Chapter 302: A Reunion

Mary looked at her mentor with a nervous expression. As for the sudden remark he had just made—what it truly meant—she didn’t really want to know.

She feared her mentor—no, she was downright terrified of him. If she could choose, she would rather have never shown any magical talent at all, never have been curious enough ten years ago to sneak into this abandoned, ownerless tower that had been deserted for decades, and never have met this man who had just moved here—the man who was now her mentor. He was a second-level official mage, and according to him, “perhaps in his lifetime, he might reach intermediate rank.” But to Mary, being a second-level mage was nothing to be proud of; it was even less enviable than being an ignorant village woman back in her mountain home.

At least a village woman didn’t have to dissect countless animals, didn’t have to breed grotesque mutants, didn’t have to learn how to connect human brains to monsters, and didn’t have to endure the mental strain brought on by her mentor’s deranged state.

Daniel was a mage with serious mental issues. In fact, to the few apprentices left in the tower, he was simply mad. He often slipped into bizarre dreamlike states, and even when awake, his emotions were fractured and unstable. He was irritable, quick to anger, gloomy, and terrifying. He made his apprentices eat rats and venomous snakes, released terrifying magical beasts and summoned creatures into the tower on a whim, then forced his students to fight them. And that was before mentioning the horrific magical experiments he conducted on himself…

Though Daniel occasionally showed moments of gentleness and kindness, his madness far outweighed those brief respites—by at least tenfold. And in that madness, his rare kindness became all the more frightening.

The old mage remained motionless for several seconds before finally moving. Mary, the young apprentice, snapped to attention.

“Mentor…” Mary bowed slightly. “I’m glad you’re alright…”

Daniel stared at Mary for a long moment. Only after noticing the clasp around her neck did he seem to remember she was his student. He muttered some indistinct words, then waved his hand dismissively. “Clean up the lab. You can rest today.”

Mary blinked, feeling a genuine sense of relief. She watched as the old mage slowly turned and headed toward the lab’s exit. His robe bulged oddly at the back, as if artificial nerve cords—snake-like—were twitching spasmodically beneath the fabric.

Gawain didn’t linger long in the “simulation arena.” After confirming that the old mage had been kicked out of the network, he exited the data dive and returned to the surface of the mental network.

Planting informants among the Sleeper cult, searching for pawns to control—this was always part of his plan. Especially after discovering that the Sleepers had fabricated a persona called the “Outsider Wanderer,” his strategy became even more refined. This cult was too strange, and he couldn’t investigate everything personally. Finding such pawns was inevitable. And the fact that this pawn happened to be a Typhon mage was an unexpected bonus.

After learning Daniel’s general situation, Gawain quickly sketched out several provisional plans in his mind. He believed that, if used properly, the old mage could play many unforeseen roles.

He wasn’t worried about increasing his exposure risk. After successfully breaching Daniel’s mental defenses, he had already taken control of the mage’s network permissions and set an “activation switch.” If Daniel ever mentioned anything about “Outsider Wanderers infiltrating the network,” his connection would be immediately severed. Even if that safeguard failed and the information leaked, how could the Sleepers possibly track Gawain down?

Their network was riddled with holes. Gawain had found countless vulnerabilities and backdoors. This primitive, crude network had no real-name system, no restrictions on avatar changes, and its address mapping and feature tracking were a complete mess. Gawain figured that for these cultists to find a single person in the mental network would be harder than finding a spell other than Fireball in Rebecca’s spell list—

Rebecca didn’t even have a spell list.

“Oh, it’s the uncle I met last time!”

A clear, crisp voice suddenly rang out nearby, pulling Gawain back from his wandering thoughts as he walked down the tree-lined path.

He turned toward the voice and saw a little girl with light brown hair running happily toward him, her steps light and bouncy.

The same little girl he had seen last time?

In an instant, Gawain’s mind conjured the typical image of a greasy middle-aged male internet scammer using a voice changer to sound like a loli. His entire being went cold and clear, and when he looked at the “little girl,” his heart remained unmoved. “Patty?”

“Ah, you remember me, uncle!” The girl’s face lit up with joy as she skipped around him. “Uncle, you’re here again?!”

Gawain’s lips twitched. He finally admitted to himself: the true identity behind this little girl probably wasn’t some greasy middle-aged male cultist. After all, the mental network was a fully immersive virtual reality. Even if cultists were five times more perverse than normal people, it was hard to imagine them bouncing around like this. Not even someone as imposing as Solderin could pull that off…

Maybe it was a middle-aged female scammer with a youthful mindset…

“What are you thinking about, uncle?” Patty’s voice came again. “Do you like daydreaming a lot?”

Gawain looked down at the little girl, who was barely up to his waist, and noticed she couldn’t stay still for even a second. He frowned. “Why do you keep jumping around?”

“Because I like it!” Patty said matter-of-factly, then scrunched her nose. “But I can’t do that at home…”

“At home?” Gawain caught a word that piqued his curiosity, but before he could ask, a gentle female voice came from nearby.

“Patty, are you bothering a stranger?”

Gawain looked up to see a woman wearing a veil and a long dress standing not far off, frowning slightly at Patty.

Patty immediately ran over happily. “Ah! Sister Selina!”

Gawain watched as the little girl threw herself into the veiled woman’s arms. The woman expertly subdued her and then looked over at Gawain.

“Sorry, this child has no sense of caution around strangers.”

“Uncle is very nice!” Patty said, tilting her head up.

Selina bent down and patted Patty’s hair. “Then next time, you can talk to uncle again, Patty—you should go rest now.”

The girl’s expression instantly fell. “But I want to play a little longer…”

“You’ve been playing for quite a while,” Selina said gently but firmly, shaking her head. “You can’t be willful, understand?”

Patty hesitated but obediently nodded. “…Okay.”

With that, Gawain watched the little girl’s figure quickly fade into the air, dissolving into particles of light that drifted away on the breeze. She had left the mental network.

Selina straightened and smiled politely at Gawain. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

“No trouble at all,” Gawain shook his head, quickly running through his thoughts.

If the Sleepers weren’t playing some high-level game or putting on a show for him, then judging by Patty and Selina’s interaction and what he had seen last time… could that little girl really be a child?

A child? A Sleeper child able to access the mental network at Ilaven or twelve years old? Even a magical prodigy that young was unlikely.

Or… was she a “family member” brought into the network by other Sleepers?

He had seen other children in this Dream City before, though very few. Were they in the same situation?

Did the Sleepers have technology that allowed non-magical people to access the network?!

This last thought made Gawain’s heart race. If true, the value of the Sleepers’ mental network technology would far exceed his previous estimates.

He kept his thoughts hidden and casually remarked, “It seems rare to see children here.”

“Because the conditions are strict,” Selina smiled faintly. “We can’t expose ourselves.”

The implication was clear: there were screening criteria, and this was a risky experimental project.

Gawain chatted casually for a bit longer but couldn’t extract any valuable information. Realizing that pressing further might raise suspicion, he smoothly changed the subject.

“I saw the notice about the Zero Project recruiting computing power…”

“It’s because the time iteration experiment has a computing power shortage,” Selina nodded. Only mid-to-high-level Sleepers could reach this area, and those who stayed long enough were at least intermediate nightmare bishops. It wasn’t unusual to discuss the Zero Project briefly here. “Adjusting the deepest layers of time flow through mental acceleration is difficult. The longest-running sandbox, number one, only lasted a few hundred years—we need more computing power.”

“Sandbox,” Gawain’s mind stirred at the word.

It wasn’t a common contemporary term but a compound from the ancient Gondor common tongue. Its meaning was simple and direct, so he understood it immediately—but hearing it only deepened his confusion.

He couldn’t ask directly, since Selina’s attitude suggested that Sleepers here were well-informed about the Zero Project’s truths.

And he had already asked too many questions.

Focusing on one person too much could arouse suspicion, so Gawain decisively ended that line of inquiry. He had gathered enough intelligence and vocabulary for now. Next time, he could approach other Sleepers in this area—or try to cultivate the “pawn” he had just found.

After some light conversation, he nodded to Selina. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. I should be going.”

Selina smiled gently. “It was a pleasure talking with you.”

With that, the veiled woman bid him farewell and turned to walk down the other side of the path.

At that moment, Gawain’s gaze suddenly sharpened.

For a brief instant, the woman looked exactly like Selina Gelph from seven hundred years ago.

(End of chapter)