Chapter 544 — The New Laboratory

Gao Yang was already waiting beside one of the pods. Technicians in white short robes were busy near the monitoring equipment along the walls, while Pi Yun and Jennie were checking the operation of the neural cords and rune arrays around the pods. After Kamael and the others entered the laboratory, Pi Yun immediately turned around and greeted them: "Ah, you're here—come take a look at these fine toys!"

"These..." Kamael looked at the scene with considerable surprise. "They're already finished?"

"While you lot were busy figuring out how to blow up engine assemblies, I adjusted the neural cords on these pods," Pi Yun said smugly. "Of course, and Miss Jennie here—she adjusted the rune array portions."

By this time Rebecca was already circling one of the pods several times, her face full of excitement, until Hetty could not help but give a light cough of reminder, at which point she finally stopped. The girl looked at Gao Yang with wide eyes: "Ancestor, did you adjust the outward appearance of these devices?"

Gao Yang patted Rebecca's head. "Actually, not much adjustment—I just added shielding to both sides of the seat and gave it an outer shell that can close."

Compared with the prototype from that day, the "closable outer shell" was the greatest change in these formally finalized pods before them. Because non-implanted neural cords were less effective at "immersing" the brain than implanted ones, users could easily be "startled awake" by external interference during the networking process—this was the greatest problem with the immersion device. To address it, Pi Yun, approaching it from a druid's way of thinking, had devised quite a few technical means to increase neural coupling and improve thought-synchronization rates, but in the end, Gao Yang had come up with a simpler and more brutal solution: just add a lid.

After this "external addition" was attached, these things that had once looked somewhat like seats now truly looked more like pods.

"This really is a simple yet effective solution..." Hetty regarded these wondrously styled magical devices with keen interest and considerable admiration. She was curious how the Ancestor had come up with such a simple method, but soon she noticed the appearance of these pods—long containers a person could lie inside, with a lid on top...

emmmmm...

The Cecil chief steward made a very reasonable, well-grounded association.

Of course, the mature and steady Hetty only entertained the thought; she certainly did not dare say it aloud.

But there was someone on site with a head of iron.

Rebecca bounced right up in front of Gao Yang: "Ancestor Yan, you got your inspiration from that coffin you used to lie in back in the day... Wow!"

Rebecca was knocked back by Gao Yang, but after this silly doe blurted it out, everyone present wore a knowing smile.

"Ahem," Gao Heng had to cough lightly, steering the atmosphere back on track, "Enough of that—let's get down to business."

Hetty looked at him curiously: "You called us here... to test these devices together?"

"Actually, the testing is already finished," Gao Dai said. "Offline testing, connection to the magic net, connection to the Sleepers' mind network—all tested and complete. Today we perform the official link."

He paused, then continued: "I will enter the network together with you."

Gao Song's thinking was simple—now that the first batch of immersive neural pods had been built, a certain plan he had drawn up long ago could finally be put into action: bring his own team of researchers into the network and conduct research inside that ready-made "virtual laboratory."

That virtual experimental environment had been completed for some time, but because he alone had always been able to connect to the network, the role the experimental space could play was quite limited. Though he had indeed used that virtual environment to cobble together a few blueprints, after coming into contact with this world's native technicians and witnessing "the wisdom of otherworlders" in the locals, he had long since recognized one thing: he, a transmigrator, was by no means the center of the world—at best a regional center of gravity. In many respects he could not compare with professionals, especially in the technical field. Such a vast virtual space—if he could not bring the territory's professional technicians into it and instead kept it all to himself, that would be an absolute waste.

Fortunately, that waste was finally about to end.

But he still had to be cautious—technicians were precious, and the most trustworthy ones, the ones who could access secrets, were the greatest treasure of the entire Duchy of Cecil. He had to prevent accidents befalling these people, prevent them from being wiped out in one sweep by the Sleepers, and the best way to do that was to connect to the network together with them himself.

Then, if some Sleeper was blind enough—or sharp enough—to discover these intruders of theirs, at worst he could simply smash a million years up and down at them, which would at least guarantee everyone's safe retreat.