Pending] interval before the bullet hits. It forcibly intervenes in this upcoming causal chain and then violently modifies the end of the link."

"Thus, the result presented is: the bullet does indeed hit the position where scientist A was originally located, and may even pass through his afterimage; but scientist A himself, at the very instant the bullet is about to hit, [flashes] to a safe range out of thin air, remaining completely unharmed and ultimately escaping the kidnappers' control circle."

"And what the kidnappers see might be the bullet missing, or the scientist eerily disappearing and reappearing elsewhere."

Explaining to this point, he began to summarize: "This gun didn't change the cause of Xiao Ming firing, nor did it make the bullet disappear into thin air; it precisely severed the [Causality] between the bullet hitting A and A dying."

"And using some form of energy, it instantly coupled a new [Result]—that is, the [Result] of [Scientist A being safely teleported]!"

"This gun broke the original [Evil Result] and connected a [Good Result], which is why it's called the [Causality-Breaking Sniper Rifle]!"

Xiaoyu listened, fascinated, taking in deep breaths of cold air.

"Brother, then, could the effect of breaking causality be made more extensive?"

"For example, setting it so that after Xiao Ming fires, for a period of time, scientist A avoids death and injury as the [Result]?"

"That way, no matter what the kidnappers do, A would survive due to various twists of fate?"

"Good thinking, but this is not technology a Level 4 civilization should have. Energy is still conserved. Because you cannot always make the bullet in the kidnapper's hand, due to the butterfly effect, cause various abrupt microscopic occurrences: like the kidnapper's gun jamming, the kidnapper's grenade self-detonating, the kidnapper's smoke bomb failing..."

"If you want to achieve all of this, that is at least a Level 5 Civilization; a Level 4 civilization can only tamper with the [Result] of one event, it cannot tamper with a series of highly repetitive [Results] in a short period!"

"And what you're describing belongs to the realm of fantasy, not [Causality Mechanics]!"

Hearing this, Xiaoyu felt a bit melancholy.

Not only that, even the netizens felt a bit disappointed and melancholy.

"Brother, then is there anything else?"

Jiang Zhe nodded, "Of course there is!"

"For example: Causality Deflection Armor. When the wearer is hit by an attack, the armor instantly completes high-speed causality editing: [The damage caused to me by this attack is replaced by the energy of this attack, transferred to a specific object within my line of sight, such as a rock or the enemy's weapon, causing equivalent destruction!]"

"The attack really happened, and the energy was indeed conserved; it's just that the object bearing the damage was silently swapped."

"Or for example: Logical Badge. A badge device; after activation, the wearer gives an instruction to the badge, such as: [With the badge as the center, within five meters, prohibit any metal object from penetrating my skin at a speed greater than 1 meter per second]."

"Then, before the badge's energy is exhausted or it is actively deactivated, bullets in this area will hover; knives will slow down; shrapnel will rebound. It's not a force field shield, but temporarily modifying local physical rules to invalidate the causal relationship of high-speed metal penetrating skin!"

"Or for example: civilian use."

"A farmer signs a contract with a piece of land. The ritual is very simple and is also a fixed [Cause]; the farmer bows to the land every month."

"Then in the following growing season, regardless of drought, flood, pests, or management negligence, this land will inevitably produce the amount specified by the contract, which exceeds the norm—this is the locked [Result]."

"It forcibly [couples] the small ritual with the huge harvest, while simultaneously decoupling the fragile and uncertain causal chain of disasters between [Hard work, favorable weather] and [Crop harvest] in traditional agriculture."

"Also, Causality Medical Pod!"

"During treatment, the medical pod doesn't repair your cells, but does it in two steps."

"1: Decoupling. Instantly severing the causal chain between the patient's existing illness, pain, and a series of negative results like deterioration and death."

"When the progression of the illness is frozen, the pain disappears."

"2: Coupling. Establishing a new, temporary, strong causal chain inside the patient: [Accepting basic nutrient solution input] directly linked to [Optimal rate of tissue and organ regeneration]!"

"Thus, the patient only needs to lie inside and receive the nutrient solution, and the body will self-repair at an incredible speed, because [Inputting nutrient solution equals repair] becomes the [Supreme Law] within their diseased body!"

As one causality technology conjecture after another appeared from Jiang Zhe, the entire live stream, along with countless netizens and experts, fell into deep ecstasy.

And all of this is based on the sole energy source: Time Stream!

Combined with the second bible: Quantum Mechanics!

Combining to create ultra-cutting-edge causality technology thousands, even ten thousand years into the future!!!

Two and a half minutes later, Xiaoyu's mouth was slightly agape, unable to close.

Her world and cognition were repeatedly crushed and reorganized.

Looking at her brother's confident expression, she realized that he wasn't joking, but was truly talking about technology from another world derived from "Causality Mechanics," with the Time Stream as its core.

Such a scene is unimaginable!

Only by starting from the ancient times of a parallel world, no longer pursuing macroscopic technology, but fully developing microscopic technology, and thoroughly understanding Quantum Mechanics...

Perhaps the future could reach this!

After a long while, before the netizens could react, Xiaoyu couldn't help but ask again: "Brother, if a Level 4 civilization can achieve this step, arbitrarily editing, replacing, or even exempting causality, I feel these are terribly stronger than anything in fantasy stories..."

"Then what would a Level 5 Civilization be like?"

"Could it be that they have already begun to write and create entirely new causality and physical world laws?"

Jiang Zhe shook his head slightly, "According to this level of classification, Level 5 is called [Observer Civilization], meaning 'viewing all mountains as small,' they have not yet reached the point of creating causality, but rather maintaining causality, belonging to [Super-Causality] civilization!"