Daniel stopped in a square.
He sat on the bench with his eyes closed and meditated, but his fingers lightly tapped the armrest beside the bench.
Intangible data flowed through the network, and a consciousness that was on standby in the distance responded to the bishop's call. With slight fluctuations in the air, a female believer in a long white dress appeared in front of Daniel, bowing and saluting: " Bishop, you summon me?"
"Well," Daniel opened his eyes slightly, and nodded—the female believer in front of him is his subordinate in the Eternal Sleeper Order, who has been trained by him for many years, her loyalty is beyond doubt, and she has been promoted to the network security department by herself, but Even so, she is not qualified to know the existence of the master, she is just a satisfactory assistant, "Dana, there seem to be some rumors on the Internet recently."
"Rumor?" The female priest frowned, feeling confused for a while.
Daniel presented the few messages he had just seen, and the clear text floated in front of Dana.
To be honest, Daniel himself didn't pay much attention to this information at the beginning: there are a large number of believers linked in the spiritual network, and many of the many believers are extremely boring or overly neurotic guys. Countless useless information is flowing in this huge network, and too horrifying and unimaginable spooky information is often a part of this kind of useless information.
However, when he casually retrieved the statistical data of these pieces of information, he couldn't help but pay attention.
These seemingly strange rumors... have appeared more than once in the past half month.
The female congregation carefully read the information displayed by Daniel, and nodded after a little recollection: "Yes, Your Excellency, there are indeed rumors about this on the Internet recently, but after verification, they are all just nonsense."
Daniel raised his eyelids: "Check?"
"Yes," the priestess nodded, "The inspectors patrolled around the Dreamland City and found no so-called abnormal voids. The priests who manage the network checked all the records connected to the network, and no one suddenly disappeared from the network or Abnormally disconnected—and the believer who claimed to have lost his memory was later found, and it is said that no brain problems were found after the examination, and the so-called memory loss may be a mental imbalance and delusional phenomenon after long-term connection to the network.”
"Is it all delusions and rumors..." Daniel muttered softly, "But there is more than one piece of news..."
The priestess opened her mouth, as if she was about to say something, but stopped together with Daniel.
An invisible wind blew in the city of dreams, and a global broadcast announcement spread from the Great Temple in the center of the city to the entire network. All the eternal sleepers who were active in the city raised their heads and looked in the direction of the Great Temple. Daniel also No exception.
In his field of vision, a notice from the Pope appeared:
"The news about the abnormality of the mind network, the hole in the network, the sudden disappearance of the connection, and the loss of memory after disconnection are all rumors, and the compatriots in the church cannot believe it..."
After the announcement, the priestess Dana blinked and looked at Daniel: "Bishop, it seems that the investigation of the Archbishop's Conference has come to a conclusion. These are indeed rumors."
"Rumor..." Daniel murmured softly and waved his hands, "Okay, I have nothing else to do, go and do your own thing."
"Yes, Your Excellency the Bishop." The female priest lowered her head, bowed and stepped back half a step, her figure disappeared in a fluctuating flash of light.
Daniel shook his head and scanned the square in front of him.
A whirlpool of shimmering light was cruising around the square, moving quickly against the ground, swiftly and silently.
That is the so-called "Patroller", which is not controlled by humans, but is rooted in the spiritual network and operates according to a specific logic. It is similar to the phantom of self-discipline of a puppet. They patrol the entire network day and night, checking this dream city. , Their range of activities is even wider than that of the Eternal Sleepers Cultists in the City of Dreams.
The inspector came to the bench where Daniel was sitting, and lightly bumped into the latter's leg. When there was no response, the twilight retreated a little, and then bumped forward again.
Not very smart, but dedicated to his duties.
Theoretically, the inspectors will not let go of any anomalies in the mind network. Those news may indeed be rumors made up by boring people, but... let's report to the master.
Daniel stood up, took a step forward, and his figure disappeared in a wave of phosphorescent light.
…
Cecil City, in the high-end laboratory of the Institute of Magic Technology, a group of senior magic technicians, rune masters, and traditional mages and scholars seconded from other places are gathered in front of an experimental table, staring at the display. Things in the middle of the bench:
A heavy book with a black cover and no age.
Gao Wen was also standing in the laboratory, looking at the big black book with experts and scholars from various fields. On his left stood Rebecca and Jenny, who were also staring wide-eyed, and on his right were those who couldn't read. Kamel, who showed his face, and Veronica, who was always faceless, also had Tyre, who was forcibly dragged over to make up the count, lying on his feet, but was now sound asleep.
No one knows about the Ultimate Book, and no one can explain its principles. Even the most knowledgeable scholars can only be at a loss when facing this thing.
Therefore, Gao Wen can only call together all kinds of experts, let these professionals who have made achievements in their respective fields judge and judge, and see how to crack the secret of this book—it is not expected that these people can understand or analyze it. For this book, at least think of a way to break the game.
For this reason, he dragged Tyre over here, hoping to get help from the sea monster's mysterious knowledge—but this seems to be a wrong way of thinking.
This salted fish came in and looked at the ultimate book and said that she didn't recognize it, and then began to sleep. Now she has slept for almost an hour, let alone cold water, even boiling water can't wake her up.
Gao Wen tried it, and it really didn't wake him up...
Moreover, she coiled up on the ground and took up extra space.
Gawain shook his head, stretched his legs and kicked Tyre's tail aside a little, and stepped forward: "Everyone, what are your thoughts?"
Pittman, who was standing in front, turned his head when he heard the sound, and twitched his beard, which he brushed almost every day but never seemed to shrink: "Your Majesty, this... To be honest, it doesn't look famous at all."
Gao Wen sighed: "Even your experience can't tell the way of thinking..."
The implication is that you are a two-year-old boy, and you don't have enough experience as a double apostate
Pittman was not ashamed at all, and he was very frank: "That Bertila and a lot of high-level officials who have spent hundreds of years studying it have not made a name for themselves. What is the use of my experience?"
The implication is that careers like cult remnants can’t be judged by the number of shifts, but by the time of duty—although he has jumped around in two cult groups, but when it comes to real work experience, the sum of them is not enough. , Naturally, there is no access to the top artifact of the sect, such as the Ultimate Book.
"Your Majesty, I'm sorry, but we haven't found a way." Jenny walked up from the side and said with her head down, "Although there are runes engraved in some parts of this book, they are rune systems that no one knows at all. , and there are too few samples, it is difficult to analyze the rules. In addition, I also suspect that those runes are not the real effective structure of this book, and its function should be realized through a more complex and advanced mechanism."
Kamel nodded, and his buzzing voice came from the shining arcane brilliance: "The manufacturing technology of this book has been lost, and it is difficult for us to understand how it works—it may come from a more advanced Civilization, this civilization is far more advanced than ours, and it may also come from a civilization whose technological route is completely different from ours. If it is the latter... then our analysis of it will become more difficult, and we may not even be able to see it. Is the pattern of the book a decoration or a functional structure? I can’t tell whether its cover is for protecting the book or there are other mysteries... "
Holding the platinum scepter, Veronica said regretfully: "What's more, it's still broken—the way of using the Death of All Things may be too rough, so that it lost such an inestimable ancient heritage. If it's still working, it might be a lot easier for us to analyze it."
The expression on Gao Wen's face was a bit embarrassed.
But luckily most of the attention here is on the book on the bench.
"Kammel's guess is very reasonable, maybe both of his guesses are right," he coughed dryly, in case everyone's attention was focused on "it's a pity that the sample is broken, and it's not advisable to use it roughly", "The Doom Society found the Ultimate Book from a very old subterranean ruin, which was then protected by an ancient device that no one could understand and whose manufacturing technology was long lost.
"There is a point of view that before the first major expansion, or even before our season of mortal civilization, there have been many reincarnation civilizations in the world, so we can boldly guess that this book is a civilization of a previous season The advanced products left behind."
The technicians in the laboratory couldn’t help discussing in a low voice. This conjecture of prehistoric civilization is somewhat deviant, but in Cecil’s academic field, it’s not new to challenge conventional deviant things, and everyone may find it incredible. But if it is beneficial to the research, the researchers don't mind having some discussions under this premise.
"It's a pity that there is only one copy, if it is broken, it will be gone," Rebecca sighed aside, "otherwise, if you cut it open, you might be able to understand something..."
"Hey, hey, isn't this book already broken?" Amber immediately started to stir up, "You might cut something that's broken..."
Gawain took the half-elf aside before he finished speaking, "Don't make trouble!"
"Now we can only use some indirect means to study the structure and principles of this book," Kamel said humbly, "first use the crystal resonator to test whether it contains crystallized rune structures, and then use Arcane detection circle to test whether it will respond to specific arcane energy stimulation... This is a relatively conservative but relatively effective solution. If our current equipment is accurate enough, we may be able to describe its hidden The structure of the magic pattern, even if only part of it can be depicted, is a huge improvement."
This seems to be the only way to get it right now—and while it might be inefficient, at least it can be a start.
The temporary research plan was quickly finalized, and the technicians began to leave in order. Soon, only Gao Wen was left in the laboratory.
And a salted fish that fell asleep the whole time and was accidentally stepped on several times without waking up.
Gawain stared at the Ultimate Book on the test bench for a few moments—after the personnel left, a solid steel fence was raised around the test bench, and a shimmering shield shrouded the inside of the fence. With armed security forces outside, the book should be fairly safe here.
He withdrew his gaze, turned around and prepared to leave, but just as he took a step, a slightly cold touch suddenly came from the outer edge of his palm.
Gawain looked down and saw a long snake tail dangling around him, and the cool tip of the tail was poking his hand.
The owner of the tail was rubbing his eyes and getting up from the ground.
The salted fish woke up.
"Actually, I have a suggestion," Tyre yawned long, and when Gawain thought she just got up to say hello and go back to sleep, she said solemnly, "Why don't you ask the Mithril Treasury Woolen cloth?"
Gao Wen frowned: "Mithril treasury?"
"We sea monsters don't know much about the change of civilizations on land, and I'm really not good at things like ancient relics," Tire retracted his tail, coiled himself up seriously, and said lazily, "But There is an equally ancient race that has been paying attention to the land... Behind the Mithril treasury is the Dragon Clan. They keep the client's entrusted objects in name, but from the historical process, they are actually storing the relics of civilization, so... What do you think of theirs? Is there another 'Ultimate Book' in the warehouse?"
Tyre paused for a moment, his eyes fixed on Gao Wen: "Or, it is something of the same era as the Ultimate Book."
Just as Gao Wen had guessed long ago, for an ancient and powerful ancient civilization like the Siren, the dragon clan behind the Mithril Treasure... is not a secret.
He looked at the guy who was still sleeping soundly a moment ago, looking particularly lazy: "It seems that you didn't sleep just now."
"I'm sleeping, but I'm naturally sensitive, and I can think when I hear things in my sleep."
"That's really amazing," Gao Wen smiled, then nodded slightly, "Thank you for your suggestion—maybe I should contact the agent."
"That's your business," Tire shook his body, his tail stretched out, and he arched towards the door while waving his hands, "In short, I wish you the best of luck."
Gawain watched the lady siren step out of sight, and after a while, heard the other party's voice from the corridor: "Hey, why are there footprints on my tail!?"
... Who said just now that the perception is sharp in sleep