Gao Wen has been paying attention to the No. 1 sandbox for a long time, and has long been quite curious about where its entrance is. According to the information obtained before, although the No. 1 sandbox is an independently operating thinking network, it still has connections to the main network. The entrance and exit, but Gawain and Daniel once scanned the entire spiritual network, but they didn't find where the entrance and exit were.
And now, he finally knew why no one knew about this mysterious entrance——
After deciding to take action, the archbishops in the golden chamber left their seats one after another. Although Gawain didn't understand why, he also stood up, and then he saw everyone took a step back, and the picture depicted many mysterious symbols The surface of Wen's golden round table suddenly rippled with circles of light that alternated between reality and reality.
Megal III's ever-expanding starlight aggregate slowly descended from midair, and touched the center of the round table like some kind of viscous liquid. The next second, the rippling virtual and real light suddenly dyed layers The stacked stars quickly expanded to the entire surface of the round table like a halo—
A vortex-like hole was formed in the starlight, and floating clouds and dust, as well as hazy mountains and rivers could be vaguely seen in the vortex.
At the same time as the entrance opened, the round table sank to the same height as the ground: it truly became a portal embedded in the ground.
The round table in this golden meeting hall is the entrance to the No. 1 sandbox, and Megaul III is the "key" to open the entrance!
"... This is a bit beyond my expectation," Gao Wen stood beside the vortex-like entrance, looked down at the hazy clouds and dust inside, and said with a smile, "So, here is the No. 1 sandbox? Can you just walk in?"
"It is easy to enter the No. 1 sandbox, but we are not sure what will happen after entering. When the exploration team entered last time, many strange changes have taken place in it, which proves that the No. 1 sandbox is losing monitoring. The situation has been constantly evolving by itself," Megal III re-floated into the air, and said in a weaker voice than before, "Outsider Wanderer... Although my entrustment may seem redundant to you, please remember Stay—be careful.”
"I will remember."
Gawain nodded, and beside him, Selina Geerfen had already stepped forward, stepping into the entrance of the vortex wrapped in clouds and mist.
Gawain, Yuri, and Magnum followed closely behind and stepped into it.
The four figures quickly disappeared into the depths of the vortex. When the entangled clouds closed again, the circles of rippling starlight around the entrance wriggled and returned to their original state, and the round table embedded in the ground also returned to its initial appearance.
There was silence in the hall for two seconds before Megaul III's voice broke the silence: "Everyone, let's start—do what we should do.
"Concentrate all remaining computing power on the No. 1 sandbox and security system, shut down all non-essential functions of the backbone network, and shut down... Dreamland City."
The archbishops responded in unison: "Yes! Your Majesty the Pope!"
One after another figures disappeared in the golden meeting hall, and with the disappearance of each figure, the light in the golden hall seemed to dim a bit.
Outside the golden hall, the entire city of dreams also changed immediately—
The clear and bright sky suddenly faded its color, and the gray-white boundless chaos enveloped the whole world. Those resplendent palaces, elegant and towering towers, and rare and dreamy plants all disappeared into nothingness in the scattered light spots, black and white grids Lines covered the land of the city, and even the black and white grid lines were engulfed by endless fog...
The once beautiful city of dreams created by exhausting human imagination has returned to the most chaotic initial dream in a few breaths, and in this boundless darkness that is only illuminated by fog and the light of chaos, only The "golden meeting hall" that has shrunk to only one hall still stands on the ground.
In the already dimly lit hall, the squirming starlight aggregates quieted down, quietly floating in the air, as if thinking, as if recalling...
…
In the underground palace of the Eternal Sleeper in the real world, the priests in black or white robes returned to the real world one by one, running around the palace while maintaining the most basic connection with the spiritual network and providing their own surplus computing power with.
"Dream control begins! Dream control begins!"
There are priests issuing orders loudly, some priests are checking every restriction in the palace, and some priests set off to the surface to perform dream monitoring on the entire "Olandelle" area.
Even the lowest floor of the underground palace can hear the noisy movement in the palace. Wendy, who is located in the containment area on the bottom floor but has already lowered the containment level due to the relief of pollution symptoms, sensed the change in the atmosphere in the corridor outside, and couldn't help it. Zhu raised his head, came to the iron door with complicated runes, and asked gently: "Mr. Guard, what happened outside?"
"Dream control, Archbishop Wendy," the guard's muffled voice came from outside, as if he was wearing a thick helmet, "please wait at ease and don't fall into a dream."
"... wish I could help."
"Please stay awake tonight, this is the greatest help to everyone."
"You are quite right, Mr. Guard."
Wendy said softly, then retreated to her own bed, and sat down quietly on it.
On the wall opposite her, gleaming crystal dust paint depicted an intricate set of symbols, made of many curved lines and circles, like the symbol of some deep-sea animal, with a deep and mysterious meaning.
Looking at those symbols, Wendy's mind quickly became sober and rational, and most of the tense and depressed mood dissipated before.
I'm just a little greedy, I want to dig a big squid...
…
Gao Wen felt that he was walking on a slope that continued to extend downwards, deep into the endless yellow sand and deep clouds. The clouds cleared, and the eyes suddenly became clear.
A city standing in the yellow sand appeared in front of him, Selena and others.
The city has a khaki-yellow outer wall, the towering city walls are well-defined, and the arrow towers and watchtowers look imposing under the blue sky, but no guards can be seen on the city walls or in front of the city gate.
While seeing this desert city, a strange rotten smell floated into Gawain's nostrils.
"This is the first city you can see when you enter the No. 1 sandbox, Nim Sandro city-state, and it is also the starting point of civilization in the sandbox world," Selina said in a low voice, "This desert was originally a grassland. At least it was set like this when the sandbox was launched, but later, with historical evolution and climate change, this place was eroded by deserts, but it was still an important traffic route and business flourished.”
"It's an empty city now," Yuri continued. "The last time the expedition team entered reported that the city and the surrounding villages and towns were empty. In addition, they were also attacked when they stayed in the city overnight. We need to be more careful about this.”
"There's a stench here," Magnum muttered, frowning. "It's like something is rotting away."
"The exploration team also reported this weird phenomenon before." Selina nodded, "This weird rotten smell is everywhere in Nim Sandro and the surrounding villages and towns. Very widespread. The expedition team has not been able to locate the source of the smells, but the smells themselves do not appear to be harmful."
Gawain sniffled, and said casually, "Could it be that those disappeared sandbox residents are rotting somewhere we can't see, or are slowly rotting away in a state we can't see?"
Yuri couldn't help shaking his face when he heard Gawain's words, and Magnum next to him subconsciously looked around the vast and empty desert, frowning tightly: "This is really... Are you going to scare people like that?"
"Just call me Gao Wen, it might help you relax," Gao Wen glanced at Magnum with a smile, and then walked towards the entrance of the city-state without waiting for the other party's answer, "Don't waste time, we only have" Ten days'."
Magnum and the others immediately followed, while Gawain quietly activated the settings deep in his consciousness as he walked, trying to communicate with the perception runes set beside him in the real world.
He vaguely felt those runes, and with the help of those runes, he sensed the existence of Amber and Tyr.
But the feeling was very, very strange, with a strange feeling of insensitivity, as if observing an extremely slowed down world through a severe delay.
Is this the effect of "time iteration"...
Gao Wen was thoughtful.
Ten times the time iteration, I have already made myself only vaguely perceive reality, and can hardly communicate with the real world, so under the previous thousand times or even higher magnification time iteration, the residents in the No. 1 sandbox obviously It is simply impossible to connect with the real world.
Even if there is occasional information interaction, they can only receive very weird, distorted and blurred reality information.
This sandbox is an isolated island...
With such emotion, Gao Wen stepped into the city-state surrounded by yellow sand with three temporary companions.
A series of khaki or off-white buildings stand on both sides of the street, most of them have flat roofs and curved window frames, colorful red or yellow curtains are hung between taller houses, spanning the Above the street, it was constantly dancing by the dry wind.
"This is a completely different style from the phantom town we saw before..." Magnum couldn't help but said.
Selina opened her mouth, and at the same time explained to Gawain: "The No. 1 sandbox is very large. In addition to the city-state of Nim Sandra located in the desert area, there is also the city of Glen Valley located in the forest area, and the city-state located in the swamp area. Fengxi City on the edge of the wetland has different city-states and kingdoms... This place has developed for thousands of years under the condition of accelerated time. Millions of virtual personalities thrive here, and the starting point of the sandbox civilization is set at In the Iron Age, this was enough for the inhabitants to expand their 'world' to a great extent."
Gao Wen raised his eyebrows: "The starting point of civilization here is set in the Iron Age?"
"Yes," Selena nodded, "If it is set directly in the primitive era, it will take a long time for the sandbox to develop a real civilization, and there will be too much uncertainty in the middle, even if you use time iteration To speed up, the whole experiment process will be very long, so we set a set of basic data for each sandbox, which includes a complete history from the primitive age to the Iron Age, as well as archaeological discoveries that can be supported. This can allow virtual residents and physical residents in the sandbox to enter the stage of civilization deduction faster."
"...it's a big project."
Selena seemed to hear some deep meaning from Gao Wen's tone, and couldn't help but feel curious: "Is there any problem?"
"No... I can't think of any problems for the time being," Gao Wen shook his head, "I just admire your patience and perseverance in compiling this set of things."
Selena wasn't sure if it was a real compliment or a sarcasm, but just when she was about to say something more, a building appeared in her sight and interrupted her next words in advance.
A building that is obviously taller and more magnificent than the surrounding buildings, surrounded by dozens of pale gold sculptural columns and stone statues, appears at the end of the street covered in yellow sand.
"Is that a temple?" Gawain asked casually looking into the distance.
"It is consistent with the outline of the building reported by the exploration team," Yuri nodded. "It should be the city-state temple of Nim Sandro."
Gao Wen was thoughtful: "It has a completely different style from the church in the phantom town."
"But it is the same 'god' that is enshrined inside."
Selina said softly.
Belief in the same god... But due to differences in regional culture, temples with different styles have been built.
This once again made Gao Wen realize the power of the "simulation" of this No. 1 sandbox, and how the civilization in the sandbox develops step by step.
While thinking about it, they had already come to the vicinity of the temple.
At the entrance of the temple facing the street, Gawain saw the familiar relief carved on a huge stone, standing on the square in front of the temple:
A gigantic hand covering the symbolic earth—the mark of the upper storyteller.
Gawain glanced at the relief that symbolizes the upper narrator, and stepped over the boulder, preparing to enter the temple.
But at the gate of the temple, his footsteps stopped suddenly.
His eyes were fixed on a stone pillar at the entrance of the temple.
On the surface of the stone pillar, there is a line of text engraved impressively. The lines of the text are deep, but the handwriting is messy and distorted. The depth of each line of strokes is dark red as if soaked in blood. Infinite despair and madness, it has only one sentence—
God is dead.
(Mom!!)