Mary looked at her ntor nervously, not really wanting to know the aning behind the sudden remark.
She feared her ntor—almost to the point of terror—if given a choice, she would rather have never shown any magical talent or climbed into the Ownerless Tower out of curiosity ten years ago and t the ntor who had just moved in. Now she was a second-ranked formal mage, and according to her ntor, "might reach middle-ranked within her lifeti," but in Mary’s view, becoming a second-ranked mage was nothing glorious, and she would rather be an ignorant village woman in a mountain village.
At least, a village woman wouldn’t have to dissect countless animals, cultivate deford monstrosities, learn how to connect human brains to non-human monsters, or endure the pressure from her ntor’s deranged ntal state.
Daniel was a mage with ntal issues, and in the eyes of the few apprentices in the tower, this ntor was downright insane. He often imrsed himself in bizarre dream states, and even when awake, he lacked sound emotions. He was irritable, angry, gloomy, and terrifying. He would make his apprentices eat mice and snakes and release terrifying non-human monsters and spell creatures in the tower because of so hallucination, then drive the apprentices to fight those monsters, not to ntion the horrific magical experints he conducted on himself...
Although Daniel occasionally showed a gentle and kind deanor, his periods of madness far outweighed these tis by tenfold. Under such madness, his occasionally gentle monts beca even more frightening.
The old mage remained in a dazed state for several seconds before he finally moved his body. The young female apprentice promptly lifted her head.
"ntor..." Mary slightly bowed, "I’m glad you’re alright..."
Daniel stared at Mary for a while, seed to rember she was his student only after noticing the collar on her neck, muttered so unclear words in his throat, and then waved his hand: "Clean up the lab, you can take a rest today."
Mary blinked, feeling genuinely relieved. She then watched the old mage slowly turn around and walk towards the exit of the laboratory. The mage’s robe bulged at the back as if snake-like artificial nerve cords peeked out from the hem of the robe, twitching spasmodically.
Gawain didn’t stay in the "Simulation Experint Field" for long. After ensuring that the old mage had been kicked out of the network, he withdrew from the data subrsion state and returned to the surface of the ntal network.
Implanting informants among the Eternal Sleepers and seeking controllable pawns was already part of his plan—especially after discovering that the Eternal Sleepers had fabricated a "Wanderers from Outer Realm" persona. This idea of his beca more refined. After all, this evil-cult group was bizarrely strange, and he couldn’t possibly investigate everything himself. Therefore, finding such a pawn was inevitable, only that the pawn happened to be a mage from Typhon, which was an unexpected gain.
After learning about Daniel’s general situation, Gawain quickly sketched many ad-hoc plans in his mind. He believed that with proper use, the old mage would have many unexpected uses.
He wasn’t worried that this would increase his risk of exposure—after successfully breaking down Daniel’s mind defenses, he had already controlled his permissions in the ntal network and set an "activation switch." If Daniel ntioned anything about "Wanderers from Outer Realm infiltrating the network," the network connection would be cut off imdiately. Even if this security asure failed and the information was leaked, how could the Eternal Sleepers possibly find Gawain?
Their network was full of breaches and backdoors, Gawain had already found nurous of them. This primitive and shabby network firstly had no real-na system and secondly didn’t restrict skin changes. The address mapping and feature queries were also terribly done. Gawain thought that the difficulty of the evil-cult followers trying to find soone in the ntal network was probably higher than finding a spell other than the Fireball Technique from Rebecca’s spell list—
Rebecca did not have a spell list.
"Oh, it’s the uncle I saw last ti!"
A crisp voice suddenly ca from the side, waking Gawain, who was lost in thought while walking along the shaded path, with this sowhat familiar child’s voice.
He turned towards the voice and saw a little girl with light brown long hair running towards him joyfully, her steps bouncing.
Was it that "little girl" he saw last ti?
Instantly, in Gawain’s mind, a persona of a stereotypical middle-aged greasy male online scamr matched her, the type with a voice changer and a loli voice model, making him feel spiritually transparent as he looked at the "little girl" without any emotional ripple: "Patty?"
"Ah, uncle rembers !" The little girl imdiately showed a very happy expression, skipping and hopping around Gawain, "Uncle, you’re here again?!"
Gawain twitched at the corners of his mouth, finally admitting to himself that the true form behind this little girl probably wasn’t a middle-aged greasy male evil-cult follower. After all, the ntal network was an imrsive virtual reality, and even if the perversion index of the evil cult followers was five plus signs higher than that of normal people, it was quite challenging to skip and jump to this extent, even a big shot like Soldrin couldn’t manage it...
Perhaps it’s a middle-aged greasy female online scamr with an excessively young mindset...
"Uncle, what are you thinking?" Patty’s voice ca again, "Uncle, do you like daydreaming?"
Gawain glanced at the little girl who wasn’t even to his stomach, noticing that she really couldn’t stay quiet for even a second, prompting him to frown: "Why do you always skip around?"
"Because I like it!" Patty said with a matter-of-fact expression, then scrunched her nose, "But I can’t do it at ho..."
"At ho?" Gawain felt he heard a very curious word, but before he could ask, a gentle female voice ca from the side: "Patty, are you bothering a stranger?"
Gawain looked up and saw a woman in a long skirt with a veil standing not far away, slightly frowning at Patty.
Patty imdiately rushed over with joy: "Ah! Sister Selena!"
Gawain watched as the little girl pounced into the veiled woman’s embrace, whom easily subdued the little girl and then looked up: "I’m sorry, this child has no sense of stranger danger."
"Uncle is very nice!" Patty said, looking up.
Selena bent down and patted Patty’s hair: "Then let’s talk to Uncle next ti when there’s a chance, Patty—you should go rest now."
The little girl’s expression suddenly beca disappointed: "But I still want to play a bit longer..."
"You’ve been playing for a long ti," Selena shook her head gently but firmly. "You can’t be willful, understand?"
Patty hesitated for a mont, but then obediently nodded: "...Oh."
With that response, Gawain saw the little girl’s figure rapidly fade in the air and within a few seconds, turn into glimring particles scattered by the wind: she had left the heart network.
Selena straightened up, smiling politely at Gawain: "Sorry for the scene."
"No problem, I didn’t mind at all." Gawain shook his head while quickly making judgnts in his heart—
Unless the Eternal Sleepers’ thods are too advanced or this was a staged play specifically for him, based on Patty and Selena’s interaction and what he saw last ti... could that "little girl" really be just a little girl?
A child? An Eternal Sleeper who can access the heart network at eleven or twelve years old? That seems unrealistic, even for a magical prodigy!
Or... was she a "family mber" brought into the network by other Eternal Sleepers?
He had seen other children in this dream city, although very few, they surely existed, are those children in the sa situation?
Do the Eternal Sleepers have technology that allows people without magical abilities to connect to the network?!
This final speculation made Gawain’s heart race; if true... then the technological value of the Eternal Sleepers’ heart network would far surpass his previous imagination!
His thoughts raced, but he did not show it, instead casually ntioning, "There seem to be very few children here."
"Considering the rare conditions, indeed," Selena smiled faintly, "We still can’t expose ourselves."
The implication is, does it require certain screening conditions... unable to expose, so is this an experintal project with exposure risks?
Gawain casually chatted a bit more on the topic without extracting any valuable information. Realizing that continuing might appear suspicious, he smoothly shifted the topic: "I saw the notice recruiting computational power for Project Zero..."
"A gap in computational power appeared in the ti iteration experint," Selena nodded. Those who could reach this area were already high-level Eternal Sleepers, and those who could stay for a long ti were at least middle-ranked Nightmare Bishops. It wasn’t strange to briefly discuss Project Zero here, "Accelerating thoughts to adjust the deepest ti stream is difficult, and the longest-run Sandbox One sustained only for a few hundred years—we need more computational power."
"Sandbox"—Gawain’s heart skipped a beat as he heard a very intriguing term.
This term didn’t belong to the contemporary common language but was a combination of two words from ancient Gondor common language. Because its aning was quite simple and straightforward, Gawain could understand it directly, yet upon understanding this term, it only led to more confusion in his heart.
However, he couldn’t ask directly because, based on Selena’s deanor, those standing in this area of the Eternal Sleepers were expected to know many truths about Project Zero.
And he had already asked enough questions.
Specifically targeting soone for questioning easily raises suspicion, so Gawain decisively ended this topic, having gathered ample information and vocabulary. Next ti, he could try to find other Eternal Sleepers in this region to probe for information—or try to develop the "pawn" he just found.
After transitioning through so small talk, he nodded at Selena: "I’ve taken up enough of your ti, I should be leaving."
Selena smiled slightly: "It was a pleasure chatting with you."
Then, the veiled lady bid farewell to Gawain and turned to walk towards the other side of the lane.
In the instant she turned, Gawain’s eyes suddenly focused:
In that mont, this woman looked exactly like Selena Gerfen from seven hundred years ago!
User Comments
0 comments from readers