Silver Lantern Weise was naturally inside the Upload Chamber, seated right in the front row of the lowest tier—closest to the grand laws.
The Transcendence Building's internal surveillance system was remarkably thorough: optical, infrared, thermal... Beyond these technologies, sensory information from every Transcendent believer was uploaded to the central processing hub, meaning that in theory, every believer was a walking surveillance camera. With such a comprehensive security system, it was only natural that they dismissed Yaxiu and the others' warning; after all, no one had ever managed to infiltrate this building before.
Yet the very purpose of miracles was to transcend ordinary logic.
It was worth noting that all equipment within the Transcendence Building was an inheritance from the Grey Fox Divine Era. In that glorious divine era, whenever a phantasm creation could be used, an ordinary creation was out of the question. Take infrared sensors, for instance: it wasn't that the Grey Fox Divine Era couldn't manufacture pale creations, but if they could make indestructible phantasm creations, why bother crafting pale creations that would deteriorate over time and succumb to environmental wear?
No matter the kingdom, pale creations were transitional products seen only in the dawn of civilization. They involved no Void Realm sorcery spirits and operated purely on the physical laws of reality, meaning even mortals could manufacture them.
However, as the number of sorcerers surged, phantasm creations—with their comprehensively superior production efficiency, yield rate, and performance—naturally rendered pale creations obsolete with ease. Since it was the sorcery spirit, not the creation itself, that truly carried out the function of a phantasm creation, maintaining them was remarkably simple: throw money at it!
If a phantasm creation was a factory, then sorcery spirits were its workers. It didn't matter if the owner changed; as long as the money kept flowing, the factory would keep running. Even if the factory blew up, it didn't matter; as long as enough money was paid, the workers could rebuild it themselves.
This was one of the traits through which phantasm creations utterly outclassed pale creations: self-repair. Of course, unlocking this particular tech tree was no simple feat for a kingdom. In Blood Moon and Gospel, only a tiny fraction of high-end luxury creations were equipped with this feature. The Grey Fox Divine Era, however, had popularized it across every single object—otherwise, there was no way the Transcendence Cult could have kept this massive building operating properly.
And precisely because of this, Weise could hide inside the building with ease. She wasn't bothering to deceive optical monitors or thermal sensors individually; she was directly inducing illusions in the sorcery spirits linked to the phantasm creations.
No era had ever been able to mass-produce esoteric sorcerers of Fate, Truth, or Prophecy. Even though Grey Fox creations had been fortified with all manner of defensive barriers, they were still effortlessly breached before a Truth miracle.
To both the phantasm creations and the Transcendent believers, she appeared as just another Transcendent believer. Even with the miracle's illusory disguise, however, she had still dressed herself to match the Transcendent believers to the letter: equipped with external prosthetic augmentations and clad in a blue-and-white uniform. After all, Slay All Crows was immune to miracle effects and could see her true body directly; she had to disguise herself completely to avoid giving herself away in an unexpected encounter.
Gazing at the two grand laws in the center of the arena, Weise was waiting for the 7:45 PM "mental technique time." A few Grey Fox mental techniques circulated across the Senluo Wasteland, aimed at enhancing physical fitness and intellect through several minutes of self-massage and meditation. However, because the results were exceedingly negligible, they had never seen widespread adoption.
Yet during Transcendence worship, where believers engaged in prolonged brainstorming that severely tested their mental and physical stamina, the mental technique's benefits became exceptionally pronounced. When performing it, they would close their eyes, massage specific acupoints on their heads with their fingers, and clear their minds to visualize—leaving them, in effect, utterly defenseless.
After experiencing a session of Transcendence worship herself, Weise had realized that mental technique time was the prime opportunity for theft.
She stood before the railing. Even with the sudoku patterns right before her eyes, she was not drawn into the worship in the slightest.
Calamitous Fire, Four Pillar Gods, Transcendence... No cult's worship could sway her soul.
Worship was meant to reinforce the convictions and ideals of the weak. The strong had no need for worship, for her every action was worship of herself.
She was pondering what sort of relationship Silver Lantern and Yaxiu, and Weise and the Watcher, ought to maintain going forward.
An event was never merely an isolated incident; its ripples would spread into every corner beyond sight. Once Yaxiu made his grand entrance through the opportunity she provided, the Harp Sun Alliance would inevitably take note of this universal god-hosting socket.
To exploit Yaxiu, the Harp Sun Alliance wouldn't let him starve until the Blood Seed sucked him dry, but nor would they allow him to wander unchecked. A spokesperson capable of perfect god-hosting was someone every cult coveted.
With a mind sorcerer assisting him in reality and the guidance she offered in the Void Realm, Yaxiu wouldn't need to join any cult; simply acting as a mercenary would make him an honored guest of the Harp Sun Alliance. Then she could intentionally stir up trouble—she needed to steal the other grand laws anyway—to give Yaxiu chances to showcase his combat prowess. Before long, Yaxiu would become an illustrious figure renowned across Senluo.
What he would gain was not merely renown, but power.
Power was like sulfuric acid: beneath a certain threshold, it could yield benign reactions with life, but once it crossed that line, power could corrode anyone's mind.
Though she hadn't spent much time with Yaxiu, Weise had realized that the flaws in his psyche were exceedingly small. Or rather, he was easily contented. Unless someone captured him for severe torture, or became the person closest to him, it would be difficult to strip him bare of everything.
To be frank, such people were extraordinarily rare in Senluo.
Regardless of cult or race, the ideals and desires of Senluo's people burned hotter than the sun in the sky and ran deeper than the spirals of the earth. Weise had been able to maneuver freely among the cults precisely because everyone had flaws in their psyche.
Therefore, her first step was to remake Yaxiu into someone with flaws, and power was the poison she had prepared.
She liked people who were powerful yet flawed, just as humans loved pets that were pretty yet helpless on their own.
Since he harbored no interest in grand ideals, she would let him taste the sweetness of power, and then...
Hm?
Weise snapped her head up. Knowing that Yaxiu and the others were waiting in the passageway, she had shifted her Myriad Mechanism sorcery spirit into a projection sorcery spirit, projecting the feed from the passageway's surveillance cameras directly onto her pupils. That way, she could monitor Yaxiu and the others in real time and coordinate with them more smoothly.
Thus, she saw Harvey enter his cold flowing fire state, leave Yaxiu and the rest, and walk toward the passageway at the opposite end.
Why?
She saw Slay All Crows scoop up Yaxiu and drop into a sprinter's stance.
Why?
She saw that even the most rational mind sorcerer was channeling a miracle!
Why?
She had clearly provided the correct answer that scored the highest marks, so why were they scribbling nonsense all over the test paper? Forget the necromancer and Slay All Crows, those two mortal incarnations of Lalafells—why hadn't the mind sorcerer, who saw through the human heart and prioritized profit above all, held Yaxiu back?
Did you think the world was being too gentle with you, so you had to ratchet up the difficulty yourselves?
Even though Weise was the calmest Truth Sorcerer and a steadfast night traveler, when she watched the Nether Knight sow despair and saw Slay All Crows charge forward carrying Yaxiu, she still couldn't suppress a swelling sense of helplessness at the ways of the world, along with...
Fury at idiots!
How could you ruin my flawless plan like this!
No matter how Weise roared inside, the second Yaxiu seized back the initiative, the pressure shifted onto her.
She had to make a choice!
Weise nearly ground her teeth to dust. She shifted Myriad Mechanism into a Flowing Light sorcery spirit and assembled an ad hoc miracle: Flowing Light Flash!
Although she could have assembled this miracle with her Inspiration sorcery spirit, in reality she would never deploy a skill she had already revealed in the Void Realm.
As Yaxiu plummeted from high above toward the grand laws, she too transformed into a streak of flowing light and burst into the arena!
She couldn't compete with Yaxiu for the same one—without absolute overwhelming power, she couldn't guarantee she would beat an authentic, perfect god-hosting vessel!
In a flash of lightning and flint, Yaxiu touched the giant wolf crackling with golden electric arcs, while Weise touched the hamster wrapped in blue electric arcs!
Chapter 554