Chapter 291: The Theft

“Extradimensional Wanderers”—beings of unknown nature, unknown purpose, and unknown life form—are an extremely mysterious and enigmatic species. It is speculated that they possess unique abilities such as traversing between worlds, resurrection, and inhabiting other bodies, but none of this has been definitively confirmed.

From the intelligence gathered so far, there are multiple Wanderers, but only one individual enters a given reality at any one time.

Their motives and behavioral patterns are difficult to comprehend. Sometimes they save worlds; other times, they do the exact opposite. Yet in nearly every case, they exhibit immense power and growth potential—they are almost destined to influence the trajectory of a world’s development, even to the point of completely altering its course. But why they do this remains a mystery.

Their mental structure is unknown. We cannot say whether they experience emotions like humans—joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness—or if they feel any emotional fluctuations while traversing worlds, saving or destroying them. However, existing intelligence suggests they at least have the ability to simulate these emotional responses perfectly, allowing them to blend seamlessly into human society.

Given their abilities and their capacity to hide within human bodies, it is virtually impossible for anyone to see through a Wanderer’s disguise by mere observation or psychological analysis…

We have now confirmed that Duke Gawain Cecil, who recently returned from the dead, is one such “Extradimensional Wanderer” inhabiting a human shell. Due to the unique nature of these beings, all contact with him is currently forbidden without authorization. However, he must be monitored closely over an extended period…

It is recommended that members of the Church take the following precautions when unavoidable contact with the target occurs, to ensure their own safety…

Gawain felt he had rarely been this bewildered since crossing over—his last time being when he crawled out of a coffin, with his great-great-granddaughter standing nearby, having just struck him with a stick.

“What kind of nonsense is this…” Gawain muttered, staring at the intelligence publicly posted on the psychic network. After a long moment of mental processing, he finally managed to connect it with the chaotic montage videos he had left for the cultists last time. “Is this just a case of different worldviews leading to wild speculation…?”

But after the initial shock, he had to admit that this explanation made the most sense.

In this world, he was the only one who had been brainwashed by an information explosion. A traveler from Earth seeing such bizarre phenomena would think of Hollywood, stage plays, or prank shows. But what would a normal local person think when confronted with such things?

Of course, they would interpret it through their own worldview—especially since the Sleepless are a cult. Is there any creature better at fooling themselves with wild speculation than cultists?

Well, maybe the newly formed Twenty-Five Production and Construction Brigade is an exception…

“Maybe that’s for the best… the outcome is actually better than initially expected,” Gawain said with a wry smile as he closed that section of information, feeling somewhat reassured. “At least for now, I don’t have to worry about the Sleepless.”

He then relaxed his mind and began a broader search through the psychic network.

Unlike his previous entry into this world, this time the Sleepless had clearly prepared thoroughly before activating the dream world. It was no longer a “trial run” but a much more complete system. Even a brief scan of the network’s surface layer revealed this.

The psychic network buzzed with massive amounts of information, exchanging data at an astonishing scale in places invisible to the naked eye. Many unencrypted processes were running calculations and evolving within the network. New nodes joined constantly, while others were removed or left.

If the dream world he saw last time was just an internal “test server” running a handful of experimental codes, this network had now entered full operational status—the Sleepless were using it to handle real instances.

Of course, this “magical network” based on mental magic was completely different from the World Wide Web Gawain knew. The data flowing through it was new in both structure and principle. But regardless, the fact remained: the network was now fully functional.

However, Gawain couldn’t glean much from the massive data exchanges. Despite having access and the data being unencrypted, the sheer volume and chaos acted as a form of encryption. Just as humans can’t interpret a computer’s bitmap from a sea of zeros and ones, Gawain couldn’t tell what these vast calculations were actually doing—probably only the initiators of the computations could “see” the results.

That was fine. Gawain never intended to uncover all the Sleepless’ secrets this way. He was simply looking for data access points and trying to understand the patterns of these exchanges.

Maybe… he could cause some trouble?

After some preparation, he shifted himself from the network’s surface layer down into the data exchange layer, fully immersing himself.

His senses were turned upside down in an instant, then reassembled moments later. When the scene stabilized, he found himself standing on a flat, expansive surface of water, endlessly vast and gently rippling. Above was a bright, deep blue sky with no visible stars or celestial bodies.

Looking down, he saw the water beneath his feet was like transparent glass. Below the surface churned a chaotic world, countless tiny entities swirling, recombining, dying, and regenerating—a ceaseless storm that could shred any intruder to pieces.

“…So this is the underlying data environment of the psychic network… quite a mess,” Gawain muttered, frowning as he looked up at the endless water.

What he saw wasn’t a real scene—nothing in this mental world was truly real—but a “virtual environment” constructed in his mind using the knowledge he had absorbed. It was similar to the imaginary space the Sleepless cultist had pulled him into before, though this was still a blank slate, freshly created by Gawain.

As he explored the psychic network, Gawain had made some progress. He roughly understood how to use the “data interfaces” here and began experimenting with them—not just as a browser for information, but as tools to manipulate the system.

One thing was clear:

The network’s computing resource allocation system had vulnerabilities.

It seemed the Sleepless never considered the possibility of someone stealing their computing power. Their allocation system had almost no security measures—only a broad permission division that didn’t limit how much computing power each node could “borrow”…

Was this an oversight in design? Or did the Sleepless believe their network’s computing power was infinite, so no restrictions were necessary?

Gawain didn’t know, but he understood—this was a newly born system, after all. Like the earliest computers on Earth, it was inevitably crude and full of flaws. Yet even in its simplicity and imperfection, no one could deny the greatness of these early creations.

Step by step, Gawain refined his virtual space, linking it to the psychic network’s data ports. The knowledge he used came from the Sleepless cultist he had devoured, but the mindset behind it was that of an Earth traveler.

This meant he could not only use the Sleepless’ technology to build an extra “space” in the cracks of the Eternal Dream, but also encrypt it so the cultists would never detect it.

Sitting on the smooth “water” surface, Gawain recalled the knowledge he had absorbed and began implementing it. Around him, the vast sky and water subtly shifted.

Clouds formed in the empty sky, then transformed into stars. Rain fell from the horizon, turning into gentle breezes before touching the water. The water surface itself changed—rippling, revealing land, freezing into solid ice…

But these were only surface changes. The real transformations were invisible—Gawain was setting up encryption between this space and the psychic network to ensure the stolen resources remained hidden from the cultists.

“Distribute data flow across the entire psychic network, allocate resources in real time based on active nodes…

“Spread computing load and storage usage evenly across all nodes…

“Generate constantly refreshed digital keys, encrypt and disguise all exchanged data…

“Map false addresses, connect using different node signatures each time…

“Set up multiple relay jumps—connections to the network go through several stepping stones, which are the node crystals in the Dream City—essentially open data interfaces…

“Prepare several fake signature codes as decoys at the data boundary—if discovered, throw them out as bait.

“This should fool those cultists and their entire lineage…”

Gawain mentally designed all possible encryption schemes and applied them bit by bit to his new space. He couldn’t help but feel grateful for the convenience of magic—especially the “dream magic” the Sleepless had developed from primal dream rituals. It allowed him to build what he wanted at incredible speed, without laboriously typing code on some input device.

Of course, his efficiency wasn’t just due to magic. The psychic network itself was incredibly user-friendly—mental connections made “human-computer interaction” astonishingly fast. As long as the network and his mind could keep up, whatever he imagined was realized immediately.

Gradually, this encrypted space, hidden deep within the Sleepless’ psychic network and belonging solely to Gawain, took shape.

(End of chapter)