Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

Noldrei was aware of the impact Academy City was having on the arts.

But he couldn't care less about the spiritual needs of the old era. Those needs were woefully inadequate for dealing with the spread of "industrial psychosis" that had become rampant in the industrialized world.

Theresa's work, however, was going perfectly. She had quickly accepted her grand mission of bringing hope to the masses.

Elysia, on the other hand, thought Noldrei was a bit of a bad influence for tricking a sweet little loli into becoming such a simpleton. After all, Theresa was still just a "kid" who was afraid of haunted houses!

This filled Elysia with a motherly affection for Theresa, which in turn earned her a scornful remark from Mobius.

"Look at what you do all day! Why don't you do anything productive? Going out for karaoke with people at a time like this?!"

Mobius felt Noldrei was far too lenient with Elysia. She believed Elysia was just wasting time playing around, a great betrayal of her identity as the Herrscher of Origin. Why possess so much power, only to spend your days chasing fleeting pleasures?

And Elysia herself, honestly, was always boasting about being the "Herrscher of Humanity." What kind of human had pointed ears and square pupils?

However, Noldrei's reasons for having Elysia experience these things were not without purpose. He needed her to understand human entertainment in order to find a... spiritual bridge... that could connect the new era with the old.

To put it simply, what Noldrei actually wanted was to create a special kind of music capable of facilitating communication between people.

In Noldrei's own time, communication was achieved through "waves"—an experience of spiritual union completed through the resonance between life forms.

In this era, the equivalent would be art forms like music, performance, song, and dance.

Painting, for instance, is just the act of recording the waves of light and color one person receives, then showing that recorded image to another.

A song is the recording of the patterns of sound vibrations one person experiences, which is then played for another to hear, thereby conveying information.

This, of course, also included the quantification of other information, like the experience of a live performance.

Elysia was the important "High Priestess" or "Great Shaman" that Noldrei was preparing, someone who could connect the spiritual and physical realms in the coming era of the Stigma.

As individual abilities continued to increase, figures like priests or shamans—individuals who concentrated vast knowledge within themselves—would inevitably reappear in the world.

Therefore, Elysia had no choice but to take up the very simple task of "studying" once again.

"You're so mean, making a beautiful girl like me do such hard work."

No one heard Elysia's complaint except for Noldrei, but she still dutifully went to work for him.

Meanwhile, Noldrei was with Theresa, laying out the next phase of their work.

"We will be preparing the next content update," he explained. "Besides providing for more people, we also need enough individuals who can facilitate interpersonal communication and interaction."

"This is a very difficult job. We need to re-edit and recreate all sorts of content related to the humanities. It's somewhat similar to what's in the Schicksal database, but I plan to modify and perfect it further."

Theresa diligently jotted down Noldrei's arrangements in a small notebook. Although she didn't understand everything, she knew she would grasp it once she started putting it into practice. This was how Theresa had always worked under Otto.

Given that the girls in his household were each more mischievous than the last, this was the first time Noldrei had encountered someone so obedient. He was very pleased with Theresa's attitude.

With this in mind, he decided to have a deeper discussion with her.

"Do you have any other questions?"

Theresa hesitated for a moment before asking, "I don't quite understand why we specifically need this information relay... I mean, this kind of relay for experiences and feelings. If we enhance people's learning abilities and give them super-strong memory through augmentation, wouldn't that make a relay unnecessary? They could fill that role themselves."

She was referring to one of the most critical parts of the new human development plan. Once humanity's limits were broken, everyone could be an excellent artist, a producer of music and visual arts, and even participate in game development. A step further, and a single person could create a whole game without any problem.

If that's the case, why did they need to specially select and train a group of people for this?

"That's an excellent question!"

Noldrei hadn't expected that while Theresa could be a bit dense, her intuition was incredibly sharp, easily grasping the key point.

"Let me ask you this: since anyone in the modern world can write a book, why are there still auditors, literary associations, and other administrative bodies? Can't people just write whatever they want?"

Theresa pondered for a moment. "I suppose it's to prevent certain things from being disseminated? The purpose of such organizations is to control what gets written. Of course, there are also platforms that manage content to promote better works."

Noldrei nodded in approval. "Exactly. The main job of these people is to promote things that meet the needs of the majority, while also flagging things that fall outside of that."

"Creators should indeed have the freedom they deserve. But! If in this world, you could get anything just because you felt you deserved it, wouldn't that eliminate all conflict? How could such a wonderful thing possibly happen to you?"

"This principle applies to everyone. Whether you can obtain something isn't about whether you should have it, but whether you can get it."

"Therefore, we will select certain people to specifically enter the worlds created by these psychiatric patients, in order to experience these special things that they cannot on their own."

Noldrei looked at the little white furball and said to Theresa in a gentle tone, "Peering into people's hearts isn't for the sake of control. Our goal is to let them express what's in their own worlds, to expose their problems for all to see."

"How to convey, transform, and soothe the will of the old humanity, and how to shape a new self-awareness—these are the tasks we must undertake."

"To enter the new world, we must first expose the spiritual wounds of the old world to the light of day."

Sister Theresa felt as if she had heard the Gospel itself, as if she had been baptized anew.

This was different from Gray Serpent's religious act of creating a savior. Noldrei's actions were closer to Jesus's disciples writing the Gospels—a social performance to inform the masses of a new truth, like a Mahayana sutra.

Although Theresa was a nun, when it came to the meaning of a nun's duties, she was completely clueless.

Today, for the first time, she felt like she was truly a nun.