The Omniscient

Chapter 18: Foresight

Huang Ji left the hospital and headed to his next stop.

In a single day, he visited three hospitals, interacting with specialists from various fields, and his ranking steadily climbed. However, aside from the large leap in the beginning, his progress afterward was only a few hundred ranks at a time.

One reason was that he found it difficult to gain access to department heads and professor-level physicians. Another reason was that the doctors he did meet were all at a similar level. They helped him improve his overall versatility but didn’t provide the kind of breakthrough leaps he sought.

Still, any improvement was worthwhile. The medical standards in Shanghai were high, and every major hospital had industry-leading experts. Huang Ji had already scouted out their schedules today.

Once he returned home to consolidate his knowledge, he planned to return and "sweep" the top professors in one go. With that, he expected to raise his medical ranking to within the global top 500.

On the way home, Huang Ji pondered the progression and regression of professional skills.

Everyone has their peaks, periods of growth, and phases of burnout. Even Einstein’s most significant scientific achievements were largely concentrated in his younger years during a single explosive period.

In 1905, at just 26 years old, a fresh graduate working at a patent office without his own lab, Einstein, driven by sheer enthusiasm and imagination, published five groundbreaking papers in a single year. This year was later called his "miracle year."

Huang Ji mulled over such phenomena while observing passersby to verify his thoughts.

By integrating all the knowledge he had accumulated, he began attempting to deduce future trends based on the information he observed.

He tried to predict whether someone was in a growth phase or a burnout phase, whether their skills had reached a bottleneck, and whether they had the potential for further development.

As Huang Ji worked through these deductions, his understanding deepened. Before long, he discovered new layers of information: the developmental trajectory of individual abilities.

Previously, Huang Ji could only see someone’s current skill ranking. Now, he could also perceive their future trends—whether they were rising or declining, and if they might experience sudden breakthroughs or dramatic setbacks.

Furthermore, he could discern the factors driving these trends, with the information directly presented to him.

For instance, Huang Ji noticed a white-collar worker furiously honking his car horn in traffic. The man was stuck in a jam, yet in the next year, his computer hardware engineering skills would skyrocket, with his ranking improving from beyond a million to the top 100,000.

As for why…

“Ugh…” Huang Ji clutched his head as his vision blurred slightly.

The reason behind this surge in the man’s skills was an overwhelmingly complex bundle of information. The instant influx of details felt like a heavy blow to his mind. 𝔯𝓪₦ȏ𝖇Ëꞩ

Taking a moment to breathe and regain focus, Huang Ji sorted through the reasons for the man’s rapid improvement.

It was actually quite simple: this traffic jam would cause him to miss a critical assessment opportunity. At the same company, he would then face humiliation from his female manager and mockery from his competitors, leaving him deeply embarrassed in front of many colleagues.

However, the man had a tenacious personality and couldn’t stand being provoked. Rather than giving up after such humiliation, he would push himself to the limit, working tirelessly day and night to improve, leading to his explosive progress in technical skills.

“So this is… foresight-based information? No, it’s just a trend—the most likely evolutionary outcome.”

“The future isn’t fixed. This information about the future is calculated based on the causal conditions as they exist up to this moment.”

“Still, this is incredible! By analyzing trends in doctors’ career trajectories and skill declines, I’ve unlocked such a wealth of information!”

Huang Ji realized that his abilities still had vast potential for growth.

In hindsight, he had already unlocked similar foresight-based information before—such as predicting someone’s lifespan. While it only indicated theoretical life expectancy and didn’t account for accidental deaths, it was still a form of foresight.

To confirm his understanding, Huang Ji approached the white-collar worker’s car.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!" The man furiously honked his horn in frustration, sweat beading on his forehead.

He yelled out the window, “Can’t you just turn over there? What’s the rush, huh? Back up! Back up! Why are you still moving forward? F***!”

As Huang Ji passed the car window, he smirked coldly and said, “Loser!”

Although he hadn’t formally studied foreign languages yet, thanks to Zheng Xuan and his innate ability to sense information, Huang Ji could naturally understand the meaning of all languages.

His tone and expression made his insult painfully clear: You look like a total failure.

The white-collar worker froze, his face turning beet red. He realized he might have overreacted. Yelling in public and disturbing others wasn’t the best look.

But he was genuinely anxious—he couldn’t afford to be late!

But why had Huang Ji, a stranger, called him a “loser”? Did he really look that much like a failure?

“What did you just say?! Come back here!” The white-collar worker wanted to yell back, but no words came to mind. Meanwhile, Huang Ji had already walked away.

“D**n it!” The man banged on the steering wheel, slumping down and staring blankly ahead.

After a moment, he began to laugh bitterly. The laughter quickly turned to the urge to cry as he thought about how being late today might cause everything to fall apart. The weight of countless unspoken grievances threatened to overwhelm him.

Everyone has moments when life feels unbearable. A string of bad events piling up can push anyone toward an emotional breakdown.

Who doesn’t carry their own burdens? Pressure from work, pressure from home, self-imposed pressure—and now even strangers were mocking him.

“Am I really that worthless?”

For a moment, he felt as though he might collapse under the weight of it all.

But Huang Ji, walking away, knew otherwise.

As he left, he glanced back at the man, suppressing the dizziness in his head to discern the broad strokes of the man’s professional future.

Originally, this man would experience a year of rapid improvement in his skills. His significant progress and outstanding abilities would lead to a promotion, a raise, and the appreciation of his company’s boss.

However, that recognition would mark the beginning of his decline.

Once he became complacent and content, he would see himself as an industry elite. Indeed, for a small company, he would be exceptional. But his achievements would plateau there.

Yet now, thanks to a single mocking word from Huang Ji, the man’s trajectory had changed.

His period of growth would be greatly extended, stretching intermittently over three years. At the height of his career, he would reach a global ranking of 30,000 before beginning to decline.

With just one word, Huang Ji had altered the course of his fate.

“So it really works like this...” Huang Ji smiled faintly as he walked away.

He had discerned that this man was extremely reactive to external stimuli—highly emotional and easily influenced by his surroundings.

To most people, this might seem like poor mental resilience. But Huang Ji saw it differently: this man was the type to explode under pressure.

Some people, when pushed to the edge, channel their frustration into relentless effort. They work tirelessly to prove themselves and reclaim their dignity.

Huang Ji had identified this trait in the man and had deliberately stoked the flames of his determination, thus altering his fate.

Of course, nothing is absolute. While this was the most likely outcome at the moment, things could still change.

Tomorrow, some minor incident could shift the trajectory again. Perhaps the man truly would break down under the pressure.

At this moment, Huang Ji was perceiving only the most probable outcome based on the present circumstances.

The concept of "future information" is distinct from the "future state" of present information.

Over the next three years, countless events could occur. What Huang Ji observed was merely the future projection of present circumstances.

Certain “nameless impulses” or purely random events were unpredictable. It’s always possible that someone, on a whim, might act in a way completely at odds with their usual behavior or personality. Or, perhaps, a quantum fluctuation could cause a ripple in the macroscopic world, triggering a butterfly effect that disrupts society and alters the fates of many.

After all, society is a tightly interconnected system—a true shared destiny for humanity.

These so-called nameless impulses might stem from decisions that have yet to be made, from the inherent randomness of quantum fluctuations—or even from Huang Ji himself.

Or perhaps the universe itself contains a random variable, making an absolute future impossible. Huang Ji had no clear understanding of what this "random variable" might be.

“That’s why shorter-term predictions are more useful, while longer-term predictions lose their significance,” he mused.

“Take my own fate, for example.”

When Huang Ji attempted to perceive his own future, he quickly realized it was constantly changing. Each prediction differed from the last. One moment, he foresaw himself returning to his apartment; the next, he was heading to a hospital; and in another, he was standing on the street in a daze.

He accelerated his attempts to perceive his future and was astounded to find that his sense of the next second transformed like a rapidly flipping slideshow.

Seventy shifts per second! In one moment, he stepped forward with his left foot; in another, he used his right. One moment, he turned his head; the next, he jumped in place.

“Because I have information perception, my future is entirely unpredictable—even to myself. Every attempt to predict it changes the outcome.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

As he walked, Huang Ji repeatedly observed others to test and refine his understanding of predictive information, deepening his comprehension with each trial.

Using similar methods, he gradually unlocked predictive insights into other fields.

For instance, he could calculate when a billboard might fall and what would cause it.

Or when a roadside railing might break and under what conditions.

Or when a high-voltage relay would fail and the specific malfunction it would encounter.

By applying the mechanics and electrical knowledge he had learned, Huang Ji unlocked predictive insights into various physical phenomena.

The method was simple: he started with a basic understanding of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Then, using the information he perceived about an object or situation, he conducted logical deductions.

He didn’t need to be perfectly accurate—just broadly correct. If his reasoning was sound, he unlocked the corresponding "true predictive information."

It was like solving a problem in school: even if the final answer was wrong, partial credit was given for correct reasoning.

By following this approach, Huang Ji gained access to precise, objective, and extraordinarily detailed predictive models of the future—models that seemed to simulate reality itself.

Perhaps this “supernatural predictive model” was nothing more than the universe’s physical laws at work.

Although long-term predictions were less meaningful due to their inherent uncertainty, they still represented the most probable scenarios.

Unable to resist the temptation, Huang Ji pushed his perception further, attempting to glimpse the distant future of humanity.

One year… five years… ten years…

Staggering, Huang Ji leaned against a streetlamp, feeling dizzy and disoriented.

The influx of information was overwhelming. It felt as if his consciousness was being battered by a relentless ocean, his mind turning into mush.

He blocked and filtered out almost everything, focusing solely on the survival of humanity in the future.

“Ugh!” Huang Ji clutched his head, fell to his knees, and retched. Even attempting to glimpse a vague scene was an immense strain on his current level of information-processing ability.

But he persisted, determined to see even the faintest glimpse.

Finally, when he reached 2045, Huang Ji’s eyes shot open.

He had seen it.

A blue sun appeared in the sky. It wasn’t that the original sun had changed color—it remained as it was—but beside it blazed an intensely radiant blue sphere of light.

Two suns illuminated the heavens.

The horrifying radiation swept across the globe, killing countless lifeforms in an instant. Not only humans, but animals, plants, and even microorganisms were vaporized.

Only deep-sea creatures survived briefly, but over 99% of Earth’s species were ultimately wiped out.

“Huff... huff...” Huang Ji gasped, drenched in sweat, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably.

Even glimpsing such a catastrophic vision—blurred and indistinct as it was—had pushed him beyond his limits.

His vision darkened. The moment he perceived the apocalypse, his brain buzzed, and he collapsed into unconsciousness on the spot.