Witch Society of Wisdom.

When this new magical society was first founded, there was a fascinating conversation between master and disciple. Mortel set its tone, Jiang Cha did the actual building, and now Amber oversees its flourishing growth.

“Master, what’s the point of the Witch Society of Wisdom?”

The young Executor, a black-haired, red-eyed girl, thought for a long time, but still couldn’t settle on an answer—the ultimate purpose this magical society would one day have.

It was a social organization, a creation, so it needed a purpose: something profound, something that pointed toward omniscience and omnipotence.

That could greatly strengthen the witches’ sense of belonging and unity, keeping the society from turning into nothing more than a cram school for learning wisdom magic.

But she couldn’t figure it out, so she could only ask her master—the Witch who had laid the Witch Society of Wisdom’s foundations and built its framework.

Mortel’s answer was far beyond anything Jiang Cha had expected.

It wasn’t even her usual halfhearted sort of response.

The carefree silver-haired Witch was still dressed in a disheveled, alluring, and revealing set of pajamas, with plenty of skin showing and not a care in the world. Her expression was as languid as ever, as if she’d never given the question a moment’s thought.

But she answered.

And she answered with complete seriousness.

“What do you think is the limit of rationality for life?”

“You can’t answer a question with another question...”

The girl sighed in exasperation. Mortel just smiled. “A good question is often more meaningful than an answer.”

“I’m your master, so there are some things I can’t simply give you the answer to. I have to guide you to think them through for yourself.”

“All right, all right...”

Jiang Cha spread her hands. She was a little exasperated, but she had to admit Mortel had a point.

So she began to think.

What was the limit of rationality?

Witches didn’t worship gods, nor did they believe the world had a single, omnipotent and omniscient god.

They believed omniscience and omnipotence could coexist. It was a paradox, but there was compelling evidence that this paradox held true.

That evidence was the triune Void, Quantum, and Eigen.

The existence of three parallel higher-dimensional spaces meant that three omniscient and omnipotent beings already existed alongside one another in this world.

Because this so-called “omniscience and omnipotence” was relative to witches.

Witches were higher magical lifeforms in three-dimensional space. Their understanding, their methods of observing the world, and the limits of what they could comprehend came together to form an image of “omniscience and omnipotence” within the bounds of a Witch’s perception of three-dimensional space—a vision countless witches pursued.

For instance, in the traditional view, any being capable of independently creating a multiverse was omniscient and omnipotent.

That was why they established the Six Great Schools. They believed that a Witch who mastered the limits of all six could create a world on her own. Soul, Matter, Elements, Death, Change, and the Unknown—the six schools contained every element of the world.

The Grand Sages followed this path.

Whether a being that had truly attained “omniscience and omnipotence” was actually omnipotent, and whether it could do absolutely anything—for instance, overlay the multiverse onto chaos—

was meaningless to witches.

Because all they could pursue, all they could hope to attain, was omniscience and omnipotence on the scale of three-dimensional space.

Higher-dimensional matters had nothing to do with them. They could neither observe nor understand them.

That was why witches were rational.

They weren’t chasing myths and fantasies with no answers, nor were they aiming for something they could never achieve.

They were pursuing a limited form of “omniscience and omnipotence,” one bounded by space, time, and dimension.

They knew that blindly reaching for a higher scale was meaningless. It would only lead their species and individuals alike to fall into the unknown Abyss.

Once all that was explained, the limit of a Witch’s rationality became clear: it was this “omniscience and omnipotence” with its scale clearly defined.

So, in truth, witches were still pursuing truth.

Only they sought a theoretical model that could explain everything in existence, then use magic and will to master it and attain their own “omniscience and omnipotence.”

So, did truth exist in this world?

—It did not.

The question itself was flawed, because asking whether truth existed in the world was really asking whether the world had meaning—a meta-value.

In other words, it assumed that someone had created the world for some purpose. Only then would it have a “meaning,” a truth that explained everything.

Put another way, you could compare the world in this line of thought to a computer. The files inside it would be the material foundation of the world, and the desktop pets that emerged within it would be life. So, would truth exist in that world?

It would. That truth would be the computer’s operating system.

Master that system, and you’d attain omniscience and omnipotence.

But a computer was a creation, while the multiverse was not. Some worlds within the multiverse might have been created for a purpose and might have such a “system.” But the multiverse itself arose from chaos, from the interactions between the three great higher-dimensional spaces. It came into being by chance, through natural processes, so that system couldn’t exist.

So what was this “truth” that witches pursued?

It was really “the truth of understanding the world”—a theoretical model they could use to understand everything in the multiverse.

The universe’s ultimate answer, “forty-two,” was incomprehensible and meaningless to all intelligent life. It explained nothing and had no practical use.

Could you really use the number “42” to explain some scientific mystery? Or use it to create some technology?

But the “truth of understanding the world” that witches pursued had value.

They could use this theory to improve their magical theories, create new technologies, and develop more products to improve quality of life.

They could also use it to explain phenomena throughout the universe, whether those phenomena were known or unknown.

So “truth” wasn’t “the truth that explains the world,” but “the truth of understanding the world.”

And understanding had two parts.

The first meant making contact, observing.

The second meant becoming familiar, gaining experience.

First, you had to observe something to learn its truth. Then, with experience, you could sum that truth up clearly and concisely.

By this point, the answer to Mortel’s question was clear.

“So the limit of rationality is the limit of understanding, and understanding is restricted by the angles and methods we use to observe the world...”

“Master, did you found the Witch Society of Wisdom to bring together more perspectives on observation, and use them to expand truth—and the limits of ‘omniscience and omnipotence’?”

Witches weren’t human. They were higher magical lifeforms, so they could use all kinds of special abilities to observe the world from different perspectives.

Camilla observed the Void, Schrödinger studied Quantum, Vera explored the Boundary, and so on... Each was a different perspective on observation. Mortel believed that combining them would help witches understand “truth” better.

“You got it.”

Mortel smiled and tilted her head back to gaze at the starry sky.

“Rather than pursue the ‘omniscience and omnipotence’ defined by the Six Great Schools as they stand today, I believe that version is incomplete. It can’t explain everything in the universe, so it can’t be the truth.”

“It has to have gaps. Otherwise, those six trials couldn’t have stopped that freak, Matilda.”

“So I want to gather the power of more witches and use their different perspectives on observation to expand that definition, to expand the theoretical model of truth.”

“On their path to simplifying things and establishing the Six Great Schools, they threw too much away. They tried to ignore those flaws through sheer will, but truth is something you can’t discard.”

“That’s why the Witch Society of Wisdom exists.”