The Omniscient

Chapter 9: A New Element



Chapter 9: A New Element

“It’s out! It’s out!”

The museum staff quickly retrieved a chest from the reservoir. When they opened it, inside was a two-foot-tall Buddha statue.

Several elderly experts immediately examined it, and one confirmed, “This is indeed the Tang Dynasty Golden Buddha that was stolen last year.”

“But it’s made of bronze…” a detective remarked skeptically.

“Could it be fake?” Everyone present was taken aback.

One of the older experts chuckled. “No, it’s genuine. At first, we did think it was bronze, but we soon realized the weight was unusual.”

“This Buddha is much heavier than a typical bronze statue! Measurements showed its weight is close to that of solid gold.”

“We suspect the statue is actually made of gold on the inside, with only a thin layer of bronze cast over it.”

The crowd nodded in understanding after hearing this explanation.

Indeed, weight doesn’t lie. While the statue appeared to be bronze, weighing it revealed its true nature.

However, as an invaluable artifact, no one would dare dismantle it to verify the golden interior.

The world recognizes only one surviving relic of a Buddha’s finger bone from the Tang Dynasty. To honor and enshrine it, the Tang royal family commissioned a series of gold and silver artifacts. Over the years, successive Tang emperors also ordered the crafting of Buddha statues to venerate this relic. For example, Emperor Yizong of Tang had a gilded bodhisattva statue adorned with pearls and jewels made for his 39th birthday to honor the relic.

Such artifacts, created for the Buddha’s finger relic, were masterpieces of royal craftsmanship and represented the pinnacle of Tang Dynasty artistry. They were invaluable cultural relics.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

This Golden Buddha, based on its craftsmanship, was considered to be one of these creations. Scholars believed it had been made by a prominent artisan of the Tang Dynasty specifically to honor the relic.

Given its historical importance, any trade involving such artifacts was strictly illegal.

“Wait, what? The inside’s supposed to be gold?” Huang Ji felt exasperated as he listened to the discussions.

If anyone knew whether this statue contained gold, it was him.

One glance told him that the statue contained no gold at all.

There was indeed something sealed inside, but most of its composition was made up of unfamiliar information.

From his perception, Huang Ji could tell that the object was extraordinarily dense—denser than gold. It was primarily composed of iron, silicon, tungsten, and a mysterious unknown element.

Having memorized the periodic table, Huang Ji had a strong grasp of chemistry. He could sense relevant information about any element, no matter how unfamiliar.

However, the element within this object had an extremely unusual name, one that didn’t correspond to any of the 118 elements known to humans.

Its atomic weight was very high. It was a new element—one undiscovered by humanity, and thus without an earthly name.

“The object inside the Buddha… it’s something from a human? Created by… Gautama Siddhartha? Who’s that?”

As Huang Ji continued to delve into the information, more details emerged. Over time, he realized the Buddha statue contained a sophisticated, artificial alloy device. ʀ𝖆Ꞑɵ𐌱ЕS

“It’s roughly the shape of a finger… incredibly intricate… an alloy!”

“And that new element… I’ll call it Kengium for now.”

The unfamiliar name of the element hadn’t automatically translated into something Huang Ji recognized, so he decided to define it himself. Just as he had named the alien race on the moon “Observers” instead of using a direct transliteration like “Zeta,” he chose a name that made the information easier for him to understand.

The element’s creator was not human—it was from an alien civilization!

Huang Ji hadn’t expected to encounter something tied to extraterrestrial life so soon. Unfortunately, the Buddha’s exterior prevented him from learning more about the object hidden inside. Disassembling the Buddha was out of the question; after all, it was a national treasure.

From the naming clues, the element didn’t seem to originate from the “Observer” race. Instead, it belonged to another species, whose name, in an obscure and difficult-to-translate language, seemed to convey a sense of “sinking.”

Huang Ji rejected the idea of calling it “Sinking Element”—that sounded terrible. Instead, he opted for a transliteration of one syllable from its alien name, deciding to call it Kengium.

“If humanity doesn’t know what to call these things, I’ll name all alien-related phenomena myself,” Huang Ji thought.

“Or… translate them.”

He mused that as he encountered more alien artifacts, he might eventually be able to piece together and decode their languages.

Mastering an alien language or writing system would unlock a wealth of new information. After all, languages inherently carry massive amounts of data about their originating civilizations.

Just as with Chinese, Huang Ji could access information about the origins of every character, word, and idiom—including their inventors and the precise historical context in which they were created.

Idioms were particularly insightful; their associated stories came to him without the need for research.

However, this ability was limited to things with defined, standardized meanings.

The commotion surrounding the Golden Buddha lasted until noon, after which everyone dispersed.

Huang Ji didn’t linger; the Buddha was beyond his reach for now—a national treasure with immense cultural significance.

As for the money, he decided not to act hastily. That night, once his grandfather was sound asleep, Huang Ji quietly made his way to the hidden stash on the far side of the reservoir.

Armed with a simple farming shovel, he worked in silence, digging at the designated spot.

In the stillness of the night, no one could approach without him knowing. Every sound was a clear signal to him. He could identify the source, distance, material, frequency, and pitch of any noise with absolute precision.

To him, hearing was equivalent to seeing. Every shape, color, and texture was as vivid as if it were right before his eyes.

“Found it… a locked safe.”

Huang Ji unearthed the safe, knowing it contained the three million yuan.

It was secured with an electronic combination lock, which only made Huang Ji smile faintly.

If it had been a physical padlock, that might have slowed him down. But a combination lock? It was as good as unlocked.

Passwords, to Huang Ji, offered no security. The correct answer was always embedded in the information itself.

“Anything that has been pre-set by humans, and also has a pre-determined answer, will have that answer clearly recorded within its own information,” Huang Ji murmured.

His ability to perceive information made such barriers trivial.

He lamented how, in his younger years, his brain’s heavy load had left him muddled and unable to fully utilize his potential. It was only after dropping out of school that his clarity improved.

If not for that, he wouldn’t have needed to skip the high school entrance exam.

In fact, with his abilities, any standardized test was laughably simple. To him, every exam paper came with the answers printed in invisible ink.

Information Sense truly is the ultimate tool for test-taking, he thought.

If Huang Ji had a better grasp of data coding, he could even discern the contents of USB drives and hard disks just by observing them.

“My knowledge base is still too limited. I need to study,” he thought.

“I really want to go back to school…”

While Huang Ji could learn by directly observing and deducing knowledge from the world around him, the process was inefficient and required significant reasoning.

For example, understanding how a tree grows required long periods of observation to analyze and organize the relevant information before reaching a conclusion about how trees absorb energy and grow.

Broadly speaking, the question of how trees grow has both natural answers and human answers. The natural answer is vast, complex, and broad to the point of being nearly incomprehensible.

In contrast, humanity’s answers are more accessible—starting with concepts like photosynthesis.

By learning the human understanding of photosynthesis, Huang Ji could significantly accelerate his learning process. Once he understood the basics, observing the process would unlock a wealth of related information.

For instance, once he learned about photosynthesis, observing a tree would feel entirely different. The entire photosynthetic process would play out in his mind in an indescribable way, allowing him to perceive it deeply and profoundly.

His comprehension would surpass that of someone who merely studied photosynthesis in textbooks.

With so much readily available knowledge in the world, why rely solely on slow, independent deduction?

By learning humanity’s existing knowledge and conducting his own observations and experiments, he could gain profound insights and uncover additional, useful details.

This would allow him to identify aspects humanity hadn’t discovered yet. With these foundations, he could infer even further and expand his understanding of the unknown.

The cycle of learning, observing, summarizing, and improving his knowledge would continually reinforce itself.

For Huang Ji, this process would be seamless.

“With Information Sense, my learning is rapid! I can grasp nearly anything immediately, apply it practically, and even extrapolate from it.”

“By combining what I learn from others with my own abilities and self-study, I can develop technologies far beyond humanity’s current level.”

“That’s it! If I can surpass the aliens’ technological tree, humanity will have hope.”

Huang Ji quickly set his goal: to tirelessly elevate his knowledge and skills.

Knowledge is power. By mastering enough advanced knowledge and technology, he could tackle Earth’s dire predicament.

“Also, I need to strengthen my body,” Huang Ji realized. Physical fitness was crucial for managing his Information Sense.

The stronger his body, the better he could shield himself from overwhelming streams of unknown information. Perceiving information was a passive ability, and if he couldn’t filter it out, he would constantly be bombarded by data, forced to think about it all the time.

Although his young, healthy body had already blocked out much of the noise from daily life, allowing him to regain normal intelligence, there was still plenty of unknown information he couldn’t screen—like the ceaseless bombardment from the stars.

His daily life was like enduring continuous sensory overload. It was highly uncomfortable.

“And… Grandpa’s health has been deteriorating. He doesn’t have much time left,” Huang Ji thought with worry as he glanced toward the room where his grandfather snored peacefully.

No one understood his grandfather’s condition better than he did. His health was worsening year by year, and without intervention, he wouldn’t survive beyond five years.

Huang Ji resolved to find a way to cure his grandfather’s illness.


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