Seeing Su Mo's words, the group members first breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness, Su Mo was interested in their worlds, not them personally.
It wasn't that they didn't want to help him. In fact, they wouldn't refuse any of Su Mo's requests, even if it meant helping him for free.
They were nervous because they understood their own weakness and didn't want to disappoint Su Mo's expectations.
What if I mess up and hinder Lord Su Mo's advancement?
With this thought in mind, they were relieved to learn that what Su Mo needed was the worlds they inhabited.
However, they soon realized a new question.
Kanae Kocho: "Can the universes we're in really help Lord Su Mo?"
Madoka Kaname: "Yeah!"
Madoka Kaname: "Big Brother Su Mo's power is already strong enough to destroy a universe, right?"
If it were anyone else, there would be no question. But with Su Mo, they had to consider whether their worlds were even worthy of his expectations.
With his current power, even destroying a single universe seemed like nothing to him. Worlds and universes were not overwhelmingly powerful compared to the current Su Mo; in fact, they were completely outmatched.
What could their fragile worlds possibly do for him?
Su Mo: "Being able to destroy a universe doesn't mean I can fully comprehend it."
Su Mo: "The method of advancement I've constructed doesn't require any special power system, just a real, existing universe."
Rin Tohsaka: "A real, existing... universe?"
Su Mo: "That's right."
Su Mo: "Only a real world can give birth to a complete cosmology."
Su Mo: "A complete cosmology doesn't need to be manifested through a special power system."
At this point, Shiroyasha had a pretty good idea of what Su Mo meant.
Shiroyasha: "I see. You want to advance to the Multiverse level by fully mastering a complete pantheon's cosmology."
Shiroyasha: "I get the theory, but how do you plan to do it?"
Shiroyasha: "Even in the Little Garden, that's something all the pantheons dream of, but no one has ever managed to do it!"
It was common knowledge that a pantheon's true power lay in its cosmology. A complete cosmology was the theoretical core of a pantheon, a set of rules sufficient to support the operation of a universe, or even a multiverse.
Within this framework, gods, as the bearers of myths, often passively or actively carried a part of the cosmological rules. If a god could awaken to this fact and achieve subjective control over that rule, this power would be called a "cosmic truth."
A cosmic truth was a power that only two-digit Full-Authority Domains were qualified to touch. Only a few chief gods of certain pantheons could touch this power in advance by leveraging their innate advantages, such as top-tier three-digit beings like Indra and Michael.
However, the amount of cosmic truth they mastered was not enough to be compared to the scale of a Full-Authority Domain like the Twin Goddesses.
And correspondingly, the cosmic truth mastered by the Twin Goddesses, while already as powerful as the structure of the universe itself, was still no match for a pantheon's cosmology that could perfectly explain the world.
A truly complete cosmology would inevitably be a one-digit, Multiverse-domain power, capable of rivaling, and even defeating, the Wind of Decadence.
In fact, in Shiroyasha's view, no one in the Little Garden had yet mastered a so-called complete cosmology. Otherwise, the Wind of Decadence wouldn't be a sword hanging over all the pantheons' heads.
Now, although the path Su Mo had chosen was theoretically very feasible, how exactly could he improve his mastery of a pantheon's cosmology, and even achieve complete mastery?
Su Mo: "Complete mastery might depend on an opportunity, but if it's just about improving mastery, there is a simple training method."
Su Mo: "And that is to create an Another Cosmology."
Creating an Another Cosmology was the inspiration Su Mo had gotten while fighting the Son of God in the previous battle.
From his performance during that fight, it was clear that the Su Mo of that time, while able to freely manipulate the power of mythological history, use the Divinities of gods within the rules, and even wield cosmic truths, his mastery of cosmologies was incomplete, and his control over cosmic truths was limited.
He was a step above the likes of Michael and Indra, but had not yet reached the level of a Full-Authority Domain.
At that time, his deepest mastery, the dualism of good and evil, was only approaching the level of an Cosmology or an Another Cosmology.
Of course, after obtaining Virtual Star Tai Sui, Avatara, Eden, and Three Thousand Worlds, Su Mo's mastery of the various pantheons' cosmologies had made great strides, but that was a later development.
In short, through this incident, Su Mo had discovered the insufficiency of his mastery over pantheon cosmologies. And in battle, he had discovered an excellent way to improve it: creating an Another Cosmology.
As a Gift born from the weaponization of a pantheon's cosmology, the existence of an Another Cosmology could be said to be the culmination of that cosmology.
Perhaps in a world like the Little Garden, where cosmologies were constrained and the final answer was yet to be determined, an Another Cosmology only had the performance of a weapon.
But in other worlds, it could not only destroy the world but also forcibly seize its sovereignty by expanding its cosmology.
It was a Gift capable of world plunder.
For Su Mo, plundering worlds was meaningless. But the act of creating an Another Cosmology was very meaningful to him. It was a tempering of his own mastered cosmology, a practical method of cultivation.
Only those with sufficient mastery of a cosmology could create an Another Cosmology. Conversely, if Su Mo could successfully create one, it would prove that his mastery of that cosmology had reached a high level.
Even now that Su Mo held numerous Full-Authority Domain-level Divinities, this principle still applied to him. Because even a Full-Authority Domain, at best, only mastered one framework of a complete cosmology.
The true creator of an Another Cosmology was the entire pantheon that embodied the complete cosmology.
If Su Mo could use the creation of an Another Cosmology to improve his mastery, not only could he further master the power of all the pantheons' Full-Authority Domains, but he might also be able to achieve a complete grasp of a cosmology through analogy.
As mentioned before, a complete pantheon's cosmology was a law sufficient to govern the operation of a multiverse.
Shiroyasha: "Creating an Another Cosmology... I was going to say that even for a Full-Authority Domain, that's a miracle that requires the power of an entire pantheon."
Shiroyasha: "But for you, it doesn't seem that difficult."
The method Su Mo proposed was difficult even for the pantheons of the Little Garden, but it was by no means impossible. Almost every pantheon could create a corresponding Another Cosmology.
Although most of them were the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the pantheon, as long as others had done it, it wouldn't be difficult for Su Mo.
Unconsciously, Shiroyasha's worldview had also been shaped by Su Mo.
Shiroyasha: "So, what can we do?"
Creating an Another Cosmology could indeed improve one's mastery of it. Shiroyasha had no doubts about the path Su Mo had chosen, but she still didn't understand how the others could help.
Su Mo had said that only a real world could give birth to a complete cosmology, but the question was, how?
Su Mo: "The simplest way is to actually dominate a world with a mythological cosmology, thereby verifying my own understanding of it."
Su Mo: "But that would undoubtedly be using the world itself as an experiment, which would very likely give rise to an Eschatology capable of destroying it."
In Su Mo's view, the Little Garden was, in a sense, a testing ground.
Various incomplete cosmologies fought against each other, and in the end, only the one that could overcome the Eschatology would emerge victorious, qualified to lead human history into a new future.
If he were to imitate the Little Garden's mechanism and use other worlds as testing grounds, it would undoubtedly deepen his understanding of cosmologies, but it would also come with the same side effects.
The Eschatology was, in essence, the manifestation of a cosmology's own flaws, a high wall that had to be overcome to master a complete cosmology. This was a hurdle that had to be cleared in any world.
Su Mo: "To avoid such a tragedy, only worlds that are already on the brink of apocalypse will be considered as options."
Su Mo: "Of course, the most important thing is your own decisions."
Although it would undoubtedly be more beneficial for Su Mo to conceal the side effects and turn every world the Chat Group accepted into his personal testing ground, he still laid out all the potential risks with complete honesty.
Not only because he disdained deceiving the group members, but also because of the nature of cosmologies themselves.
Mythological cosmologies were born to overcome the apocalypse; there was no point in dominating an ordinary world. A true powerhouse confronts their weaknesses head-on.
A cosmology that cannot defeat its Eschatology is just a flawed product that can't stand the test.
Shiroyasha: "Worlds that are already on the brink of apocalypse... That rule is reasonable. Since it's going to be destroyed anyway, you might as well try to revive it with your cosmology."
As a being of Lawful Good, Shiroyasha highly approved of Su Mo's decision. It was a win-win: Su Mo could deepen his understanding, and the corresponding world would get a chance at revival.
Shiroyasha: "But with that restriction, there will be very few worlds that meet your conditions, right?"
Shiroyasha: "Putting the Little Garden aside, it's not like other worlds just fall into an apocalypse that easily!"
After Shiroyasha's sigh, the others immediately agreed.
Rin Tohsaka: "Yeah, what kind of world just suddenly has an apocalyptic-level crisis?!"
Madoka Kaname: "I also think that possibility is too small."
March 7th: "Same here."
Although being an experiment sounded dangerous, wouldn't Su Mo's progress be very slow if he was so conservative? Just as Shiroyasha said, there weren't that many apocalyptic-level crises in the world!
Sigh! Lord Su Mo's only flaw is that he's a little too kind.
While this kindness put them at ease, it also made them feel like he was selling himself short.
Jibril: "..."
Erica Blandelli: "..."
The two who had already encountered apocalyptic-level crises were speechless.