The real world and the virtual world should not be conflated...
Ickshonpe's godlike ability to freely create objects was largely tied to the unique nature of 'data'.
After all, this is a world built from data.
The difficulty of creation here was undoubtedly far lower than the birth of life in reality.
As living humans, the reason they can establish themselves in such a world is because of the intervention of Nen.
It is Nen that has built a channel that can connect the two, which is why the Digital World exists in the first place.
Suppressing the whirlwind of thoughts in his mind, Moses followed Ickshonpe's example and jumped directly above the green pipe.
The moment his feet touched what felt like solid ground, a familiar game sound effect chimed in his ears.
Before he could react, he felt his entire body slide into the pipe like a drop of water, and in the blink of an eye, he flowed out from another part of the pipe.
"Hmm?"
Moses's body gently landed on a cloud that resembled cotton. The first thing that came into view was the blue sky and various colored building blocks floating in the air.
These blocks were as numerous as stars, not only colorful but also vastly different in shape and volume.
As Moses scanned the scene, he noticed something peculiar, that some of the blocks were moving.
Several blocks floating in the air were drawing closer to each other, as if there was an invisible magnetic force at work between them.
Under Moses's watchful gaze, these blocks quickly came together, then transformed into a red and blue bird that began flapping its somewhat uncoordinated wings, flying back and forth in the sky.
Then-
The block bird plunged downward without warning.
Moses's eyes followed closely, tracing the block bird's movement downward.
It was also at this time that Moses discovered that below was a vast expanse of buildings constructed from blocks.
With his keen eyesight, he could even see many strange lifeforms made of blocks.
Though calling them 'lifeforms' might not be entirely accurate...
After all, the essence of these existences is very likely just data.
But even setting aside the concept of data, to Moses, these blocks seemed more like they had been infused with consciousness, thus becoming a kind of existence with autonomous mobility.
Moses stared intently at the block world below.
Beside him,
Ickshonpe remained silent.
Any explanation would pale in comparison to those first few seconds of seeing something new and wondrous.
At this moment, Ging also arrived on the cloud through the pipe, and saw Moses's reaction at the moment, as well as the long-unseen block world before them.
In the sky above were countless block components, occasionally forming into a living entity.
On the ground below was a block world operating as normally as the human world, with brilliant and colorful buildings, humanoid blocks, and even blocks resembling strange and exotic beasts.
And such an area was merely a corner of the Digital World.
In the Digital World, anything humans can imagine could potentially be created in the form of data.
Bizarre is an adjective tailor-made to describe the Digital World.
It is precisely because of this that it gives people a strong sense of virtuality.
When Ging first came into contact with the Digital World, like Moses, he was also attracted by many indescribable novel things.
However-
'This is a virtual world, and everything here is data with almost zero weight.'
With such a cognition in mind, the novelty obtained from the virtual world is far less than that of the real world.
It's like when Ickshonpe builds a ruin in the Digital World that Ging has never encountered before, but Ging cannot experience the true feeling of discovering a ruin in the real world.
Therefore, Ging was never addicted to the Digital World, only finding it incredibly novel when he first came into contact with it.
This is also the reason why he hasn't come back to the Digital World for a long time.
Ging felt that Moses was a person very similar to him, so he should also stay in the Digital World for a while due to the sense of novelty.
But in reality-
At this moment, Moses was indeed amazed by the essence of the Digital World.
But the questions he was pondering at this time were not about how big the Digital World is, how many areas like the block playground there are, or whether there are even more bizarre and exaggerated things.
He was thinking about those block organisms in the sky that gained autonomous consciousness through combination.
Several block components sticking together could give birth to autonomously moving consciousness.
'Looking at the process and result, it can basically be defined as a Manipulation-Type phenomenon.'
'But it's indeed interesting.'
Moses's lips curled slightly, and he suddenly felt that losing his 'shadow' was not a bad thing.
Such a result seemed to give him some kind of motivation to continue moving forward.
'If this is an opportunity, then what ability could I gain from it?'
Moses silently thought to himself.
The price of resurrecting with the Counterpoint Cornerstone that counter the phenomenon of death is the loss of his shadow, which carried the Soul Echo Ability System.
If there is no way to find the shadow and the Soul Echo Ability…
Then he'll just seek out things that still hold value in the ashes.
Such action is more meaningful than merely accepting the 'status quo'.
No matter what changes they encounter, humans, as creatures, are incapable of standing still.
Even if just to accomplish something small, the purpose of human feet is to move forward step by step.
'Let's go help Hisoka deal with his calamity...'
A hint of a smile appeared on Moses's face.
It is unknown whether if it was because of his earlier contemplation or a sudden pang of conscience,
Moses suddenly felt he had treated Hisoka quite unfairly.
Not only had he stood him up numerous times, but he also consciously postponed dealing with the calamity that happened to Hisoka.
Although Hisoka could resist further erosion from those trumpet flower as long as he remains in Zetsu state, leaving Hisoka to suffer and wait for an uncertain 'date' was ultimately a form of mental torture.
If Hisoka, who is far away in the real world, could see what Moses is thinking at this moment, he would probably feel somewhat touched.
But if he continued watching,
he would find that-
'Well, maybe I can get some 'ability materials' or something.'
'Besides, giving Hisoka a good beating might earn me some ability-related rewards from Perception.'
'Thinking about it that way, I'm suddenly getting impatient.'
Moses raised his hand to his chin and began to concern himself with Hisoka's current situation.
At the same time,
Somewhere in the world, in a forest next to a waterfall stream.
Two sneezes suddenly rang out.
If someone were to look toward the source of the sound, they would see a naked man 'posing' in a seductive way.
Although this description is more commonly used for women...
If we're just talking about the act of manipulating body posture, the naked man was indeed doing exactly that.
And this naked man was none other than Hisoka, who had been suffering from calamity torment for months.
But there is nothing he can do about it.
After all, he had many flowers spreading across his body. Wearing clothes was manageable, but when taking them off, it was always inconvenient and would intensify the pain brought by the calamity.
Besides, in this remote forest, he basically wouldn't encounter any other living person.
Furthermore, the important parts of his body were covered by flower vines, so there was no need to worry about exposure...
No.
For Hisoka, exposure or not wearing clothes wasn't much of an issue to begin with.
"Who could be thinking of me~"
After suddenly sneezing twice, Hisoka twisted his waist, slowly raised his right hand, and reached behind his neck, using the sharp stone in his hand to carve a groove on the tree trunk in front of him.
Beside this groove were many more densely packed grooves.
This seemed to be Hisoka's way of counting days.
As for why he was counting days...
It goes without saying.