Chapter 429 - 417: Soul Rewrite
On the throne, Allen’s body was like a perfect sculpture, completely still.
But his Spiritual World was undergoing a genesis on par with the Big Bang.
Endless energy and computing power flowed through the conduits behind the throne, transforming into the purest of source streams and pouring into his Sea of Spirit.
At this moment, Cybertron, the thirty-kilometer-wide steel beast, had been reduced to nothing more than his external organ—a supercomputer roaring to life solely for the transformation of his soul.
Deep within his Sea of Spirit, the virtual model of the Allen Network, composed of tens of thousands of Runes, began to shift from illusion into reality.
"Argh!"
Allen’s body shuddered violently. Beneath his skin, blue streams of Magic Flow surged frantically, as if about to tear his very flesh apart.
His consciousness faltered amidst the tsunami, like a small boat on the verge of capsizing.
But he did not resist. Instead, he willingly opened his spiritual defenses.
His goal was not to resist the torrent, but to become the torrent itself!
[First Stage: Rune Inscription...]
The tens of thousands of Will Runes contained within the Allen Network began to be "printed" out, one by one.
Agony!
A soul-searing agony!
It was as if someone were using a red-hot stylus to write new, underlying code onto his very soul, byte by byte.
Allen’s expression twisted slightly, yet he remained like a reef, allowing the information storm to wash over him.
His consciousness wielded the vast computing power provided by Cybertron, forcefully driving the virtual network model deep into his soul.
The process was incredibly time-consuming, but it was merely an appetizer.
[Second Stage: Constructing Network Nodes...]
The Will Runes began to link together, constructing a miniature network framework of 1,320 nodes within his Sea of Spirit.
Each node corresponded to one of the 1,320 Spirit Communication Towers spread across the Aiselan Kingdom in the real world.
That’s right. These Spirit Communication Towers were more than just signal towers. From the moment they were designed, they were intended as "anchor points" for Allen to lower the difficulty of the inscription process!
The first node ignited.
It was no longer an illusion simulated by Spiritual Power, but an indelible mark branded into the depths of his soul.
Then came the second, the third, the thousandth...
With each branded node, it was as if Allen’s soul was torn asunder, only to be instantly reassembled and reinforced by the immense Magic Power and computing power mobilized by Jarvis.
Time lost all meaning here.
A second could have passed, or perhaps a year.
The pain had long since surpassed the limits of physical endurance, but the Mechanical Mind blocked out the majority of it.
He was using his own soul as raw material, building a magnificent and unprecedented marvel!
However, the real test had only just begun.
The moment the 1,320 Spirit Communication Towers across the Aiselan Kingdom "ignited" in sync with the nodes in Allen’s Sea of Spirit—
[Fourth Stage: Accessing External Information]
BOOM!!!
An indescribable torrent of information, carrying the complex, moment-to-moment thoughts of fifty-two million souls, slammed into his mind like a river of stars bursting its banks!
That massive volume of data carried with it a living, breathing "humanity"!
The blind rage of a Mercenary in a Golden Stone City tavern who had just lost all his money; the unspoken love of a young miner in the Northern Mine for his sweetheart;
the fervent dreams for the future from a student like Leo at the Royal Alchemy University; the venomous curses of a fallen Earl in a noble’s salon against the new regime; the agony and ecstasy of a mother in a delivery room as her child is born...
Greed, jealousy, desire, hope, despair, love, and hate.
The raw emotions and desires of tens of millions of people converged into a chaotic tsunami powerful enough to shatter any semblance of sanity, frantically corrupting and eroding Allen’s mind.
He "saw" countless twisted faces and heard a billion voices screaming, crying, and cackling in his ears.
[Warning! High-intensity emotional data contamination detected!]
[Mental stability decreased to 42%!]
[’Mechanical Mind’ barrier showing signs of overload!]
[Failed to activate ’Humanity Anchor’ protocol. Current inscription process cannot be interrupted!]
To Allen, Jarvis’s frantic warnings sounded as distant as ravings from another universe.
His consciousness was on the brink of being completely submerged in the sea of chaos.
’A network without a server means every node is a server. And I... I am the server’s most fundamental architecture...’
’I don’t just have to process data. I have to... bear the informational weight of an entire civilization.’
A flash of realization struck Allen.
This sea of data he had personally "cultivated" for over a decade was now on the verge of completely assimilating its "cultivator."
He was about to be drowned by the joys and sorrows of fifty-two million mortals.
Just as his consciousness was about to be utterly scattered and dissolved into the chaos, the Mechanical Mind Modification Skill that was long-since integrated into his soul erupted with unprecedented brilliance.
It rose like an impossibly tall wall of logic, standing defiantly before the tsunami of chaos.
[Information Filtering Protocol initiated.]
Another of Allen’s pre-designed fail-safes was triggered.
[Emotional data undergoing classification, tagging, separation...]
Anger, and all information associated with it, was tagged as red data.
Joy was tagged as gold data.
Sorrow, fear, adoration, greed...
Under the absolute rationality of the Mechanical Mind, all the complex emotions that could drive a god insane were ruthlessly dismantled, piece by piece, and converted into retrievable and analyzable "metadata."
Allen’s consciousness was "distilled" from that sea of chaos.
No longer did he passively endure; instead, he began to actively... analyze.
He was like a true god, gazing down upon the inner worlds of all the subjects in his kingdom. But he no longer saw their joys and sorrows. Instead, he saw an incredibly precise and spectacular dynamic map of the civilization’s emotions, composed of countless data streams.
This was the true purpose of the Mechanical Mind!
Allen had turned it into a network firewall.
It wasn’t to turn him into an emotionless monster, but to prevent him from being consumed by the sheer volume of humanity on his path to "godhood"!
Within his Sea of Spirit, the final Rune node of the Core Witchcraft connected perfectly with the first, closing the loop.
The final stage began!
[Fourth Stage: Soul Rewrite.]
In an instant, all the agony and chaos vanished.
The Witchcraft model for the Allen Network had fully formed and immediately began to reshape his original Sea of Spirit.
The 1,320 nodes gradually faded.
One, a hundred, ten thousand...
Countless star-like points of light emerged one by one.
Finally, a Rune network as vast, brilliant, and complex as a true galaxy merged completely with his Sea of Spirit.
Or rather, his once-dark spiritual ocean had become this resplendent galaxy!
Its every breath was synchronized with the blinking of all the Spirit Communication Towers across the Aiselan Kingdom.
Its every pulse governed the informational exchange of fifty-two million people.
On the throne, Allen slowly opened his eyes.
Deep within his pupils, galaxies swirled into existence and faded into nothingness.
What was reflected within them was not the material world, but a living network universe, composed of countless points of light and lines.
Because in this moment, his "gaze" had descended upon every corner of the Aiselan Kingdom.
He "saw" King William in his study, frowning at a report on expanding the Alchemy Warrior Camp.
He "saw" old Professor Carl in his laboratory, pacing excitedly over a new Magic Circuits problem.
He "saw" a child in a remote village, mesmerized by the *Battle for Golden Stone City* playing on their personal Spirit Communication Terminal.
His will traveled along the invisible network, extending to every corner of the land.
[Commander.]
[Second Core Witchcraft—the Allen Network—inscription complete.]
[Your Spiritual Power structure has undergone a permanent change.]