Transcendent Gene-Chapter 299: Final Truth [7]

From the third pathway to the sixth, Gio was only served confusing visions.

The third corridor took him to what felt like the life of an ordinary middle-class citizen.

He made choices irrelevant to the world, and at the same time, he experienced a world he’d never seen before.

That wasn’t to say he’d never lived as an ordinary person. When his family collapsed, he fell to the bottom of society and had to climb up from the trenches.

The world he’d never seen before was quite literal.

It was Earth, but was it Earth? At first, he wondered if it was a scene from one of the Green Colonies on Mars that resembled patches of Earth. If it were a similar type of structure, the odd, uncanny feeling he got from the world could be explained.

However, the world was explicitly referred to as Earth. Gio was only left wondering once again if an entire era of history had been erased.

The fourth path led him to Mars, where he saw a political conflict he had no ability to touch at the moment.

Interestingly enough, the very issue showcased in the visions, the issue he had to make choices about, was the same one plaguing the "Upper Three," or the three highest Strata on the planet.

’But this is where it started. It’s a good thing for me to see the formation of the Millennium Empire that I’ll have to face in the future.’

It was a bit of an arrogant name as the empire had only been around for five hundred years, but the same Imperial Clan had been in charge of the Upper Three for centuries and practically owned Mars.

’Basically, nothing can happen on that planet unless you can pay off or satisfy them. It makes progress almost impossible.’

He didn’t see many of the Millennium Clan’s secrets. Their identity was something completely different five hundred years ago. Still, he registered the information as something to reference in the future and moved on.

The fifth corridor showed him Venus. The sixth showed him Frontier. He loved as a Royal in Elysium for a moment, and for a moment, he experienced what Elysium was like if it existed as its own perfect opposite.

Through nine different realities, he walked and made the choices he would’ve made in countless situations. He was able to live what could almost be considered another life in a period of time constituting no more than three or four hours.

And when he finally reached the end of the tenth, his mind returned to something new.

Every crossroads in the labyrinth contained two or three paths. This time, the world refocused to reveal only a single path forward.

He furrowed his brows and entered the skinny corridor, wondering if he’d reached the end of the maze.

’That’s enough confirmation for me.’

The first sign of light at the end of the corridor proved it to him.

He squeezed through the tight corridor faster and pushed himself out of the other side. As expected, the heavily dispersed blue light he saw could only exist within a large chamber.

’So it wasn’t an "end of the labyrinth" situation. It was a "center" thing.’

The center of the labyrinth wasn’t very grand. Maybe they wanted to put something grounded in this fantastical environment.

The walls were made of pure metal and engraved with intricate patterns. The ground, however, was a bland grey color, and it was only populated by ordinary tables, chairs, whiteboards, and electronics.

’Was this a usable space at some point? Everything here is a projection, though...’

No matter how real it felt, Gio remembered the world he was in. This blackness was not natural, and the world outside certainly hadn’t been terraformed into such a scene. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

At most, his body had been brought here through some strange means, but it was more likely that even his sensations were merely being imitated.

"Well, this is awkward..."

As he looked around the area, a voice came from the side, attracting his attention.

If it weren’t for the fact that there was no living presence accompanying it, Gio would have been terrified.

However, he sensed the lack of life, and when he looked over, he found a human-shaped hologram in place of a real human being.

’Of course there isn’t a real person here. The people who designed this are dead.’

"I wonder how many years it’s been," the hologram said.

It took the figure of an ordinary-looking man with brown hair, glasses, and a beard. He was dressed in an ordinary salaryman’s attire and didn’t have the mannerisms of someone who had specifically learned how to act with status.

"As of the making of this recording, it’s the year 2782. I don’t know how far into the future you are or how you ended up interacting with this hologram, but if you’re watching this right now, then you’re either really lucky or an outlier we never could have expected."

Gio’s brows raised as the hologram started walking through the room. He expertly avoided every object that would break his appearance as a real person. It became clear what the center of the labyrinth was modeled after.

"I hope you didn’t move anything. If you did, this is going to look incredibly strange," the hologram said as he walked behind a desk and sat in a chair facing him.

It made a gesture that swept across the entire room, making sure to let Gio know it was meant for him, regardless of where in the room he was.

"Come sit down. To someone like you, there’s a lot I need to explain."

Gio frowned and approached the desk.

"First off, I didn’t even think it would be possible. If this is being used, then we were right about even the Scenario Quests. They...never mind. You’ll have to learn about that later. For now, just know that I have no idea what scenario you’re currently experiencing. This labyrinth was created to be accessed in any scenario that involved us at a high level."

His tone was much more casual than Gio expected, and though they were supposed to be speaking a much more archaic language than the current Gehenna Tongue, the words were perfectly translated in his ears.

"Still, this space is partially formed through the main quest pieces of the scenario. After all, the scenario is the foundation we hijacked to build our own structures on. If you were wanting the scenario rewards or if you had any personal ties to the scenario, you’ll have a chance to get what you want later."

Gio sat down in front of the hologram and listened to its words.

"But, as you can tell, this labyrinth wasn’t really built with any of that in consideration. This space exists for a purpose. The fact that it’s possible for us to meet here means our Nest has fallen, and it’s been long enough since our fall that a scenario was created using our legacy. We all knew a day like this would come, but we have no way to predict how or when. The best thing to do is prep for it early and make sure we can maintain our ideals in the modern era."

"The labyrinth gives people differing rewards based on the level of affinity they have with our ideals and motives. For those who oppose, there is little to no reward. The closer the challengers of the labyrinth get to its center, the higher their affinity and the greater their rewards."

The hologram waved its arm.

Pssssh!

A mechanism that had been planned centuries ago activated according to its set timing and lowered the walls into the ground, revealing curved glass windows looking out into the labyrinth.

"Realistically, we expected to at most find someone with an eighty-five percent similarity to the answers we set. A person who reaches anywhere around that percentage receives a statement about our mission and a reward intended to convince them to help carry our legacy into the current world."

"But, I guess a situation like you can exist, too. You know, in all the other messages, I tried my best to look cool. This is the one I thought would be useless, so you get the more ordinary explanation. That’s my bad, because you deserve the speech that makes you feel like the world’s savior much more than anyone else."

It was evident that the man liked talking more than anything else when he was still alive, but he eventually reached his point.

"...you’re not an 85% match or even a 90% match. For you to be in this room means your choices were 95% similar to our set answers or higher, and that’s with all the added protection mechanisms involved."

He made it known why he was rambling. Genuinely, he felt that nobody would ever see the message he left. He didn’t have any consideration for the person who’d see it because he never expected them to exist.

It took several hundred years, but someone eventually showed up who naturally had similar ideals to the founding principles of Vita.

’For an ordinary person, it might be hard to view things from a twisted perspective like that.’

It wasn’t as simple as being good or operating in a moral grey area.

’I reached this perspective by living two lifetimes and then regressing after humanity went extinct. They...I want to know what brought them to think the same way.’

"...there’s a lot I want to say, but after listening to so much rambling, I can’t guarantee that you’re still sitting in front of me. Before I continue onto the important stuff, let me say this..."

The hologram stood up and raised his palm into the air.

VOOOOOOOM!

A huge wave of energy gathered in the blackness above. The ceiling disappeared so Gio could lay his eyes on the thunderous cloud that had formed.

"This is all of the energy that the scenario had prepared to give its victors. If it was done properly, this would be turned into whatever kind of Gene Enhancers and Bloodline Breakers you guys are using in the future. Since we took charge, it’s energy in its purest form that can be injected straight into your body."

Gio was practically salivating by the time those last words fell.

Pure and absorbable energy was the most direct way to grow. The process of absorbing it was much more brutal than any of the means humans invented, but it was also the most direct and natural method. The body would experience much more growth for much less.

Gio never got up and left the desk unlike what the man expected. Nevertheless, his display did exactly what it was meant to.

The young Sequencer focused his entire attention on the words that would come out of the hologram’s mouth, and in return, he’d be given the cloud of energy in the sky.

It was an amazing deal for him, really.