Returning Transcendent Opens an Idol Agency

Chapter 406: Void Function (2/2)

A long page of calculations. Familiar calculations too. Although annotated differently... mostly because it was in English instead of the Three Realms characters and used numbers instead of the complicated geometric formations, it was essentially the same that John used to get here.

Albeit much more concise.

Like, Gray's calculations could fit on a phone in a length approximately the size of an average web novel chapter.

Granted, that was still monstrously long for a typical math problem, but nowhere near the literal monolith that John had to construct in order to do his calculations.

...Yeah, that was the genius older brother he remembered alright.

And from skimming Gray's calculations... particularly the equations he used, it explained why John popped up in Japan.

You see, you could only get so precise with shapes. Even if you get it 'perfect', you couldn't actually get it 'absolutely perfect.' And when you paired it with arithmetic, there was still a hard limit that you reached.

After all, you couldn't 'count' to infinity.

You could get an extremely high level of precision by having eons worths of numbers written out and calculated, but it would always be finite.

But you could say 'screw that' with calculus and just write in the limits and bypass infinity completely with some fancy transforms, properties, and clever tricks.

Or something.

John couldn't understand everything he was seeing at the moment because it was a bit unfamiliar and he lacked context... like how you could turn 'squares' into 'circles' and where 'imaginary' numbers came in. But taking it as a whole, he could tell that it worked, and that it was more precise than the calculations he did. Also concise.

Man. The old saying about everything looking like a nail if you just had a hammer was true, huh? Since people in the Three Realms had countless normal lifespans to work with, no one ever really bothered to come up with more efficient ways to do math and calculations... Especially when you could brute force it with wishy-washy logic with enough energy and willpower.

John handed the phone back to Gray and said, "So what are you planning to do then? I can see that you have the formula down and the vehicle, but there's a maximum threshold on the raw energy you can use to visit our home, isn't there?"

That was where John had his hang up. That administrator guy had a hard 'No World Breakers' immigration policy.

John was pretty sure that included even tourists who accidentally fell into another world too for just a brief moment.

Gray slid his phone back into his pocket and nodded. "Yeah. Found that out after redoing my calculations when we landed here. But since I found and created the Void Function that sent me to Asifant in the first place, if we have a way to reduce everything down to just an ordinary human being, I could reverse the output and stack chain to bring us home for at least a day or two. And since it looks like the VR pods do something similar by doing a false resonance to manipulate a platonic ideal of the self and operate within a virtual field instead of a direct port of the soul and corresponding abilities-"

John blinked, parsing what Gray was saying.

Eliza sighed and said, "You'll have to excuse my husband. He's gotten better, but-"

John's eyes widened and he said, "Oooh! Right! That should work!"

"E-Eh?"

Jenny's eyes widened as well, and she snapped her fingers together. "Right! It'll just be like the IDOL bodies! Since it'd just be dreaming, the physical form doesn't have any supernatural abilities."

John nodded and said, "Right! And since 'thoughts' only have so much weight when you separate them from the soul-"

Gray smiled and said, "We should be able to visit as 'tourists' to Earth in an ordinary body through an imaginary transform and converting ambient energy into the appropriate form."

John nodded.

Finally, something useful to come out of Titor's mad science experiments.

Not to say nothing else he made was useful, but there WERE a lot of out-there things he made.

...Though John probably wasn't the person to say that considering the wild things he made in his youth.

Gray blinked and then realized that both John and Jenny were following. After that, he laughed and said, "Finally, someone who understands me!"

Eliza let out a sigh and covered her face. "Dear lord, it runs in the family..."

John cleared his throat. "Right. We can talk that over more with Titor-"

"Titor?" Gray interrupted and said, "Like, John Titor? The time traveler from 2000 who predicted World War 3 and all sorts of other advances in Physics?" His eyes sparkled and said, "Is this his home worldline?"

"...No. There's just a crazy guy who took on his identity to cosplay for a while."

John pointedly ignored the scathing look Jenny was sending him.

"Ah." Gray nodded. "Of course..."

"Anyway." John checked the time on his phone.

It was almost 2 PM.

Meggie got out of class at 3:30 PM, so John would have to wrap things up here soon if he didn't want to get hated again.

John looked up at Gray and said, "We clearly have a lot to catch up on, but why don't we cover the broad strokes first. We can have a big family get together later to introduce everyone."

Gray pulled out his phone to check the time as well and said, "...That sounds good. I have to pick up my son from school in about an hour, so we should get going. Not to mention Artemis is going to be irritated if we're late for our daughter's recital."

John blinked. "Artemis?"

"Mm?" Gray nodded. "Yeah. She's my second wife." He paused and said, "Technically first since time travel is involved, but..."

John felt a headache starting. But he set it aside for now and tried to bring the conversation back on track. "...Why don't you start off, Gray? You owe me a lot of answers... plus I think we'll be here for years if we start off on the thousands of years my trip covers."

Gray raised an eyebrow. "Thousands of years?"

"Well, a lot longer than that. But it's hard to comprehend the metric of time beyond a certain point, so thousands is a good shorthand."

When you started measuring time in the lifespan of galaxies, things tended to be blurry.

"...I see." Gray nodded and said, "Then I'll start at the top. You see, it all began when I went to go submit the graduation capstone project for my Computer Science degree. Although I didn't know it at the time, I had apparently devised a computer driver that could be loaded into any device and cause it to serve as a multiversal transporter operating on pure logic."

"...What?"

OMAKE: Q/A Corner

Spoiler

HVG: Thanks for sticking with me for over 400 chapters!

John: 'Only' 400 chapters. Considering it's been over three years since you started messing with me, it's kind of pathetic, really. A REAL author would be at 1200+ by now.

HVG: Hush! Or did you want me to make MORE arcs trolling you?

John: You could. But didn't you like jump the shark with the Yue arc and everyth-

HVG: ANYWAY. Onto the questions!

John: >.>

HVG: I'll just start from reverse order then and answer the newest to oldest. If more come in, I might make this a regular thing.

John: Again with the gimmicks to try and pull in new readers...

HVG: No one asked you!

John: *shrug*

HVG: Okay! From the comments of the chapter literally before this one... @Tech_TTGames asks if Amadeus is the same type of entity like Titor, or if she's more of a real-er entity.

John: She's real alright. Titor's a cheap knock-off of me-

Titor: I HEARD THAT!

John: Stop hacking into the streams, bro. But anyway, Titor's like an AI built from my personality that went off the rails and inhabited a robot body. He managed some shenanigans to Pygmalion a functioning human body from that robot base, but he's a 'fake' and a 'copy' at his core. Amadeus is actually a real person.

HVG: Yeah. Even though she got here in a funny way, she's a real, living, breathing and normal human being. Minus some shenanigans she can pull through using Titor's various inventions.

John: Well, she's a normal person *now*. Ama-chan was actually the lingering resentful spirit of Zhuque who was taking the form of Yue and using her guilt to try and act as a fake heart demon. Since that got cleared up though, Ama-chan let go of those lingering resentments and became her own person... Though she was super self-conscious and made herself look like Yue. You can kind of think of it like an ex putting on make up to try and look like the person you're dating?

HVG: You're... awfully nonchalant about this.

John: Hey, I loved Zhuque as a sister, but she low-key crossed a line when trying to hurt Yue. 

HVG: PLEASE stop trying to use modern lingo. It's weird.

John: Says the boomer who's using fancy words for no reason.

HVG: ...Anyway, to answer the question, yes. Amadeus is real-er since she's not a copy but has a real soul despite being a ginger.

John: Really. A ginger joke?

HVG: Moving on...@zeronoko asks how many arcs I have cooked up in my head-

John: None.

HVG: H-Hey now. You can't-

John: This guy is flying off the seat of his pants. He even forgot the arcs he promised a long time ago, like the Sw*rd A*t Onl*ne arc.

HVG: That's not true. It's coming back, even-

John: Then there's that thing with Ilgarde too and the fact that they're literally livestreaming dropping supplies to a doomed isekai world.

HVG: ...Moving o-

John: Not to mention that he's COMPLETELY off-screened all the streaming chapters. Like, when even was the last real one?

HVG: Speaking of streaming chapters, @Israfil asks if I'm continuing streaming chapters and if I'm still using a random name generator. Yes and yes. Hana will be up next talking about her first day back at school after taking a short break.

John: Shouldn't you just have like a separate story for those or something?

HVG: ...Going back to chapter 404 comments-

John: 404 not found, like your notes for this story?

HVG: Do you WANT me to make your life a living hell?

John: Hey man, it's a game now. If you do, I win since the readers are here for the cute girls and streams anyway.

HVG: ... we've got @Tech_TTGames again with multiple questions. First... Oh, we've got a question for you Titor if you're still tapping into the line.

Titor: Hell yeah I am.

John: Are you that bored?

Titor: Yes. Still stuck in hospital lobby purgatory while Sweetie is screaming her lungs out.

HVG: ...Anyway, favorite gacha?

Titor: F*te Gr*nd Ord*r all the way. Love the cute waifus there. Especially Jeanne D'arc Alter.

John: Of course you'd pick that.

Titor: Well, what about you, buddy? 

John: Me? G*ngaga.

Titor: ...

HVG: ...Anyway, my favorite gacha game of all time has gotta be Brave Frontier. I'll never forget it. And I definitely don't have plans to make a story based off the concept of a guy getting isekai'd into a world like it with his old save file in the works.

John: This guy... Always making up new story ideas instead of finishing any. Like that Academy story and the Villianess story-

HVG: NEXT QUESTION! To Titor... How's the Incarnation System going and why is it out of your control again. Did you forget to make a real patch?

Titor: Incarnation what?

HVG: ...

John: ...

Titor: ...O-Oh! The Incarnation System! Right. Totally remembered that. It's working fine, of course, aha. Definitely shouldn't have any more unwelcome visitors because of it.

HVG: Visitors, yes. But creations...

Titor: You wut?

HVG: Moving on... Any plans for a Mandatory Tournament Arc. Definitely during the Summer Festival for Project MirAIS.

John: If we even get there. Your pacing sucks.

HVG: I can't help that there's so many characters with screen time to give! Like, we haven't even seen Little Xuan and Little Wu for over thirty chapters!

John: Sounds like a skill issue to me.

HVG: ...Ahem. As for the explanation of how this escalates to VIMS... Idunno. Maybe chapter 666 or 777?

John: Just don't pull an Ov*rge*red and end as the story's getting good.

HVG: Can... Can we say that? Wait, how do you know about that?

John: Bruh. You bring me into a place where I can access your world's internet and you think I can't do a simple search? Plus, I was reading it before I got isekai'd. It's like those guys who want to find out what happened in the end of O*e Pie*e.

HVG: Right... Anyway, next. @Ranzeachilles asks what everyone's estimated age is. Uh. That's kind of a lot though... Should we just stick to the MirAIs girls and your family, John?

John: We're talking the legal age, right?

HVG: Yeah.

John: Alright. Well, I'm around 46 now on paper. Yue's 35. Alphy is 28. Betty is 25... I think. She might have made herself 22 though. Meggie is 11... and technically illegitimate in hindsight considering how we had her before Yue and I officially got married according to our marriage certificate.

HVG: Wait, really?

John: Yeah. I flubbed the numbers a bit. According to the paperwork, Yue and I got married in 2014, but Meggie was born in 2013.

HVG: Huh.

John: Oh, and Rory's almost three months old now since she was our Christmas gift.

HVG: Time is an illusion...

John: For the guy who doesn't keep track of it, yeah.

HVG: I blame the pandemic.

John: You and everyone else in this world apparently. 

HVG: Anyway, Rin's 16, Asako is 22, Yuri is 17, Chihiro is 16, Suzume is 17, Shu is 18 right now... I think.

John: Shouldn't you know this?

HVG: Moving on! Now... Huh. I think we're done.

John: Yeah, because all your readers are catching up on the story and refreshing themselves since you've been gone for like half a year. Again. For like the-

HVG: Thanks for reading! Big preesh! Buy my merch-

John: What merch?

HVG: JK. Love y'all. See you tomorrow!

John: You know, at the rate you write and the rate people read, there's like a good chance 75% of readers will never catch up.

HVG: BYE!

[collapse]