Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 228 - 227: Stirring Up Trouble

Memory fragments dissipated from Gawain Cecil? And it’s the eighteenth decryption attempt? Moreover, requisitioning more computational power?

This sudden piece of information immediately caught Gawain’s attention. With a thought, he quickly halted the stream of refreshed data in his mind, firmly grasping this message.

Clearly, the Eternal Sleepers have been rather crude and rudimentary in their data security management. From Gawain’s perspective, the unencrypted data and network structures lacking alert mechanisms were practically unguarded. Even though he was quite unfamiliar with this mind network, he could depend on absorbed knowledge and some random operations to quickly understand how to manipulate the network data and track the flow of information.

Of course, this cannot be entirely attributed to the weak security awareness of the Eternal Sleepers—after careful analysis, Gawain realized their mind network actually possessed significant security measures. Firstly, the prerequisite for accessing this network was becoming an Eternal Sleeper. Only by shaping one’s mind with specific "Fallen Divine Arts" and obtaining "registration authentication" from the Eternal Sleepers’ mind network can one qualify to engage with this network. Secondly, the network itself provided simple identity authentication and permission management, where a "Eternal Sleepers’ Account" was required for network access, and connected individuals needed corresponding permissions to operate in various areas of this virtual world—the barrier around the city center was the embodiment of this permission system.

Considering the inherent non-replicability of human minds under normal circumstances, such "account management" was actually quite reliable.

However, this network had a critical flaw: as long as an individual met the criteria for network access and corresponding permissions, all their actions within this network were uncontrolled. Even if someone behaved suspiciously like Gawain, haphazardly searching for data, manipulating nodes with incorrect operations, the network would not issue any alerts.

In summary, while the network was impregnable against external attacks, it was utterly defenseless against internal threats.

The creators of this network, the Eternal Sleepers, probably never anticipated a unique case like Gawain—a "satellite spirit" capable of devouring others’ minds, even disguising mind permissions...

Feigning deep contemplation, Gawain slightly closed his eyes, while in reality attempting to search through the network based on the information he obtained—endeavoring to extract as much useful information as possible from the Eternal Sleepers’ mind network before the connection ended.

This network indeed possessed an enormous and unbelievable breach, but Gawain believed the aliens were far from foolish—the Eternal Sleepers definitely were not foolish. The network’s flaw was merely because it was still an unfinished product; the Eternal Sleepers were bound to recognize this breach eventually.

Who knows how rapidly these cultists, usually idly pondering random dreams, would patch the bugs when they do...

After several attempts, Gawain finally mastered the technique for extracting information from the mind network. He searched using "memory fragments of Gawain Cecil" as a characteristic and surprisingly discovered quite a bit of corresponding information:

The Eternal Sleepers had already attempted seventeen decryptions of "memory fragments of Gawain Cecil", and without exception, each had failed—the most disastrous failure being the first attempt, where they organized over a hundred powerful sect members to form a calculation array, attempting to forcibly decrypt the memories, resulting in total annihilation.

Since then, they wised up somewhat, no longer opting for brute-force decryptions, and instead attempted to slice and vaguely understand the memory fragments—so far, over three hundred elites had perished intermittently through this approach.

The source of these memory fragments was unexpectedly right on the mark: they originated from the time when Gawain devoured that Eternal Sleepers cultist, during which the latter "secretly uploaded" them through his mind connection.

Before being devoured, that cultist remarkably exerted all his efforts to replicate some of the memories he saw and sent them to his comrades—a truly unexpected move for Gawain.

Perhaps that guy aimed to warn his companions about the truth of "Gawain Cecil", or simply intended to send back some valuable intelligence, or maybe he had descended into utter chaos and madness, rendering his actions uncontrollable, but regardless, the memory fragments he transmitted had become the Eternal Sleepers’ "significant trophies", with these cultists apparently set on unearthing something from within these memory fragments...

Gawain carefully reviewed the records circulating on the network, documenting how the Eternal Sleepers cultists analyzed and attempted to decrypt those memory fragments. Due to the nearly unguarded information structure of the network, he could virtually access all the intelligence housed in the database.

After tracing and pinpointing, he even discovered the location where those memory fragments were stored.

Upon confirming he hadn’t attracted any attention on the network, he cautiously accessed the data.

Indeed, it was the observational records of himself overlooking the earth from space... The data wasn’t extensive, amounting to around seventy to eighty thousand years of high-definition video footage.

Though it was his own memory, Gawain couldn’t resist yawning upon viewing those video materials. Truth be told, these almost unchanging images were rather dull, and one can’t help but sympathize with those cultists—after expending overwhelming manpower and resources, even if they successfully decoded this colossal memory, all they would do was stare blankly at the meaningless surveillance; and Gawain was nearly certain, they would not dare fast-forward...

Afraid that fast-forwarding might cause them to miss the entire world, that’s essentially the mindset—it’s imaginable, imaginable indeed.

Gawain pondered deeply and decided, as a benevolent individual, to add some less dull material to these uninteresting memory fragments...

After an unknown amount of time, Gawain finally completed his modification of those memory fragments. Since they were his own memories, he manipulated them with ease, but to prevent detectable traces, he spent considerable time refining the "features" of the memory fragments and erasing signs of his alterations. Although he doubted the Eternal Sleepers with their current limited concept of information security would even think of such measures, precaution is better than cure—what if one of those Eternal Sleepers turns out to have obsessive compulsive disorder?

After completing the task, Gawain still felt full of energy. He thought about it and didn’t break the connection immediately. Instead, he continued searching within this vast mind network, trying to find more secrets of the Eternal Sleepers—especially technical data about the principles of this mind network.

The methods the Eternal Sleepers used to build the human-brain array calculator were indeed insane, but that didn’t mean all their technology followed this pattern, or at least there should exist some milder, less inhuman alternative technologies. Whether these technologies could be mastered by outsiders or not, taking advantage of the opportunity to steal some would definitely be profitable without loss.

But just when Gawain began searching for this information, a strange noise suddenly came from high above.

He looked up in astonishment and saw the once clear and bright sky had cracked open with a massive rift. The ugly fissure rapidly spread in all directions like a scar tearing through the world, while the magnificent world constructed by the mind network shattered quickly as the rift spread. Distant city towers collapsed and broke apart, and floating islands and palaces in the sky fell to the ground like an apocalypse!

Gawain’s first reaction was that his reckless behavior on the network had been exposed, or that one of his random actions had broken this still-incomplete mind network. But soon a voice echoed in his mind, making him understand what was happening:

"The stars have shifted, the God has not yet returned, the eternal dream-realm is temporarily closed, everyone return to the Grade 2 Consciousness Network."

The "residents" in the city looked at each other in astonishment, disappointment and anger spreading throughout the city. But these evil cult followers did not hesitate with the command. In Gawain’s view, one by one, their figures began to fade: these Eternal Sleepers logged out of the network one by one.

Gawain chuckled, thinking of the "little gifts" he left in this network, and he cut the mental connection, satisfied.

After an indescribable but extremely brief disorientation, the virtual world formed by the Illusionary Realm dissipated, and the familiar terrace and starry sky appeared in the gradually refocusing vision.

In his view was Amber constantly bouncing around, sticking her face over to spook him.

"Oh my gosh!!" Gawain, still mentally disoriented, was startled by Amber bouncing around in front of him. He almost instinctively reached out to grab Amber’s ear but ended up grabbing nothing—the disoriented attempt missed, and it seemed the half-elf’s skill in dodging magic claws had improved again.

"What are you doing!" Gawain glared at the half-elf in front of him. Although he didn’t catch her, it was clear he still managed to startle her with his aura, "Jumping around to scare people?"

"I saw you standing here with your eyes closed in a daze and thought something happened to you!" Amber shouted loudly in a feigned strong tone with hands on her hips, "I was just showing some concern for you, and you’re not satisfied, huh?"

"Really?"

"Of course it’s true," Amber rolled her eyes discontentedly, "And what were you doing just now? Did you fall asleep standing up? I shouted in your ear for quite a while, and you didn’t respond!"

"You even tried to wake me up?" Gawain immediately frowned, "I didn’t hear you at all. Hmm, it seems next time I’ll need to find a way to spare some attention to the disturbances in the real world, or else there’ll be hidden dangers..."

"What are you talking about?" Amber blinked her eyes, "Did you really fall into a muddled sleep?"

"Don’t worry, I’m fine," Gawain could see that at least half of the half-elf was genuinely concerned about him, so he smiled and waved, "By the way, what did you come to find me for?"

Amber immediately showed a happy expression, casually pulling out a deck of cards: "Come play cards, come play cards! I finally managed to persuade Tiel to play cards, and now you’re the only one missing!"

Gawain couldn’t help but twitch at the corner of his mouth: "Tiel..."

The disgrace of the elf can communicate with that brain-damaged sea demon? Doesn’t this reduce sanity?!

Or is it that since both are disgraces to their races, they cancel each other out...

"Come play cards, come play cards~~"

Amber excitedly bounced around, while Gawain felt an unprecedented headache—he suddenly felt that dealing with those Eternal Sleepers was somewhat easier...