Chapter 290: Invasion of the Mind Network

Amber was utterly baffled by Gawain’s sudden request. She blinked at the lord who had just announced he was going to sleep, her face full of worry as if he might drop dead on the spot. “Are you sure you’re just going to sleep for a bit?”

“What’s with that look?”

“I just have this feeling you’re about to enter your eternal rest…”

“What?!”

“Really. I’ve heard plenty of bards’ tales about legendary heroes. Usually, when those heroes suddenly tell their companions, ‘I’m going to rest now, stay by my side,’ it means they’re about to die. There’s never been an exception. Do you want me to call Rebecca and Hetty? You can tell them what’s up, and I’ll start digging a grave…”

“Can you think something nicer of me for once? I’m just going to sleep for a bit!” Gawain was fully focused on locking onto his own mental frequency, so he hadn’t really processed Amber’s words until now. Suddenly, his veins bulged as he snapped, “Don’t ask why. The point is, I need to enter… well, call it a meditative state. I can’t be disturbed during this time. You stay by my side and keep watch. If anyone comes with reports or messages, just take them for me. You’re always around anyway, so you know how to organize and archive all the data.”

Amber thought it over and realized she could probably handle that. She nodded, still curious why a knight like Gawain suddenly needed to “meditate,” but seeing how serious he was, the half-elf immediately dropped any mischievous thoughts and agreed to cooperate.

Without wasting time, Gawain settled into a comfortable position on the large chair in the study. There was no bed, but he wasn’t really going to sleep. Instead, he prepared to dive into the mind network of the Sleeper. Before connecting, he glanced at Amber one last time. “If anything urgent happens, smack me hard or drag me into the Shadow Realm with your shadow powers.”

“Got it, got it. Don’t worry.”

With that final instruction, Gawain fully relaxed his mind and actively merged his consciousness into that unique mental frequency.

After a familiar wave of dizziness, his mental vision pierced through the hazy darkness, revealing a radiant, magnificent, and incredible world—the “Imaginary World” he had seen before: the Sleeper’s eternal dreamscape.

Just like the first time he connected, no one was visible at first. The broad, grand streets were empty, the whole place felt like a ghost town. Gawain knew this was some kind of “loading” process, so he quickly changed his appearance while no one was looking, then confidently strolled down the dream city’s streets.

After a moment, figures began to appear, bustling to and fro, the city coming alive.

Following the route he remembered, Gawain headed toward the city center. But after only a few steps, he sensed a faint voice echoing in his mind—one he couldn’t ignore. He ducked into a quiet corner and focused, trying to catch what it was saying.

Thanks to the knowledge he had absorbed, he quickly pinpointed the source. As his mental power concentrated, a strange message flashed in his mind:

“Calling all mid- and high-level nodes: Project Zero recruiting computing power. Connect immediately upon receipt.”

Gawain frowned.

This was a broadcast message—and it had reached him?

Could the mental disturbance he felt before connecting be because of this message?

What was Project Zero?

He suspected he had stumbled upon another big secret of the Sleepers. But with limited information, he decided to proceed cautiously. First, he needed to figure out what this “Project Zero” was.

After confirming the voice was just a mass broadcast, Gawain left his hiding spot and made his way confidently to the city center.

Along the way, he observed the city’s current state, comparing it to his last visit.

As he expected, the city had changed.

Though the overall layout remained the same, the Sleepers had clearly been refining their dream world. Last time, many large buildings were hollow inside, like unfinished game models, but now many of those voids had been filled, and previously odd or unrealistic architectural details had been fixed.

This dream city was constantly being improved… Aside from their nefarious deeds, these cultists were surprisingly diligent.

Gawain easily passed through the invisible barrier that monitored access permissions in the city center. In the plaza, he saw the many “node crystals” and the Sleeper avatars connecting to them.

Moving openly in a city full of cultists felt strange. Even though Gawain had once dominated countless game worlds in his past life, this fully immersive virtual reality was on another level. But it didn’t matter—he was wearing Charlie’s face. And along the way, he’d seen a dozen Charlies. Knowing everyone was just wearing masks made him feel much more at ease.

With the comforting thought that if anything went wrong, he could always blame Charlie, Gawain calmly found a less crowded node crystal and gently placed his hand on its surface.

Data streams flooded his mind the next second, along with the knowledge needed to manipulate them.

These cultists hadn’t improved much in this area… Despite their advanced virtual reality, their database management, permission authentication, and security were still a mess. Didn’t they have any experts to guide them?

Gawain chuckled inwardly as he began searching for key information on “Project Zero.”

Soon, he got a response—but it only deepened his frown:

“Project Zero, Affiliation: Initial Planning Group, Classified Project, Access restricted to Bishops and above.”

In this chaotic mind network with almost no security, only a few things were carefully organized and encrypted. Gawain hadn’t expected this randomly discovered “Project Zero” to have such a high confidentiality level.

Only bishops and above could access it… Did the permissions he’d absorbed reach that level?

He hesitated, then decided to try anyway, thinking, “Worst case, I get banned. But those cultists can’t just hack me through Wi-Fi.”

His gamble paid off. After issuing a command to read further, some materials on Project Zero quickly filled his mind. But what he saw only left him more confused:

Memory Segmentation Project (Incomplete);

Full Immersion Consciousness Project (Complete);

Time Iteration (Incomplete);

Perception Bias Calibration (Incomplete);

Guardian Plan (Proposal);

Dream Loop and Open Loop (Under Bishop Council discussion, no new meetings)…

It looked like just a directory. The list suggested many possibilities, but there was no valuable content to analyze. Naturally, Gawain wasn’t satisfied. When he tried to delve deeper, a special notice appeared:

Project Zero runs in isolation; no information available in the surface consciousness network.

Puzzled, Gawain tried various keywords and related searches, finally confirming he couldn’t access the full contents of Project Zero here. Although the Sleepers lacked mature encryption concepts, they still protected some critical secrets quite well. Without understanding their encryption rules, he dared not attempt to crack it.

He also began to realize something: this dream world he was seeing wasn’t the entirety of the Sleepers’ “eternal dream.” If he was right, this whole space—including the dream city—was just the “surface consciousness network.”

Gawain couldn’t help but feel a bit awed: this mind network was crude and full of holes in many places, yet overall it was advanced and complex. It used a rather simple and blunt method to create an incredible virtual reality world… Was this the hallmark of magic-world technology?

Putting aside his curiosity about Project Zero, Gawain started browsing various materials in the mind network. Gradually, he confirmed one thing:

This mind network wasn’t newly launched. Judging from accessible logs, the Sleepers had restarted this virtual world just days after shutting it down last time. In theory, he could have connected to it long ago.

But since he wasn’t a true, full-fledged Sleeper, he had no idea the network had been restarted—until today, when a mass broadcast to all mid- and high-level nodes pulled him back in.

Unable to figure out Project Zero for now, Gawain decided to ignore the “computing power recruitment” message to avoid accidentally walking into danger. After all, it was just a voluntary call; ignoring it shouldn’t cause problems.

With Amber watching over him in the real world, he didn’t have to worry about anything happening there. Taking advantage of this connection, Gawain planned to dig up as much useful information as possible from the Sleeper mind network.

But before any “useful” info appeared, an interesting piece of intelligence popped into his mind first:

“Known information and temporary response plan regarding the ‘Extradimensional Wanderer’ (temporary codename: Gawain Cecil).”

Gawain stared blankly. “What’s this?”

This message was pinned at the lowest reading permission level in the mind network, meaning any Sleeper cultist could read it after connecting. Clearly, it was meant for the entire cult. Unable to resist his curiosity, Gawain expanded it immediately, and a line of bold text appeared in his mind:

“First and foremost, all church brethren are warned—under no circumstances should you make contact with the Extradimensional Wanderer. The danger he poses far exceeds that of the ruins of Gondor!”

Only then did the main text begin.

The more Gawain read, the more confused he became. His only thought was: Last time I just showed them a mixed highlight reel, and they’ve already spun it into this?

Emmm… Do programmers really have this much inner drama?

(End of chapter)