T/N: Another chapter where you need to keep your brain aside OwO.
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Meanwhile. As the story entered a transitional slice-of-life phase...
The people in Greece who had just finished watching all of this could no longer focus on continuing.
Of course, they would still watch it, and they had to watch it, but weren't these transition episodes specifically made to let the audience relax a little?
These slower scenes were no longer enough to keep their eyes glued to the screen. Because the first half of Episode 3, to others, might have just been a pleasantly surprising story.
But to the Greeks, it carried extraordinary meaning.
After Tribios and Mydei... Many people had already been satisfied. They felt that the portrayal of two philosophical thinkers like that was already incredible, and they were deeply impressed.
But after watching Anaxa and Castorice... The emotions in their hearts could no longer be described with simple words like "complex" or "shocking."
Because for others, watching the show was just watching a show. For them watching Honkai: Star Rail, it was more like looking into a mirror.
...
Inside a university lecture hall.
Dozens of students, teachers, and a professor were watching the images projected on the screen.
Stelle was currently wandering through the Marmoreal Palace and the Vortex of Genesis, enjoying a rare moment of rest.
And the students' minds could finally use this opportunity to rest a little as well.
"Does anyone have anything they want to say?" The gray-haired professor spoke.
Silence filled the room. Not because there was nothing to say, but because there was too much to say.
Who should they even talk about? Anaxa?
At this moment, whenever they thought of Anaxa, the minds of these students, who aspired to bring Greek classics back into the world, became flooded with countless historical figures.
Not just them... There were many more.
Everyone present understood that throughout the history of this land, there had never been a shortage of people who challenged authority.
From Socrates drinking poison, to Hypatia being stoned to death, to Anaxagoras being exiled from Athens for claiming the sun was merely a burning stone... There were simply too many examples.
And what Anaxa did in the story was exactly the same as what those people had done.
But that alone was not enough. What truly shocked these students and plunged them into contemplation was this, from a realistic perspective, Anaxa had won!
The spirits of Socrates and the others endured through the ages, but within their own eras, they were, in truth, losers.
Anaxa was different. He had fundamentally overturned Okhema's divine authority, planting the seeds of doubt. Even his companions, the Chrysos Heirs who were themselves part of Okhema's leaders, acknowledged his theories.
Of course, you could say that Honkai: Star Rail is just a fictional story, and that the victory of a fictional character in a fictional world cannot compare to real philosophers and sages.
But the terrifying thing about Mihoyo lies precisely here.
Because some things cannot be openly stated. Some words seem light when left unsaid, but once spoken aloud, they weigh a thousand pounds.
And that thing is, divinity.
Just look at it. The magnificent myths of Olympus, along with the countless systems of humanistic philosophy established by the Greeks.
If it had to be summed up in one sentence, it would be: Greece carries divinity. Greece rejects divine authority.
This contradictory yet enduring history, stretching across millennia, was also deeply tied to the rise and fall of the great empires surrounding the Mediterranean.
So when they saw Anaxa, when they saw everything happening within Okhema... It felt both familiar and alien to them.
That subtle feeling understood only by them had been vividly hidden within the story by Mihoyo.
Others could not perceive it. They lacked the background for it.
"From ancient Greece onward, systems of power have always been intertwined with the divine."
"The citizen assemblies of Athens were held beneath the Parthenon, while Rome's Council of Elders debated beside the Temple of Jupiter."
"Procedure was divine justice. Law was divine decree."
Seeing that none of the students spoke, the professor continued on his own.
"Do any of you know what happened afterward?"
"The Enlightenment. The Reformation. Religion retreated."
One student answered.
The professor smiled and looked meaningfully at the student.
Everyone present instantly understood what he meant, and the same image subconsciously appeared in all their minds.
It was that brief moment of silence from Lygus when Caenis begged him for salvation.
Short, neutral, yet carrying overwhelming authority.
All those hints, all those things that could never be openly said, had been woven into the visuals and the characters' gazes.
"Did the gods truly leave?"
"The Enlightenment merely reclaimed a portion of power from the hands of gods, but in doing so, it also created many new 'gods.'"
The old professor removed his glasses and wiped them clean.
He wasn't speaking out of disrespect toward religion. Modern theological research had already ventured far beyond what he was saying.
But those studies were still conducted within the framework of divinity itself, while what he was discussing was Greece's resistance against divinity.
So as he spoke, he too thought of Lygus's brief silence. But what he saw was not the Lygus within the story.
It was the symbol behind him, that lofty, untouchable symbol. To Greeks, that symbol has many names.
The various churches and religious institutions, as well as that distant nation across the Atlantic.
They were not Lygus. Yet they resembled Lygus all the same.
The students fell into thought as they listened to the professor. This topic was still far too profound for young people.
But the professor did not blame them, because he knew these young people loved their country, and their passion for culture and civilization was genuine. What they lacked was merely the tempering of time and society.
"Alright, enough of this."
"Before Star Rail hits me with another scene that gives me a heart attack, let me ask one final question."
The professor glanced at the screen, saw that there was still time, and joked:
"What do you all think of Anaxa as a character? Speak freely."
The moment that topic came up... The exhausted students instantly woke up.
"Anaxa is way too cool!" A female student with a ponytail said excitedly,
"Say something everyone doesn't already know." A classmate beside her teased,
"Ahem." The ponytailed girl blushed slightly, then quickly straightened her expression.
"It's not because of anything else. It's just that when he does those things and says those words, it feels as though it's the most natural thing in the world. That's what makes him so powerful."
"Exactly!" Another male student added,
"When he pointed at Caenis and openly denounced her during the citizens' assembly, it felt so satisfying to watch. And at the same time, I kept wondering, how did he dare? How did he dare stand there, facing the Council of Elders, the audience, and say those things?"
"Wasn't he just going insane?"
"He clearly knew he was going to die, and he still did it. He didn't care about anything, including himself. He only cared whether the truth could be spoken."
Once the conversation started, it could no longer be stopped.
The students began chattering all at once about how much they admired Anaxa, how much they liked him.
The old professor listened with a smile. Only after everyone had mostly finished speaking did he finally ask, "You've all said so much, but have you ever thought about one question? Why do you admire him?"
"Because he's brave."
"He's too smart!"
"He's handsome!"
"Anaxa always upheld the truth!"
In an instant, all sorts of answers burst out.
But the old professor shook his head.
"All of those are right, yet all of them are also wrong. In my opinion, you admire him because, through him, you saw a person."
The students looked at one another.
What kind of person? The old professor walked to the window. Outside lay the dusk of Athens, and through the golden sunlight, the distant Acropolis could vaguely be seen.
"A person we were supposed to become." The classroom suddenly fell silent.
With a single sentence, the old professor had touched the very core of it all.
Greeks worship their ancestors. Those world-renowned philosophical sages, those scholars who carried truth into future generations.
In the eyes of Greeks, those people were the true heroes.
But at the same time, Greece's local religious authority had always existed as well. They believed in gods too, though throughout history, they never truly believed that completely...
Otherwise, why would so many sages who resisted divinity have emerged, only to die tragic deaths because of it?
"For more than two thousand years, what exactly have the Greeks been waiting for?"
"...Waiting for an Athens where Socrates would not be poisoned to death. Waiting for an Alexandria where Hypatia would not be stoned to death. Waiting for a city-state where Anaxagoras would not be exiled."
At this point, the old professor dared not continue. If he kept talking, he himself wouldn't care, but it would become difficult for the students.
Yet everyone knew what he wanted to say next.
[Waiting for an era where reason and courage no longer need death to prove themselves.]
That era seemed to have arrived already. But to Greeks, it was still far from coming.
Even in the current world order, it remained the same.
Why did the students, or rather, the Greeks, love Honkai: Star Rail and Anaxa so deeply?
Because they had always done this. The only difference was that Socrates and the others had failed, while Anaxa succeeded.
In reality, Greece possessed countless failed versions of Anaxa, yet never once had it possessed a successful one.
After Socrates, they should have learned to use reason against authority.
After the Renaissance, they should have reclaimed the authority to interpret culture. After the War of Independence, they should have established a system that no longer required divinity as its foundation.
But now, they had none of that. Other than the thoughts inherited from their ancestors.
Because history no longer gave them another chance.
A thousand years of time. What remained were only failed sages, along with philosophy and ruins.
Yet it was precisely those sages and that history which allowed Greece to continue surviving in this age, where the nation had been fragmented and its culture dismantled.
So naturally, their sense of immersion was overwhelming. Naturally, the exhilaration was so intense they could barely breathe.
This was a Greek power fantasy that only Greeks could truly understand.
Just like how Chinese readers consume historical fiction to heal historical regrets. To become the person one was meant to become, and to let history reach the ending it should have had.
"..."
"Is it still possible?" A girl suddenly asked, her eyes slightly red.
The old professor turned back and smiled.
"I don't know. Perhaps the final lesson Anaxa left behind for Okhema was also left behind for us."
At the end of Anaxa's story. Before the people of Okhema, he planted the seed of doubt.
And when someone asked him what the future new world would become, Anaxa answered that he didn't know.
He left that question to Phainon and the others.
This was the scene of the final lesson. But in the eyes of the old professor, and many Greeks alike... The more they watched this "final lesson," the more it felt as though it had been written specifically for them.
At times like this. What MiHoYo intended while writing the script no longer mattered.
What mattered was how the viewers felt about it. To Greeks, this was exactly what Anaxa felt like.
If MiHoYo insisted it wasn't like this, then MiHoYo simply didn't understand Greece at all.
In any case, their immersion was complete.
As the conversation came to an end. The professor and students once again turned their eyes toward the projected episode on the screen. Yet the absorbed look in their eyes no longer resembled people merely watching a show.
Every Greek present could glimpse a trace of regret within it, as though seeing Greece itself.
Unfortunately... Many of those present had only gotten into Star Rail during the Amphoreus arc and weren't very familiar with some of the small details on the official website.
Otherwise, they definitely would have used a few words to describe this feeling,
"The self once reflected in the mirror."