The Frost Moon is coming to an end, and winter has arrived in the northern countries of the mainland.
The cold north wind whistled across the city streets, making a sharp whistle between the gaps in the buildings, and the snow on the roof was blown off by the wind, flying into a hazy curtain in the air, as if another new The snowfall is coming.
And all of this is blocked by thick walls, laminated crystal glass and heating systems.
Gao Wen was sitting in the study, flipping through a pastime book about the descriptions of the gods and monsters in the Northern Continent, holding a dip pen in the other hand, and casually sketched some pictures and inspirations that emerged in his mind on the draft paper. The sound of the wind was filtered by the glass, leaving only a slight reverberation when it entered the room. This reverberation combined with the slow music from the magic device in the corner of the room made people feel more calm.
Betty An stood quietly by the desk, folded her hands on the apron of the maid's clothes, lowered her head and nodded, snoring lightly.
Gawain glanced at Betty who was dozing off, couldn't help but shook his head with a smile, and refocused on the casual sketching, but he suddenly felt a strange tactile sensation in his hand holding the dipped pen, accompanied by " There was a soft bang, and looking down, he saw that the tip of the dip pen that had been used for a long time was cracked, and the leaked ink was falling on the paper along the crack, spreading a smudge.
Gao Wen frowned, put the broken dipping pen aside, and looked at the lines drawn on the paper - a meandering river flowing quietly, with antique brick houses on the river bank, and a small stone bridge across the river On the sky, the sun is setting, and the sun is shining along the eaves of the people on the water.
The scattered ink stains are spreading on the small stone bridge, as if they are gradually devouring the picture.
Gao Wen crumpled the draft paper casually and threw it aside. The door of the study opened almost at the same time, and Amber pushed the door and walked in.
Betty, who was dozing off, woke up suddenly and stood up straight, but after seeing who was coming, she yawned again and relaxed her body.
Gawain raised his head and glanced at the half-elf lady who pushed the door in. He couldn't help but raise the corners of his mouth: "...it's really cold."
"... huh?" Amber heard such a sentence before she opened her mouth, and she couldn't react immediately, "Why did you say this suddenly?"
Gao Wen pointed to the window: "This season, even you don't go through the window."
When Amber heard this, she immediately crossed her hips and stared at her eyes: "Nonsense! It's so cold and windy, I braved the wind and snow to climb to your window on the second floor, and I also risked being locked out by you. I'm not crazy!"
As she spoke, she saw the ball of paper on Gao Wen's desk—as we all know, amber is a very curious species—so she couldn't help but lean over curiously, and after judging from Gao Wen's eyes that it was not a secret , she casually opened the ball of paper, only to see that it was just a weird picture.
"Where is this place... the Gondor Empire? Is the sun too small..." Amber blinked, "What a strange architectural style, and it looks so beautiful... But judging from the architectural shape, it should not be in the northern region Right? Where are you going to promote it?"
"It's just a random drawing, let's take it as my imagination." Gao Wen flicked the paper in Amber's hand with his fingers, and the sketch depicting the scenery of the other world was silently turned into dust. Speaking of which, what's the matter?"
"Hey, don't ruin it, it's a pity..." Amber cried out subconsciously, and then curled her lips, "It's nothing serious, but recently there was news that Typhon's border troops have begun to equip magic vehicles... Faster than we expected."
Hearing Amber's words, Gao Wen gently pinched his chin, and after a moment of contemplation, he just smiled slightly: "Sooner or later, this will happen, this is the general trend. Just notify Changfeng Fortress and maintain vigilance."
"Understood. In addition, Hetty asked me to remind you when I came here," Amber continued, "Imperial College will be put into use next month, and students from all over the world are also arriving at the end of this month. , Have you set a specific opening time?"
"Imperial College... this matter is finally ready," Gao Wen said, nodding his head, "The opening day is set on the first rest day of next month, and the rest of the timetable will remain unchanged."
"Okay, I'll make a note of it."
Gao Wen hummed, and after a short pause, asked casually, "By the way, what is that Bud doing now?"
"At the Druid Research Institute of the Sorin Giant Tree, he served as a researcher and special consultant there. Reports from the surveillance personnel said that he was doing well, actively cooperating with various operations, and assisting the staff there to transfer from the underground palace A large number of dangerous samples," Amber reported, "now that the transfer of those dangerous samples has basically ended, Bud's next job is to cooperate with the druids and scholars to study the photosynthesis of the giant tree of Sorin in winter—they hope that this part of the research can Helps improve crops."
"Well, very good," Gawain nodded, and asked again, "What is Bertila doing?"
"It's photosynthesizing."
Gao Wen: "... huh?"
Amber couldn't help but rolled her eyes: "Otherwise, what else do you expect her to do?"
Gao Wen was stunned for a second, and covered his forehead with his hand: "...that's true, she is a plant after all, and usually..."
While sighing, a peculiar fluctuation from the depths of his mind suddenly emerged, causing Gao Wen to stop in the second half of his sentence.
Amber cast a curious look across the table: "What's wrong?"
"Wait a minute, Daniel seems to have something to ask me," Gawain waved his hand, "Look at the side, I need to meditate. Betty, go to the door and don't let anyone in."
Amber readily agreed to come down, and the little maid ran to the door. Gao Wen didn't delay any longer, and quickly concentrated his mind, sneaking his consciousness into the level of the spiritual network bit by bit.
After a short period of dizziness and the illusion of space displacement, the scene in front of his eyes has become the endless and calm blue water and blue sky in the original space. Huge geometric patterns and gear-like structures are running quietly in the sky, and the vast water surface without wind and waves There are metal platforms erected one after another—just different from when this space was first born, those metal platforms are no longer empty at this moment, but display a variety of experimental devices, forming experiments that do not interfere with each other environment.
There are bright lights flickering on the metal platform in the distance. Obviously, at this moment, a certain group is connecting to this cyberspace through the immersion cabin and conducting some experiments.
The open area located in the center of the origin space will never be disturbed by those experimental environments. There is still a white round table here, and there are empty seats around the round table. Daniel is standing in front of one of the seats. When Wen appeared, the old mage immediately bowed down respectfully: "My lord, I'm sorry to disturb you suddenly."
"There's no need to be formal," Gao Wen waved his hand, and sat down on his own high-back chair casually. "What happened?"
Daniel immediately replied: "My lord, there is something strange about the spiritual network recently, I think it is necessary to report to you."
"Oh?" Gao Wen raised his eyelids, "Tell me in detail."
"That's what happened..."
Daniel talked about the strange rumors that appeared in the spiritual network of the eternal sleeper in recent days, and talked about the various clues he investigated through his own connections and influences. He did not dare to report any details.
"...Basically, these are the types of anomalous phenomena that have appeared in the psychic network recently. Although the Supreme Bishops Conference stated that these are rumors, and my investigation has not found any evidence for the above-mentioned anomalous phenomena, but from the 'witness report 'Judging by the frequency and range of appearance, coupled with the information I inquired from the bishop group, the situation may not be that simple.
"I am afraid that there are indeed some problems with the operation of the mind network. The stability of some virtual spaces is declining. Some believers of the Eternal Sleeper who have been connected to the network for a long time should and indeed have encountered trouble—I found some hidden in the deep database. But for some reason, when I found those believers who had sent letters for help, they didn't know anything about these things.
"Three areas on the edge of the City of Dreams have been blocked recently. The Supreme Bishops' statement is to carry out data reconstruction and necessary overhaul... This is a normal operation in itself, and it is not the first time that the temporary blockade of the edge area has occurred, but It is still doubtful that this kind of thing happened in this period of time.”
Daniel talked about the information he had collected one by one, and Gao Wen frowned more and more as he listened.
The abnormality is already very obvious. Perhaps ordinary believers are still blinded by the words of the Supreme Bishops and the Pope the Sleeper, but as a bishop, Daniel has collected enough information to confirm that there is indeed a problem with the spiritual network.
It's not working, but... why
Gao Wen subconsciously glanced at the surrounding space of origin, and unreasonable associations arose spontaneously, making the expression on his face unbearably weird.
This origin space was opened up by him from the bottom secret of the mind network, using the computing power of the eternal sleeper, borrowing the traffic of the mind network, and recently, due to the establishment of several new project teams at the Institute of Magical Technology, The frequency of use of the origin space seems to be getting higher and higher...
Damn, I'm afraid it's not because I'm too good at picking up wool, so I'm going to kill this sheep soon...
But Daniel couldn't guess what type of train the powerful extraterrestrial wanderer was running in his mind at this time. He was just a little nervous because of Gawain's sudden silence: "My lord?"
Gawain woke up from his contemplation and looked at Daniel: "You said... Could the abnormality of the mind network be related to the origin space?"
"...My lord, to be honest, I also doubted this direction," Daniel thought for a while, then bowed his head and replied, "After all, the space of origin is closely related to the operation of the mind network, and it has been executing several large-scale projects recently. It draws a huge amount of computing power, but after careful inspection, I think the possibility of the origin space causing the failure of the mind network is very low."
"oh?"
"The computing power drawn by the origin space from the mental network belongs to the 'redundant' part, in other words, it is the computing power that is outside the backbone of the mental network and does not affect the overall operation of the network," Daniel explained, " The network resource management method originally designed by the Eternal Sleepers is very simple and rude, and there is a lot of waste of computing power. After I reconstructed their management mechanism, this part of the originally wasted computing power was hidden by me, and it was specially used to maintain The origin space, so theoretically no matter how much the origin space expands and develops, it will not affect the backbone network... "
"Hmm..." Gao Wen rubbed his chin and said in a deep thought, "So, the abnormal fluctuation of the mind network will not affect the origin space?"
"That's the theory, but we'd better strengthen the monitoring of the origin space in the near future," Daniel nodded. 'There are hidden dangers in the infrastructure of this thing, so even if the origin space and the backbone network are isolated, there is no guarantee that there will be no problems."
"Will the researchers working in the origin laboratory be in danger?" Gawain asked what he was most worried about at the moment.
"It doesn't look like it at the moment." Daniel has obviously thought about this issue, and he answered quickly, "Those connectors in the spiritual network who are in an abnormal state all have one thing in common: they maintain a long-term network state, accept It is almost impossible to completely disconnect from the network after too deep a brain transformation, and they often undergo deep immersion, and the connection between the spirit and the network is too close—while the researchers in our origin laboratory are connected to the network through the immersion cabin, there is a layer of real world protection, and there is no deep immersion, and at the same time, they strictly enforce the working hours system you stipulated, and will not maintain long-term connections, and the safety can be guaranteed.”
Gao Wen breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the words: "That's okay... But you should still be more vigilant. I will remind the researchers here to pay special attention to their own mental state when they are online in the near future, and you will continue to pay attention to all abnormalities in the mental network."
Daniel immediately bowed his head deeply: "Yes, my lord."
Gawain exhaled, looked up at the vast sky above his head.
Huge geometric structures and symbolic numbers are still running in the clear sky. The invisible wall of data blocks the connection between this secret space and the backbone network. Standing between the vast water and sky in the original space, people who visit here have It will not feel that there is another larger network running synchronously with this space.
But after Gao Wen opened the higher authority, he was able to see more—
He can see that a larger network world exists parallel to the origin space. A magnificent city of dreams covers the sky above this space. Countless light spots are flying and drifting in the void, which are nodes of computing power. The Eternal Sleepers, those are the residents of this online world.
And under his feet, under the vast and boundless "water surface", there is a more chaotic and more complicated flow of light, which is the deeper foundation of the spiritual network, and is the darkest and deepest part of this virtual world that took hundreds of years to build. Network "Abyss".
He frowned.
This sheep doesn't seem to be killed by himself...
Then why did it suddenly become like this