Chapter 291 — Theft
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Thereupon he released his mind and began to search more broadly for information within the Psychic Net.
Unlike the last time he had entered this world, the Evernight Slumberers had this time plainly opened the dream world only after thorough preparation. This was no longer a "trial-run" space, but one of far higher completeness. Gaoyang discovered this after only a slight search of the surface layers of the Psychic Net.
A vast quantity of information circulated through the Psychic Net; in those places invisible to the naked eye, an exchange of data enormous to the point of astonishment was ceaselessly underway. Many unencrypted things were being computed and evolved within this network; new nodes joined at every moment, and at every moment nodes were deregistered and departed from the network.
If the dream world he had seen last time was merely an internally running "test server," running only a handful of lines of test code, then this network had now entered the stage of formal use—the Evernight Slumberers had begun to employ it to process genuine instances.
Of course, this "magic network," founded upon psychomantic arts, was a thing utterly distinct from the World Wide Web that Gaoyang knew; the data circulating within it, whether in structure or in principle, were likewise entirely new. Be that as it may, it was a fact that this network had entered into a working state.
It was only that Gaoyang could not discern much from those immense data exchanges. Though he held authority, and though that data was unencrypted, the sheer vastness and chaotic disorder of the data were themselves the finest encryption. Just as humans could not directly discern a computer bitmap from a heap of zeros and ones, so too could Gaoyang not tell what on earth was being churned out behind those immense computations—likely only the originators of those computations themselves could "see" what the results looked like.
But that did not matter. Gaoyang had never intended to see through all the secrets of the Evernight Slumberers in this manner; he was merely searching in the process for the data access points, and for an understanding of the patterns governing these data exchanges.
It seemed... something could be done here?
After a little preparation, he shifted himself from the surface layer of the network down to the data-exchange layer, and then sank wholly into it.
His senses were turned upside down in an instant, only to be reassembled the next. When the scene before his eyes had settled somewhat, he found that his surroundings had completely changed.
He stood upon a flat, broad expanse of water that yet rippled with faint, ceaseless waves. This water was immeasurably vast, stretching without bound; above it was a deep blue sky, bright and clear, though no celestial source of light could be seen within it.
He lowered his head and saw that the water beneath his feet was like a layer of transparent glass. Beneath that surface lay a world of whirling, dancing sand, where countless minute things surged, recombined, perished, and were reborn in the space below the water. It was as though an unending storm raged there, a storm ready at any moment to tear to shreds whoever strayed into it.
"...So that is the underlying data environment of the Psychic Net... a fine mess it is..."
Gaoyang knitted his brows and muttered to himself, then raised his head and set his gaze upon that boundless expanse of water.
What lay before his eyes was not a true scene (though, of course, in this mental world, no scene was true either), but a "virtual environment" that Gaoyang had constructed in his own mind using the knowledge he had devoured. This environment resembled the imagined space that the Changming cultist had created when he had dragged Gaoyang into the dream—though, of course, this place was for the moment still a blank, for it had only just been created by Gaoyang.