Dusk gently shrouded the earth, the magic crystal lamp in the study had been lit, Gawain casually signed his name on a document, and handed it to Hetty, who was waiting across the table: "You must personally keep an eye on the economic revitalization and industrial construction of the eastern region, especially the economic pilot of the Suram Plateau, and strictly prevent local merchants and old nobles from secretly colluding to raise grain prices and impact the new currency. ”

Hetty took the document with a serious expression: "Rest assured, I understand the importance of the economic pilot. ”

Gawain snorted, and couldn't help but glance at Hetty with concern: "How have you been resting lately?" Pay attention to your body. ”

"Let the ancestor care about this, my junior is very ashamed......" Hety suddenly lowered his head, "Recently, the government affairs department has not been very busy, after the winter, many projects that are more affected by the season have slowed down the progress or temporarily suspended, the internal affairs department only needs to do a year-end summary and plans for the coming year, and the interns who were added to the government affairs department last year can also come in handy now." ”

"That's good," Gawain nodded, "and what happened to the magic net project in the north and west?" ”

"I've been keeping pace with the two archons on their side, and at present, the main and secondary cities of the two realms have built basic magic net facilities - mainly because these cities basically have mages sitting in them, and there are also mage towers and mature transcendent material processing systems, which can complete the foundation laying relatively quickly, but as for the lower level cities and villages...... There was not much progress. ”

Speaking of this, Hetty couldn't help but shake his head: "In addition, due to the arrival of winter, the area outside the city has become difficult to construct, and the magic network between the cities in the north and west has not been connected, and communication has been barely achieved by relying on relay devices, and due to the scarcity of relay stations and insufficient power, the communication between cities is often interrupted, so it can be said that it has not yet entered a practical state." ”

"Understandable," Gawain wasn't surprised, "after all...... Relatively large construction machinery and vehicles are still scarce, the south is stretched for its own use, and many areas in the north and west can only rely on manpower construction, and winter is a hurdle that cannot be crossed. ”

The magic net, only when it becomes a "net", can play the greatest value.

The communication network throughout the country, the powerful energy system, the cornerstone of industry, and the skeleton of society all need to be built on the basis of the whole territory of the magic network, and from the perspective of the "empire", Gawain also needs to connect every region of the entire country into a closer whole, so as to avoid the counterattack of those old forces in the distance, and avoid some provinces that are difficult to take care of from returning to the closed and divided state of the kingdom era.

But it's not that easy to do.

It's relatively easy to build a basic magic net in a city, but it's more than twice as difficult to build enough magic sites in the sparsely populated wilderness, not to mention that many projects will also face extremely harsh environments – mountains, torrents, tundra in the north, swamps in the west...... Even with the help of magic, it's hard to challenge.

The small relay device can only make the two magic networks run at the lowest power, and in order to make the magic network realize the full power transmission of energy and information, it is necessary to build a relatively large hub tower or hub station, when the southern magic network was built, Gawain relied on the aftermath of the unification war, and implemented large-scale population migration, urban integration, border military management and other measures, only to achieve the magic network "into a network" in a short period of time, but now the entire empire has been unified, and the country has been out of the state of war, And the whole territory of the empire is much larger than the original southern border, of course, similar means can no longer be used, and even if they want to be used, they must make considerable adjustments.

On this basis, he could only take it step by step and wait for this huge project to be completed slowly.

"Right now, apart from the main hub in the South, only the main hub in the Eastern Spirit Plains has been successfully activated," Hetty said, "The Thorin Giant Tree has helped us activate the East Plains hub ahead of schedule, and the others, such as the West Spirit Plains Main Hub, the West Main Hub, the North Main Hub, and the St. Sunil Main Hub, have all been suspended due to winter. ”

“…… In fact, it is good that the project will be divided into sequences, and there will be a chance to discover some hidden problems, so as not to cause the entire national magic network to suffer too much damage," Gao Wen said half relieved and half sincerely, "You should pay more attention to the news from the Thorin Giant Tree, the experience accumulated there should be of great help to our construction after the beginning of spring next year." ”

Hetty bowed his head and commanded: "Yes, Ancestor." ”

Then she quickly glanced at Gawain, confirmed that all the documents and reports had been handed over, and then took a half step back: "Then if there is nothing else, I will go back to the office first - there are still a few reports waiting for me to review." ”

Gawain was about to fall into thought, but when he heard that there was no problem, he nodded, and as soon as he nodded, Hetty had already left the room quickly.

I don't know if it's an illusion, Gawain even felt that the moment Hetty walked out of the study, he dragged out the afterimage......

"It seems that the work pressure has been a lot lately," Gao Wen couldn't help but touch his chin and whispered with some feeling, "I still have to find her a ...... who can share the pressure."

As soon as his words fell, amber precipitated from the air beside him: "You really don't know why she has been avoiding you recently?" ”

Gawain glanced at the half-elf: "Isn't it enough for the old man to have this little fun?" ”

As he spoke, he suddenly felt ripples in the depths of his spirit, and a special identification mark called in his consciousness.

"Daniel seems to be looking for me urgently," he said, then looking at Amber, "here to watch." ”

Amber was stunned for a moment, and waved her hand: "Hey, I'm familiar with ......"

As soon as she finished speaking, Gawain was already sitting in the wide back chair and entering a state of mental connection.

Looking at Gao Wen, who had closed his eyes, Amber couldn't help frowning, and after a little silence, he said to himself with a little sigh: "Alas...... If you're like this, I'm afraid you'll have to die of exhaustion in this life...... Can't it be solved with 'exhaustion'? ”

Chaotic flickering light and shadow spread out in his vision, and Gawain could faintly hear Amber's whispering BB in his ears, but he didn't care.

The sight in his field of vision had gradually stabilized.

On the endless expanse of water, huge metal platforms are lined up one after another, and there are huge geometric and numerical symbols in the sky moving silently, and in the center of the sky and water, Daniel, dressed in black robes, is already standing next to the white round table.

"My lord," the old mage bowed to Gawain at the sight of him, "I have become the archbishop of the Order of Eternal Sleep. ”

"You've passed the test and been promoted?" Gawain immediately looked Daniel up and down, then nodded slightly with a smile, "That's really good news, congratulations." ”

"This identity is no longer important to me," Daniel said with sincerity, immediately bowing his head, "and the knowledge and health you have given cannot be measured by value. ”

Gawain could feel that the old mage's words were from the bottom of his heart.

In the beginning, the old mage from Typhon and the Order of the Sleepers may have really been "loyal" to the "Wanderer" out of fear, and loyalty that stems from fear often does not stand the test, but as time goes on, as more and more things happen, this loyalty has apparently quietly changed.

Knowledge and health, and the real changes in the state of life in the real world after getting both, all of this is impossible to ignore.

The old mage bowed his head in front of the "Extraterritorial Wanderer", and the respect in his heart was already greater than fear.

He knew he wasn't a good guy — and even if he was, he wasn't.

But at least he remembers to be grateful.

He had fallen into despair due to his talents, had been driven insane by imperfect biochemical modifications, had lost almost completely his mind, and had been ruled by endless whispers and illusions, and he had lost almost everything, even most of his humanity.

It was the gift of the "Wanderer of the Territory" that gave him the opportunity to find those things back in the same way.

Perhaps in the eyes of the Wanderer, He only gave him some humble knowledge and some simple healing methods, but this "small" help from the "High Being" is enough to change the entire fate of a mortal.

The gift of fate needs to be repaid with loyalty.

"My lord," Daniel said respectfully, "after becoming an archbishop, I have gained higher authority—I have investigated the truth about Project Zero, and I have also made initial contact with the source of the current crisis in the psychic network!" ”

Gawain's gaze became serious: "Project Zero...... What the hell is going on? ”

"They're trying to lift the 'Soul Seal'!" Daniel immediately replied, "And it's not for one or two people - they intend to lift the mental seal that all the gods have placed on mortals by connecting every mortal's dreams!" ”

Daniel's answer almost missed Gawain's breath, and the majestic image he had worked so hard to maintain was almost out of control.

It took two seconds for him to adjust his mentality and stare into Daniel's eyes: "They know the 'Psychic Steel Seal'? ”

"Yes, but they call it 'shackles' or 'chains of the gods,'" Daniel nodded, "I don't know where they first learned about this phenomenon, but it's clear that the Eternal Sleepers, who specialize in the realm of mortal minds and consciousness, know more about the 'Mental Seal' than the Death of All Things......"

"The study of the Society for the Death of All Things has not stopped at 'meat. Body', the Eternal Sleeper has obviously entered the realm of the mind and even the soul......" Gawain nodded slightly, "So what exactly are they going to do?" How does Project Zero work? ”

Daniel nodded and began to report in detail: "First of all, build a large, independent mental world, they call it a 'sandbox', this sandbox is a more complex and advanced space than the dream city, except for the necessary monitoring measures, it is completely isolated from the outside real world;

"The human mind is imported into this sandbox world, and before entering the sandbox world, it is subjected to complete hypnosis and memory elimination, erasing all memories and concepts about the gods, and the sandbox world itself does not contain any information related to the gods;

"When the sandbox begins to operate in a closed manner, it will form a closed system, which can achieve self-consistency and self-sustainability, because it does not exchange any information with the outside world, and its interior has been thoroughly 'disinfected', so it should be a completely godless world, and the people who 'survive' in the sandbox world will not remember the appearance of the outside world, but will only think that everything in the sandbox is real;

"Finally, through 'time iteration', the passage of time in the sandbox world is accelerated, and it is completely disconnected from the real world outside, so that it can run internally for more than a thousand years, and let its internal mind experience dozens or even hundreds of times of 'reincarnation remodeling'......"

"Time iteration?" Gawain immediately grasped a key word in Daniel's report, "Accelerate the flow of time in the sandbox world?" Does this require a lot of computing power? ”

Daniel nodded with a serious expression: "Yes, very large computing power, and not only huge computing power, but also the human brain that can always stay connected to the network as a 'running substrate', because the sandbox must be completely isolated, not only on the network, but also in the real world, and ordinary sleepers are floating networked, and each node is constantly changing, and this condition is not met......"

The mystery is finally solved, and the question that has plagued Gawain for a long time is answered.

"That's why they need brains!"

The mental network itself does not need a fixed "server", and its entire operation process, according to Gao Wen's understanding, is actually based on "cloud" technology: as long as a certain number of users maintain a connection to the network, as long as a small number of computing tasks are distributed to those users, the entire network can run, not to mention what hardware foundation it needs, that is, some terminals used to connect to the network (most of the eternal sleepers also use the ability of the transcendent to omit this step), as well as debugging, Just the equipment you need to monitor your network.

So, there is no need for the Eternal Sleepers to convert anyone into a "brain servant" to maintain their network.

But their "sandbox" needs.