Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 366: Project Dawn

Before we proceeded any further, Anise and I discussed what we had seen with Sallia and Felix. We needed to discuss our goals as a group - after all, Felix or Sallia might have a really good idea what our discovery meant, or how to make better use of it. 

The conclusion the four of us came to, after some discussion, was that we were confused. Why had something that didn’t exist in this dimension caused us to regenerate essence? It didn’t seem to have anything to do with our other Abilities, so it wasn’t related to our existence as transmigrators. It also didn’t seem to be related to this world’s magic systems, or else the elder teaching us would have said something. In other words, our discovery made no sense.

At least so far, when we learned a new magic system, we got essence from one place - the dimension itself. Most humanoid species we had reincarnated as seemed to naturally absorb essence through our skin for later use. It was kind of like how breathing worked. This dimension, at least so far, had been the only exception - even though there did seem to be essence in the Astral Tides, people couldn’t directly absorb it. This was why plants were so important in this world - they could absorb essence and allow people to digest it for later use. 

I had assumed this was some sort of intentional design from the corporation that ruled this dimension. After all, it made sense to keep the natives from regenerating essence naturally. It kept them reliant on heroes, which, in turn, maximized the influence Achievement and ability evolutions a transmigrator in this world could get - as well as ensured that transmigrators would be treated well by the natives and get access to the best resources. However, Felix had other ideas.

<The question, I think, is what came before this dimension was transformed,> said Felix. <If we look at this from another angle… Miria, you’ve said before that terraforming a dimension is hard, right? That the more ‘different’ you try to make the rules, the more a dimension fights against you? And that all dimensional rules constantly try to overwrite any other rules they’re touching?>

I nodded, before I realized that Felix and Sallia couldn’t see me, and thus had no idea that I was nodding.

<Yes, that’s correct. If I try to do something small, like make light into starlight, the essence cost isn’t too high, although there is still some chance of me messing up during the transformation process. If I try to do something like, say… turn a leaf into a leaf made of atoms, instead of whatever atomic setup this dimension runs on, this dimension fights back way more - because this dimension doesn’t have the same physical structure as other dimensions. We might see things that are similar to other dimensions on our level, but the laws of physics are very different. Any attempts to implement something wildly different from this dimension’s internal rules meets heavier resistance.>

<So, would you say that the cost for trying to create sunlight was high, or low?> asked Felix. I could feel a budding sense of excitement in his mind, as if he were building up to a big finale. I started to suspect that I knew where he was going with this.

<It was rather cheap,> I said. <I was pretty surprised. We haven’t seen any evidence of ‘stars’ existing in this dimension, at least not in a recognizable form - all we have are the giant eyeballs in the sky. Those still produce ‘starlight,’ but I’ve never seen such a weird looking star before.>

<I suspect that’s for a reason,> said Felix, as the excitement in his mental voice mounted. <I don’t think that sunlight is actually ‘unnatural’ in this dimension. I think that this dimension originally had regular looking stars, but the corporation that terraformed this dimension removed them somehow.>

<What do you mean? How do you conclude that less creepy stars originally existed here?> asked Sallia.

<Well, think about it. First of all, if we look at the humanoid species of this world, we know that they struggle with essence generation, right? They can seemingly only absorb essence from food that they eat. However, essence-rich food is very rare. This seems… inefficient, from an evolutionary perspective. Especially since we know that essence does exist in the air of this world, at least some of the time, and that some species can absorb it directly from the air. In every other dimension we’ve come across, we can absorb essence from the air. Why is this dimension so special? I mean, obviously, the corporation that owned this dimension changed it in a lot of ways… but this dimension probably existed in a more normal state before it was taken over by the corporation,> said Felix. <So why did this incredibly strange evolutionary path occur? Well, it could have just been random chance - that is one of the quirks of evolution, after all. But since we know that this dimension was intentionally sculpted to look a certain way, we should think about what the corporation who owned this world wanted. They want to make money, and to make money, they need to make Transmigrators as special as possible. That way, Transmigrators can get lots of Achievement and better evolutions. In other words, if there was some way for people to work around the necessity of heroes, the corporation would remove it. We’ve already noticed plenty of times how much essence scarcity is holding this civilization back. Combined with your observation that sunlight regenerates essence, I suspect the answer is simple.

<This dimension originally had a sun, but the corporation that owned this dimension removed it, and replaced all of the other stars in this world with the humanoid eyeballs. After that, they found some way to remove it from this dimension’s history books, and left people with only the ‘inefficient’ route to restore their essence. That would explain why you can regenerate essence from sunlight, too. It was probably the original evolutionary path to regenerating essence, and the corporation removed it because it got in the way. That left only the inefficient route to regenerating essence - eating essence rich food. After all, leaving the natives with some route to generate essence is vital, or else they wouldn’t have teachers and well-recorded magic systems for transmigrators to make use of. This planning maximizes the resources available to transmigrators, while minimizing the ability for the dimension to be self-reliant.>

Was that how it was? Felix’s words made a certain amount of sense. It sounded twisted… but then again, nothing the Market had done to other worlds had ever given me the illusion that the Market was benevolent. The Market was built to generate profit, and most corporations seemed like they would have happily trampled a few worlds in that process.

<If that’s the case, how did the Market so thoroughly scrub any mention of the sun out of history books? It seems weird to me,> said Anise. <Nobody I’ve spoken with has ever mentioned a sun before. They mostly talk about the starlight. I mean, I also haven’t asked that much about what life was like on the planet… but since we’re kind of floating well above the surface of the world, I also realize I’ve never figured out how the planet was lit in the first place. How did people see back when we lived on the surface?>

<According to a book I found in my house, the atmosphere of this world is just weird. Somehow, it amplifies the starlight the closer to the planet’s surface you get,> said Felix. <Not really sure how that works, but anyway… I’m also not sure why there aren’t any records of sunlight. You’d think there would be something laying around from that time. A weird mention in an ancient textbook from a long-lost civilization, or something like that. But I’ve never heard a word either.>

<You’re not thinking creatively enough,> said Sallia, although something in her voice made me shiver. <If you were a corporation with enough achievement to throw around, and you had enough power to terraform an entire dimension, erasing a culture is simple. Hire lots of transmigrators to reincarnate in this world and sabotage all historical records. Every single baby born in this world would be a transmigrator who was actively trying to destroy their people’s culture. Every single civilization with a single living descendent would be made up entirely of infiltrators once enough time passed. And if a dimension has no knowledge of the ocean of souls, they have no way of knowing what’s happening, or how to fight back. After a few generations of this, every single native culture to this world would be erased so thoroughly that even the records of their people would have been removed. Anything left would say whatever the people hired by the corporation wanted the records to say.  After all, every single child for multiple generations would have been actively working to sabotage the older generations and all of their work.>

I felt a chill run down my spine. That seemed horrifying. To have every single child born into an entire civilization be actively working to undermine that civilization was a terrifying nightmare scenario for that civilization. To have every single child born be an imposter, lurking in the shadows as people moved on with their day, unaware… I could imagine how terrifying that would have been for anyone who was aware of it. Had the old civilizations of this world even known? Had they noticed, in their final days? I shuddered.

As horrifying as the scenario was, it also sounded exactly like something a corporation making a Garden World would do. 

I shook off that thought. While what had happened to the original cultures of this world was tragic, there was nothing we could do for them anymore. They were lost to the sands of time, and the souls that had once lived in this dimension had already moved on. Instead, I tried to focus on the positive side of Felix’s statements.

<So, Felix… what you’re saying is, this world probably had a sun in the past, and if we find a way to rebuild one, we might be able to make this world self-sufficient again?> I asked. I felt a spark of hope in my chest. I had already suspected that Anise and I had discovered a way forward. If Felix and Sallia also agreed… we would finally have a real path towards achieving our goal.

I could almost hear Felix smiling through the communication bracelet.

<I think so. If all four of us work to get a sun going, I think that would get you a really nice ability evolution AND get us all an absolutely ridiculous amount of Influence Achievement. If we use our own abilities and essence to contribute, we should all get really nice upgrades, in fact..>

<I also like the idea,> said Sallia. <For now, Miria and Anise, you two need to verify that other natives generate essence when they touch sunlight as well. As long as we verify that assumption, bring Elder Veridian into the plan. She should be more than happy to help out.>

<So we have a plan,> I said, as I smiled. After searching for a route to change this world’s fate, we finally had a path forward.