Chapter 186: Information Pollution
"But these alone aren't enough."
Lynn looked at Xiaoye. "This isn't payment. It's just equipment for the job."
Xiaoye stood there for a few seconds, his ears twitching slightly, before nodding. "Alright. What do you want, then? A core material?"
Lynn knew Xiaoye wasn't the one agreeing to his terms. It was the ponytailed Lady Maybetessa.
Given Lady Maybetessa's status, haggling with him directly was impossible. That would be beneath her.
Xiaoye was simply the middleman.
"I don't want materials. I want two sets of data," Lynn said. "The first is information on the Biological Wizard Tower." He knew Lady Maybetessa would agree to this.
Xiaoye paused, taken aback.
He gave Lynn a strange look. He knew about Biological Wizard Towers as well, but he had heard some unsavory rumors. Among wizards, they were considered a rather peculiar existence.
Furthermore, Lynn's wizard tower was already built. Why would he need a Biological Wizard Tower?
"Acceptable. And the other?" Xiaoye nodded.
"I need the Mechanical Cult's knowledge and research data on consciousness uploading."
"That..." Xiaoye frowned. The demand didn't sound appropriate.
Although knowledge could be traded and shared among wizards, this belonged to the Mechanical Cult. Xiaoye looked at Lynn with concern. In his eyes, the request bordered on presumptuous; he felt Lynn should ask for something else.
If he angered Lady Maybetessa, the losses would outweigh the gains.
But then Xiaoye froze. A cold female voice echoed in his ear, agreeing to the terms.
Surprised, Xiaoye looked at Lynn in shock. He hadn't expected the lady to actually agree.
Lynn, however, wasn't surprised. Neither condition was actually that difficult to meet.
Regarding the first request, Lady Maybetessa had been consciously promoting information about the Biological Wizard Tower for a long time. Although he didn't know why, she would certainly be glad to share the knowledge if he wanted to learn about it.
As for the second, the Mechanical Cult's consciousness uploading wasn't exceptionally profound. The cult had mastered the technology long ago and applied it to every aspect of their society.
If one only needed the basic knowledge, it could simply be bought from a merchant guild. But Lynn also needed the relevant research data. That couldn't be bought in the outside world; only a wizard of a certain status could acquire it through exchanges with other wizards.
For Lynn as he was now, obtaining it would be quite difficult, but for Lady Maybetessa, it was no trouble at all.
This was the disparity brought about by a difference in status.
With the trade agreed upon, Lynn began his course of study.
The "teacher" instructing Lynn in archery was an archer from the Ravenfolk.
This Ravenfolk archer claimed to be proficient in the archery of the Elven Race and several other species. According to him, all archery techniques in the world were largely the same. They all served a single purpose: to make the arrow kill the target.
"An arrow that doesn't hit its target is a failed arrow," the Ravenfolk archer said earnestly.
Lynn recalled that wizards also had a few spells that relied on a bow and arrow to strike a target. Such spells were rare, but they existed.
For example, the Tier 3 Spell, the sigh of the death-speaker, was one such spell.
Upon casting, it condensed a Bone Undead Bow and a Bone Undead Arrow in the palm of the hand.
The caster had to physically loose the arrow from the bow, meaning the hit rate was heavily tied to their archery skills.
Although it had relatively complex casting conditions, this constraint also made the spell far more powerful than an ordinary Tier 3 Spell.
Furthermore, not all wizards possessed a pure spellcasting combat style. Some modified their bodies, mastering various support, healing, and utility spells while becoming proficient in melee weapons. Everyone had their own style.
After advancing to a first-level wizard, Lynn possessed mental energy far surpassing ordinary first-level wizards. But his true advantage was his physical body—a treasure trove of divine traits and a resilience far beyond others of his tier.
However, because Lynn's past combat habits revolved entirely around spellcasting, and because he relied on his wizard tower to crush opponents once it was successfully forged, he hadn't spent any time honing his martial skills despite knowing his physical strength was immense.
This training session was a fine opportunity for him to learn.
After all, whether for a Divine Being or a High-Tier Demon, physical strength was never a weakness. Having combined the advantages of both, Lynn possessed both their specialties. This would yield an obvious improvement to his combat prowess.
"Many people say that the archery of different races varies, but in reality, it's just the bows that differ. Differences in race and physique dictate the types of bows and arrows they use, and differences in their living environments lead to clear distinctions in their archery styles."
This Ravenfolk archery instructor truly deserved the title of grandmaster when it came to bows and arrows.
His explanations progressed seamlessly from the basics to profound concepts, benefiting Lynn greatly.
After learning this knowledge, Lynn drew analogies to other fields, gaining a deeper understanding of anatomy and Alchemical Puppet creation.
"The giant races have massive frames. Small bows are awkward for them to handle, so they favor the Heavy Giant Bow. The heavy arrows fired by a Heavy Giant Bow pack tremendous power, but because they are so massive, their speed is compromised. Therefore, their archery style leans toward high-frequency barrages to blanket a large area and overwhelm their prey."
"Halfling archery is very insidious, again due to their size. Halflings are naturally small and lack physical strength, so their bows and arrows are very light and small. They prefer making their bows out of vines or tree creepers. Their arrows are feather-light and difficult to track. To make hunting easier, halflings like to coat their arrows in poison. Because of this, every halfling archer is an expert in wilderness survival and poison crafting."
Lynn grew thoughtful. Combining a race's profession with their living habits and racial traits to explain the differences in their combat styles—this analytical approach was rather interesting.
"What I will teach you, my lord, is the archery of the Elven Race and the werewolf race. The Elven Race's archery is highly elegant because they possess a moderate physique with soft, extremely flexible limbs. Rather than saying they wield a single bow, it's more accurate to say they act as two bows!"
"They use their flexible bodies as a bow as well, allowing them to fire the bow in their hands with even more fluid power. That's why the archery of the Elven Race is both ruthless and tricky—their arrows can even curve mid-flight."
"This is because the Elven Race lives in forests. Thus, their weapons are all wooden bows. Due to the elves' unique environment, these wooden bows possess extreme toughness, granting them far more elasticity than ordinary bows."
"Werewolf archery is swift and fierce. Because werewolves have incredible explosive power and a moderate physique, the bows they use tend to have a heavy draw weight. Their archery emphasizes straightforward aggression—a single, lethal strike. Archery that combines the styles of these two races is bizarre and unpredictable. I looked up Mongulas's battle records; on the battlefield, his most frequently used weapon was his bow."
Within half a month of study, Lynn learned all the archery methods. He mastered every routine and technique; all that remained was relentless practice.
As for the one teaching Lynn spearmanship, it was a snakeman.
A genuine snakeman from the Orc Empire of the Feilan Continent.
It had pale gray pupils and light yellow scales. It lacked a nose, possessing only two black holes for nostrils.
It looked a bit like a scaled Voldemort.
"Lord wizard, I beg you, could you spare my clansmen? I will pass on all the spearmanship I possess," the snakeman pleaded humbly.
"That matter is out of my hands. I'll pass your request along to them, but how they handle it is up to them."
Lynn cast a fleeting glance at the snakeman.
Hearing that Lynn was going to tell the people who had captured him, the snakeman's face turned deathly pale with terror.
The snakeman lowered his head, begging Lynn not to tell anyone else.
"While I might not be able to save anyone, killing someone is still very easy for me," Lynn said with a half-smile. "Pass the Mongulas Family's spearmanship that you possess onto me."
Seeing the expression on Lynn's face, the snakeman's heart chilled, and he immediately dismissed all his little schemes.
He taught Lynn his spearmanship, though the techniques he knew weren't complete, but fragmented.
Lynn wasn't surprised. According to the files Xiaoye had given him, the Mongulas Family had lost much of its inheritance after falling into decline.
So he wasn't meant to learn the complete spearmanship lineage anyway. To avoid exposing himself through muscle memory, he had to start out by mastering an incomplete inheritance.
It took Lynn three days to master the fragmented spearmanship.
At the same time, upon Lynn's specific request, the snakeman told him about the common mistakes beginners made when practicing the spear without an elder's guidance.
Besides these two teachers, there was also an old local hunter from the Orc Empire.
Lynn spent another four days mastering that field of knowledge.
"Here is the information you requested."
The two sets of data Lynn needed were brought over.
Lynn set the Biological Wizard Tower documents aside for now. He first looked at the Mechanical Cult wizards' data on consciousness uploading. After quickly finishing the general introduction, his expression shifted slightly, as if he had grasped something.
Consciousness uploading was a subject the mechanical school of wizards had researched long ago. In their studies, mechanical wizards believed the human form could be divided into three parts.
Body, soul, and consciousness.
The soul resided in the body, but certain special lifeforms could detach from their physical shells and exist purely on their soul and consciousness—like ghosts.
However, lifeforms existing purely as consciousness hadn't been discovered at that time. Because souls would eventually decay, mechanical wizards researched how to upload consciousness into machines and detach it from the soul, thus extending life in a highly unorthodox manner.
In the early stages of their research, mechanical wizards discovered that doing this truly yielded many benefits. Consciousness was even more profound than the soul.
Even a single strand of consciousness could be split off and implanted into a mechanical body to operate independently. Even if that consciousness was wiped out, it could recover on its own.
Indeed, the research logs revealed that consciousness could recover.
The research data showed that a damaged consciousness could self-heal. In a sense, this drastically improved a wizard's lifespan and safety.
This discovery caused the mechanical wizard faction to experience a massive surge in popularity at the time, attracting many wizards to join the research project.
But as they researched deeper, the wizards gradually discovered the flaws of consciousness uploading.
A purely uploaded consciousness did indeed exist far longer than a soul ever could.
But over vast stretches of time, an uploaded consciousness would suffer from information pollution.
Some wizards gradually became cold and apathetic. Some would experience intermittent memory loss. Still others would suffer from looping memories, or manifest entirely false memories.
Later, specific experiments revealed that this was caused by the heavy abuse of consciousness; at the same time, overly frequent self-regeneration of the consciousness subjected it to information pollution.
The term "information pollution" had never existed in the wizarding world prior to this. But just as certain peculiar diseases could be named after their patients, the phrase firmly embedded itself into the wizarding world once information pollution emerged.
Innumerable soul particles existed in the natural world. These soul particles were flooded with massive amounts of trace pheromones—or ambient data. When a creature died, its soul shattered, scattering into countless drifting soul particles.
These soul particles couldn't be observed with the naked eye. A wizard's meditation was one of the few ways to perceive them.
By meditating, they could capture these dissipating soul particles from the void to strengthen their mental energy.
Yet, these harmless soul particles became the source of information pollution for an uploaded consciousness. After careful research, wizards finally discovered that this was due to the absence of the soul—a crucial existential framework.
The soul acted as a filter. It could strain out all the trace pheromones within the soul particles, retaining only the pure soul power for the wizard to absorb and grow stronger.
But without the presence of a soul, the soul particles took on a polluting nature toward the consciousness. The ambient data within them would contaminate the consciousness's purity.
Consciousness itself possessed a degree of exclusivity, but over months and years—coupled with the fact that a damaged consciousness would actively absorb airborne soul particles to replenish itself—information pollution would inevitably arise in the long term.
The consequences of information pollution were utterly terrifying. It could lead wizards to suffer from corrupted memories, memory loss, memory proliferation, and a host of other maladies!
At the same time, it would skew a wizard's personality to a certain extent, fundamentally altering their character.
Because of this, consciousness uploading presented an enormous drawback.
Nevertheless, a portion of wizards didn't mind. They continued researching how to isolate soul particles. However, there wasn't much data available regarding this isolation research.
This involved much deeper experiments. The provided materials only briefly touched on the subject.
At the same time, the documents also mentioned several other research directions. The mechanical faction had studied consciousness splitting. In their research, they found that human consciousness was incredibly powerful and held immense potential—especially the consciousness of a wizard whose mental energy had vastly expanded through meditation, which far exceeded that of an ordinary person.
A powerful wizard's consciousness could splinter into tens of thousands of fragments, effectively allowing them to simultaneously control tens of thousands of bodies.
But the research data in this area was also blank, serving only as a brief mention.
Aside from that, the latter half of the research materials contained massive amounts of consciousness uploading data.
This included data on both successes and failures.
It compiled specific, comprehensive statistics on the consciousness uploads of biological units across tens of thousands of races and ranks.
To Lynn, this was incredibly precious information.
It saved him a tremendous amount of effort.
Lynn didn't review these specific data points. There were simply too many. If he wanted to read through them all, it would take him at least several months.
He would wait until he had completed his job for the trade before coming back to read them.
However, after finishing these materials, an idea sparked in Lynn's mind—a hypothesis about time.
He reasoned that a human's—or certain lifeforms'—natural death was predicated on the premise of "aging."
If the moment of a lifeform's birth was defined as possessing all its time, then time was like an hourglass. With every passing second, time slipped away, and its life constantly ticked down in a countdown.
But inversely, if the moment of a lifeform's death was defined as the moment it possessed all its time, then from the instant of its birth, it was acquiring time with every second. It was like a line drawn on a blank sheet of paper: the moment of birth was a black dot, and the trajectory of life constantly moved forward, forming the straight line that extended from that dot.
When the line reached its end, it represented the final stroke of his life's pen.
If life was a line, could time be some kind of poison?
It aged a lifeform, marching it step by step to the end of its existence.
If one could isolate time and erase its influence—establishing a space devoid of time, where only consciousness existed...
...could one achieve an alternative form of immortality within it?
But this required solving two major problems.
First, how to isolate time.
Second, how to immunize an ordinary person's soul against informational pollution.
Thinking of this, Lynn couldn't help but recall the Pocket Watch's ability to pause time. Since time could be paused... that meant the influence of time could be isolated.