"Don't worry, William is not in danger. We bumped into him just now, and he couldn't handle the problem here, so he left the matter to me. He's probably rushing on the road with an umbrella in his hand to go back to the church, and he probably looks very embarrassed."
Said Jenkins, sitting on a high stool, turning to look at the puck held up by the icicle:
"I don't care what you guys are going to do, I'll leave it to you here. I still have things to do, but if you can't even deal with such trivial matters, you are welcome to come to us to deal with the trouble."
As he said that, he jumped down from the high stool, and as the high stool disappeared, the falling Jenkins was firmly caught by the unicorn, and then was carried by the little beast, flying into the sky like a white arc.
He landed in an alley one street away from the church, then deliberately dropped his umbrella, and ran back to the church in the rain in an unimpressive manner. People didn't doubt his relationship with the believer of lies, and in fact no one cared about it. Now Nolan is once again facing a disaster that may lead to the destruction of the entire city.
Jenkins heard about the whole thing from Alexia, because he chose the most important node to deal with last, so he was not the first person to discover the dream channel.
After the church received the news, they re-communicated with the believers of the god of rituals. This time Alexia also helped a little, confirming that the purpose of the ceremony with the entire Nolan as the base and the core of triggering various supernatural accidents was indeed sacrifice.
But the purpose of the sacrifice is not to provide more power to the Difference Engine, but to make the dream entangled with Nolan's real world not interfere with reality because of the power of the dream master.
"But where did that dream world come from?"
Jenkins wondered:
"The dream world must be supported to become a reality. Whose dream is this? Could it be those tobacco smokers again? But I... ahem."
Considering that this is a church, he put it another way:
"Didn't believers in lies ensure that those dreams would only be good dreams? Just now I saw with my own eyes the disgusting things that came out of them."
"There is no definite conclusion at present, but there are already vague conjectures. Do you remember the question you asked about the underground machine? I think I appreciate that question."
Alexia asked.
"I've asked a lot of questions... wait, you mean..."
Seeing that his expression had changed, Alexia knew he had thought of it, so she completely recounted the question Jenkins had asked:
"So can you dream? If you can dream, is it possible for you to dream of a mechanical gear sheep?"
For what is a dream, in fact, there has been no very precise definition. [A4-type arithmetic auxiliary external machine] It has been guaranteed that the difference machine is at least currently unknown and has not formed a complete soul, but no one can answer whether no soul can dream.
In fact, the church has never discovered its true purpose in the dreams jointly formed by those special tobacco smokers. Now, the secret has finally been revealed to the church.
It doesn't matter the vast spiritual power that has no owner, it doesn't matter the dreamer, it doesn't matter the addiction that is rooted in the soul and spirit. What the Difference Engine really wanted was that dream.
It is mechanical and cannot dream. But if there is a huge dreamland composed of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, it can also enter the dreamland through extraordinary means.
Thus, the difference engine, which should not be able to dream, had a huge and weird dream. Because the Difference Engine itself is too powerful, this dream is entangled with Nolan, its core location, and it can directly interfere with reality without even doing anything.
According to the church's speculation, the time when the Difference Engine fell into a dream should be after being seriously injured by the God of Lies. In order to prevent the church from noticing the abnormality of the difference engine, the cultists specially organized today's ceremony.
In other words, the purpose of the ritual is not to make the dream come true, but to conceal that the Difference Engine is dreaming.
"But what is all this for? Why does it want to dream?"
Jenkins still didn't understand, Alexia tilted her head and thought for a while, then gave her own guess:
"Maybe, it just wants a soul of its own."
What would happen if the Difference Engine had a real soul, Jenkins couldn't imagine yet. But he knew very well that once the other party really upgraded from pure mechanical intelligence to a mechanical intelligent life, then maybe it could be directly upgraded to a disaster beast.
With the soul, the living body is complete. Although there will be many more weaknesses due to this, the soul is the core of creation, and the soul is the most precious wealth of wisdom.
In a general sense, the body and the soul are two entities that are completely different in nature. The substantial nature of the body is extensive and passive. The nature of the soul entity is to be able to think, not to take up space, and to be active. Having both "body" and "soul" is complete, and only "complete" is qualified to be great.
At the same time, in the sense of mysticism, letting oneself change from "soulless" to "having a soul" is equivalent to the transformation from ordinary to extraordinary, from extraordinary to great. Because Jenkins has read the alchemy materials of the Kamel family, he is able to control life to a limited extent, so he understands how terrible the consequences will be if the difference machine is successful.
This will make the difference machine "complete", from incomplete to complete, omnic to intelligent, which is enough to evolve into sublimation.
He had also thought about whether to ask the Difference Engine about dreaming when he encountered it. Unexpectedly, the other party thought of it directly, and made preparations in advance.
The tobacco incident happened before Jenkins came to this world, so it is not [A4 type arithmetic auxiliary external machine] that leaked the content of that conversation.
Jenkins knew it was scary, and the Church knew it was scary too. Even if the idea that the Difference Engine is trying to create its own soul is just a guess for the public, no one dares to bet that the guess is wrong.
No matter what the purpose is, the most important thing to do now is to wake up the difference engine, or destroy that bizarre dream.
Coincidentally, although there is no special research topic on dreams in the Church of the Twelve Righteous Gods, among the false gods who came to participate in the negotiation this time, there happened to be followers of the false god [Lord of Dreamland].
Most of these people who believe in the God of Dreams are engaged in psychotherapy, magicians and other occupations. The delegation who came to the church this time, like the music group, had more than 20 people. When they appeared at the door of the church, they used an extremely ingenious The illusion ceremony was remembered by many people.
When the church found them in the break room, most of the group were "meditating" deeply in the quiet room, which in Jenkins' understanding means sitting and sleeping. After simply obtaining information about what is currently happening, he immediately gave three suggestions.
PS: The thing that has been mentioned since the beginning of this book: the expensive tobacco with yellow smoke, finally revealed the purpose: to make the difference engine dream, and make the machine produce the soul.