Inside Greenlight Tower, pressed for time, Yvette had only managed to copy a massive amount of text without knowing which fields any of it belonged to. She didn’t even have the chance to glance through it all.
To save brainpower, she let the AI in her soul-core categorize everything, then chose to examine the data about
Project “Code Life”
first.
Though she had suspected as much, only after reading the project’s deeper files did she confirm it: Gravity Group and Lingman Corporation really were planning to use this project to build a genuine virtual world—one that would allow humans to discard their physical shells and let their souls ascend directly.
It wasn’t exactly a new idea. Many works of fiction had explored similar concepts; in fact, it was almost cliché.
But even with the Origin Civilization’s technological prowess, such a feat should’ve been impossible. Why, then, did Gravity Group believe it feasible—and why had Lingman Corporation agreed?
She kept reading.
According to the project’s theoretical notes, two long-standing problems blocked the path to consciousness ascension.
The first was
memory-core dissipation
.
In Origin Civilization theory, life was composed of three nested parts: body, spirit, and memory-core. The body served as the vessel of the spirit and the anchor of the memory-core. Replace the body, and while the spirit could adjust, the memory-core would lose its anchor, scattering into chaos until it degenerated into cybernetic psychosis.
The second problem: what kind of server could host the spirit?
In theory, no existing server could sustain a spirit—and even if one could, it could never support mass ascension for tens of thousands, even billions.
In short, neither the materials nor the technology allowed it.
Yet during talks with Lingman Corporation, Gravity Group revealed they had glimpsed a solution to these two stubborn problems.
They called it a form of
Spirit Realm Technology
.
Simply put, it replaced physical servers entirely. Drawing inspiration from the Holy Spirit Sect’s “soul-core” systems, it transformed the spirit itself into the server. Each ascension would allow the server to “grow” on its own, boosting its processing power.
At the heart of this lay
Memory Encapsulation
—a method to preserve data related to memory, personality, and experiences without an anchor. These stored fragments became
Ascenders
, while the shared worldview and cognition were stripped out, combined with others, and turned into the vivid “reality” inside the
Spirit Realm
.
Such a realm would be seamless and lifelike, impervious to physical damage, able to drift through the cosmos unharmed. Every Ascender would achieve eternal consciousness there, undying, unaging.
Of course, the dream was grand, but reality was harsh. Gravity Group had only proposed the concept; realizing it might take centuries.
Even so, Project “Code Life” wasn’t meant to create the Spirit Realm itself—just to explore its theoretical groundwork.
Their willingness to cooperate with Lingman Corporation stemmed from another reason: the company’s
Heart of Nature
plant terminals, just as rumored, possessed a hidden ability to manipulate users’ spirits and memory-cores.
Using this, they could secretly run human experiments on players—stealing their souls without anyone noticing.
And why had Lingman Corporation accepted the proposal?
Because, beyond the project’s lucrative commercial prospects, the company had been secretly researching a dangerous technology: covertly modifying users’ memories and cognition through the Heart of Nature.
The two sides had struck a deal.
Gravity Group pursued Spirit Realm Technology, while Lingman Corporation used the project to study how to rewrite users’ memories and perception. Each got what they wanted, leaving only the users as unwitting lab rats.
Finishing the full context behind Project “Code Life,” Yvette exhaled.
Why are super-corporations always so rotten?
After pondering for a while, her thoughts drifted to the dreamscape fog.
Could it be… the Spirit Realm itself?
Was everyone there actually an Ascender?
But for Gravity Group, the technology remained a distant dream, its research workload astronomical and bound by countless ethical restrictions. Yvette doubted it could be completed before the Apocalypse descended.
One thing was clear, though: the project reeked of human corruption.
It had to be destroyed.
Yet the thought of wrecking it single-handedly made her hesitate.
She had already stormed Greenlight Tower, and her fight with Imogen, though seemingly brief, had cost her tens of thousands of Aberrant Mana points. Facing both Lingman Corporation and Gravity Group alone would drain every drop of her Aberrant Mana.
After much deliberation, she decided to cite “insufficient capability” and hand all the intel over to the Firebearer, closing this mission.
As for the Firebearer—his origins were shrouded in mystery; surely he wasn’t an ordinary man. On this matter, he would certainly have more options than she did.
With too much data left in her soul-core to read quickly, Yvette contacted the Firebearer and submitted her findings. While waiting, she wandered into the kitchen and saw that Lianna had left her a separate dinner on the counter, with a little note reminding her to heat it first.
Yvette smiled softly, but laziness won out; she ate it cold. Halfway through, the Firebearer’s reply arrived:
“For the sake of this mission, you risked storming Greenlight Tower. Truly admirable, Miss Nameless—I extend my deepest respect.
Honestly, even if you’d cut the task short, it would’ve been fine. More than the mission, we value not losing a comrade as capable as you.”
Perhaps to seem sincere, he’d sent a voice message.
It was Yvette’s first time hearing the Firebearer’s real voice—hoarse, low, unmasked by synthesized tones.
Somehow, it felt familiar.
Before she could respond, the Firebearer sent the promised intel as text:
“First, about ‘the final balance’—namely, the
God of Machinery
.
According to our findings, among the Mechanical Automatons that awakened self-awareness and hid it carefully, a religion has emerged. They worship a deity called the God of Machinery, believing it to be the source of all, with the
Fire-Stealer Protocol
merely a sign of its miracles.
Later investigations revealed that most of these automatons were hiding inside a famous religion on the Silvermirror Continent—the
Mind Sanctuary
.
As is well known, the Mind Sanctuary is an ancient faith whose core doctrine is
‘Flesh is Weak, Mechanical Ascension.’
Its deity is the local god of Silvermirror—the
Lord of Mirrors
, also called the
Omniscient God
,
Thousand-Faced Soul
,
Void Flame
, and
Lord of the Spirit Realm
.
Since most of its clergy and believers are heavily modified cyborgs, the Mind Sanctuary makes an ideal refuge for automatons.
But as the investigation deepened, agents found the Mind Sanctuary far more infiltrated by awakened automatons than anyone imagined—perhaps even wholly usurped.
And atop the hierarchy, certain automatons proclaimed that the God of Machinery truly exists, that they have heard its will, and that it will save all automatons, granting them eternal freedom and joy.
Frightening, isn’t it? A hint of madness threatening to upend human society.
Stranger still, the force behind the Mind Sanctuary is
Firmament Technologies
, and after automatons began infiltrating, neither Firmament nor the entire
Future Union
interfered—in fact, they even helped cover it up.
We don’t know why they remain silent—but that’s everything we know about the God of Machinery.”
After reading the intel, Yvette sat at the table, staring at her half-eaten dinner, lost in deep thought.
She had once suspected the God of Machinery arose after the Apocalypse—perhaps some supercomputer that gained self-awareness and mastered the Fire-Stealer Protocol.
But she hadn’t expected it to have existed long ago, nor its ties to Firmament Technologies.
Who—or what—was it? Could it be that so-called
Core of Firmament Technologies
?
If its goal was to save all automatons and grant them eternal freedom and joy, hostility toward humans was almost certain.
Could it be, then, that the Divine Shedding, Erosion Seed, and Abyss—the forces that triggered the Apocalypse—were just Pandora’s Box… and the God of Machinery was the one who opened it?
Book 2: Chapter 155: Intelligence
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