In the sea of consciousness.
Yu Tang thanked Nie Chi and ended the call.
The system couldn't help it any longer and popped up with a flashing red light: "How could there be such a task?!"
"According to the original development of the plot, there will indeed be such a task."
Yu Tang was confused. He opened the backstage and clicked on the updated message bar to check: "What is the storyline mission?"
system:"??"
The system was so anxious that it was spinning in circles: "This is not reasonable... Why would it provide storyline-related tasks along the way? Does the host want to appeal to the headquarters—"
Zhan Chen came over and said, "A storyline mission means that once the mission fails, the storyline will be interrupted."
In most cases, there is only one quest in each book's storyline that guarantees that the protagonist will not die in an accident.
If there are special storyline tasks, they must be highlighted in bold and red at the beginning according to the requirements. Only after the employees confirm that they can accept them can the role be officially introduced.
The system had never seen such a situation where instructions were given from the outside, so I hurriedly filed a complaint report and wanted to upload it, but the button had turned gray.
"World data is in disarray, and backend communications are severely disrupted."
Yu Tang clicked on the scrolling prompt at the top of the page and read the whole thing at a glance: "It basically means that we can continue to send messages to the headquarters. The headquarters will receive the message and issue a receipt when it arrives. It is uncertain whether the receipt can be sent."
"How can we not be sure at this time?" the system asked anxiously, "This is not an ordinary task!"
If it is just an ordinary task, the worst result is the failure of the task and no experience points. If the employee is unable to complete it due to special reasons, he or she can just give up.
Storyline missions are different.
In Luo Ran's book, the system had specifically reminded Yu Tang according to the training content.
The storyline is the basis of a book. The book agency issues tasks, dispatches and recalls employees through the storyline.
Once the story line is interrupted, the host, the system, and all the NPCs made up of data will be trapped in this book forever.
Zhan Chen looked at the system: "Sorry, I should have asked you to come back later."
"I won't leave!" The system hugged Yu Tang's hair tightly, "I'm with the host!"
Zhan Chen was speechless. He took off the system and placed it upright on the table.
"I just tried to detect it."
Zhan Chen: "The staff has several exclusive communication channels, and the backdoor I left in the mall has also become unavailable."
Yu Tang asked: "Because we messed up the data flow of this world?"
Zhan Chen knew he was going to ask, so he met Yu Tang's gaze and bypassed the mute block: "It's undeniable."
—It is undeniable that when Shi Ji said "People are the most important", he did realize that the world, with Shi Ji as the core, was stirred up by a violent data turbulence.
As the person in charge of the mall, he had also seen similar data turbulence in other worlds.
This is a sign that the low-dimensional world is trying to break free from the control of the Book Transmigration Bureau. Sometimes it is because of a certain sentence, sometimes because of a certain news, and sometimes because of a certain person.
Never before has the turbulence been so severe.
The data that broke free from control almost caused a storm.
Zhan Chen: "Because of this storm, we have good news and bad news."
The system was surprised: "Is there any more good news?"
Zhan Chen nodded.
The bad news is that as the chaos intensified, they rarely accepted three S-level, top-level, urgent storyline maintenance missions.
The terminal far away at the headquarters of Chuanshuju finally felt a sense of urgency, and the only thing left was to mark this line of task in red, bold, and infinitely enlarge it, and force it into everyone's eyes.
The good news is that the world’s data is completely screwed.
After adding three S's to the mission level, the signal on the terminal was also overturned by the data storm surrounding Shi Ji and submerged in the ocean of data.
In the short term, no matter what they do, they will no longer be monitored by the terminals at all times.
The large-scale holographic insect swarm simulation battle game that Yu Tang had been dreaming of making would be reduced to the lowest difficulty if it did not require special encryption codes to deceive the terminal.
For Electronic Storm, whose running speed far exceeds that of Chuanshuju, it only takes one night at most to collect all the relevant information and complete an entire large-scale game.
…
The system's expected small red light went out seven times in a row, flashed listlessly on the screen, and floated on Yu Tang's shoulder.
It is understandable. Rather than calling it a game, it is better to say that Yu Tang wants to make a combat training system specifically targeting the Zerg.
Shi Ji single-handedly beat up these mecha trainees, which marked the official beginning of this military reform.
Next, they still need a mature training system that can enable soldiers and trainees to correctly recognize the power of the Zerg, understand the Zerg's combat mode, and fight against the Zerg properly instead of just fighting bravely and killing each other.
Compared with exercises that consume a lot of manpower and material resources and have limited participants, the holographic game model is of course the best choice.
"But we still have to complete the storyline mission..."
The system doesn't care about being trapped in the book, but Zhan Chen should know better than the host what the consequences would be if the host refused to complete such a task.
Because it is an SSS-level mission to urgently maintain the storyline, the terminal has the power of enforcement, allowing direct punishment for hosts who refuse to complete the mission.
After all, Zhan Chen still belongs to the Supervisory Department. The staff of the Supervisory Department were on the scene and watched. They did not force employees to complete relevant tasks. The punishment was even more severe than that of the host.
… These rules were originally set to prevent employees from forcibly changing the story line and causing the death of the protagonist or important supporting characters.
Now it has become the best way for the terminal to threaten them.
"Can we secretly replace him with someone else?"
The system whispered, "Catch a conservative bad guy, change his name, and then make some talent cards for the host..."
Zhan Chen shook his head: "The logic doesn't make sense."
The evaluation method of Chuanshuju is indeed old-fashioned and rigid, and it is not easy to fool people to this extent.
Especially the character's name, if there is no sufficiently smooth logical connection, it will be automatically rejected by the system.
“There was an opportunity to do so.”
Zhan Chen has more work experience than the other two, so he explained the system to them: "This is a new rule added a few years ago."
According to the records of the Supervisory Department, there was once an employee of the Supporting Role Department who, in order to achieve the result of "the main characters living happily together", changed the name of a newlywed couple who lived happily together to the main characters CP and completed the task in a vain manner.
Since then, the review of character names has become much stricter.
system:"… "
"Don't worry, there will always be a way."
Zhan Chen has seen this kind of thing many times, so he took out the coffee machine and said, "Don't worry, let your host finish the game first."
The system was in a hurry. It circled around the store manager who was concentrating on grinding coffee, and then went to find Yu Tang: "Host, host, what are you doing?"
Yu Tang: “Play games.”
system:"… "
Yu Tang concentrated on typing on the keyboard, took out a box of bubble gum from the small warehouse, and stuffed it into the system: "Don't worry, let Senior Zhan give me the coffee first."
The system floated back to Zhan Chen: "Senior Zhan, the host—"
Zhan Chen handed the coffee to .
…
The system held the bubble gum, and the whole screen was filled with snowflakes of worry. It quietly placed the coffee on the side of Yu Tang's desk and crawled into the sack.
The production progress of the large-scale holographic insect swarm simulation battle game took one day longer than expected.
Yu Tang originally planned to make only the mecha version first, but after confirming with Zhan Chen that the terminal could not be monitored temporarily, he made a full version that accommodated both mecha and wingman simulation training in one go.
This kind of work intensity is already too much for Electronic Storm, whose computing speed is one level higher than that of Chuanshu Bureau.
By the time the last code was typed out, Yu Tang had been working non-stop for 48 hours.
The system couldn't hold on any longer, so he fell asleep in the sack holding bubble gum.
Yu Tang pushed away the hot computer and closed his eyes.
The throbbing temple was gently pressed by warm and cool fingers.
…
She massaged his temples with just the right amount of force, promptly dispelling the pain that had arisen from the chaos.
Noticing that Yu Tang's frown was gradually relaxing, the hands moved to another place and started massaging the stiff muscles in his shoulders and neck.
Yu Tang breathed a sigh of comfort and leaned back.
The back of the swivel chair he was sitting on quietly turned into a stream of data and dissipated. The space at the back was empty, and then he fell steadily into an embrace with the aroma of coffee.
Yu Tang said vaguely: "Senior Zhan..."
Zhan Chen massaged his shoulders and neck, and a gentle voice came from behind him: "Take a break."
Yu Tang: “Not sleepy.”
Yu Tang wanted to talk to Zhan Chen. He supported himself on the edge of the table with one hand and tried to turn around, but his body suddenly became lighter uncontrollably.
Zhan Chen carried him over.
Zhan Chen's movements were very gentle, not adding any more burden to Yu Tang's already confused mind.
He let Yu Tang lean his head on his shoulder, with one hand still on the back of Yu Tang's neck. The warm palm of his hand was firm and soothing the sore muscles.
The ground beneath Zhan Chen's feet quietly reversed, starting from where they were standing and slowly spreading outward, turning his entire sea of consciousness upside down.
Yu Tang was stunned.
He widened his eyes slightly.
… He never knew that his sea of consciousness could actually be turned inside out like a sack.
I didn't know that the turned over side would look so familiar.
It had appeared in his dreams countless times. It had been familiar to him when he was still a ball of light with a bad temper. He had thrown away the endless trespassing in the village and searched every corner of every world he had passed through, just to find this small place.
"Senior Zhan." Yu Tang said, "You didn't tell me that you were hiding me here..."
Zhan Chen touched his hair.
He didn't give any explanation, but just gently put Yu Tang on the sofa in the cabin.
Employees who join the Chuanshuju will have the right to open up their own sea of consciousness.
Yu Tang's sea of consciousness was made by him personally.
Zhan Chen was restricted by the program and could not contact Yu Tang directly, so he turned his sea of consciousness upside down and made another sea of consciousness on the back.
Yu Tang was nestling in the small room that he was so familiar with. He picked up a pillow, then another one, looking at the wear marks on them: "Senior Zhan, didn't the terminal come to cause trouble for you?"
"I did." Zhan Chen said, "We did exchange views."
Yu Tang looked up from the pile of pillows that seemed like heaven: "?"
Zhan Chen smiled. He was no longer used to informal statements. He paused and thought for a moment: "I threatened you... after you crossed the line."
Five years ago, when Yu Tang entered this book, the plot of the book was not so dangerous.
Sheng Tiancheng would not force the observer to enter the insect swarm, and the conservatives would not be so desperate as to want Shi Ji to sacrifice himself in that mission in order to achieve integration with the AI.
Zhan Chen was sent out to do the mission, and if it weren't for the connection with his sea of consciousness, he would have almost missed it.
Zhan Chen forcibly stopped this plot, warned Sheng Tiancheng, and forced Sheng Tiancheng to order Shi Ji to return.
The terminal will certainly not allow such interference.
Yu Tang had been asked this question several times in private by Zhuang Yu. He was also very curious. He rolled around in the pillow pile twice and stopped beside Zhan Chen: "What's the warning? I also want to learn—"
Zhan Chen had a helpless smile in his eyes. He let Yu Tang rest his head on his legs and rubbed his hair twice.
Zhan Chen: "I exchanged for Sheng Tiancheng."
Yu Tang was stunned.
A scum like Sheng Tiancheng, who is filled with conspiracy, selfishness and greed, has committed numerous crimes and has no value as a human being, certainly deserves no punishment.
Yu Tang actually wanted to exchange for Sheng Tiancheng, but he did not have the ownership of Sheng Tiancheng, so he could only think about it.
Zhan Chen should not have ownership of Sheng Tiancheng.
Yu Tang asked: "Can the mall manager violate the rules and force the exchange?"
"No." Zhan Chen said, "It will be returned."
Zhan Chen: "So I exchanged it with him seventy-three times."
Yu Tang: “…”
Zhan Chen touched Yu Tang's forehead and asked, "Are you scared?"
"No." Yu Tang said, "It's too big."
He had never thought of using this method to deal with Wen Er's wheels.
If he could exchange it first and then apply for a refund, he could let Wen Er drive on the beach with a thrilling effect of speed and passion.
Zhan Chen imagined the scene and coughed lightly.
He did not explain the situation in detail, but simply passed it over and continued, "Only the person in charge of the mall can debug this kind of bug... After debugging, they will also be interviewed by the terminal."
So he had another friendly chat with the terminal.
Yu Tang was a little yearning: "Terminal—"
"I can't exchange it for experience points." Zhan Chen said, "Your authority is higher than mine, I don't have the power to do that."
Yu Tang sighed softly.
Zhan Chen couldn't help laughing, he knew that the little ball of light was there to adjust the atmosphere, he rubbed Yu Tang's neck, and watched the little ball of light melt comfortably on his legs.
"I did fight this time..." Zhan Chen said, "Luckily, I didn't forget much. I still remember how to fight."
Yu Tang asked, "Did you suffer any loss?"
Zhan Chen chuckled softly this time: "No."
Yu Tang propped himself up and sat up, looking at him carefully for a while, and finally felt completely relieved, so he let go and lay back down.
Zhan Chen held Yu Tang's short hair and massaged him gently: "I'm very good at fighting, don't worry about me."
"The terminal doesn't dare to touch me."
"Even in the worst case scenario, I am confident that I can protect you and get you out safely."
“You can do whatever you want.”
Zhan Chen said: "So—"
He looked down at Yu Tang, raised his eyebrows, and a helpless smile flashed in his eyes.
… Wherever he was, Yu Tang was completely unguarded.
After knowing that he had not suffered any loss, Yu Tang fell asleep without caring about anything.
Zhan Chen looked at him, sighed softly with a mixture of worry and relief, then he held the man in his arms, condensed a ball of water vapor of suitable temperature in his palms, and wiped his face bit by bit.
Zhan Chen's movements were slow, but his expression was still serious.
Behind him, there was a very slight sound of breaking electric current.
A shadow quietly spread along the corner.
Zhan Chen did not look back. Part of his body silently transformed into a data stream, and then condensed into a bright and sharp light cone.
…
After a few seconds, the sound of electricity quietly disappeared.
The system sleeping in the sack holding bubble gum was folded into data and turned over unconsciously in the sufficiently safe protective cover.
As the sound of electric current disappeared, the light cone melted quietly and returned to Zhan Chen's body.
Zhan Chen hugged Yu Tang, let him lie comfortably on his legs, and looked up at the light screen.
Tonight is the general meeting of the special forces, and all senior military officials will also attend. Zhuang Yu has brought back the full autonomy permission from the military, and the system made by Yu Tang has been packaged and sent to Shi Ji.
What Shi Ji is going to say and do next will completely disrupt all the data in this world.
Before this chaos stabilizes again, Terminal may use various means to try to break through this world. He needs to protect Yu Tang in the place where he is most confident.
The terminal can only punish data directly. If you want to punish employees who violate the rules, you can only forcibly enter the employee's sea of consciousness. As long as you can't break through the sea of consciousness, you can't impose any substantial punishment on the employee.
Even if Yu Tang fails to complete this so-called emergency maintenance task, the terminal cannot move Yu Tang.
He was guarding behind Yu Tang.
He is Yu Tang's back door.
In the conference room, Shi Ji stood in front of the mecha combat science display that he had made himself, with rich illustrations.
This popular science article does not have any fancy decorations. The entire content is just charts and data neatly listed by Shi Ji.
…
No one spoke.
Before this, no one knew that the problem had become so serious.
Humans are too easily domesticated by machines.
The power brought by mecha is too tempting. It not only gives humans indestructible protection, but also gives humans powerful force that can crush everything in their path. There is no need for hard and boring training, and there is no need to put one's will under pressure and put it through a test that is about to destroy one. One can still easily gain power.
Once humans adapt to this power, they will involuntarily begin to cooperate with the mechas.
Abandon the already mature combat mode, return to the most primitive fighting and killing, and return to the extreme praise of personal force.
Stuff everyone back into the mecha, and work hard to improve coordination and matching.
Some people have already started to feel that the pain is a nuisance, and next, some people will feel that this body, which is too weak compared to the mecha, is a nuisance.
The exercises in Zhuangyu have proved this.
When the trainees were sent into the battlefield, many operators became extremely irritated and resistant due to being separated from the mechas, and experienced varying degrees of loss of control. Some even attacked the special forces members who were cooperating with the exercise without knowing who was the enemy or ours.
This dependence is subtle and if it continues to develop like this, humans will sooner or later begin to resist leaving the mechas.
First, they resist leaving the mecha, and then, there will be a life support system that does not require leaving the mecha.
Such synchronization still cannot reach its limit, and people will gradually discover that the original powerful mecha operators have already implanted the program in their consciousness.
People will discover that the human body is disposable.
As long as you take this path, you can easily gain powerful strength and fight against the Zerg.
Faced with the Zerg's full-scale invasion, those who lost everything and became displaced because of the war, those who desperately wanted to protect their families and regain their destroyed homes, could hardly resist this temptation.
But this is a trap, a trap that has been set long ago, a pot of slowly boiling warm water.
This is the true Zerg invasion.
It is not about destroying human habitats or feasting on humans as food.
It starts from within the human being, taming a living person into a mecha that cannot survive outside of its shell and can only fight and obey.
Every galaxy invaded by the Zerg has never shared information with the outside world, not just because those galaxies have become new "Zerg nests".
“… We have reason to doubt.”
Shi Ji: "The so-called 'insect nest' is the incubation base for new Zerg."
"The size of the Zerg swarm will explode after each invasion."
"The Zerg's abilities and forms began to diversify, which was inconsistent with the frequency of cosmic radiation bursts. Instead, they appeared synchronously with the expansion."
"The first Zerg capable of discharging electricity appeared after the destruction of the ic1109 galaxy."
"The Zerg that can secrete corrosive liquids and release poisonous mist appeared after the distress signal sent by V477's third companion star disappeared."
"The last distress signal we were able to receive came from the NGC 4079 irregular galaxy."
"After the destruction of this galaxy, nightflies first evolved a shell that could block detection by ordinary radar."
Time nodes that have never been matched are connected one by one, weaving into a chilling web.
The Internet is their world.
Shi Ji: "I suspect that the residents of those galaxies may have become part of the insect tide."
"This is not the migration of the Zerg." Shi Ji said, "This is their 'reproduction'."