Mary looked at her teacher with a nervous expression. She didn't really want to know what the teacher's sudden words meant.
She was afraid of her mentor — so much so that she was a little scared. If she could, she would rather have never shown any magical talent than climb into this ownerless tower that had been abandoned for decades out of curiosity and meet her mentor who had just moved in. Now, she was an official Level Two Mage, and according to her mentor, she might be able to become an Intermediate Mage in her lifetime. However, in Mary's opinion, becoming a Level Two Mage was not glorious at all. It was even worse than being an ignorant village woman in a mountain village.
At least, the village woman did not have to dissect countless animals, cultivate deformed monsters, learn how to connect human brains with monsters, and bear the pressure of her mentor's deranged mental state.
Daniel was a mage with a mental problem. In fact, in the eyes of the few apprentices in the tower, this mentor was completely crazy. He was often immersed in strange dreams, and even when he was awake, he did not have a sound emotion. He was irritable, angry, gloomy, and terrifying. He would make his apprentices eat rats and poisonous snakes, and he would release terrible monsters and magic creatures into the tower because of some illusion, and then drive his apprentices to fight with those monsters. Not to mention the terrible magic experiments he had conducted on himself...
Although Daniel was occasionally gentle and kind, the duration of his madness was ten times longer than that. Under this madness, his occasional gentleness was even more terrifying.
The old mage remained in a daze for more than ten seconds before he finally moved his body. The young female apprentice suddenly looked up.
"Mentor..." Mary bowed slightly. "I'm glad you're okay..."
Daniel looked at Mary for a long time, and it seemed that he noticed the buckle on her neck before he remembered that she was his student. He murmured some vague words in his throat, then raised his hand and waved. "Clean up the lab. You can rest today."
Mary blinked and felt sincerely relieved. Then she saw the old mage in front of her slowly turned around and walked toward the exit of the lab. The old mage's robe bulged behind him, and artificial nerve ropes like snakes poked out from the bottom of the robe and twitched spasmodically.
Gwen did not stay in the simulation lab for too long. After confirming that the old mage had been kicked out of the network, he removed the data dive state and returned to the surface of the mental network.
Planting spies in the Eternal Sleeper and looking for pawns that could be controlled was his original plan. Especially after he found that the Eternal Sleeper had fabricated a character of an "extraterrestrial wanderer", his idea became even more perfect. After all, this cult was too weird, and he could not investigate everything by himself, so it was necessary to find such a pawn. However, the pawn happened to be a Typhon sorcerer, which was an unexpected gain.
After learning about Daniel's general situation, Gwen quickly outlined a lot of temporary plans in his mind. He believed that as long as he made good use of the old mage, he would be able to play a lot of unexpected roles.
He was not worried that this would increase the risk of him being exposed. After successfully destroying Daniel's brain defense, he had taken control of his authority in the mental network and set up an "activation switch". As long as Daniel mentioned anything about an "extraterrestrial wanderer sneaking into the network", his network connection would be immediately cut off. Even if this security measure did not work, and the news leaked out, how could the Eternal Sleeper find Gwen?
Their network was riddled with holes. Gawain had found countless loopholes and backdoors. The primitive network did not have a real-name system, and it did not restrict people from changing their skin. The mapping of addresses and features was a complete mess. Gawain figured that it would be harder for the cultists to find a person in the Psychic Network than to find a spell other than Fireball in Rebecca's list of spells. Gawain thought that it would be harder for the cultists to find a person in the Psychic Network than to find a spell other than Fireball in Rebecca's spell list.
Rebecca did not have a spell list.
"Oh, it's the uncle I saw last time!"
A crisp voice suddenly came from the side. Gawain, who was walking on the shaded path, was startled awake by this somewhat familiar child's voice.
He looked towards the source of the sound and saw a little girl with light brown hair running towards him happily. Her footsteps were bouncing up and down.
Was it the "little girl" he saw last time?
In Gwen's mind, he immediately corresponded with the image of a standard, middle-aged, greasy, middle-aged man with a voice changer and a loli voice model. So when he looked at the "little girl", his heart did not waver. "Patty?"
"Ah, uncle, you still remember me!" The little girl suddenly looked very happy and jumped around Gwen. "Uncle, you're here again?"
The corner of Gwen's mouth twitched. He finally admitted one thing in his heart: the real identity of this little girl was probably not a middle-aged, greasy, male cultist. After all, the mental network was a fully immersive virtual reality. Even if the cultists were five times more perverted than normal people, it was difficult for them to jump around to this extent. Even a big shot like Solderlin could not do it.
Maybe it was a young, middle-aged, greasy, female online scammer.
"Uncle, what are you thinking about?" Patty's voice came again. "Uncle, do you like to be absent-minded?"
Gwen looked down at the little girl, who was not even as tall as his belly, and found that she could not stay still for even a second. He could not help but frown. "Why do you always jump around?"
"Because I like it!" Patty said matter-of-factly. Then she wrinkled her nose. "But you can't do it at home …"
"At home?" Gwen felt that he heard a very important word. But before he could ask, a soft female voice came from the side. "Patty, are you disturbing a stranger?"
Gawain raised his head and saw a woman wearing a veil and a long dress standing not far away. She was looking at Patty with a slight frown.
Patty immediately jumped over happily. "Ah! Sister Selina! "
Gwen watched the little girl jump into the arms of the veiled woman, who easily subdued the little girl and looked up. "I'm sorry, this child is not alert to strangers."
"Uncle is very nice!" Patty said, looking up.
Selina bent down and patted Patty's hair. "Then talk to uncle next time, Patty. You should go and rest."
The little girl's face suddenly looked depressed. "But I still want to play a little longer …"
"You have been playing for a long time." Selina shook her head gently but firmly. "You can't be willful, understand?"
Patty hesitated for a moment, but still nodded obediently. "… Okay."
With this answer, Gawain saw the little girl's figure quickly fade in the air, and in just a few seconds, she turned into light particles drifting in the wind. She had left the mental network.
Selina straightened up and smiled politely at Gwen. "Sorry, I made a fool of myself."
"It's okay, I don't mind." Gwen shook his head, and at the same time, he quickly made a judgment in his mind.
If it wasn't for the fact that the Eternal Sleepers were too sophisticated, or that they had deliberately put on a show for him, then based on the interaction between Patty and Selina, as well as the scene he saw last time … could it be that the "little girl" was really a little girl?
A child? How could the Eternal Sleepers who could connect to the mental network at the age of eleven or twelve be a child? Even if she was a magic genius, it was unrealistic!
Or … was she a 'family member' brought into the network by the other Eternal Sleepers?
He had seen other children in the City of Dreams. Although they were few, there were indeed children. Were those children in the same situation?
Did the Eternal Sleepers have the technology to allow people without magic to connect to the network?
This last conjecture made Gwen's heart pound. If this was true, then the value of the Eternal Sleepers' mental network technology would be far beyond his imagination!
Hao Ren's mind was racing, but he did not show it. Instead, he pretended not to care and said casually, "It seems that it is rare to see children here."
"After all, there are very few situations that meet the conditions." Selina smiled faintly. "We can't expose ourselves yet."
In other words, there was a need for screening conditions … Could not expose themselves, so this was a test project with a risk of exposure?
Gwen casually chatted with Selina on this topic, but he did not get any valuable information. After realizing that it might be suspicious if he continued, he quietly changed the topic. "I saw the news that Project Zero is collecting computing power …"
"There is a computing power gap in the time iteration experiment." Selina nodded. Those who could come to this area were the middle and high level of the Eternal Sleepers, and those who could stay for a long time were at least at the level of intermediate Nightmare Bishop. It was not surprising that they would talk about Project Zero. "It is difficult to adjust the flow of time in the deepest layer through accelerated thinking. The previous longest running sandbox, Sandbox No. 1, only lasted for a few hundred years. We need more computing power."
"Sandbox." Gwen's heart skipped a beat. He heard a very important word.
This was a word that did not belong to the contemporary common language, but was a combination of two words in the ancient Gondor common language. Because the meaning was simple and straightforward, Gwen could understand it directly. But after understanding the word, he only had greater doubts in his mind.
However, he could not ask directly because according to Selina's attitude, the Eternal Sleepers in this area should know a lot of the truth about Project Zero.
Moreover, he had asked enough questions.
It was easy to arouse suspicion if he specifically asked questions, so Gwen decisively ended the topic. He had collected a lot of information and vocabulary. Next time, he could find other Eternal Sleepers in this area to talk, or find a way to cultivate the "chess piece" that he had just found.
After chatting for a while, he nodded to Selina. "I've taken up a lot of your time. I should leave."
Selina smiled. "It was a pleasure talking with you."
Then the veiled lady said goodbye to Gwen, turned and walked to the other side of the road.
The moment she turned around, Gawain's gaze suddenly froze.
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