pjbooks Chapter 493 Qualification!
Chapter 493 Qualification!
Her gaze shifted, pausing for a moment before she became wary of what had been pointed at her.
"explain."
She spoke, her tone unchanged.
Zhang Yan noted this detail down.
This person's questioning was never directed at her personally; she was waiting for a solution.
He sat back down in his chair.
"A community is a collective consciousness; it has no single physical body, and no heart that can be physically destroyed."
"If you attack from the outside and kill one, its consciousness will disperse and be absorbed by the other individuals, and the total number of the mother body will increase instead of decrease."
This is known.
An elder from the Breaking the Mold faction chimed in.
"That's why we say we should use the full power of the Heavenly Craftsmanship Heart to cleanse through the consciousness level, without resorting to physical attacks."
"It cannot be removed."
Zhang Yan interrupted him.
The council chamber was silent for three seconds.
The stargazer pushed a data file over, which opened and hovered in the air.
Those were the system's real-time logs during the reverse invasion of the colony, including timestamps, energy consumption, reaction data from the colony's outer defenses, and the last sealed passage.
"Forty-seven days ago, I found an unclosed channel of consciousness, and the flow back from the channel that invaded me was reversed."
"A virus carrying human will was compiled and injected into the outer defense of the community."
Zhang Yan said.
"What was the result?"
Mo Yuan leaned forward slightly.
"The pressure on the Six Paths of the World dropped by 40% after that, and lasted for about eight days."
Zhang Yan answered.
"and then?"
Mo Ling asked.
"Then it adapted."
Zhang Yan's tone remained unchanged, without any attempt to conceal anything. Eight days later, the pressure returned, and the community learned to block this attack path.
In other words, even the Heart of Heavenly Craftsmanship cannot withstand the elimination of positive consciousness.
The elder who had spoken earlier spoke slowly.
"The direction is wrong, and it has nothing to do with the power limit of the Heavenly Craftsman's Heart."
Zhang Yan interrupted him.
"The outer defenses can adapt because I'm attacking the perimeter, not the core nodes."
He paused for a moment.
"The consciousness structure of the community is unevenly distributed, with boundaries, a core, and transmission nodes connecting the core and the boundaries."
"I could sense its outermost layer at that time; it was dense, active, and constantly reorganizing."
"The core lies deeper, at the source of consciousness, where there is no defense mechanism and it cannot adapt to attacks."
"Because the structure itself does not possess defensive properties."
Mo Yuan straightened up, and something lit up in his eyes.
"You saw the core?"
Mo Yuan asked.
"I can see the corridor outside the outer layer."
Zhang Yan replied, "I didn't have enough energy at the time; I only had time to scan before sealing the passage. But it was enough."
He looked around at the seven people present.
"The disruptors want to destroy the community, which is a good idea, but your plan is to charge head-on, regardless of what weapons you use."
"The Return Faction's idea of desperately defending the gate and its mature self-healing technology is not wrong, but the aging rate of the gate within three hundred years is uncertain, and the mother community is already on its way, so it cannot be defended."
He paused for a moment, his gaze falling on Mo Ling.
"The two factions have been arguing for 3,700 years because you have only thought about your own half."
"So what do you mean?"
She took a step forward, her posture devoid of confrontation, only conveying a sense of inquiry.
"The gate is a shield, but the longer the shield holds, the longer the sword has to be forged."
Zhang Yan said, "I need Guixu to help me forge a sword. I won't take a direct, forceful approach; I'll be the wedge that disintegrates the enemy from within."
"I have injected human will into the community, and they sensed it. They are unfamiliar with that encoding method and have no targeted defense mechanism."
"This is the only window through which an external force can wedge itself into the core of its consciousness."
"What do you want?"
Mo Yuan asked directly.
"Analysis data on the community consciousness structure that Guixu has mastered over the past 30,000 years."
Zhang Yan said. There is also technology that can support deep consciousness penetration. I know that Guixu has it. The notes left by the holder in 1943 mentioned the remnants of related equipment. The complete version should be in the technical archives you took.
No one in the council chamber spoke immediately.
Mo Li stepped forward half a step from behind Mo Yuan, and something that had been hidden in his eyes for a long time finally loosened.
Mo Yuan nodded and turned to the others present.
"This is the third path that the young master wants to talk about."
silence.
The elder from the "Breakthrough Faction" who had remained silent spoke up, his tone devoid of confrontation, merely deducing possibilities.
"You mentioned internal disintegration, with consciousness penetrating to the core of the community, and then what? Using the Heart of Heaven to purify the core consciousness nodes?"
"The goal is to break it down, not to forcibly purify it."
Zhang Yan replied. The strength of a community comes from the coordination of collective consciousness, and the core node is the hub of this coordination.
"Destroying the nexus will not kill the community, but it will lose its coordination ability and its level will drop to the same level as the Ruins on Earth, no longer a star-level threat."
Mo Ling stared at the diagram of consciousness structure, his sharpness still there, but now he was focused on the plan itself.
"How deep of penetration is needed?"
She asked.
"It's twelve times deeper than last time."
Zhang Yan answered directly. Last time it was the outer defense line; this time it's the core of consciousness.
"Given the current state of the Heavenly Craftsman's Heart, it only has one chance. Once it's exhausted after the battle, it will retreat regardless of whether it succeeds or not."
What if it fails?
She asked.
"Then Earth will rely on the Internet to defend itself."
Zhang Yan's tone remained unchanged. But if successful, the door network would only be a backup option, no longer the last line of defense.
She fell silent, neither refuting nor agreeing, but simply rearranging all the known information.
Mo Yuan glanced at her, then turned his gaze to Zhang Yan.
"Young Master, the Elders' Council needs some time to discuss this, but before that, there is something I must tell you."
Zhang Yan waited.
"The consciousness penetration device possessed by Guixu had some of its core components removed by the Breakthrough Faction three thousand years ago under the pretext of testing."
Mo Yuan's voice dropped half a beat.
Mo Ling didn't move, but Zhang Yan noticed that her hand paused for a moment at the edge of the armor's wrist guards.
"Where were you transferred to?"
Zhang Yan asked.
Mo Yuan did not answer immediately, but shifted his gaze to Mo Ling's face and waited for three seconds.
Mo Ling turned her head and looked directly at Zhang Yan, her tone completely undisguised.
"Before my grandfather led three hundred men into battle, he took the equipment with him, intending to use his consciousness to penetrate and directly attack the syndicate's mother body."
"After the entire army was wiped out, the equipment was never recovered."
"So, the equipment is currently located in the colony?"
Zhang Yan said.
Mo Ling did not deny it.
The council chamber fell silent once more.
This silence is unlike any before; it's like a stone that has been buried for eight thousand years, just turned over, and what lies beneath is finally exposed to the light.
Zhang Yan leaned back in his chair and went over the information in his mind.
The consciousness-penetrating device has been in the hands of the community for eight thousand years.
The community is either thoroughly studied or left unattended somewhere.
He suddenly thought of something.
"Did the way communities perceived consciousness change eight thousand years ago?"
Zhang Yan spoke.
Mo Yuan and Mo Li exchanged a glance.
For the first time, Mo Yuan's expression revealed a complex mix of shock and long-lost approval.
How did you know?
Mo Yuan asked.
Zhang Yan did not answer, but just looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
"Six thousand years ago, our remote detectors detected a structural change in the density of consciousness signals in the community."
"After that, its consciousness coordination speed was three times faster than before, as was its learning speed."
Mo Yuan replied, "We initially guessed it was due to the community's own evolution. But if your inference is..."
"That device wasn't discarded; it was studied and absorbed."
Zhang Yan said.
Mo Ling lowered his hands from the bracers of his armor.
She turned to Mo Yuan, her tone revealing something she hadn't used before, tinged with a difficult acknowledgment.
"So the things my grandfather brought with him made it even stronger."
No one responded to that sentence.
Zhang Yan scanned the council chamber; seven faces, seven different degrees of silence.
He stood up and looked at Mo Yuan.
"Losing the equipment is not a dead end. The reason why our 8,000-year-old deduction went astray is that we did not know the final whereabouts of the equipment."
He picked up the data tablet on the table, brought up the consciousness structure scan map from the reverse invasion of the community, and pushed it to the center of the table.
"This is its current consciousness structure, from the outermost layer to the middle layer."
His finger touched the core area. Here, the original consciousness architecture was highly compatible with the device's design frequency.
"It didn't fully digest that system; it just used it, and the structure is still there."
Mo Yuan and Mo Li both glanced ahead at the same time.
"What does this mean?"
One of the Returning Journey elders asked softly.
"This means we don't need to rebuild the equipment."
Zhang Yan answered.
He paused for a moment, letting the words settle.
"What I need is the remaining components in Guixu's possession, to piece together the original design, and then to find the frequency band in the community's consciousness structure that has not yet been completely mutated."
"Find it, go in through it."
Mo Ling stared at the consciousness structure diagram and remained silent for a long time.
What components are still missing?
She spoke, and her tone finally softened.
Mo Yuan's gaze softened. For the first time, he saw a crack between two dead ends. He was a man who had been trapped by something for 3,700 years.
Zhang Yan sat down again.
"Give me all the remaining archives and equipment blueprints you have. I'll use my Heavenly Craftsmanship to compare them and give you the answer tonight."
Zhang Yan said.