Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 718 - 717: Leeching Off the Network

This mechanized voice made Gawain pause for a moment.

He was not unfamiliar with this voice—he first heard it when he detached from the satellite. It was this synthesized voice warning him and announcing the activation of the escape system, and afterwards, he would occasionally hear this system sound when he connected with the satellite. He could now confirm that this voice belonged to the satellites in space—or to the entire space facility array.

He raised his hand and then tentatively touched the black leather tome again. This time, there was no reaction.

Beltira could not hear the voice in Gawain’s mind, but she noticed the quick change in expression on his face and naturally couldn’t help but be curious: ”What happened?”

”This thing...” Gawain masked his embarrassment, ”what is it for?”

Beltira reached out to the black leather tome, letting it fall into her hand, while the other hand flipped casually in the air: ”It records countless pieces of knowledge and can be set to... Yi?”

The pages of the black leather tome turned on their own driven by magic power, yet no magical images appeared amidst the turning pages. On every page, there were red crosses and a striking line of red text: ”Proxy access has been disconnected, please check authorization validity.”

Gawain also saw the text appearing on those pages, and now he was finally certain: this thing seemed to probably—maybe—have been broken by him.

”How could this happen...” Beltira also rarely showed surprise and even a bit of panic, ”This has never happened in hundreds of years... It never...”

”Hmm... don’t worry about its state for now,” Gawain said in a slightly stiff tone, ”You talk about what this thing is actually for and its origin, see if I have any clues.”

Beltira was momentarily stunned, then recalled Gawain’s ”Outland Wanderer” identity—even though she constantly reminded herself, she would always forget this point when looking at Gawain Cecil’s face—as an ”Outland Wanderer,” he must have seen and heard much, right?

”The Ultimate Tome... as I just said, is an extraordinary artifact we found in this ancient relic. It was rigorously protected within a complex structure, but that structure had worn out over time by the time we discovered it. This book records seemingly endless knowledge, and it presents the content in the most suitable language for the reader. When we first discovered it, it was filled with indecipherable symbols, but after opening it several times, it started to present content in the common tongue.

”Its first function is to present all kinds of knowledge based on the reader’s needs, but only for things that exist in the world and are visible, such as the location of a mountain or the length of a river. On this point, there is a detail: at first, it could present very little knowledge, and much of the content had errors or directly told the reader ’incomplete data, need updating,’ but over time, the things it could describe began to increase, as if it was learning in some way;

”And its second function is even more incredible: After setting specific conditions, it can even deduce the evolution outcome of certain things, like how high the success rate of a condition-determined experiment is. Its accuracy in this regard is terrifyingly high. It can even deduce the changes in the continent’s situation, for instance... the Ansu civil war, part of it was under its deduction...”

As Beltira spoke, Gawain’s brows were already furrowing tighter and tighter. He never thought that the Oblivion Association held such a powerful ”artifact,” and after hearing about the ”deduction” part, he couldn’t help but ask: ”Then, is the development of the Cecil Clan within its deduction?”

”...No, this is also the puzzling point,” Beltira shook her head, ”It cannot answer anything about the Wanderers from Outer Realm or deduce any developments centered around them. The prompt is... dangerous access, authorization denied.”

Gawain’s mind was already racing.

Unable to answer questions about the Wanderers from Outer Realm... this is easy to understand, because firstly, he as this Wanderer from Outer Realm didn’t originate from this world, and secondly, almost all the ”intelligence” concerning the Wanderers from Outer Realm were crafted by himself or imagined by the Eternal Sleepers. This piece called ”Ultimate Tome,” no matter how powerful, shouldn’t be able to connect to the Eternal Sleepers’ imaginations. But refusing to deduce developments related to the Wanderers from Outer Realm... that has a bit of an ”initiative” factor.

The first thing that came to his mind was the phrase he heard when he touched the Ultimate Tome: Detection of illegal medium login system.

This phrase could have two interpretations: Gawain, the traveler, is the ”illegal medium,” so he cannot log into the Ultimate Tome, or... the Ultimate Tome is the ”illegal medium,” hence, cannot log into Gawain, the ”satellite spirit”!

Moreover, the deduction function of the Ultimate Tome mentioned by Beltira made Gawain couldn’t help but think of Origin Space, the virtual world created by the Eternal Sleepers, or to be more precise, the ”simulation computation function” based on virtual world technology.

The Ultimate Tome was excavated by the Oblivion Association hundreds of years ago, while the Eternal Sleepers’ mental network was only recently completed. Therefore, the book is certainly not connected to the mental network, meaning it must be connecting to another super system with powerful computational ability capable of carrying out simulated calculations...

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that this deducing ability might be inherent to the Ultimate Tome itself and not connected to any other upper-level system. But considering the prompt sound he heard when he originally touched the book and the characteristic of the book initially lacking data, then slowly updating its database as if downloading things like a backend, Gawain couldn’t help but think this thing is merely a second-hand dealer for information—it presents things linked from elsewhere.

Beltira watched as Gawain sank into contemplation. Despite having a belly full of questions, she forcibly restrained herself from speaking. But the squirming vines and slightly trembling roots in the hall betrayed that her mood was not calm—Gawain also noticed these reactions but forced himself not to care.

He had already thought up to a crucial phase:

If we assume the Ultimate Tome is linking to another data source, then this data source is known to have the following characteristics:

It holds a large amount of information, primarily data about various things on the continent (like the distribution of mountains, rivers, plants, animals, mineral traits, etc.), and seems capable of accurately scanning the earth;

It should possess powerful computational ability, which can be used to deduce events or conduct simulated experiments;

The data is updated in real-time, so after the Ultimate Tome, which had not been activated for a long time, was suddenly powered by the Oblivion Association, it took a long time to update and sync this data;

Gawain didn’t know how many things existing in this world shared all these characteristics, but he at least knew one—the high-tech satellite array in the sky...

Even though all these are his conjectures, the more he thought, the more he felt they were possible. Eventually, when he looked at the Ultimate Tome, his gaze inevitably turned peculiar:

My my, this gadget seems to have been secretly leeching off my internet all along!

Even after crossing worlds and living two lifetimes, I still ran into a situation of being leech off of the net! And the leecher is a book! To whom can you speak reason about this?

The heart knows that the Zenith Fleet that ran away long ago is unlikely to come back for this matter to handle after-sales issues. Gawain merely smirked inwardly and decided to later have Daniel open a few more ports on the mind network of the Eternal Sleepers...

Beltira had been quietly waiting until now, finally unable to resist speaking: ”Do you... have a clue?”

Gawain finally woke up from his thoughts and casually responded as he couldn’t help but glance again at that Ultimate Tome — at that moment, recalling the sound he heard when he contacted the book and its subsequent loss of effect, the truth seemed suddenly crystal clear:

Obviously, it was like a long-time piggybacking black IP suddenly encountering a security system’s physical connection, then directly crushed by the self-defense mechanism of the original system... No wonder it refused to simulate events related to the ”Outland Wanderer,” clearly a mechanism to avoid danger!

Dealing with a piggybacker should be a good thing, but Gawain couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of regret:

Though the Ultimate Tome was piggybacking, it seemed to... connect to the satellite system and query more things than even this ”satellite spirit” could...

This might be due to some mysterious ancient technology, or perhaps because he could only connect to one satellite, while the Ultimate Tome linked more data sources, but regardless, it seemed to be a handy tool — at least Gawain, for now, had no functions for data simulation or historical data querying, except for mobilizing satellite surveillance cameras...

Gawain’s expression turned peculiar again, so much so that Beltira beside him thought the ”Outland Wanderer” before her had an overly rich emotional reaction facing a book — it might be a unique trait of the Wanderers’ group, but she still couldn’t resist speaking again: ”Are you...”

”Nothing,” Gawain finally shook off that pile of thoughts temporarily, waving his hand with an awkward expression as he looked at Beltira, ”Based on my knowledge, this book should be a ’counterfeit’, so...”

”You actually noticed it’s a counterfeit?” Initially, Gawain spoke casually, trying to find a reason for the Ultimate Tome’s damage, but didn’t expect Beltira to immediately speak in amazement, ”The Outland Wanderer truly holds much mysterious knowledge... Indeed so, it is a counterfeit, that’s its self-description.”

Gawain, disguising his awkwardness, curiously asked: ”Its self-description? How exactly does it describe itself?”

”A false key, used to pry open the door of truth, this item is a counterfeit, yet if used correctly, it can still be of great use — this is the first line that appears every time the Ultimate Tome is activated. Though now, even this line is gone.”

Gawain: ”...”

It’s his first time hearing ”piggybacking” described so poetically...

Indeed, through this ”monologue” of the Ultimate Tome, he could more confirm this thing was piggybacking.

He shook his head, bringing the topic back to his rhythm: ”Precisely because it’s a counterfeit, it’s far more fragile than the original; in fact, when you acquired it, it was already nearing its limit.”

Beltira blinked.

Gawain continued: ”And the dangerous experiments you conducted here further accelerated its damage — it rejecting to simulate events related to me, the ’Outland Wanderer’, was actually a warning, it was telling you its bearing capacity is near the limit, with some functions already starting to break or be limited.”

Beltira blinked again.

”So it is indeed regrettable, but it is now completely damaged due to exceeding usage limits, I cannot repair it.”

This time, Beltira did not blink; she merely looked seriously at Gawain for a while before asking emotionlessly: ”It wasn’t you who broke it, was it?”

”... No.”

Beltira: ”... Oh.”

Gawain’s lips pulled into an awkward smile, slowly speaking: ”Its damage is regrettable, but as the ’artifact’ that the Oblivion Association has relied on for a long time, perhaps its damage after ending service is the best fate for it. You also said it was of no use to you anymore — I will take it, as a sort of memento.”

Beltira’s expression seemed somewhat stiff, but she nodded still: ”It has been yours since a moment ago.”

Gawain thought for a moment and seemingly absentmindedly asked: ”Do you mind?”

Beltira shook her head: ”No... Maybe that is its destiny.”

...

At the same time, on the surface, Knight Margarita suddenly raised her head in surprise and looked at the giant canopy of the Sorin Giant Tree.

Countless large leaves with faint magic symbols on their surfaces suddenly fell from the branches for some reason. A gust of wind blew, and swathes of beautiful leaves fell to the ground like a dance. Due to the enormous scale of the ”Sorin Giant Tree,” this scene of falling leaves could even be described as magnificent.

”Why did the leaves suddenly fall?” The female knight muttered somewhat dazed.

”Who knows,” Pittman murmured nearby, ”Maybe it’s just too cold.”