Rhodes Island does not exist.

So he slowly pulled on the muscles and bones of his arm, carefully and cautiously pulling it away from the wall, centimeter by centimeter, and moving it to the side.

The area covered by the left hand is getting smaller and smaller.

The doctor knew he would soon see the truth hidden beneath his left hand; he had nowhere left to retreat.

Muscle spasms, bone twitching.

at last.

The left hand completely left the wall, leaving behind the stone bricks it had concealed, revealing the eternal mark etched on the brick wall.

A rough number, [1].

Those numbers represent the beginning of all things.

In the beginning, there was the Great Ultimate, the Dao was one, which created heaven and earth and transformed into all things.

But none of this matters.

Regardless of the profound meanings that the number 1 may have in the various cultures of Terra, it has only one meaning in this time and place.

"I really did carve this number eight minutes ago."

The doctor's gaze was dull and lifeless, like rotten wood, and his words were like a mouthful of stagnant water.

Because he could even discern the marks left by his pickaxe on the edges of the numbers, the rough marks that could only be produced by poor chiseling.

Therefore, without a doubt, this number is the one left behind by the doctor.

What he was trying to prove has been achieved.

I am truly cycling through this spiral staircase.

That's great, Doctor. Looking at it this way, it seems all the assumptions have been resolved.

—If this number weren't on the inside wall.

"What kind of bullshit joke is this...?"

The doctor covered his cheek with his left hand, which he had just pulled away from the wall, his eyes wide open, and his tone gradually became unsteady.

"The marks I carved on the outer wall... why did they end up on the inner wall?"

None of the problems have been solved.

not a single one.

It's like when you're filling in your answer sheet for an exam and you start filling in the wrong answers from the second question onwards.

Although you believe these answers are correct and would solve the original problem without any issues, because you filled in the wrong position, all your subsequent answers are actually incorrect.

-

Thank you segment.

Thank you for the monthly pass.

Chapter 67, Section Sixty-Six: The Deep-Sea Tales Beneath the Möbius Line (Part Three)

The doctor guessed that at this very moment, the strange creature following him must be laughing at him in his heart.

After all, his current appearance was so helpless and ugly that he must be the best food for these monsters.

Looking at it this way, the doctor seemed to understand why they were following him.

"You're following me like this just to see me make a fool of myself, aren't you?" he roared, head bowed.

"You created this maze to trap me and watch me make a fool of myself, didn't you?" He raised his voice again.

It must be said that his conjecture may actually have some merit.

After all, anything is possible on Rhodes Island.

"Forget it... what's the point of me yelling here?"

The doctor sighed and shook his head, turning his gaze away from the wall marked with the number 1 and facing forward.

Despite the oddities, the thinking must not stop.

Once thinking stops, everything becomes meaningless and there is no possibility of a solution.

Because man is a thinking reed, and man is noble only because he thinks.

So let's organize the existing information.

The current situation is that the doctor has indeed proven that the spiral staircase he is in is in an endless loop, but the problem is that the loop is in a rather strange way.

First, the doctor's method of proof was to carve numbers as symbols on the wall, so that if he saw the symbols he had left behind while walking, it would mean that he was in a cycle.

And sure enough, he saw it.

However, the symbol was in the wrong position; the symbol that should have been on the outer wall was inexplicably on the inner wall.

If you want to solve the mystery of the corridor, you have to start from this point.

"Wait, from this end to the other end..."

After mentally sketching out his ideas, the doctor suddenly realized something.

If we had to use a metaphor for this idea, it would be a conveyor belt.

The doctor was inside a section of a conveyor belt. The inner wall of the corridor was to the left of the conveyor belt, while the outer wall of the corridor was to the right of the conveyor belt.

When the conveyor belt starts operating, the text that the doctor originally engraved on the right side will move to the doctor's left side due to the loop.

No, no, no, the conveyor belt won't work.

The conveyor belt moves on its own, but the environment here doesn't move like the conveyor belt; instead, it's the doctor who's moving.

In other words, the doctor caused this result without the environment actually moving.

But if the environment hasn't changed, why did the number the doctor first carved appear opposite him?

There is only one possibility.

Möbius strip.

-

"So you mean that the headhunter wanted to talk to that Agor woman, but couldn't find her anywhere?"

The Doctor leaned back in his chair, listening to Amiya's story, and frowned.

“Yes, the bar owners and clients who had seen that Agor woman said they hadn’t seen her in a long time. Later, the operative asked a young man who fed pack animals and found out that she had bought a pack animal and headed south long ago,” Amiya said.

"Is that all there is to the email?" The professor pondered for a moment, stroking his chin, before asking.

“Yes.” Amiya nodded. “Under normal circumstances, headhunting agents wouldn’t specifically report recruitment failures, but this time the target was an Agor, so…”

“South...she must have gone to Iberia.” The Doctor let out a long breath. “Perhaps that’s her main purpose. As for being a bounty hunter, it’s possible that she’s doing it to save up for her journey.”

"So, does the Doctor know why she wants to go back?" Amiya asked.

"The call of the deep sea," the doctor replied quickly. "No Agor person with Agor blood in their body can resist this instinctive force."

“The deep sea is the true homeland of the Agor people, and the ancient cradle that nurtured the earliest life on this land.” The doctor’s voice deepened. “But the deep sea is neither gentle nor kind; it is filled with terrors that ordinary people cannot imagine. So although the Agor people are grateful for the place that created them, they will never miss it.”

That's why some people say: Agers who forget their homeland have no soul, while Agers who yearn for their homeland have no brain.

The doctor quoted a proverb.

“But… that Agor woman still went back,” Amiya said.

“Because the deep sea is calling to her.” The doctor shook his head. “For the Agorians, the purer the Agor blood flowing in their veins, the more irresistible they are to the allure of this voice.”

“Many Agers spend their entire lives trying to escape their homeland, but no one has ever truly succeeded.” The doctor chuckled. “Any Ager who has answered the call and returned to Ager will never have a second chance to leave—at least not yet.”

"How does the Doctor know all this?" Amiya could only express her astonishment at the Doctor's words. "No book anywhere records anything like this, not even the Rhodes Island library..."

"The carrier of knowledge does not necessarily have to be a book."

The doctor shook his head, closed his eyes slightly, and used sound only as a medium to observe the room, letting it spread and echo.

“Writing is just one way of recording. The knowledge stored in the Rhode Island Library is not all written on paper. Recordings, images, films, data... they exist in all sorts of media.”

"Knowledge will not actively seek out people."

His voice was clear as porcelain, yet soft as water. A kind face lurked in the shadows beneath his hood.

"Knowledge will simply lie quietly in its rightful place, waiting for those who thirst for it to awaken and discover it."

"So, the reason you didn't find these on Rhodes Island isn't because they don't exist, but because you don't know how to find them."

The doctor smiled.

"Just like Agor, because almost no one has ever seen Agor or knows what kind of place it is, they simply regard Agor as a legend, a story, a place that does not exist."

“But these people can ignore it, while the Agors cannot.”

“Amiya,” the Doctor said, suddenly opening his eyes to look at the girl from Cartes in front of him. “I was about to tell you about what I experienced in Iberia, but I was interrupted by your email, so I’m asking you again now.”

Do you still want to hear it?

-

Thank you segment.

Thank you for the monthly pass, "A Potato Mountain and Green Waters at the Start," thank you.

Chapter 68, Section Sixty-Seven: Don't Waste Your Efforts on Uncertain Areas

If this were to become a Möbius strip, then everything would make sense.

After all, in the state of a Möbius strip, the front and back sides are meaningless, as are the inner and outer walls.

The space here has actually been distorted.

"One grid every half minute, a total of sixteen grids in eight minutes, so the actual length of this spiral corridor is..."

Having grasped the current situation, the PhD student has begun planning his own way to break through this spiral corridor.

At this moment, he had basically constructed a solution process based on his own conjecture in his mind.

The premise is that this conjecture is correct.

"Okay."

His eyes brightened again, and at the same time he immediately began practicing the simulated behavior in his mind.

"Ding."

First, take the bottled Originium out of your pocket and place it on the ground.

After what happened on the third floor, the Doctor is now certain that almost all the oddities on Rhodes Island fear Originium.

Originium and seawater are like the two poles of Yin and Yang, one that is avoided by monsters, and the other that they flock to.

For the doctor, however, it symbolizes both lucidity and madness.

By touching the Originium, he was able to glimpse his lucid dreams and learn about his deleted past.

By drinking seawater, he was able to dive into a surreal reality and erase his fear in madness.

"And what about you?"

He subtly avoided the strange gaze from the corner of his eye, then took two steps forward.

This strange creature is like a stalker, relentlessly following the doctor. No matter where he goes, he can always see it whenever he turns around.

So if it doesn't follow after walking a few steps, it means it has stopped moving.

Thinking this, the doctor turned his head slightly and glanced at the situation behind him out of the corner of his eye.

Nothing.

Only the gray steps and stone walls were immersed in the silent gloom.

"really."

The doctor secretly confirmed his idea, but to be on the safe side, he took a few steps back.

The scene that gradually came into his peripheral vision was exactly as he had expected.

The grotesque creature, made up of countless stacked eyeballs, was now swaying its net-like body irregularly, as if it had swallowed a poisonous insect. From an outsider's perspective, it must have been quite uncomfortable.

The culprit that turned it into this state is probably nothing other than the bottle of Originium on the ground.

"Perfect."