Chapter 55: Thank Hitogami, Praise Hitogami (Patreon)

Feeling the situation shift, Rudy's brow furrowed slightly.

And right at that moment, someone came stumbling toward him, about to collide with him. But before they could crash into him, Rudy simply kicked the man clean off his feet, sending him flying.

The very next instant, a flowerpot plummeted from above and shattered right where the man who'd almost collided with Rudy had been standing.

He was a middle-aged man with red, curly hair and a shrewd, mercantile face. Picking himself up off the ground, he was about to curse Rudy out—until he heard a woman's voice calling down an apology from above. Only then did he notice the shattered flowerpot on the ground.

In that instant, his irritation turned to gratitude. If he hadn't been shoved a moment ago, he'd probably be lying there injured right now.

He looked up and thanked Rudy. "My name's Giles Kulina. Thanks for that."

"No problem, it was nothing," Rudy said with a smile.

Then he turned and strolled off toward the inn where he was staying.

But his mind was actually occupied with something else entirely—how to increase the processing speed of his own brain. He thought back over all his years of study and combat.

For many years now, he'd been stuck at the molecular level. No matter how hard he tried, the atomic level remained frustratingly out of reach.

Eventually, his research into space-based weapons had, quite by accident, cracked open an indirect path to the atomic level. But even so, that breakthrough had only come from a mountain of trial and error. To truly manipulate the atomic level at will was still far too deep and difficult a task for him.

After that, seeing that this path was, for now, a dead end, he'd turned to a second possibility: the path of the Armored Dragon King, Perugius. By studying Perugius's summoning magic, he'd developed his own applications of regression summoning magic. All this time, regression summoning magic was what had let him flip the balance of offense and defense with Hitogami.

But in truth, even while pouring all his effort into regression summoning magic over the years, he'd never truly abandoned his research into the atomic level. Yet no matter how he approached it, he'd never found a good way forward.

But then, just now—after obtaining the Eye of Foresight, and pushing himself to his limits to analyze three seconds of the future—Rudy suddenly understood.

The reason he'd never been able to control the atomic level wasn't, at its root, a lack of power. It was that he lacked the ability to manage the atomic level's sheer number of variables. In other words, his brain's processing speed simply wasn't fast enough.

He thought back to the computers of his previous life. The human brain was remarkable in its own right, but in many respects it couldn't match a computer's raw calculating speed.

Of course, a computer's speed could only apply to rigid, fixed rules and programs—the moment a logical paradox appeared, errors would follow easily. The human brain, on the other hand, handled such things with ease.

And the human brain's most precious quality was never raw calculation speed. It was its wild, boundless imagination—the kind that made no strict logical sense yet somehow worked. It was precisely because of that imagination that humanity had been able to try, fail, and progress again and again.

Comparing the two, neither was strictly better. But combine them, and the result would be something far greater!

All along, his framework for the elemental spirits had been modeled on the computer programs of his past life. Now that his brain's own analytical logic had hit its limit, he could just as well use the elemental spirits to make up for that weakness.

If he could break through on this front, his future sight would let him reach the atomic level directly! And unlike his earlier shortcut, this would be a realm reached entirely through his own genuine ability!

Atoms—the basic units that made up everything in the world.

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Depending on the number and energy levels of the neutrons, protons, and electrons within an atom, countless variables could be produced. Water could become gold with a flip of the hand. The very air he breathed could just as easily be turned into a small, burning sun!

Overhead, across the entire planet, trillions upon trillions of elemental spirits stood as his solid backing. But how to make better use of them—how to properly turn them into his own array of analytical computers—that was the challenge he now had to overcome. And it was a critical one!

So no matter if it took a year, ten years, or a hundred years, he would confine himself to this very day without limit—repeating it endlessly, testing it endlessly, until he'd mastered it completely!

He looked up at the inn he'd already reached, and a brilliant smile spread across his face. It had been so long since he'd felt this kind of soul-trembling urgency.

The boost from future sight—even just getting started, it was already far more terrifying than he'd expected! Perhaps, as his future sight developed further, he might even be able to step into an even finer-grained quantum realm.

So—thank you, Hitogami! It seemed his choice to eat the sugar coating first and save the cannonball for later had truly been the right one! Thank you, Hitogami. Truly, thank you...

Grinning wide, Rudy strode into his room at the inn, positively delighted.

Inside, Eris and Ruijerd were in the middle of discussing various combat scenarios and how to respond to them. Just then, they suddenly saw Rudy come back wearing a brilliant grin, and both of them turned to look at him, utterly baffled.

Blunt as ever, Eris spoke up. "Rudy... why are you so happy today? Did something good happen?"