Chapter 738 — Overflow
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
An anomalous fluctuation in the Mind stirred a flicker of vigilance in Gao Yang's heart.
Though this Mind was a creation of the Sleepers, one of the three great dark cults, and by any ordinary measure it was "evil," and though blood and taboo had certainly stained its construction, there was one fact that could not be denied: for now, Gao Yang still needed it.
A great many of Cecil's research projects were influenced by it.
Of course, Gao Yang had long since been pushing to render the Mind harmless and to develop one of their own, and by now those efforts had borne a certain amount of fruit.
On one hand, experts such as Kamael had already verified his original hypothesis through the combined technology of immersion pods and the magic web — namely, that the operation of the Mind did not necessarily require "brain servants," those sacrificial victims; that in essence it ought to be a "cloud network" sustained by a great many nodes; and that the so-called "brain servants" were most likely a product spawned by some other scheme of the Sleepers. On the other hand, Cecil's own immersion pods and its steadily improving magic web were developing at a furious pace. Sooner or later, when Cecil's own node count was sufficient, Gao Yang would be able to assemble his own Mind and forge an origin space that did not need to siphon traffic from the Sleepers' hands.
But all of that would take time.
The immersion pod was the Empire's cutting-edge technology; its manufacturing cost and the difficulty of mass production remained high, and the pods currently in service were still confined to a few research departments in the imperial capital, numbering no more than a hundred-odd sets. And by Kamael's reckoning, at least two thousand to three thousand "brain nodes" would have to be connected simultaneously before a relatively stable Mind could form — before something like the Sleepers' Phantom Pivot City, a "mindscape," could take shape. That goal would not be easily reached.
It was said that the biotechnological techniques found in the nests of the Congregation of the End of All Things might help break through the bottleneck in artificial nerve cords. But... could the Mind really hold out until then?
Perhaps it was pure intuition, but Gao Yang could not shake the feeling that this anomaly in the Mind was no ordinary matter. If things went wrong... something very bad was coming.
"My Lord," Daniel said, unable to hold back any longer as Gao Yang remained silent for so long, a trace of tension in his voice, "has something occurred to you?"
Gao Yang glanced at Daniel.
Yes — the Mind could not be allowed to fail just yet. Setting everything else aside, if it collapsed, how was he even supposed to stay in contact with Daniel?
This old mage was a hidden piece he had painstakingly cultivated, one of great significance in all his arrangements concerning the Sleepers and the Empire of Typhon. Ever since the Southern Unification War, the original Twenty-Fifth Production and Construction Brigade had been dissolved and turned into a genuine production and construction brigade, but Office Twenty-Five of the Administrative Hall was still in operation — an office attached to the Military Intelligence Bureau, whose present main task was to analyze the various intelligence reports Daniel sent back and to draft all manner of plans concerning Typhon and the Sleepers. However one looked at it, Daniel was the core of that whole apparatus. This line absolutely could not be allowed to fail.
"No matter what, the Mind cannot vanish now," Gao Yang said, looking gravely at Daniel. "I need it."
Daniel acknowledged the order at once: "Yes. Then I shall do everything in my power to ensure its continued existence."
After all this time, the Sleepers' security chief had finally decided to take security seriously...