Chapter 422 - 411: Network Experiment
「Six months later.」
「Golden Stone City, Central Square.」
Night had long since fallen, but the square was brighter than day.
On a massive, luminous screen, a full thirty meters wide, a film titled "The Defense of Golden Stone" was playing.
Onscreen, a handsome actor playing Prince William wielded a longsword gleaming with the light of Spirit Art, locked in a bloody battle with a terrifying, special-effects-generated Heart Eater.
"For Aiselan!"
Following the actor’s hoarse cry, a brilliant pillar of light descended from the sky, turning hundreds, even thousands, of Heart Eaters to ash.
In the square, thousands of citizens erupted in thunderous cheers.
This was the first "film" produced by the kingdom’s entertainment department under Allen’s guidance. It was being broadcast via the Spirit Communication Network, premiering simultaneously in every city in the kingdom equipped with a public screen.
No one knew what the pillar of light from the sky actually was; the film’s artistic license explained it away as the "Guardian’s Gaze."
The old King, Alexander, silently turned off the small personal terminal in front of him, which had been streaming the scene from the square.
"Six months..."
His voice was tinged with a dreamlike quality. "In just six months, it’s as if Aiselan has become a different world."
Prince William stood behind him, his gaze complex as he looked out the window toward the square. "Yes, Father. According to the Ministry of Finance’s report, our tax revenue for the first half of the year is three times what it was during the same period last year. Newly cultivated farmland, newly built factories, revitalized commerce... everything is flourishing."
"But at the same time," William’s tone shifted, "the Ministry of Civil Affairs’ report is also quite interesting. A new illness is spreading, one they’re calling ’network dependency syndrome.’"
"The amount of time people spend watching films, short dramas, and a novelty called ’livestreaming’ has already surpassed the time spent on traditional prayer and family gatherings."
"But we are losing our ability to guide the people’s thoughts," the old King said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.
He leaned back in his chair, his face looking ever more ancient, but his eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s. "Before, it was the church and the nobility. Now, it’s Weisren Heavy Industry. Lord Allen... no, the Lord Guardian. He doesn’t even need to dispatch a single soldier to conquer all of our minds."
William fell silent.
As they enjoyed the convenience of high-speed information and the prosperity of industrial production, they had to accept all the "side effects" that came with them.
"He is like a god, perched high in the clouds, watching us dispassionately as we celebrate, bicker, and sink into depravity over the toys he has bestowed upon us."
Alexander suddenly laughed, a self-mocking chuckle. "And we don’t even have the right to question him."
Because everyone knew that if the Guardian wished it, he could take it all back at any moment.
And plunge Aiselan back into the dark age, back under the shadow of the Heart Eaters.
...
「Within Cybertron.」
A massive, five-meter-wide map floated in mid-air. It was a three-dimensional, full-spectrum information map of the Aiselan Kingdom.
On the map, dense blue points of light shimmered like a sea of stars, representing over ten million active Spirit Communication Terminals.
Between the points of light, countless data lines intertwined to form a brilliant ocean of light, through which streams of information traveled at light speed.
Allen sat in a large command chair, resting his chin on one hand, his gaze fixed calmly on this ocean of light.
"Jarvis, report current network load."
[Current average network-wide load: 67.4%. Peak load is in Golden Stone City and the three southern provinces, reaching 89.1%.]
[Personal Spirit Communication Terminal penetration rate within the kingdom has reached 65%. Data throughput has increased by more than seven hundred times compared to six months ago.]
[Information type breakdown: military and government communications, 4.5%; commercial logistics, 3.6%; civilian entertainment and meaningless social interaction, 91.9%.]
[Conclusion: Phase one of the ’Data Farming’ plan is complete. A quantifiable, civilization-wide, macroscopic data feedback model has been successfully constructed.]
Allen smiled faintly.
’The natives’ appetite for gossip and entertainment truly is the greatest productive force.’
When the Spirit Communication Network first went online, Allen had noticed a problem: the amount of data being generated was far too small.
Relying solely on military intelligence reports and government decrees, the pathetic trickle of data didn’t even use 1% of the Spirit Communication Towers’ bandwidth.
It was like building a sixteen-lane, two-way superhighway, only to have just three ox-carts a day travel on it.
Without massive data interaction, without high-concurrency stress tests, without node collapses and reorganization under extreme conditions, how was he supposed to collect the necessary parameters?
How was he supposed to deduce the underlying architecture of the [Allen Network]?
So, he threw "entertainment" at them.
Films, livestreaming platforms, instant messaging groups, and even simple pixelated games.
He took the "bread and circuses" industry from his past life, modified it slightly, cloaked it in the guise of Alchemy, and hurled it all at this feudal kingdom that had only just solved the problem of basic subsistence.
The effect was immediate.
Ten million terminals could generate billions of pieces of nonsense, images, and audio files every day.
This "junk data," worthless in the eyes of others, was the most perfect stress-testing material for Allen.
’The data pool is just barely deep enough.’
Allen stood up and walked to the holographic map. ’It’s time for the next step.’
Allen raised his right hand and waved it gently.
The data map before him vanished in an instant.
In its place appeared an extremely complex, three-dimensional model of a Rune.
It looked like a brain, and also like a vast nebula, with countless faint blue points of light flickering within it—connecting, breaking apart, and re-forming.
This was the prototype of the [Allen Network].
"What’s the progress?" Allen asked.
Jarvis answered swiftly, "The underlying logic has been verified as feasible. However, if inscribed into the Sea of Spirit at this stage, the mortality rate is still as high as 99.99%."
Allen’s eyes narrowed slightly.
A Wizard’s advancement was never just a mechanical accumulation of Magic Power; its essence was a transformative ordeal that tempered the soul.
Core Witchcraft was the pivot in the river of fate that determined one’s course, the fork in the road where Wizards embarked on vastly different paths.
The Allen Network, as the first Core Witchcraft he had personally forged, was so formidable because it involved reforging his own Sea of Spirit into an infinitely expandable network of Witchcraft.
To operate within one’s own Sea of Spirit was a feat of difficulty far beyond the scope of ordinary Witchcraft. No amount of caution was enough; the slightest misstep would mean plunging into an abyss of eternal damnation.
One’s soul could disintegrate, turning them into a witless imbecile, or their consciousness could be annihilated, transforming them into a terrifying, self-less monster.
"Begin deep simulation number 742," Allen ordered.
[Acknowledged. Commencing simulated construction of the Allen Network Core Witchcraft.]
[This simulation will collect, analyze, and synthesize massive amounts of interactive data to verify and iterate the ’Distributed Node Protocol.’]
The virtual [Allen Network], like a mirror system, began to access information from the external network.
He closed his eyes.
Ten mental sub-threads opened simultaneously.
His Spiritual Power transformed into countless fine threads, merging with the virtual Rune model to perform calculations.
BOOM!
An intense pain erupted in his mind.
The emotions, stray thoughts, and information of thirty-five million people materialized into a torrential flood, slamming violently against the barriers of Allen’s Sea of Spirit through the simulated network nodes.
Greed, fear, ecstasy, sorrow... the massive amount of information was like the "collective subconscious contamination" most feared by Wizards of the Mind School.
His brain wasn’t an emotionless CPU; while processing the information, it was inevitable that he would be affected by the information itself.
The impact of a single piece of information on his mind was almost nil, but processing a celestial amount of information on a nanosecond timescale was asking a bit much.
Allen’s face paled instantly, and a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
"Warning! Sea of Spirit stability is decreasing!" Jarvis blared a piercing alarm. "Detecting minor anomalous spiritual contamination!"
Allen gritted his teeth.
Instead of severing the connection, he increased his Spiritual Power output.
"DSeek, initiate logical filtering protocol. Temporarily strip all highly emotional data, retaining only pure text information."
An ice-cold command exploded in his Sea of Spirit.
The raging torrent of emotions was forcibly cut off.
Allen’s Spiritual Power became an invisible scalpel, carving out impurities from the chaotic data, rearranging and linking the nodes one by one.
The pain intensified.
It felt as if his soul had been torn into tens of millions of pieces and scattered across an endless void. Every pulse of a node was accompanied by a severe drain on his Spiritual Power.
But he had to cling desperately to his last sliver of clarity.
’Node T-001, anchoring complete.’
...
’Node T-4522, anchoring complete.’
Time ticked by, second by second.
Allen’s body trembled slightly, and strange blue patterns surfaced on his skin—a sign of his Magic Power running rampant.
"Commander, the forced disconnection protocol is ready."
"Don’t disconnect!"
Allen’s eyes snapped open.
Within his pupils, an impossibly complex, faint blue Rune flashed and vanished.
VMMMM!
The virtual Rune model suddenly stabilized.
The rampant data streams began to flow in an orderly fashion along their designated paths.
The chaotic nebula transformed into a precise, rigorous, and self-perpetuating network.
"Simulation complete."
Allen collapsed into his chair, gasping for breath.
His Magic Power had saturated his black robes, slightly altering the physical properties of the fabric.
"Report the results," he said, his voice hoarse.
"Simulation 742 is complete. Model completion: 34%. Network stability: Preliminary standards met."
For once, there was a hint of inflection in Jarvis’s voice. "Commander, the progress this time is surprisingly good."
Allen looked at the Witchcraft model floating in mid-air.
Even though it was only thirty-four percent complete.
Even though this was just a simulation, and the real inscription was still a long way off.
He could now clearly see a grand path leading to the realm of the Advanced Wizards.
"Continue optimizing the Witchcraft model based on the data collected today."
After resting for a moment, Allen stood up and wiped the blood trickling from his ear.
"Prepare for simulation verification 743 tomorrow."
Allen walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the vast city of steel below, where countless Golems bustled along assembly lines.
For the sake of his own head’s safety, he still needed to conduct more experiments.