Though it shared some similarities with Telesma, its manifestations were almost entirely different.
At the very least, Natsume-san's perceptual ability couldn't really be called a form of energy.
It was more like a purely metaphysical esper ability, requiring computational power to parse the information and intelligence it gathered.
As everyone knew, esper abilities needed to be borne by one's Personal Reality, using computational power to drive that Personal Reality to interfere with the physical universe.
Perceptual ability, however, not only lacked its own unique Personal Reality, but it also had no effect of interfering with the universe or its Phases.
It was just a ghost drifting through the world, staring impassively and self-contentedly at this deeply flawed reality.
'Hitomi hasn't undergone the systematic brain development curriculum that espers have. So how does she parse the intelligence gained from her observations? Just the initial observation of the Phase Sea created enough computational pressure to crush a regular Level 3 esper.'
'Or perhaps, the computational power espers possess isn't the only way to parse information. Depending on the user's worldview, there might be different mechanisms for processing the feedback.'
Raising an eyebrow slightly, Natsume-san's thoughts wandered along these lines.
She couldn't comprehend the true nature of this perceptual ability. It wasn't matter, it wasn't energy, it wasn't magic, and it wasn't science.
The only thing she could confirm was that perception itself was probably related to the identity of the 'Transmigrator', or perhaps connected to the very reason why so-called 'Transmigrators' appeared in this world in the first place.
'Was perception an ability that a Transmigrator brought from another world?'
'But that doesn't explain why it works here too, and why it's so compatible with this world's power system.'
'And does another world truly exist? Beyond the layered Phases, there's nothing. Everything there feels utterly false, even more unacceptable than the Phases themselves. The moment my perception touches it, my brain hurts terribly trying to comprehend its existence, forcing me to abort immediately.'
Thinking this far, the conflicted expression on Natsume-san's face mostly faded away.
She never liked wasting too much time on things she couldn't understand. No matter which world you're from, if you choose to stare at the stars, you'll eventually exhaust yourself on that very path.
The capabilities of a human being have limits. She needed to form an AIM Stray Thought first, at the very least.
Putting down the notebook in her hand, Natsume-san didn't seem to be in the mood to record anything else.
She felt somewhat mentally drained, probably because Natsume Sonoko had absorbed too many dreams and too much information from the same person, leading to a kind of cognitive confusion and disorientation.
This wasn't strongly related to whether the dreams were reenacted.
The brainwashing effects were hard to trigger in a 'read-only' state. This was more like an informational impact stemming from another personality.
After all, Indian Poker couldn't hold that much information; only its brainwashing effect was truly feared. But for the nearly limitless volume and capacity of the dream world, that limitation didn't apply.
Fortunately, espers had a significant advantage in maintaining self-awareness. She could continuously digest the intelligence from another person. However, with so much information flooding her brain at once, her own thought processes were being subtly influenced.
The bun-girl, lacking experience akin to Mental Out's, was ultimately going to pay the price for her greed.
If only she'd consulted that blonde senpai about similar issues beforehand, she'd know the risks of stuffing too much of someone else's life into her head in a short time. Plus, she didn't have that senpai's skill in tidying up brains.
Furthermore, precisely because the two of them were originally one, this subtle influence seemed even more severe. Deep in her subconscious, Natsume-san also acknowledged the special relationship between herself and the other.
'Can't keep going like this.'
'The dangers hidden within the dreams run far deeper than I imagined.'
Observing that tributary, which was far longer than her own twelve years of dreams, Natsume-san thought with some worry.
She had no desire to develop schizophrenia, to conjure up another Hitomi within her own body. The other's volume of information clearly surpassed her own twelve years of life. Absorbing the other's life without restriction was just asking for trouble.
Personality is closely tied to one's environment and experiences. Once influenced by someone else's life, would the person she became still be herself?
After observing so much of the other's daily life, Natsume-san even found herself unconsciously adopting some of her speech and mannerisms. The only upside was that she seemed a bit more elegant now.
How annoying. Wasn't she elegant before? She'd studied hard on how to become a proper young lady!
Forcing her thoughts back on track, separating herself from the jumble of extraneous information, Natsume-san struggled to clearly recognize the distinctions between the two of them.
Finally, she slumped listlessly against her desk.
At least no major problems had arisen. The other's life was far too fragmented, nowhere near as complete as the river of her own life.
This experience also made Natsume-san somewhat wary about exploring the Dream Phase. If she explored a large enough number of dreams, she could easily imagine her head being stuffed full of the lives of all sorts of people.
To avoid this potential cognitive hazard, having an independent, sound self-awareness was just the foundation. She needed to find powerful anchors to support her own sense of identity.
The simplest method was to enrich her own memories and deepen her various bonds, so she wouldn't lose herself in the vast sea of information.
In Natsume-san's view, even if this Toaru-verse contained beings who could, with a single thought, overwhelm the universe and all Phases, none could withstand the terrifying state of having the infinite informational sea of the world superimposed upon them to achieve a form of omniscience.
That path inevitably led to losing everything, unable to find the shore of salvation.
Unless such a being's own informational content was vaster and more majestic than the world itself. But in reality, if two or more such beings existed, that possibility vanished, as they themselves would be included within that sea of information.
However, what Natsume-san didn't understand was that 'overwhelming the universe' was ultimately just a direct representation of the quantity of matter and energy.
From the perspective of the Toaru-verse itself, matter and energy were essentially meaningless, merely surface-level manifestations of the Creator's power.
Both could be generated and annihilated through various means.
What was more important was the information and knowledge the Creator used to operate the universe, and indeed, the entire world.
But, returning to the main topic, this kind of cognitive hazard, leading to personality loss or collapse, wasn't actually rare. What concerned Natsume-san most was the strange state Misaka-senpai had entered during her previous attempt to advance to Level 6.
The fact that Misaka-senpai managed to hold on until she was saved was actually thanks, in part, to the death memories of the Sisters.
Although those memories were initially meant to guide the level shift, as the evolution deepened, they instead became anchors for Misaka-senpai to maintain her self-awareness.
Her rage and fury preserved her personality, preventing it from being assimilated and lost within the power of the incomplete Level 6 in a short time.
This made Natsume-san realize the immense risk involved in becoming a Level 6. Her own twelve years of experience were utterly insufficient to support such a dangerous integration with the universe, the manifestation of one's self among the stars.
That white-haired boy, who supposedly could naturally become a Level 6 in over two hundred years, aside from meeting certain hard requirements, probably had a life span of two centuries, enough to support the integrity of his personality.
As for the previous, almost forcibly accelerated Level 6 Shift Project, from this perspective, it seemed even more suspicious.
Fighting the Sisters might stimulate an increase in computational power, but using that as a means to form anchors supporting a complete personality seemed far too crude. It was even less effective than the bond with Last Order.
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL