MC Creative Mode: Wholesale Perpetual Motion Machine

Chapter 275 Self-Referentiality
“Is that so?” Fang Zheng nodded slightly, his tone calm. “But you should also understand that you have absolutely no chance of winning if you challenge me.”

“There is no process between different storyboards. For you, those processes are missing and have no causal relationship. I wrote and inserted these processes so that you can truly realize who you are and who I am.”

"But you're Batman, and I'm Fang Zheng."

“But you are just a ‘Batman,’ while I am not just a ‘Founder.’”

Fang Zheng reached out and gently pinched his cheek. His skin, which looked no different from that of an ordinary teenager and was full of elasticity, was just an insignificant profile, like a projection of light and shadow.

"What you see and can touch is but an infinitesimal fraction of my true existence."

"Even now, you choose to challenge me for those people who don't actually exist, but are just fragments of your memories, pieces of your social relationships, and remnants of information. This resistance itself is merely a plot that I personally wrote according to your character design when I completed the process of filling in the storyboard."

"Even so, do you still want to challenge me?"

Batman spoke in a low voice: "The challenge itself is the meaning."

"Didn't you say that even we at this moment are just plots you wrote casually according to the character settings during the writing process?"

"You could have refused, but you still wrote it. So, isn't the challenge I'm issuing exactly what you wanted?"

As he finished speaking, Batman turned his gaze to his companions, and then to the Justice League members, whose expressions varied and who clearly hadn't understood what they were saying.

The Flash, Barry, looked at Batman with a bewildered expression, then at Fang Zheng, then at the others, scratching his head in confusion: "What are you guys talking about? I don't understand a word..."

Batman simply asked in a low voice, "Barry Allen, the Flash, can you help me?"

"Uh... I don't understand what you're talking about at all, but I'm ready to help if you need it."

Batman then looked at Superman: "Superman, would you help me?"

Superman nodded solemnly: "Although I don't think what you're doing is right, feel free to use my power if needed."

Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman... the other members of the Justice League also turned their attention to it.

Unbeknownst to them, as the storyboards were continuously completed and merged, the number of Justice League members gradually increased as everyone's memories were added to.

Looking at his companions, each with their own story but fighting side by side, Batman shouted without hesitation, "Everyone, please help me too!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Batman's Hellbat armor closed its upper body.

Superman, Cyborg, and The Flash placed their hands on Batman's arm.

The vast energy originating from Superman's body, the Flash's speed force, and the computing power of the Mother Box within Cyborg began to flow continuously into the Hellbat Armor.

The armor began to shatter due to energy overload, but under Batman's control, it activated a pre-set function and, according to a pre-existing plan in a certain scene, began to delve into the quantum gap, searching for a certain target.

With the infusion of Superman's energy and the Flash's Speed ​​Force, the shattered Hellbat armor was covered with a layer of dazzling golden lightning.

Under the watchful eyes of Fang Zheng and many members of the Justice League, the vast golden light began to expand rapidly.

Rumbling--

Accompanied by a strange hissing sound, two sonic tunnels leading to unknown places were forcibly torn through space and appeared before everyone's eyes.

At the other end of the passage, a bald man in tight-fitting armor named Mobius, known as the Anti-Monitor, was looking at this place with some confusion: "Huh? This..."

Immediately afterwards, the metal throne beside the bald man, which looked like it had been made with high technology, was forcibly pulled and dragged over by golden lightning.

In another sonic booming tunnel, a chair located in the pure white light of the sixth dimension was also swept over.

Just as the Hellbat armor was about to shatter completely, Batman calmly sat down in one of the chairs.

It was created by combining X-metal, a material used by the creator god to build the universe in the background setting, with Mother Box technology.

That was the supreme possession that Batman once owned in a certain storyboard—

Ultimate Bat Armor!

The armor was entirely white and gold, adorned with gilded accents. Its massive body completely covered Batman, and its towering silhouette resembled that of a god descending to earth.

The Ultimate Bat Armor, also known as the Sixth Dimension Armor or the Sub-Box Armor, is said to be able to rewrite the wearer's mind and rewrite life at every cellular level, making it the ultimate artifact.

However, this setting itself is logically somewhat far-fetched, and there is a huge gap between its expressiveness and its setting. In essence, it is more like an illusion, a fantasy product that is completely detached from causal logic.

In those more fantastical and unrealistic storyboards, Batman used this suit of armor to easily defeat the Justice League.

Now, as Fang Zheng chooses to insert the process between different scenes, allowing Batman to realize things that were previously incomprehensible, the manifestation of this ultimate armor becomes possible.

When the armor reappeared, Batman sat in the Möbius Chair again, the two terrifying powers combined simultaneously, and he reached out and placed his hand on Superman's shoulder.

Thus, the near-reality-altering power of the ultimate bat armor began to flow into Superman's body.

That's the sun!

Superman's power originates from the sun, or rather, it needs a yellow sun to activate it.

By absorbing just a tiny amount of energy from the sun's core, he could easily reverse the course of the Milky Way. Absorb more, and he could easily destroy an entire universe.

As for the logic behind it? Who knows?

Just like this broken cause-and-effect relationship, this non-existent intermediate process, Superman absorbing solar energy to gain power may just be a setting.

But since it exists, it can be utilized.

The power of the ultimate bat armor began to create suns within Superman's body, creating an endless stream of yellow suns.

Countless miniature suns were stuffed into every cell, molecule, and atom of Superman.

Then, pure golden light erupted within Superman, and his original human form completely transformed into a form composed of golden energy.

In just a moment, Superman returned to the powerful form he once possessed—"Golden Superman".

That was a form Superman acquired in a storyboard where, due to severe injuries, he went deep into the sun to absorb energy to heal.

Now, when every atom is filled with endless solar energy, what level will this illogical superman reach?

Who knows.

The only thing the Justice League members could be sure of was that Superman's golden light grew brighter and brighter, and when it reached its peak, it suddenly collapsed, transforming into a humanoid shape that seemed to be made of the cosmos.

Immediately afterwards, the power of the Ultimate Bat Armor shifted to the Flash.

Vast and boundless energy began to flow into The Flash's body, starting to power the Speed ​​Force.

The Flash started running in place, endlessly generating the Speed ​​Force.

Although this process makes no sense, the Flash, Barry Allen, is the source of the Speed ​​Force.

With each step he takes, the Speed ​​Force in the universe increases by one unit, and this increased Speed ​​Force propels him even faster.

If he can only run one step in the first second, then he can run 100 steps in 1.5 seconds, 1 steps in 1.55 seconds... Almost like Zeno's paradox, at this moment, the Flash has transformed into an ultimate speed engine.

Although it seems absurd, the three began to merge into one under the life-altering power of the ultimate bat armor.

The ultimate Superman, whose mind is the law, the ultimate Speed ​​Force engine, and Batman wearing the ultimate Bat armor, all three combine to form a pure white human silhouette.

"So that's how it is..." The humanoid silhouette looked at its own hands, then at the other Justice League members around it, and then at Fang Zheng.

He opened his arms as if calling upon everything in the world.

Thus, everyone in the Justice League, all the superheroes, all the supervillains, all the ordinary people, and everything in the merged storyboards began to endlessly coalesce and unify.

“I think, therefore I am.”

"I am aware of my existence, I am aware of everything that constitutes me."

“I refer to myself; I am the self-referential engine.”

"I am who I am!"

He seems to possess everything, seems to be composed of everything, yet seems to be nothing at all, existing in a nameless void, or perhaps, that itself is existence.

He was playing basketball, reaching out and pulling out two planets from who-knows-where, one in each hand, and smashing them hard into Fang Zheng's face! (DC's fighting style is truly hilarious)
The planet's lava splashed onto Fang Zheng's face like juice, but Fang Zheng just smiled and slapped it away.

With a "thud," he fell to the ground on the streets of Gotham City, right in front of Batman and the Justice League members, unable to get up in a disheveled state.

"Batman, didn't you say that you believed my actions would destroy the very essence of relationships?"

Fang Zheng grabbed the mysterious creature by the neck and slapped it twice to bring it back to its senses. He pointed at it and said, "This is my answer, and it is your answer too."

"The essence of man is the sum total of all social relations."

"The complete separation from social relations, the complete independence of an individual, has no meaning."

So, what exactly is emergence?

Monotonous rules, at a sufficiently large scale, can give rise to entirely new properties.

A single water molecule is not fluid; it takes countless water molecules clustering together to exhibit properties such as fluidity, viscosity, and surface tension.

A single brain cell is just a single brain cell. It takes a large number of brain cells forming a neural network to reach a certain scale before the abstract structure that ordinary people call consciousness can emerge.

So, to what extent should brain cells be reduced before consciousness, this abstract concept, completely disappears?
Then, brain cells are continuously added one by one, starting from the very basic beginning. To what extent can it be said that one has consciousness?
Does this thing have a boundary line?

maybe.

Is this boundary line itself "self-referential"?
Is it the act of "becoming aware of oneself"?
maybe.

(End of this chapter)