Warlock Apprentice

Jon was a bit stunned. He just wanted to experiment a little, and ended up hearing such a conversation.

The content of the conversation was not important; what mattered was that he could actually understand the chat between the Dream Plant Fairies!

Such dialogue was extremely subtle. It wasn’t about acquiring information through sound symbols, but rather direct exchanges in consciousness.

When Jon was young, he watched a holographic movie about high-level extraterrestrial life arriving on Earth. In one scene, humans found they could communicate seamlessly with aliens, and the mode of communication was through the mind.

On Earth, this could only be a futuristic interaction concept for movies. Now, it appeared right in front of Jon.

The wave of consciousness from the two Dream Plant Fairies continued to spread outward, and simply by sensing their consciousness waves, Jon understood their intended messages.

The speed of acquiring this information was far more direct and quicker than symbolic meanings like text or images.

While on Earth, any communication basically couldn’t bypass the need to see with eyes, pass through neurotransmitters, and be analyzed by the brain—this was a sequential layered pattern. However, consciousness exchange became a point-to-point mode, bypassing all unnecessary phases and directly entering the final stage of information acquisition.

This was Jon’s first experience with such a situation; he was completely stunned on the spot. Various thoughts intertwined in his mind, and complex streams of information formed torrents in his cognition.

Fortunately, Jon was only contemplating in his own mind. If he had transmitted his consciousness outward, these intricate streams of information would probably have startled the Dream Plant Fairies who were chatting secretly.

However, even though Jon didn’t transmit his consciousness, the spot representing him exposed his presence.

The two Dream Plant Fairies, who were chatting, suddenly paused; one of them said: ”Seems like there’s an extra light spot. Who are you?”

”A very unfamiliar aura indeed; it feels like the first time sensing such an aura.”

The two Dream Plant Fairies stopped their discussion and began to curiously examine the light spot representing Jon.

Jon, still immersed in the shock of consciousness exchange, realized only when he heard them mention him, that his actions just now were essentially... eavesdropping. Having grown up with a moral core and educated in shame, Jon instantly felt rather uneasy.

He had eavesdropped, and now was caught red-handed. Jon felt embarrassed.

After a moment of silence, Jon had prepared himself to be reprimanded, but to his surprise, after studying the light spot representing Jon for a while, the two Dream Plant Fairies naturally shifted back to other topics.

It seemed his presence didn’t affect them much.

Not completely unaffected though; after chatting for a while, they noticed Jon was still nearby and not speaking. One of the light spots diffused a consciousness message.

”Do you want to join our conversation?” It was a friendly inquiry, but Jon didn’t respond.

He didn’t know how to communicate with these Alien Clans, seeing that they weren’t blaming him, he directly opted—retreat.

Jon merely had to think, and his light spot swiftly crossed the spatial distance to re-enter the sandbox.

Looking at the numerous starlight-like spots in the sandbox, Jon felt like a droplet entering a long river, with countless similar spots around him masking that hint of embarrassment. Only then did Jon finally breathe a sigh of relief.

At that moment, he no longer wished to communicate with other spots, especially since Angel was waiting outside; it wasn’t the right moment.

With this thought, Jon gave the sandbox one last glance and slowly left the mother tree network.

After Jon left the sandbox, near the planning department of Originheart City, two Dream Plant Fairies glanced at each other: ”Was that light spot just now Little Curly hair?”

”Not quite like it, Little Curly’s consciousness is like a glass knife, sharp-looking but actually quite fragile. That light spot’s consciousness wasn’t as sharp.”

”If it wasn’t Little Curly, then who was it?”

”It doesn’t matter, same clan after all. Our main focus now should be landscaping the green areas of the human city, then we can find the human who sings!”

...

Jon put down the branch he touched to his forehead, a sign that he had left the mother tree network.

Yet Angel did not disturb him immediately, instead waiting for Jon to come around before inquiring about his views on the mother tree network.

”It’s very unique and interesting.” Jon paused: ”Although I didn’t experience it for long, from my perspective, the mother tree network is very good.”

Jon’s answer was actually a bit conservative. Just the mere fact of bypassing language barriers and communicating through consciousness was already a glimpse into its extraordinary nature.

”However, although I see significant potential in the mother tree network, whether it can become the information boom medium like Earth’s civilization is hard to say. But there’s considerable potential.”

Next, Jon shared some opinions based on his recent observations.

The focus was on consciousness exchange.

Perhaps because it was the first time with such a peculiar experience, Jon’s speech overflowed with praise to an endless degree. He even used several idioms and colloquialisms in Chinese, unknown to Angel, adding an undeniable emphasis.

Still, Jon did not solely laud their features; after discussing advantages, he shifted to discussing the shortcomings of this experience.

”As for the drawbacks, let’s start with the way of entering the mother tree network. I think the steps are a bit too complicated; it does remind me of dial-up internet days. Simplification would naturally be best.”

”The interface of the mother tree network somewhat resembles a sandbox. It’s not bad, but like a Mechanical Creation, a better packaging would probably be more pleasing.”

”Upon entering the sandbox, one sees all light and dull spots, and the distance between the spots represents real-world proximity, making it hard to hide one’s location.”

”Moreover, just by shifting thoughts, approaching someone else’s light spot allows hearing other spots’ conversations, lacking privacy.”

Having gone through the era of information explosion in the holographic network age, despite having certain unique and advanced technologies, the mother tree network was quite crude when viewed from a completion angle. Jon naturally talked about one flaw after another.

Jon’s ideas were comprehensive and advanced. Although his discussion of advantages wasn’t very meaningful, talking about flaws brought Angel considerable insights.

After detailing a series of flaws, Jon summed it up: ”...The foundation of the mother tree network is indeed solid, yet lacks a robust network environment and communication community, which is the biggest flaw I currently see.”