Chapter 184: A Perception Like No Other
At nine in the morning, the shift relief team arrived at the wasteland observation point.
The Third Scout Squad handed over the twenty-four-hour monitoring data, spectrum curves, and thermal imaging footage of the rift completely. They boarded the transport vehicle back to the bastion. The carriage was silent; the cries from the alley last night, the piercing wail of the alarms, and the suspended psychic potential energy from deep within the rift weighed heavily on everyone's hearts.
As the truck entered the main city gate, the heavy gate closed behind them, cutting off the corrosive breath of the wasteland. Old Zhou arranged for the team members to go back and rest first. He patted Lin Yan's arm separately and said, "Scholar Su wants you to go directly to the research institute after handing over your equipment. He wants a private talk with you."
Lin Yan nodded. He first went to the equipment depot to return the camera platform accessories, the recorder, and the sampling containers. After verifying the field records, he turned and walked toward the main building of the research institute.
The monitoring hall was not as bustling as it had been last night. After the disturbance had subsided, most researchers had returned to reviewing and organizing the data. The screens were filled with the timeline of the Alley C-17 incident and the anchor point resonance conduction maps. The pipeline model of that old alley in the East District was enlarged separately; pale thin lines extended from the spiral nodes in the pipe gallery, connecting to the coordinates of the residents.
Scholar Su was not in the hall. He was waiting for Lin Yan in a private quiet room on the side, isolated from psychic fluctuations. The walls were lined with damping lead plates to prevent any internal or external Sea of Consciousness signals from leaking. On the desk lay a thick stack of printed spectrum comparison charts.
"Sit down," Scholar Su said, pushing a cup of warm water over. His face was heavily fatigued, his eyes bloodshot. "Regarding the incident in Alley C-17 last night, we spent the entire night reviewing it. We have made a very critical discovery."
He reached out and tapped the panel on the desk, bringing up the pipeline and anchor point conduction model.
"The spore network is not a series of independent, single points. The spiral nodes and the dormant parasites can form resonance chains," Scholar Su said, his fingertips sliding along the lines of the pipeline. "When an anchor point activates and generates a fluctuation, the signal will travel along the spore link, driving adjacent nodes and nearby sleepers into simultaneous restlessness. It's like a row of dominoes; when you push the first one, the neighboring ones shake along with it. Yesterday, only a grocery store owner lost control, yet it caused the anchor points of three surrounding households to heat up synchronously. The root cause lies here."
Lin Yan looked at the interconnected lines on the model, understanding dawning in his heart.
No wonder it didn't need to issue large-scale commands simultaneously. As long as one point was ignited, the resonance effect would spontaneously spread outward, helping it amplify the chaos. It only needed to gently pluck that initial fuse; the remaining chain of turbulence could be left for the spore network to complete on its own.
"In other words, from now on, even if it's just a single-point loss of control, we must immediately seal off a large area to prevent the resonance from spreading," Lin Yan said in a low voice.
"Exactly. The cost of handling it will multiply," Scholar Su sighed. He turned off the model and changed the subject. "Besides the resonance chain, there is something else I want to tell you privately. This matter is known only to a few core leaders in the entire research institute."
The atmosphere in the quiet room instantly grew heavy.
Scholar Su pulled out a set of spectrum waveforms and placed them side by side on the desk.
On the left were the psychic waves released by priests, Rock-Melting Elders, and high-tier scaled beasts; in the middle were the secondary signals diffused from spores and spiral nodes; on the far right was the gentle, vast main waveform originating from the supreme ruler deep within the rift, recorded during Lin Yan's previous external missions.
"We have repeatedly compared all archived data," Scholar Su said, his gaze fixed on Lin Yan's face, his tone solemn. "Ordinary Sea of Consciousness cultivators, even those at Level 4 or 5 perception, will forever only capture secondary derivative signals like spores, nodes, and priests. They can only see the branches of the network, never the source itself."
Lin Yan's brow tightened slightly: "Me?"
"Yes, you," Scholar Su nodded. "Only you can penetrate the layers of secondary fluctuations and capture that primitive stream of consciousness belonging to the supreme ruler itself, hidden beneath all the signals. It is not the echo of spores, nor the reflection of nodes. It is the entity itself."
He paused, then continued: "We speculate that the root cause is the innate fissure in your Sea of Consciousness. The fissure is a defect, a weakness, a vessel it has always coveted and wanted to capture. But at the same time, this gap serves as an unshielded perception channel. Other people's Seas of Consciousness are sealed containers; the alien race's main signal is instinctively filtered and confused. Yours is different. It can penetrate, and you can distinguish it."
Lin Yan remained silent for a long time. He raised his hand and pressed against his brow as the familiar dull ache slowly surfaced.
He had vaguely sensed this, but he hadn't dared to think too deeply. During every external mission, he was always the first to capture the supreme ruler's movements; in the pipe gallery node, he was also the first to receive that soundless intent. It turned out this wasn't just a difference in sensitivity, but a unique, irreplaceable perception ability belonging solely to him.
"The risk lies here as well," Scholar Su said, his tone grave. "You can see it, and conversely, it can lock onto you through the signal network. This is a two-way channel. When other cultivators explore spore nodes, it's like peering through frosted glass. You are looking directly into its eyes. As long as you release your perception to search for it, it will instantly detect your position."
"What does the research institute intend for me to do?" Lin Yan asked calmly.
"We have no immediate plans to assign you tasks, and we won't force you to take risks," Scholar Su shook his head. "I am simply telling you the truth. Right now, our greatest shortcoming is that we cannot fathom the true state of the supreme ruler's body: What form is it? Is it a single life form or an aggregated consciousness? Stopped in the middle of the rift, is its true body present in the shallow level, or is it merely a projection of consciousness? When will it finally step out of the rift? Relying on instruments or other perception cultivators, these questions will never be answered."
He looked at Lin Yan: "In theory, only you, when close enough, can distinguish the truth and confirm the location and state of its true body."
Lin Yan lowered his head to look at the gentle, unfluctuating spectrum curve on the desk.
There were no frenzied spikes, no tearing impacts like illusion tides, yet it commanded the beast herds outside the city and the tens of thousands of spore anchor points within, pulling the fate of the entire bastion. Hidden behind the curve, it was quiet, indifferent, and patiently laying out its plans.
"If I get close to identify its true body and it seizes the opportunity, will the fissure in my Sea of Consciousness be directly occupied by it?" Lin Yan asked the most core of his concerns.
"The probability is very high," Scholar Su answered honestly without evasion. "It has always judged your fissure to be a suitable vessel. Close contact is equivalent to delivering the most tempting target right in front of it. Once it decides to strike, we have almost no means of rescue. In the enclosed rift channel, the resonance barrier cannot cover it, and reinforcements won't arrive in time."
The quiet room fell silent for a moment.
Lin Yan thought of the couple at the grain and oil shop, the screaming residents in Alley C-17, and the youths in the academy who cultivated their Seas of Consciousness day after day, wanting to defend the bastion. The blockade array outside the city, the screening teams within the city—everyone was passively responding to its methods, always one step behind. Because no one could see the source clearly.
"This is a trump card," Lin Yan said slowly. "It must not be used unless absolutely necessary."
"I think so too," Scholar Su sighed in relief. "I'm telling you today because I want you to be aware. Going forward, during external missions, you will continue to follow the original rules for long-distance warning and will not actively approach. But if one day the situation reaches a desperate point—the beast tide pressing down comprehensively, the city's spore network experiencing large-scale resonance loss of control, and no one able to determine its true movements—then perhaps only you will be able to see the final state of affairs."
It was a double-edged sword.
The fissure gave him a warning ability that others lacked, but it also gave the abyssal supreme ruler a clear target. He was the only pair of eyes in the entire bastion capable of staring directly at the source of the darkness, yet these very eyes were the vessel the darkness had always wanted to claim.
Scholar Su put away the charts and handed him another high-concentration origin nourishing agent: "Take this and go back to rest. You don't need to return to the squad today; take the time to properly regulate your Sea of Consciousness. For future external missions, we will further restrict your close-range permissions. Without the highest permission from the command center, you will not be assigned to approach the main rift channel."
Lin Yan took the agent, stood up, and took his leave.
Walking out of the main building of the research institute, sunlight spilled onto the street. Pedestrians walked at their usual pace, vendors called out their wares, and children chased each other on the roadside. The vast majority of people didn't know that a chess player lurked deep underground, nor did they know that there was a person, born with a fissure, who was the only one capable of seeing the chess player himself.
He slowly walked along the street toward his dorm. As he passed the direction of the academy, he saw the youths on the training field practicing the methods of stabilizing their Seas of Consciousness in pairs. They were learning how to resist spores and illusion tides, striving not to become vessels for the alien race.
Lin Yan gently pressed against his brow.
Others desperately tried to patch the cracks in their Seas of Consciousness, while his crack was innate. It was both a disaster and the last observation window for the entire bastion.
Deep within the rift, that ancient consciousness still stopped in the middle of the channel, its potential energy suspended high. Countless anchor points within the city lay dormant among the crowds, and the resonance chains had already formed.
The game continued, and hidden upon him was the one and only chip in this game.
End of Chapter.
The Third Scout Squad handed over the twenty-four-hour monitoring data, spectrum curves, and thermal imaging footage of the rift completely. They boarded the transport vehicle back to the bastion. The carriage was silent; the cries from the alley last night, the piercing wail of the alarms, and the suspended psychic potential energy from deep within the rift weighed heavily on everyone's hearts.
As the truck entered the main city gate, the heavy gate closed behind them, cutting off the corrosive breath of the wasteland. Old Zhou arranged for the team members to go back and rest first. He patted Lin Yan's arm separately and said, "Scholar Su wants you to go directly to the research institute after handing over your equipment. He wants a private talk with you."
Lin Yan nodded. He first went to the equipment depot to return the camera platform accessories, the recorder, and the sampling containers. After verifying the field records, he turned and walked toward the main building of the research institute.
The monitoring hall was not as bustling as it had been last night. After the disturbance had subsided, most researchers had returned to reviewing and organizing the data. The screens were filled with the timeline of the Alley C-17 incident and the anchor point resonance conduction maps. The pipeline model of that old alley in the East District was enlarged separately; pale thin lines extended from the spiral nodes in the pipe gallery, connecting to the coordinates of the residents.
Scholar Su was not in the hall. He was waiting for Lin Yan in a private quiet room on the side, isolated from psychic fluctuations. The walls were lined with damping lead plates to prevent any internal or external Sea of Consciousness signals from leaking. On the desk lay a thick stack of printed spectrum comparison charts.
"Sit down," Scholar Su said, pushing a cup of warm water over. His face was heavily fatigued, his eyes bloodshot. "Regarding the incident in Alley C-17 last night, we spent the entire night reviewing it. We have made a very critical discovery."
He reached out and tapped the panel on the desk, bringing up the pipeline and anchor point conduction model.
"The spore network is not a series of independent, single points. The spiral nodes and the dormant parasites can form resonance chains," Scholar Su said, his fingertips sliding along the lines of the pipeline. "When an anchor point activates and generates a fluctuation, the signal will travel along the spore link, driving adjacent nodes and nearby sleepers into simultaneous restlessness. It's like a row of dominoes; when you push the first one, the neighboring ones shake along with it. Yesterday, only a grocery store owner lost control, yet it caused the anchor points of three surrounding households to heat up synchronously. The root cause lies here."
Lin Yan looked at the interconnected lines on the model, understanding dawning in his heart.
No wonder it didn't need to issue large-scale commands simultaneously. As long as one point was ignited, the resonance effect would spontaneously spread outward, helping it amplify the chaos. It only needed to gently pluck that initial fuse; the remaining chain of turbulence could be left for the spore network to complete on its own.
"In other words, from now on, even if it's just a single-point loss of control, we must immediately seal off a large area to prevent the resonance from spreading," Lin Yan said in a low voice.
"Exactly. The cost of handling it will multiply," Scholar Su sighed. He turned off the model and changed the subject. "Besides the resonance chain, there is something else I want to tell you privately. This matter is known only to a few core leaders in the entire research institute."
The atmosphere in the quiet room instantly grew heavy.
Scholar Su pulled out a set of spectrum waveforms and placed them side by side on the desk.
On the left were the psychic waves released by priests, Rock-Melting Elders, and high-tier scaled beasts; in the middle were the secondary signals diffused from spores and spiral nodes; on the far right was the gentle, vast main waveform originating from the supreme ruler deep within the rift, recorded during Lin Yan's previous external missions.
"We have repeatedly compared all archived data," Scholar Su said, his gaze fixed on Lin Yan's face, his tone solemn. "Ordinary Sea of Consciousness cultivators, even those at Level 4 or 5 perception, will forever only capture secondary derivative signals like spores, nodes, and priests. They can only see the branches of the network, never the source itself."
Lin Yan's brow tightened slightly: "Me?"
"Yes, you," Scholar Su nodded. "Only you can penetrate the layers of secondary fluctuations and capture that primitive stream of consciousness belonging to the supreme ruler itself, hidden beneath all the signals. It is not the echo of spores, nor the reflection of nodes. It is the entity itself."
He paused, then continued: "We speculate that the root cause is the innate fissure in your Sea of Consciousness. The fissure is a defect, a weakness, a vessel it has always coveted and wanted to capture. But at the same time, this gap serves as an unshielded perception channel. Other people's Seas of Consciousness are sealed containers; the alien race's main signal is instinctively filtered and confused. Yours is different. It can penetrate, and you can distinguish it."
Lin Yan remained silent for a long time. He raised his hand and pressed against his brow as the familiar dull ache slowly surfaced.
He had vaguely sensed this, but he hadn't dared to think too deeply. During every external mission, he was always the first to capture the supreme ruler's movements; in the pipe gallery node, he was also the first to receive that soundless intent. It turned out this wasn't just a difference in sensitivity, but a unique, irreplaceable perception ability belonging solely to him.
"The risk lies here as well," Scholar Su said, his tone grave. "You can see it, and conversely, it can lock onto you through the signal network. This is a two-way channel. When other cultivators explore spore nodes, it's like peering through frosted glass. You are looking directly into its eyes. As long as you release your perception to search for it, it will instantly detect your position."
"What does the research institute intend for me to do?" Lin Yan asked calmly.
"We have no immediate plans to assign you tasks, and we won't force you to take risks," Scholar Su shook his head. "I am simply telling you the truth. Right now, our greatest shortcoming is that we cannot fathom the true state of the supreme ruler's body: What form is it? Is it a single life form or an aggregated consciousness? Stopped in the middle of the rift, is its true body present in the shallow level, or is it merely a projection of consciousness? When will it finally step out of the rift? Relying on instruments or other perception cultivators, these questions will never be answered."
He looked at Lin Yan: "In theory, only you, when close enough, can distinguish the truth and confirm the location and state of its true body."
Lin Yan lowered his head to look at the gentle, unfluctuating spectrum curve on the desk.
There were no frenzied spikes, no tearing impacts like illusion tides, yet it commanded the beast herds outside the city and the tens of thousands of spore anchor points within, pulling the fate of the entire bastion. Hidden behind the curve, it was quiet, indifferent, and patiently laying out its plans.
"If I get close to identify its true body and it seizes the opportunity, will the fissure in my Sea of Consciousness be directly occupied by it?" Lin Yan asked the most core of his concerns.
"The probability is very high," Scholar Su answered honestly without evasion. "It has always judged your fissure to be a suitable vessel. Close contact is equivalent to delivering the most tempting target right in front of it. Once it decides to strike, we have almost no means of rescue. In the enclosed rift channel, the resonance barrier cannot cover it, and reinforcements won't arrive in time."
The quiet room fell silent for a moment.
Lin Yan thought of the couple at the grain and oil shop, the screaming residents in Alley C-17, and the youths in the academy who cultivated their Seas of Consciousness day after day, wanting to defend the bastion. The blockade array outside the city, the screening teams within the city—everyone was passively responding to its methods, always one step behind. Because no one could see the source clearly.
"This is a trump card," Lin Yan said slowly. "It must not be used unless absolutely necessary."
"I think so too," Scholar Su sighed in relief. "I'm telling you today because I want you to be aware. Going forward, during external missions, you will continue to follow the original rules for long-distance warning and will not actively approach. But if one day the situation reaches a desperate point—the beast tide pressing down comprehensively, the city's spore network experiencing large-scale resonance loss of control, and no one able to determine its true movements—then perhaps only you will be able to see the final state of affairs."
It was a double-edged sword.
The fissure gave him a warning ability that others lacked, but it also gave the abyssal supreme ruler a clear target. He was the only pair of eyes in the entire bastion capable of staring directly at the source of the darkness, yet these very eyes were the vessel the darkness had always wanted to claim.
Scholar Su put away the charts and handed him another high-concentration origin nourishing agent: "Take this and go back to rest. You don't need to return to the squad today; take the time to properly regulate your Sea of Consciousness. For future external missions, we will further restrict your close-range permissions. Without the highest permission from the command center, you will not be assigned to approach the main rift channel."
Lin Yan took the agent, stood up, and took his leave.
Walking out of the main building of the research institute, sunlight spilled onto the street. Pedestrians walked at their usual pace, vendors called out their wares, and children chased each other on the roadside. The vast majority of people didn't know that a chess player lurked deep underground, nor did they know that there was a person, born with a fissure, who was the only one capable of seeing the chess player himself.
He slowly walked along the street toward his dorm. As he passed the direction of the academy, he saw the youths on the training field practicing the methods of stabilizing their Seas of Consciousness in pairs. They were learning how to resist spores and illusion tides, striving not to become vessels for the alien race.
Lin Yan gently pressed against his brow.
Others desperately tried to patch the cracks in their Seas of Consciousness, while his crack was innate. It was both a disaster and the last observation window for the entire bastion.
Deep within the rift, that ancient consciousness still stopped in the middle of the channel, its potential energy suspended high. Countless anchor points within the city lay dormant among the crowds, and the resonance chains had already formed.
The game continued, and hidden upon him was the one and only chip in this game.
End of Chapter.