Chapter 300 — I've Got You
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
The scene before him gradually steadied, and once more the gilded palaces and spires of the City of the Arcane Pivot rose before Gao Yang's eyes.
Watching the ceaseless coming and going of the Eternals' "avatars" and this city humming along in its quiet order, Gao Yang could not help but breathe a little easier.
It seemed the disguises he had set up within the network were all working nicely, and the backdoors he had planted for his infiltration had not been discovered by the Eternals.
Then again, that was only natural—before something like a computer virus had ever existed, who could possibly have known what antivirus software was?
This was not his first or second infiltration of this world—it was his third—and his course of action within this mind-network was already quite clear.
Steal technology, plant backdoors, monitor the Eternals' movements, and if the chance presented itself, use this mind-network to exert a little more influence over the Eternals, so that this peculiar cult might continue to develop in the direction he desired.
Skirting the crowds, Gao Yang reached the region where the node crystals were situated. After connecting to the primary channel, he first confirmed that the "testing ground" he had left behind was proceeding as usual, then quietly withdrew from the covert connection and began searching for any technical data that might exist, aided by the node crystals.
Though his previous attempts had all failed to uncover any useful information, Gao You had not come away entirely empty-handed from these successive connections. By parsing and studying the knowledge of the Eternals he had devoured, and through his experience of pilfering resources within the mind-network, he had begun to vaguely grasp the principles and structure of this network—and he had discovered that the loopholes within it allowed him to do far more than he had first imagined.
This network was connected directly into the mental world of every Eternal. In other words, in theory it could link straight into the thought and memory space of each one of them. Of course, the Eternals themselves knew the risks involved, so whenever they connected to the network they shielded and isolated their own consciousness, to prevent anyone from using the connection to invade their minds in reverse. Yet in Gao Yang's view, their protection was clearly insufficient.
Perhaps it was because the Eternals had never imagined that someone within their "own" network would prey upon fellow members of the church like this—or perhaps Gao Yang's own soul mutation was simply too severe, granting him such extraordinary control over his subconscious world that, in his eyes, all the deceptive and concealing shielding measures in this mind-network might as well not exist at all...
The faintly glowing node crystal floated quietly before Gao Yang. He fixed his gaze upon its surface, and his psychic power gradually diffused outward. He could sense the truth hidden beneath this crystal's deceptive exterior—a vast sea of data being exchanged, allocated, and reconstructed here, countless thoughts of the Eternals surging and churning in the depths of that data sea. Some were mighty, some were frail; the mighty thoughts were tightly bound to the very structure of the network, such that the slightest disturbance risked triggering a network-wide alarm. But those frail thoughts...
They were like seaweed and zooplankton drifting among the waves, lacking both protection and vigilance.
Those were the lower ranks of the Eternals, the most fundamental mass of the cult. Their greatest value within this network was to contribute computing power, and to serve as a "buffer" absorbing data pressure whenever the network experienced violent fluctuations. For this immature network, fluctuations were exceedingly common, and the Eternals had chosen the crudest and simplest method to ensure the overall stability of the network.