Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1163: Chapter 1162: A Test

Selena Gerfen, holding a portable lamp, stood quietly before the fireplace, a gentle and amiable smile on her face. A faint white halo spilled from the outline of her figure, and where the halo connected to her body it showed a slight translucence—this was not because Selena’s ”psychological projection” had malfunctioned, but a mark she had deliberately created, so that people in the real world could distinguish the border of the illusion before them.

After the ”Interim Measures for the Management of Neural Networks and Derived Technologies” were formally promulgated, the clause ”Unless a prior application has been filed, Cyberspace Residents who use psychological projections to act in the material world should proactively mark the range of their projection, so as to avoid affecting the lives of residents in the material world or interfering with the judgment of law-enforcement departments” had become a formal law. Selena Gerfen herself was one of those who drafted it. She followed the rules scrupulously, together with other Old Eternal Sleepers’ Priests, senior neural network technicians, and members of the Immortal Association who were likewise subject to this management.

Their official designation was ”Cyberspace Residents,” but Patty had also heard that the great His Majesty Gawain Cecil had given another very strange name to those who could live long-term in the network, and even had already uploaded their souls into it—His Majesty called them ”Cyber Residents”... she had absolutely no idea what that bizarre word was supposed to mean.

Just hearing it gave scholars headaches, made their heads swell—and their hair fall out, like ”Magic Capacitor” did.

As odd thoughts popped up in her mind, Patty’s face broke into a happy smile. She reached her arm toward the grab bar on the side of the Immersion Capsule, and on her somewhat slender arm there were still uneven mottled scars. The reconstructed muscle groups produced by regeneration techniques, the surgically implanted active bones, and the artificial nerve bundles all began operating at the same time, allowing her—with some difficulty—to grasp that silver-white alloy bar and slowly brace her upper body up from the seat.

All of this was still hard for her. Although Flesh Regeneration Technique from the Oblivion Association and modern artificial nerve technology had practically rebuilt more than half of the damaged tissues in this body, human beings’ understanding of the soul and of the microcosm of the brain was still far too shallow. Scholars could not make a person who had been paralyzed for nearly ten years learn, in a short span of time, how to command a body pieced together with biotechnology. For a healthy person, doing all this would already be immensely difficult; for Patty, it was even more so.

What was more, these pieced-together bodily structures themselves had countless flaws in how they coordinated with each other... The fact that they could merge and match to the extent of no longer rejecting one another and still maintain operation was already no easy feat.

After a clumsy and slow series of motions, Patty finally managed, through her own effort, to sit up. She let out a small breath, a victorious smile appearing on her face, and looked toward the wheelchair parked in the corner by the wall not far away. On the back of her neck, a silver-white artificial spine was pressed tightly against the surface of her skin. Neatly arranged alloy magic symbol plates received the host’s neural signals, and dense lights lit up in the gaps between them. From inside that oddly shaped wheelchair in the corner came a pleasant humming sound. Driven by a small engine and a series of gears and connecting rods, it nimbly rolled toward the Immersion Capsule.

Selena watched all of this quietly, only then breaking the silence: ”Do you need help?”

”No, I can do it.” Patty immediately waved her hand, then began slowly moving her body out of the Immersion Capsule. With the help of a series of grab bars, she quite laboriously ”shifted” herself into that specially made wheelchair—and even such a few simple movements were enough to bring a thin sheen of sweat to her forehead.

But in the end she had completed all of those movements by relying on her own efforts—movements that she hadn’t even dared to imagine a few years ago. The wounds on her body no longer itched and burned painfully, breathing and turning her head had become painless things. She felt a fleeting joy at her ”success,” then adjusted her sitting posture in the wheelchair, and raised a hand to the back of her head, groping for the end of the ”Neural Thorn.” She drew this metal ”spine,” which looked rigid yet was actually very flexible thanks to its many hinge structures, off to the side, and after feeling around a few times, plugged it into a neural node on the backrest of the wheelchair.

In an instant, the machine that had been cold and stiff just a second ago seemed to come alive. From within it came a series of sounds as subsystems activated, and some locked mechanisms unlocked in sequence under Patty’s command. The wheelchair spun lightly in place by half a turn, then rolled briskly to a stop before Selena. The girl sitting in it wore a radiant smile and deliberately greeted her in an exaggerated tone: ”Long time no see, ’Sister Selena’~~”

A trace of embarrassment flickered across Selena’s face: ”Patty, let’s not use that form of address...”

Being able to make someone as formidable as Selena show that kind of awkward expression was clearly a very satisfying accomplishment for Patty. Her smile grew even brighter, yet she knew when to stop: ”All right, all right, I was just joking... But how come you suddenly came by? Isn’t the computation center over there very busy lately?”

”I came to discuss some matters with your mother, and I also wanted to see how you’re doing.” Selena smiled gently as she spoke, while carefully taking in the girl before her. ”Well? Has your body been feeling any better recently?”

”My body’s great, much better than before.” Patty lowered her head to look at herself, responding in a light, brisk tone. Then she furrowed her brows, and, sounding somewhat uncertain, added, ”And I don’t know if it’s just my imagination... but I feel like my body suddenly became a bit lighter? Just now when I came out of the Immersion Capsule, one of my fingers that usually doesn’t obey orders suddenly became easy to use...”

For an instant, Selena’s gaze changed slightly, but her smile soon covered everything up. She seemed genuinely pleased, even reaching out to tousle Patty’s hair—an almost perfectly realistic tactile sensation passed into Patty’s senses through the illusion Spell. ”That really is good news. It means your soul is finally starting to accept this body, and it also means that the new biological tissues in you are finally about to fuse into a truly unified whole.”

”Really?” Patty blinked, not entirely convinced. ”But Grandpa Pittman said this kind of situation is basically impossible... he said my current state is already pretty much the best outcome...”

”Patty,” Selena placed her hand on the girl’s head, a faint smile on her face, ”sometimes, miraculous things do happen.”

Patty half understood and half didn’t. She kept feeling that Selena was acting a bit strange today, but she couldn’t say where that feeling came from, so she could only nod. ”I don’t quite get it, but it sounds like a good thing...”

”Of course it’s a good thing.” Selena straightened up with a smile, then asked in a seemingly casual way, ”By the way, did you run into any interesting people or events in the neural network today?”

”Interesting people or events?” Patty thought for a moment, gathering her words as she counted them off. ”Sure. First I ran into a nervous Mage apprentice. He had secretly used his mentor’s Immersion Capsule to get connected, and he’d run off into the dream city to hide and slack off because he didn’t want to do his math exercises. But he’d barely been online for a while before his mentor found him. I saw his mentor pin him to a bench in Triangle Plaza and make him do big, long-form problems for two hours... And there was a lady using the network for the first time. When she was choosing a name she insisted on adding all her honorary titles and all the grand names she had thought up for herself, which triggered the system’s automatic optimization, so wherever she went, all that showed above her head was a string of ellipses...”

Patty chattered away with great enthusiasm about all the things and people she’d seen in the neural network, and only at the end did something seem to suddenly occur to her. She hurriedly added, ”Ah, right, I saw Mr. Highspeed Stag again. This time he actually wasn’t playing cards with people, and he wasn’t arguing with anyone either. Instead, he’d learned how to create things in the dream city just by using his thoughts. He gave me a little flower he’d manifested himself as a present. But before I’d finished thanking him, he suddenly went offline...”

”Mr. Highspeed Stag...” A subtly odd smile appeared on Selena’s face. ”So, you’ve already accepted his gift?”

”Yes... but I don’t know why, that flower disappeared very quickly,” Patty blinked in some confusion. ”And he left the network so suddenly, I’m a little worried... He really feels like an old gentleman of some age, Sister Selena, do you think he might have run into some trouble in the real world?”

”No need to worry, Patty. Every Immersion Capsule has monitoring devices. If anything happens to the user, it immediately sends an alarm to the nearest computing center,” Selena seemed to be holding back a laugh as she comforted her. ”That Mr. Highspeed Stag probably just had something come up and left in a hurry—maybe right now he’s playing cards with his friends?”

...

In a lounge in Riftstone Castle, Ropney Gran sat in a high-backed chair by the window. The already slanting sunlight filtered through the glass, bringing with it the heat of midsummer. The chirping of insects was blocked outside by the double-layer crystal panes, so that it sounded as if it came from far away. The ventilation system hummed softly within the ceiling, and the cooled airflow kept the room at a comfortable temperature.

Ropney’s gaze fell on the table. It was a report she had been reading halfway through. Under the slightly yellowish sunlight, line after line of letters on the report presented themselves before her eyes:

...In summary, the neural cables laid in Phase I have successfully completed fusion within the pre-embedded workshop conduits and achieved biosignal transmission... the operating efficiency of the biomass circulation pipes has met design specifications... effective connections between the neural fiber network and machine terminals... the physiological status of the Main Brain and Auxiliary Brain is sound, simulated operations have been realized, and the first experimental workshop can be inspected, accepted and put into use at any time...

Ropney carefully read every single word in the report. The black crystal pendant at her earlobe trembled slightly in the air with the tiny movements of her gaze. The finely cut crystal surface continuously reflected gorgeous colors of sunlight. The only sound in the quiet room was the turning of paper—this quiet lasted for a long time before it was finally broken by a deliberately produced ”footstep.”

Viscountess Gran raised her head and saw Node Scholar Selena Gerfen, holding a portable lamp, appearing at the doorway not far away. She seemed to have just pushed the door open and walked in—but in fact that door had never been opened, and this wanderer from the network world had never set foot on the corridor outside, which should currently be empty.

According to the formation mechanism of psychological projection, Ropney knew that before she turned her head, there had been only herself in this room. The other’s figure appeared only after her eyes fell there—this was the strange effect produced by the interaction between the neural network and the human sensory system.

The regional Governor showed a slight smile and nodded to Selena: ”I thought you’d stay a while longer with Patty.”

”She and I can meet in New Dreamland City at any time, but a busy Governor like you doesn’t have much time to stay inside the neural network,” Selena smiled as she walked over to Viscountess Ropney. ”I hope I haven’t disturbed your work.”

Ropney Gran’s gaze fell on this lady who ”existed in the world” in the form of a network ghost. In that instant, she suddenly felt the unfathomability of fate—as if not long ago, this lady and the forces behind her had still been, in her eyes, a completely dark sect, a group that needed to be treated with vigilance, even hostility. Yet a great upheaval had torn apart that ancient religion and overturned everyone’s perception of the gods and of the Eternal Sleepers. Now, these surrendered Eternal Sleepers had become technical personnel of the Cecil Empire. Those former enemies who had to be watched carefully... had now become their own people.

Even their own people with a rather decent relationship.

”You’re not disturbing me,” Ropney nodded. ”I’ve just finished dealing with this report. Next, all that’s left is to go over to the factory and take a look—and I still have some time before that.”

”That’s just right,” Selena said at once. ”We can talk about Patty.”

At the mention of Patty, the expression on Ropney’s face immediately grew serious. She first gestured for Selena to sit in the chair opposite (though a network ghost had no need to sit, it always made conversation a bit easier), then asked solemnly, ”Has she... already made contact with the target?”

”’Contact’ isn’t quite the right word. They already made contact many days ago,” Selena first corrected the Lady’s phrasing, then nodded. ”The final test has already concluded. The God of Nature gave Patty a small ’gift.’ Everything went just as we anticipated—and neither side was influenced by any external will. Information remained sealed off for the entire process, the test was conducted in a pure state, and the results should be highly reliable.

”For now, Amon has already been temporarily separated by Nariteer into the deep layers of the network, under the highest level of monitoring and isolation, while Patty knows nothing at all.”

Ropney nodded silently and only after a few seconds did she ask, ”After this, what will happen to Patty?”

”The power of the God of Nature will begin to take effect—although that power has now weakened considerably and no longer possesses miracle-level might, it is still enough to make a frail mortal girl healthy. Those mismatched artificial tissues and original tissues in Patty’s body will gradually adapt to one another. Her soul and her mind will both be repaired. She will recover... Of course, there may still remain a few traces, but overall, she will step into adulthood in good health.

”You can even look forward to seeing her stand up by herself on her coming-of-age day, walk toward you, and receive your blessing and embrace.”

Viscountess Ropney’s breathing could not help becoming a little rapid and noticeable. She took a deep breath, gripping the armrest of the chair hard to maintain her composure. After calming herself for a few seconds, she asked, ”What do I need to do?”

”Cooperate with our observation over the next hour—we will watch from the network layer, and you from the real world. Pay close attention to Patty’s behavior: see whether she suddenly murmurs or prays, whether she shows signs of acting as if she hears some voice, and most importantly... see whether she mentions the names ’Amon’ or ’God of Nature.’”