It seemed that there was a gentle and cool wind blowing on his face.
How long has it been since you breathed so easily? How long has it been since you lay down so comfortably? It's been a long time since I felt so peaceful and comfortable. All the pain and fatigue have gone away, and all the old diseases seem to have been healed.
In memory, a similar feeling seems to have been decades ago.
"Blessed is the boy with the land, who is blessed by the goddess of the harvest..."
Suddenly, a voice deep in the memory suddenly broke into my mind, rearranging the chaotic and loose thoughts together, the feeling of not being able to distinguish between illusory and reality dissipated all of a sudden, and the wind blowing on my face became real He got up, and the faint smell of green grass and soil drilled into his nostrils. Norris suddenly opened his eyes.
The endless green field stretches out in sight, there is indeed a breeze blowing on this land, the grass blades make waves in the breeze, and in the distance stands a strange mountain peak that seems to be spliced by color blocks, the sky A magnificent array of formulas and runes can also be seen between the clouds, and a giant sun with soft rays of light is slowly passing across the sky, and I am lying in this strange world.
Norris woke up in this strange place, looking at everything before him in bewilderment.
Some vague memories began to linger in his mind. He remembered the figures dangling in front of his eyes, the whispers of Margarita and Bertila beside the bed, and he remembered that he was walking towards the end of his life With a long sigh, accompanied by the constant surge of confusion, he got up from the grass and stood up.
He found that his body was more flexible than he had ever felt in many years.
There is a small dirt slope nearby, and you should be able to see more things from a high place. Norris walked over there. There are smokers.
A large and beautiful city lies quietly on the plain, surrounded by jewel-like crystal clear rivers and lakes.
A voice suddenly came from the side: "Does it look good? They made it according to the appearance in their memory."
Norris was startled by this voice, he immediately turned his head to look, but saw a figure beside him at some point, a young girl who had never seen it before, wearing a plain white dress, with hair like Her snow-like long hair hangs down to the ground. She is standing there, looking at the beautiful strange city in the distance, with a pure and happy smile on her face.
Noticing Norris' gaze, the girl turned her head and showed a bright smile: "Hello, my name is Naritel."
Then she pointed behind Norris again: "He's Duarte!"
Norris turned his head in doubt, but saw a figure behind him at some point. It was an old man in a plain robe, with a kind face and a smile, nodding slightly to himself.
"I..." Norris opened his mouth, but he didn't know where to start. He looked at everything around him suspiciously, and finally shook his head, "Is this the Kingdom of God? The Goddess of Harvest?"
"This is not the kingdom of God, but it is also a very good place," the girl who called herself Naritil said with a smile, "but we are only responsible for bringing you here, and someone will explain the specific situation to you."
Norris frowned: "Anyone?"
Naritil nodded with a smile: "He's already here."
As soon as the words fell, the girl who claimed to be Naritil and the old man named Duvalt had disappeared from Norris' sight without a sound. The latter rubbed his eyes subconsciously, and when he just put his hand down, he saw a A familiar and burly figure was already standing in front of him, looking at him with a gentle smile.
"Your Majesty!" Norris immediately recognized who the other party was, and subconsciously called out in surprise, "Why do you..."
"I'll come and see you," Gawain nodded with a smile, "Unfortunately, I couldn't make it in time in the real world."
"The real world?" Norris blinked and looked around. "Do you know where this is? I woke up and found myself lying here..."
"This is the mental space formed by the empire's data network," Gao Wen said with a smile, "Noris, it seems that you usually don't have time to pay attention to this aspect."
Norris frowned: "I seem to have heard it mentioned... But why am I here?"
"In short, you have died in the real world, what happened a few hours ago," Gawain said calmly, looking into the old man's eyes, "but I made my own proposal and let you be in another form' survived."
…
It didn't take Gao Wen a lot of effort to explain all this clearly, and after knowing what happened to him, Norris fell silent for a while.
Looking at the Minister of Agriculture who fell silent, Gao Wen said after a short pause: "I heard from Bertila that she privately suggested that you use the life replacement spell to draw life force from the volunteers, but you refused. gone."
"Yes, Your Majesty, this is a matter that cannot be started," Norris said calmly. "Some things can never be priced, even the lives of volunteers. The temptation of this thing is too great. "Ordering" is allowed, even if it is tacitly approved, it will lead to its rapid abuse and someone will be forced to become a "volunteer", or be forced to become a "death row prisoner"... ”
As a person struggling from the bottom of society, Norris has seen too many similar things. A missionary would easily fabricate a crime against a commoner, and then "reasonably and legally" occupy his land and houses. Businessmen in China will also be blackmailed by theocratic power and royal power, and they have to "voluntarily" donate property and money to the church or the king every now and then, let alone a life that is more precious than that
He believes that Gao Wen, who personally created the "Cecil Order", must know these things better than him.
"Your judgment is correct," Gawain said to Norris, "Bertera made a mistake, and I'm glad you didn't get into it."
"But you still let my soul 'live', live in this 'mental space'," Norris couldn't help but said, looking around, "I want to know, you are only going to do this to me , or do you plan to apply this technology?"
Although Norris had studied and worked as a church attendant, he still couldn't get rid of the shackles of common people's thinking. However, after working as the Minister of Agriculture for so many years and witnessing the establishment of a country with his own eyes, he has already learned to use Looking at things from a more profound perspective Behind Gao Wen's move to preserve his soul, he vaguely felt that there should be more considerations.
"This is a more long-term plan," Gao Wen said frankly, "I call it the 'Immortals' plan.
"In short, after obtaining the key technology of the Eternal Sleeper and establishing the Neural Network of the Narrator, I intend to establish a special 'soul database' to retain outstanding or outstanding talents in the form of network minds , so that they can continue to serve the empire, these people are called 'immortals'.
"You're the first, Norris.
"This is also my preparation for future world changes. The world we live in is not peaceful. As a country that is not strong enough, we need to make more preparations."
"Immortal..." Norris subconsciously repeated Gawain's words, and couldn't help showing a trace of worry, "But I'm worried that this will affect our social order. In a sense, obtaining immortality on the Internet is also a A kind of 'life chip', and according to what you said, the 'immortal' itself has a special status and influence in life, such a thing... Will it be abused?"
"Any good thing has the risk of being abused, the only difference is whether they have a chance to be controlled, and compared with Beltira's private and easy-to-manipulate life replacement spell, at least the immortal plan that relies on the national system is easier to obtain Control," Gao Wen was not surprised by Norris' doubts, he said his thoughts frankly, "the Government Affairs Office will establish a set of management procedures simultaneously to ensure that the 'immortals' will not interfere with the social order of the real world." Conflict Of course, this may take a long time, and in the long future, these systems will also experience damage and repair time and time again, all of which are in our consideration.
"And as the first Immortal, Norris, I'm sorry that we didn't ask for your consent before this. Subsequent Immortals will follow the principle of voluntariness, and will clearly formulate the responsibilities, rights and Obligation, this is also an important part of getting the Immortal Project under formal control.
"In addition, it is also to prevent immortals from affecting the social order of the real world. Norris, I will take back your position as the Minister of Agriculture. There will be a successor to replace you in the real world according to legal procedures, and you can be limited in the form of a consultant. When participating in the affairs of the government affairs department, we will run it like this for a period of time to observe whether such a process is reasonable. If there is a problem, we can slowly adjust it.
"Finally, the immortals living in the narrator's neural network will also be constrained by social order. You should have seen that there are cities in this world, and in the future there will naturally be residents who access the network as 'short-term residents' 'Users', as well as immortals who are 'long-term residents' of this world, the Government Affairs Office will establish a management organization similar to the real world in this special world, and you will find that living here is not too different from living in the real world. Big difference."
Norris listened carefully to Gawain's every word. He tried his best to imagine what kind of future it would be, but found that even with the vision he had expanded over the years, it was difficult for him to keep up with Gawain's train of thought. I can roughly imagine some subversive and unprecedented "prospect" The world is divided into two, the real world and the mental space in the network run synchronously, countless people live in these two worlds at the same time, and all knowledge and ideas will be unprecedentedly distributed. The efficiency is communicated and shared. Immortals have been living in the Internet for a long time, which may even give birth to a brand new "ethnic group", and one of the biggest challenges that Cecil will face in the future may be to strike a balance between this brand new ethnic group and the social order...
Some challenges are worth looking forward to.
While Norris was trying to conceive of the future, Gawain's mind was also fluctuating.
The Immortal Project... It's a bold and ambitious project.
Outstanding talents will be protected, valuable knowledge will be used more thoroughly, and it can also play a huge role in rewarding and motivating people. At first glance, it is almost all advantages.
But risks also lurk deep within these exciting advantages.
As Norris was worried for the first time, this subversive, soul-immortal technology is likely to conflict with the existing social order, and there is a danger of misuse and loss of control one day in the future.
For this reason, Gao Wen must lead the government affairs department to formulate a lot of rules and regulations to restrain the immortals, strictly control the channels, prevent them from blocking the flow of classes in the real world, prevent them from destroying the relatively fair social order that has been established with great difficulty, and prevent them from Become a catharsis for power out of control...
But even though there were many risks, Gawain decided to start this plan and make it one of the important "reserve forces" of the Cecil Empire.
This world is not peaceful, and human beings... are not such a powerful species in this peaceful world.
Elves with a long history and rich heritage, giant dragons with extremely powerful individual strength, mysterious and powerful immortal sea monsters... There are too many races with better innate conditions than humans, and they themselves have extremely advanced civilizations.
Another common feature of them is their long life span and exceptional ability to live.
Any individual who lives to adulthood can accumulate the knowledge and technology of several generations of human beings.
Although the relationship between the Cecil Empire and these forces is good at this stage, this does not make Gao Wen feel at ease, because he still remembers how the Dragonborn not long ago saw through the investment plans and plans of the Cecil Empire at a glance. trade program. Although the Dragonborn finally agreed to join the settlement area of Cecil, on the surface it seemed that they had fallen into the currency siege of the Cecil, but there were signs that the Grand Duke Balogar had not fallen into a "trap" at all. Since the dragon descendants can see through the Cecilian's investment plan from experience, they must be familiar with the tricks of human beings in terms of currency. They accept the settlement area lightly, which can only show...they don't care about it.
Behind them may be the giant dragon of Tarrond, and in the depths of their mountains may be buried an "ancient super weapon" that cannot be beaten by all humans on the continent.
Gao Wen very much hoped to maintain long-term peace with those races, but he was very clear about a saying: if you want peace, you must have the capital of peace.
The Cecil Empire needs some "special heritage" that belongs to humans.