Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

Chapter 190: Religion

As soon as the lecture hall full of student's heard Dr. Zoric's last remark, the room went completely ballistic.

Some students were silent, still processing what he had just said, while others had already gotten angry — these were probably the students from a religious background.

Dr. Zoric's theory basically made a joke out of every religion out there with his wild conclusion, which was probably why the faces of all of the members of the experiment were censored, as there were sure to be many threats on their lives if not.

Religion was still a decently big thing in this day and age, especially when one considered the scale of the human race's influence now.

They spanned across the whole galaxy, with hundreds of billions of star systems being occupied, each with billions more people per habitable planet.

The population of humans in the federation had probably reached the quintillions by now.

There was at least 1 prominent religion on every planet, with some religions going even farther than that and influencing whole star systems or even several hundred light year regions of space.

Considering the trends of religion that were recorded in the ancient times of the 21st century, people became less and less religious as humans became smarter and advanced as a civilisation, and it was projected that it might even die out within the next few centuries after that.

The estimates weren't quite right, but they were along the right lines.

Religion did die down as humans learned more about the universe, but it quickly saw a humungous boom in growth with the advent of the Primordial Expanse.

This was due to two reasons; number one being the groundbreaking discovery of the 'soul', and the other being the system itself.

The discovery of the soul was obvious, as it was already deeply linked with religion for tens of millenia before that point, and the argument of 'no evidence' for the existence of god or the beyond became invalid, as there was evidence now.

However, the system itself was a little bit of a peculiar situation.

It quickly became clear what sort of influence the system had over not only the Primordial Expanse, but even humans as well as the universe.

The level of control it had over almost everything was so vast that it was almost godlike, in fact many religions did spawn out of this that worshipped the system as a god figure.

But Dr. Zoric didn't seem to care about any such threats on his life from these religious fanatics, as he let his face and his participation in the experiment be very public.

It's not like an attempt could be made on his life either, as not only was he a Variant class B+ rank awakened, but he was a professor of the most advanced and influential university in the federation.

The university wouldn't have such a reputation if one of their staff members could be assassinated so easily.

"Now, I'm sure that if any of you had a semblance of intelligence, you'd immediately point out that this was the result of only one experiment. It's obvious, as nothing about a second was mentioned in the recording. If you weren't even able to point this out, then you might as well quit the Soul studies course, as you are clearly lacking intelligence." Dr.

Zoric started speaking to the students, but he quickly started going off trail as he eyed down the particularly violent and angry students who were clearly part of some religious faction.

When the students heard him speak, the chaos died down a little bit, as each student, angry or not, wanted to hear what else he had to say.

Some of them wanted to hear him say 'Haha, that was a joke, gotcha!', while others who were more inclined to scientific thinking were curious to see how he justified the conclusion he had come to from just one experiment.

"Well, I can tell you right now that we didn't just do one experiment. In fact, we did thousands overall before we eventually came to a stop." Dr. Zoric spoke again, his face revealing a little bit of the nostalgia he was feeling, as he practically relived those moments all over again.

Dr. Zoric said, "The individual with the S+ rank healing talent that we were working with could only bring people back from the dead at a maximum of 24 hours after death, any longer than that and it would be too late. So that was the time limit we were working with."

*Clap*

The holographic video reappeared once again, but in a difference scene as Dr. Zoric continued explaining.

"However, we also wanted to see what would happen if we examined and observed someone who had gone past that 24 hour limit. And yet, we still reached the same conclusion. Our scanners didn't detect the dead individual's soul leaving his body even a month after his death."

The students who were still sceptical up to this point had now also joined in the shock of the other students, as the more Dr. Zoric revealed, the more believable his theory started to sound.

Some students even burst out crying, presumably from either the fear of death, and now knowing that there was no 'eternal happiness' waiting for them on the other side, or perhaps it was because a loved one had recently died and they realised that they were really gone, forever, never able to meet them again.

Whatever the case, these students were left alone to silently sob to themselves as the rest of the students continued looking at Dr. Zoric for any sort of validation or answers.

Eventually, Alex, still sat in the front row, came out of the deep thinking state he had been in ever since Dr. Zoric first announced his theory.

"But sir, if you are right, and there really is no afterlife or anything like that once we die, then what is the point in us even having souls? Doesn't that sound counterintuitive? It still sounds a little wild to me that even though souls were officially confirmed to be real, this discovery also led to the theory that there is no afterlife… it's kind of ironic."

Dr. Zoric smiled when he heard Alex's question, as he was waiting for one of the students to point this small discrepancy in this theory out.

He just hadn't expected the student to bring this point up to be Alex, after all he still thought Alex was lying about his talent being related to souls, but the more he got to know him, the more he started to loosen up his rigid thoughts.

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*Ahem*

Dr. Zoric cleared his throat, then answered Alex.

"The simple answer to your question is — we simply don't know either."

The students were a little disappointed at Dr. Zoric's anticlimactic answer, but he wasn't finished yet.

"If we knew everything there was about souls, I sure as hell wouldn't be standing here teaching you guys, that's for sure. In fact, that's what you guys are here for."

The hall echoed with a few chuckles at Dr. Zoric's witty remark.

"Sure, 99% of the students who join this course are just here because your understanding of your soul will become much more important to you once you become a higher life form, but 1% of you will develop a deeper interest than that and take it even further, hopefully becoming a leading researcher in soul studies and succeeding where we, the previous generation, failed."