Chapter 782 — The Town After the Bell Tolled
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
After a few brief attempts, Gao Yang confirmed that Daniel's situation was indeed different from his own.
It was not merely that their surroundings differed markedly; more importantly, Daniel did not seem to be in a state where he could disengage from the network at any moment, as Gao Yang was.
After several failed attempts to disconnect, Daniel reported his condition with a trace of unease: "...My Lord, I cannot sense the boundary of the real world. The hazy, illusory mist here seems not only to have cut off my five senses within the dream world, but also to have interfered with my bearings relative to the real world. Without bearings on reality, I cannot disengage from the network."
Interference, is it...
Gao Cen gave no reply, only analyzed silently in his mind.
The fact that he could connect to Daniel's consciousness meant the other's mind was still within the network—only some unknown "force" had screened it off. And that hazy, illusory mist the other had mentioned... possessing the property of blocking the five senses and interfering with bearings on reality—perhaps it was the manifestation of this screening force on Daniel's side.
But this interference and screening force clearly had no effect on Gao Yang, an outlander wanderer who had slipped into the network as a freeloader.
Could this peculiar "exemption" be used to help Daniel break free?
Gao Heng was certain of this much: he would at least have to find Daniel's "position" and make contact with the other before he could verify it.
Within the mental network, one could "locate" another's coordinates, and this locating technique was itself the fruit of joint development by Gao Yang and Daniel—indeed, it was partly thanks to this achievement that Daniel had advanced smoothly from Nightmare Mentor to the rank of Bishop.
Now, the eerie "screening" state in which Daniel and the others found themselves seemed to interfere with the network's locating function as well. When Gao Yang tried to search for Daniel's position, all he "saw" was a void of chaotic shadow.
But just as Gao You's mental network had left behind a great many secret ports and exploitable loopholes in its login and communication layers, so too had he and Daniel stuffed nearly a dozen "back channels" into this locating system—channels that amounted to an entirely separate covert locating mechanism, beyond the mental network's surveillance, and unknown to anyone save Gao Yang and Daniel themselves.
With the notion of testing certain conjectures, Gao Yi closed his eyes slightly and quietly activated a network link that had never once been used. In a haze of dim darkness, a faintly glimmering "web" surfaced in his mind's eye and overlapped with this eerie little town.
A flickering point of light promptly appeared not far off—that was Daniel's mind.
Gao Yang felt quite calm, wearing the composure of one whose expectations had been confirmed.
As expected, the power of Sandbox No. 1 had no effect on the various "secret ports" and "secret links" he and Daniel had set up.
Because these secret ports and links were known to no outsider—the Sleepers did not know of them, the mental network did not know of them—and so Sandbox No. 1, built by the Sleepers and rooted in the mental network... naturally did not know of them either.
It was just as Gao Yang had thought: a virtual system cannot simulate things beyond the system itself. However powerful the "anomalies" bred within Sandbox No. 1 might be, they could not lay claim to what they did not understand.
This was likely also why he himself was unaffected by the many eerie powers of Sandbox No. 1: he was an "outlander wanderer" who had freeloaded his way into the network, whose very soul did not belong to this world—to Sandbox No. 1 he must be the most indescribable, incomprehensible "thing" of all; indeed... Sandbox No. 1 should be architecturally incapable of perceiving his existence at all.