"..."
Faced with Su Mo's question, Hatsune Miku fell into a brief silence.
If she hadn't been upgraded, if she hadn't touched the realm of omniscience, she would have been able to answer his question with utmost confidence. For example: the speed of light is eternally constant; mass-energy is conserved; information is never lost.
But she was no longer the AI who only possessed the scientific knowledge of modern civilization. Now, she had touched the realm of omniscience, and at the same time, the realm of the unknowable. So she knew that all the rules she once swore by would, upon deeper theoretical exploration, be overturned.
The so-called speed of light could actually change, and not just in the narrow sense of a photon's velocity, but in the broader sense of the physical speed limit itself. So-called mass-energy was sometimes not conserved; at least, in certain special, isolated spacetimes, mass could exhibit tunneling phenomena across time. So-called information was by no means permanently preserved according to quantum mechanics; the radiation of a black hole also had its blind spots.
The physical and even mathematical laws once thought to be eternal in original physics were, in fact, not unchangeable. It was just that humanity had not yet encountered the "dark clouds" hanging over them.
After several dozen seconds of thought, Hatsune Miku gave a conservative answer.
"The world itself will exist for eternity."
This was actually a clever trick. She didn't know what could exist for eternity, but she knew that what already existed must continue to exist. It was a conclusion similar to "one equals one," which was essentially a tautology.
However, faced with this tautology, Su Mo gazed at her with a profound look.
"Will the world itself... truly exist for eternity?"
"..."
The AI stalled again. Even Hatsune Miku didn't know what Su Mo was trying to express. After careful consideration, she asked, "If we consider the universe after the heat death as still 'existing,' then that conclusion should be correct, right?"
A world in its apocalypse, or a world after the apocalypse, is still a world, isn't it? Even without the existence of humanity, the existence of the world itself is beyond question.
Just as she stated this conclusion with conviction, Su Mo once again shook his head.
"The so-called heat death, the so-called eschatology, those are concepts that only worlds that support a third-type perpetual motion machine are qualified to have."
"In such worlds, the universe may fall into heat death, but heat death is also a kind of ending..."
"But in a world where not even a third-type perpetual motion machine exists, matter, energy, information—all of it will suffer attrition. In the end, even the apocalypse itself cannot last long."
"In our world, the concept of heat death itself will also continuously decay."
"After all, there is no hope here."
Hearing Su Mo's words, Hatsune Miku's newly evolved system began to heat up again as she struggled to comprehend his meaning. After several dozen seconds, using the AI's abstract thinking rather than conceptual aggregation, she confirmed the meaning Su Mo was trying to convey.
"Master, do you mean to say that in our world, matter, energy, information... no matter what the concept, even existence itself, could possibly vanish completely?!"
"Not possibly," Su Mo shook his head.
"Inevitably."
As if for a more vivid description, four white daffodils appeared on the table before him.
The first flower multiplied rapidly, covering a quarter of the tabletop without any fertilizer or water.
The second flower stood tall and elegant, blooming eternally on its own as long as it wasn't disturbed by external forces, needing no fertilizer or water.
The third flower stood in a nutrient solution. After absorbing enough water and nutrients, the flower withered and died, leaving behind the seeds of a new flower in the empty container, waiting. With a new opportunity, it could grow again.
The fourth flower also stood in a nutrient solution, also constantly absorbing water and nutrients. The flower also gradually withered, and it could even produce seeds, but the seeds themselves were decaying along with the flower. After it had completely rotted, even if new nutrient solution were poured in, it would never bloom again.
It went without saying that their mundane world, a world where not even a third-type perpetual motion machine was permitted, belonged to the last category.
"Under this cosmology, even if the concept of eternal life is discovered, the concept itself will decay. The scientific field researches and utilizes the rules and powers of the world itself."
"In other words, on the scientific path, no matter how one struggles, the final route is a deadlock... All achievements are destined to wither and die."
Seeing Hatsune Miku fall into a state of contemplation, Su Mo finally stated his reason.
The upper limit of the scientific path was by no means lower than that of mysticism, and the shackles of Earth's resources were not an insurmountable problem. If Su Mo had transmigrated not into a mundane world where not even a third-type perpetual motion machine was allowed, but into a world like To Love-Ru, where a first-type machine might even exist, with his comprehension, he could have cleared the game in one life, reaching the realm of the multiverse with the resources of a single world.
But there were no 'ifs' in this world. This world did not allow for such an overpowered existence to emerge.
On this basis, no matter how deeply one delved into the field of science, it was meaningless. Science is the power to explore, master, and utilize the rules of the world. To deny the rules of the world itself, one cannot walk this path of compliance.