Chapter 330 — Patti
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
After concluding his meeting with Daniel, Gaoyang did not log out of the network directly. Instead, he left the virtual space and returned to the conscious plane of the Mind Network.
This layer he also called the "visible zone." Opposite the visible zone lay the data link layer deep within the network, where ordinary visitors never noticed anything.
His virtual space had been carved out precisely by tampering with the data link layer.
"A vast quantity of computational resources, whereabouts unknown..." Walking the streets of the Phantom Pivot City's central district, Gaoyang murmured to himself. "The Mind Network is a network built on active nodes—it doesn't need fixed 'servers' like the 'brain thralls'..."
He lifted his head and watched the Sleepers passing before him. Each figure now appeared to him as a living computational node. Having filled in the knowledge he once lacked, he understood this network on a deeper level, and he had come to know the cultists who moved through it that much better.
The Longmirk Order was a vast and arcane cult, possessing a staggering membership and a complex, secretive system of transmission. Not all Sleepers were privy to the secrets of their own sect. In truth, marginal believers like the Viscountess Kant of old—seduced into error by the Sleepers yet ignorant of their organization—were everywhere within the cult.
An eternal dream in which one could escape the real world—this held an unimaginable allure for those who suffered and despaired in reality. Even nobles and great mages could hardly resist its temptation under certain circumstances. And once you accepted the Sleepers' enticement and for the first time offered your mind to this vast network, the beautiful illusion of the Mind Network—vivid enough to blur the line with reality—was enough to sink even the firmest of wills ever deeper.
These Sleepers walking the streets—how many were seasoned cultists, how many were dissatisfied nobles, how many were transcendent powers fallen on hard times? Might there be members of the Arcane Society among them? Believers from the southern reaches of the continent, or even from other races? And even... members of other sects who had given up hope of advancement?
The Sleepers had already lost their faith and their system of divine arts. Like the druids after the fall of White Star three thousand years ago, they were in fact a secular transcendent organization built upon magical technology. That being so, they could absorb "believers" entirely free of psychological burden—they could seduce nobles and mages, and all the more could they seduce the followers and priests of the orthodox churches who wore their virtue so openly!
At the thought, Gaoyang could not help feeling that the Sleepers were perhaps the most terrifying of the three great dark cults...
Lost in such wandering thoughts, he caught from the corner of his eye a small figure that seemed somehow familiar.
Gaoyang looked closely and saw a little girl in a pretty white dress hopping along a path strewn with fallen leaves not far away. She skipped from leaf to stone, and now and then stepped up onto the slightly raised curb beside the path to wobble forward along her "tightrope." That carefree, innocent manner of hers was truly memorable.
That little girl who called herself Patti Gran? What a coincidence, running into her again?
Gaoyang frowned. His first instinct was to pretend he had not seen her and take another route, but before he could lift his foot, the girl's sharp eyes had already found him.
"Ah! Uncle Selce!"
The girl cried out happily, then hopped down from the curb and came pattering up to Gaoyang. Lifting her skirt, she gave a curtsy that was not quite up to standard. "Good day, Uncle!"
Her speech and bearing carried a trace of good breeding, but her actual movements were rather clumsy.