Whenever Dan occasionally remembered some of the characters from the stories and novels he had read in his original world, especially those capable of traveling through outer space at the speed of light or, even more absurdly, beyond the speed of light itself, he found himself deeply puzzled and seriously questioning the matter. Did those fictional worlds possess completely different laws of physics, or was it merely the exaggeration of ignorant writers and unrealistic fantasy built upon scientific misunderstanding?
To him, the entire idea seemed like pure nonsense and a complete lack of basic understanding of natural laws. He understood very well what moving at the speed of light truly meant. It was not merely a number, but an enormous chain of effects and consequences. For a material body possessing mass, such a thing was fundamentally impossible no matter how much one tried to simplify or ignore the laws governing reality.
The first scientific issue preventing it was the problem of collision and nuclear detonation. When a person, or any physical object, moved at light speed, it would collide with air particles or cosmic dust carrying unimaginable levels of energy, enough to tear apart atomic nuclei and trigger tiny nuclear reactions with every single particle encountered.
Imagine every hydrogen atom in space causing a miniature nuclear fission event upon impact. The horrifying result would be that the very instant such movement began, an immense wave of superheated plasma with temperatures reaching millions of degrees would erupt alongside deadly gamma radiation and a colossal electromagnetic pulse capable of destroying all electronics. Continuous chain nuclear explosions would follow endlessly. Not only would the traveler die, but everything around them would also be annihilated. Entire planets and anything along the path would be consumed by a moving nuclear catastrophe traveling at light speed.
The next issue was the requirement for infinite energy. From a fundamental physical perspective, as an object approached the speed of light, the Lorentz factor would increase enormously and continue growing toward infinity. This meant that literally infinite energy would be required for further acceleration. Yet no infinite energy source existed within the universe. Even stars, no matter how massive, remained finite.
Third came the terrifying issue of relativistic time effects. If someone traveled at such speeds for only a single hour according to their own clock, then stopped and returned, they would discover that millions of years had passed in the outside world around them. They would effectively be traveling into the distant future through relativistic time dilation, a one-way journey through time with no true return.
Thus, Dan's conclusion was perfectly clear. Traveling at the speed of light was fundamentally illogical. He saw obvious exaggeration and a complete lack of true understanding regarding what matching or surpassing light speed actually meant.
Either those writers were ignorant and simply did not understand physics, or they deliberately ignored it for excitement and did not care about scientific realism. The other possibility was that those fictional worlds genuinely operated under entirely different physical laws beyond logic and comprehension.
Perhaps there was no speed-of-light limit there. Perhaps energy was not constrained in the same way. Perhaps mass did not increase according to the same equations. Perhaps time did not dilate identically, and collisions did not produce nuclear explosions. In that case, those worlds would possess completely different mathematics and physics altogether, making them incomparable to his current world and rendering its laws inapplicable to them.
"I prefer the current realism and logic because they are far more understandable."
Dan thought with complete clarity and conviction.
"My power is built upon deep understanding of the laws, not upon ignoring them. I will never pursue ridiculous fantasies like moving my physical body at light speed. Instead, I will use spacetime itself for travel."
And that was exactly what he was doing. Dan was not moving through space at extreme velocity. Rather, he folded space itself and traveled through the network directly. Instantaneous movement through spacetime built upon understanding rather than disregard for natural laws.
The conclusion within Dan's mind was simple. The speed of light was an absolute limit for material bodies, and anyone who ignored that was either ignorant or living in a world governed by entirely different laws. Therefore, his own path would be to use spacetime itself. He would fold distances, not cross them.
--------------------------------
If you are enjoying this work and would like to read the upcoming chapters , you can access the advanced chapters on Patreon.
Patreon :Aaron4dicard
I publish several chapters there before they are released here, you can join through the link partreon/Aaron4dicard Thank you to everyone who reads and supports the work.