Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 761 - 760: The Truth of Project 0

The twilight gently enveloped the earth, and the magic crystal lamp in the study was already lit. Gawain casually signed his name on a document and handed it to Aunt Heidi, who was waiting across the table: "You need to personally oversee the economic revitalization and industrial construction in the Duke of the East area, especially the economic pilot on the Suram Plateau. Be vigilant against covert collusion between local merchants and the old aristocratic forces, which could raise grain prices and impact the new currency. If similar situations occur, punish them severely to the fullest extent of the law and announce it throughout the East."

Aunt Heidi took the document with a serious expression: "Rest assured, I understand the importance of the economic pilot."

Gawain nodded and couldn’t help but look at Aunt Heidi with concern: "How have you been resting lately? You should take care of your health."

"It makes me feel ashamed as a junior to have our ancestor worry about these things..." Aunt Heidi immediately bowed her head, "Recently, the Administrative Office hasn’t been very busy. After winter set in, many projects affected by the season have slowed down or been temporarily halted. The internal affairs department only needs to prepare year-end summaries and plans for the coming year, and last year’s interns added to the Administrative Office are now proving useful."

"That’s good," Gawain nodded, "So, how are the Magic Web projects in the northern and western regions going?"

"I’ve been keeping in sync with the two Grand Governors on their progress. At present, the main cities and secondary cities in both regions have established basic Magic Web facilities—primarily because these cities generally have Mages stationed, as well as Mage towers and mature Transcendent material processing systems, enabling relatively quick completion of the basic setup. However, there’s no progress in lower-level cities and towns..."

Speaking of this, Aunt Heidi couldn’t help but shake her head: "Additionally, with the arrival of winter, areas outside the cities have become difficult to work in. The Magic Web between those northern and western cities hasn’t been connected, relying only on relay devices to barely achieve communication. Due to the scarcity and insufficient power of relay stations, communication between cities often gets interrupted. It can be said that it hasn’t yet reached a practical state."

"I understand," Gawain was not surprised, "After all... Large engineering machines and vehicles are still scarce. The southern borders are barely managing with what they have, and many areas in the north and west can only rely on manual labor for construction. Winter presents an insurmountable challenge."

The Magic Web can only exert its maximum value when it becomes a "network."

A nationwide communication network, a powerful energy system, the cornerstone of industry, the framework of society—all require a fully connected Magic Web as their foundation. Moreover, from an "Empire" perspective, Gawain also needs to connect every region of the country into a tighter whole to prevent distant old forces from rebounding and prevent some hard-to-monitor provinces from reverting to the isolated and fragmented state of the kingdoms era.

But achieving this is not easy.

Establishing basic Magic Web facilities in a city is relatively simple, but establishing sufficient Magic Web sites in sparsely populated wilderness areas is more than twice as difficult. Not to mention the extreme environments that many projects will face—towering mountains, rushing torrents, the permafrost in the north, the swamps in the west... Even with the aid of magic, challenging these conditions is very difficult.

Small relay devices can only allow two Magic Webs to operate at the lowest power, and to achieve full power transmission of energy and information, larger Node Tower or relay stations must be constructed. During the construction of the southern borders’ Magic Web, Gawain relied on the momentum of unifying the war, implementing large-scale population migrations, city integrations, and military governance of border areas, to quickly achieve the "network" of the Magic Web. However, now that the entire Empire is unified, the nation has moved beyond wartime conditions, and the Empire is much larger than the southern borders were back then. Similar methods can no longer be used, and even if they were to be used, significant adjustments would have to be made.

On this foundation, he can only proceed step by step, waiting for this colossal project to slowly be completed.

"Now, aside from the main hub in the southern borders, only the main hub on the Eastern Holy Spirit Plains has been successfully launched," Aunt Heidi said, "The Sorin Giant Tree helped us launch the hub on the eastern plains early. The others, such as the main hubs on the Western Holy Spirit Plain, western main hub, northern main hub, and St. Soniel main hub, have all been suspended due to winter."

"...This might actually be a good thing, as staggering the projects gives us a chance to identify hidden issues, preventing the country’s entire Magic Web from suffering excessive losses," Gawain said, half reassured and half genuinely, "You should focus more on the information coming from the Sorin Giant Tree area. The experience accumulated there should greatly assist us in resuming construction after spring next year."

Aunt Heidi bowed her head in acknowledgment: "Yes, ancestor."

She quickly glanced at Gawain, confirming that all documents and reports had been handed over, then took a half-step back: "Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll head back to the office first—I still have a few reports to review."

Gawain was about to fall into contemplation when he heard this. Seeing no issue, he nodded, and as soon as he nodded, Aunt Heidi swiftly left the room.

Gawain wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but he even felt that Aunt Heidi left behind a residual image as she walked out of the study...

"It seems the work pressure is still high recently," Gawain couldn’t help but stroke his chin, speaking softly with a sense of realization, "I still need to find someone to share the burden for her..."

Just as he finished speaking, a bit of Amber emerged from the air beside him: "Do you really not know why she’s been avoiding you lately?"

Gawain glanced at the half-elf: "Can’t an old man have this bit of enjoyment?"

As he spoke, he suddenly felt ripples spreading in the depths of his mind, a special identification signal calling within his consciousness.

"Daniel is looking for me, seems urgent," he then looked at Amber, "Stay here."

Amber paused, waved her hand: "Oh, I’m familiar with..."

Before she could finish, Gawain was already sitting in the wide-backed chair, entering a mental connection state.

Watching Gawain, who had already closed his eyes, Amber couldn’t help but furrow her brows, slightly silent before speaking to herself with a touch of lament: "Sigh... With you like this, I’m afraid you’ll die of exhaustion in this life... Can’t untangle from ’overworked to death’?"

Chaotic flickering lights spread across his vision, and Gawain could still faintly hear Amber’s low muttering beside him, but he didn’t pay much attention.

His vision was gradually stabilizing.

On the vast endless water surface, enormous metal platforms were arranged in sequence, colossal geometric shapes and digital symbols silently operated in the sky, and in the center of the sky and water, Daniel, clad in a black magic robe, was already standing beside a white round table.

"My Lord," the old Mage bowed as soon as he saw Gawain, "I have become the Archbishop of the Eternal Sleepers."

"You have passed the trial and ascended successfully?" Gawain immediately looked Daniel up and down, then nodded slightly with a smile, "That’s really good news, congratulations."

"This identity is no longer important to me," Daniel immediately lowered his head and said sincerely, "The knowledge and health you bestowed upon me are invaluable."

Gawain could feel that the old Mage’s words came from the heart.

Initially, the loyalty of this old Mage from Typhon and the Eternal Sleepers towards the "Wanderer from Outer Realm" might have been purely due to fear, and loyalty born from fear often cannot withstand trials. However, as time passed and more incidents occurred, this loyalty evidently began to change quietly.

Knowledge and health, and the tangible change in life status they brought in the real world, could not be ignored.

The old Mage stood before the "Wanderer from Outer Realm" with his head lowered, his respect had long overshadowed his fear.

He knew that he probably wasn’t anyone good— even if he once was, he isn’t anymore.

But he at least remembered gratitude.

He had once fallen into despair due to issues with his talent, had been driven mad by incomplete biological reformation, had almost completely lost his sanity, with his mind ruled by endless whispers and hallucinations. He had almost lost everything, including most of his humanity.

It was the gifts of the "Wanderer from Outer Realm" that allowed him the chance to reclaim those things one by one.

Perhaps in the eyes of the Wanderer from Outer Realm, it was just some trivial knowledge and simple medical techniques, but this "minor" assistance from a "High Existence" was enough to change the fate of a mortal entirely.

The gifts of fate must be repaid with loyalty.

"My Lord," Daniel said respectfully, "After becoming an Archbishop, I gained higher authority— I have investigated the truth of the ’Project Zero,’ and initially touched upon the current crisis of the Spiritual Network!"

Gawain’s expression turned serious: "What is Project Zero really about?"

"They are attempting to remove the ’mental Steel Stamp’!" Daniel immediately replied, "And not just for one or two people— they plan to connect every mortal’s dreams and remove all the mental Steel Stamps that the gods imposed on mortals!!"

Daniel’s answer almost made Gawain miss a beat in his breath, and his carefully maintained solemn demeanor almost lost control.

Two seconds later, he adjusted his state of mind and fixed his eyes on Daniel: "They know about the ’mental Steel Stamp’?"

"Yes, but they call it the ’shackles’ or ’chains of God,’" Daniel nodded, "I don’t know where they first learned of this phenomenon, but it’s clear that the Eternal Sleepers, who specialize in studying mortal minds and consciousness, know more about the ’mental Steel Stamp’ than the Oblivion Association..."

"The Oblivion Association’s research is still stuck at the ’physical level,’ while the Eternal Sleepers have clearly delved into the mind and even the soul..." Gawain nodded slightly, "So what exactly do they plan to do? How does Project Zero operate?"

Daniel nodded and began to report in detail: "First, they construct a massive, standalone mental world, which they call the ’sandbox.’ This sandbox is a more complex and advanced space than the dream city. Aside from necessary monitoring measures, it is completely isolated from the outside real world;

"People’s minds are introduced into this sandbox world, and before entering the sandbox world, they undergo thorough hypnosis and memory deletion, erasing all memories and concepts related to gods, and the sandbox world itself contains no information related to the gods;

"Once the sandbox begins closed operation, it forms a self-consistent system, capable of self-sustaining because it conducts no information exchange with the outside, and its interior has been thoroughly ’purified,’ so it should be a completely godless world. People ’living’ in the sandbox world will not remember the outside world at all, and will only believe everything within the sandbox to be real;

"Finally, by ’time iteration,’ they accelerate the passage of time within the sandbox world, completely severing the connection with the outside real world, letting it run internally for over a thousand years, letting the minds within undergo dozens or even hundreds of ’Samsara Reshaping’..."

"Time iteration?" Gawain immediately seized on a key term in Daniel’s report, "Accelerating the time flow of the sandbox world? Wouldn’t that require enormously large computing power?"

Daniel nodded solemnly: "Yes, it requires enormous computing power, and not only that, but it also requires human brains that can remain permanently connected to the network as the ’operating matrix,’ because the sandbox must achieve complete isolation; not only does it need to be isolated on the network, in the real world, but ordinary Eternal Sleepers are on a floating network, with constantly changing nodes, not meeting this condition..."

The mystery finally unraveled, and the issue that had long troubled Gawain was answered.

"So, that’s why they need Brain Servants!"

The Spiritual Network itself does not require fixed "servers," its entire operation process, as Gawain understands, is built on "cloud" technology: as long as a certain number of users remain connected to the network, and some computing tasks are distributed among these users, the entire network can operate. If it requires any hardware foundation at all, it is just some terminal devices for connecting to the network (most Eternal Sleepers use their own Transcendent abilities to skip this step), and the equipment necessary to debug and monitor the network.

Therefore, the Eternal Sleepers have no need to transform anyone into a "Brain Servant" to maintain their network.

But their "sandbox" needs it.