Chapter 1 Information

Massive amounts of redundant and complex information piled up and settled in his mind.

Li Ang drove his Jaguar 2 high-speed motorcycle carrier, speeding through the dimly lit floors.

The black motorcycle helmet reflected the emergency lights on the walls on both sides of the desolate space, streaking past like shooting stars.

The cerebrates used scout insects to collect information, then classified, organized, and summarized it.

They transmitted abnormal and noteworthy intelligence directly to Li Ang through the psionic link.

Before the hive was still on the seabed, it only needed to guard against possible human civilization probes.

After the swarm established the hive in the trench, and the worker insects completed their mimicry, the amount of information transmitted decreased a lot.

But now, after the hive lifted its restrictions, the amount of information suddenly increased, forming waves of unshieldable, chaotic noise in Li Ang's mind, consuming his sanity value at a rate visible to the naked eye.

What was transmitted through the clay of the Evil God figurine was not just information, but also some other things, such as... the cerebrates' emotions.

Endless longing and reverence for the Creator, a thirst for knowledge, a desire to be recognized by the Father and the Saintess, and even envy and jealousy towards other cerebrates who had achieved something (which many cerebrates themselves probably didn't even realize).

Cerebrates with self-awareness naturally generated all kinds of different thoughts and emotions in the process of contacting and interacting with the outside world.

These emotions, which were still shallow at the moment, were mixed in with the information they prayed to the Creator to transmit, accumulating little by little, forming a tower of sand and creating noise.

This caused Li Ang to receive feedback from the hive's will at all times, resisting the constant influx of complex emotions.

The disadvantage was that Li Ang had to concentrate fully, without any slack or distraction.

The advantage was that in this process, he constantly and actively faced his inner self, recognizing himself.

His understanding of "Li Ang" became more and more profound.

Self-awareness is actually a very long, painful, and difficult process.

It requires a long period of objective observation of oneself, a calm judgment and evaluation of one's own thoughts, desires, and behaviors, and an analysis of the reasons for all this from the perspectives of internal and external factors, past and present.

It is like looking at oneself in a mirror, seeing clearly one's appearance in the mirror, seeing every hair, every pore that hides dirt, every dirty and twisted mite.

It even requires analyzing the internal skeleton that constitutes the appearance through the skin.

Li Ang was far more mature than most of his peers. His heart was like a solid rock, deliberately wrapped in rock for a long time.

It was extremely difficult for outsiders to imagine or guess Li Ang's true thoughts.

Even he himself was sometimes deceived by the disguise created by the identity of "Li Ang," as if he had been faking smiles for too long and had forgotten what a truly happy and joyful smile was.

The mind cleansing of the hive, on the contrary, became a very good opportunity.

Li Ang gradually recognized the state of his own thinking and memory, and was able to control his own psychological activities to a certain extent, observing and discerning himself from a high position, like a puppeteer observing a puppet.

This allowed his own will to remain anchored and unchanged,

in order to resist the impact of the hive's will.

The high-intensity tempering of his mind made Li Ang's psionic level advance by leaps and bounds, and his skill in using psionic powers also made great progress.

He vaguely pushed open the door to level three psionics.

In addition, psionic power can increase the upper limit of sanity value and increase the recovery speed of sanity value, which just offset the sanity value consumption caused by the psionic link.

This allowed him to act as usual, without showing any slowness or dullness.

"The Wind Chasers are breaking someone out of prison..."

Li Ang drove his motorcycle, turning a corner, leaving this insignificant matter behind and handing it over to the cerebrates to handle.

He had more important things to solve.

The scout insects of the hive spread in all directions, gradually confirming that there was indeed an unknown force in the Lost World.

They were composed of demon beasts and humans, with a diverse and complex power system, appearing randomly on various floors, attacking the current world players,

killing them,

or using specially made ropes to tie them up tightly and take them to the lower floors.

However, due to the swift movements and keen senses of these individual beings, the scout insects could not get too close.

A little carelessness, and they would be shaken off by the opponent's overly flexible mobility.

Even so, Li Ang and the cerebrates of the hive still came up with a way—to have the scout insects carry different types of trace spores to spread on each floor.

As long as they passed through a floor with spores scattered, their bodies would be stained with imperceptible, gradually changing, extremely small amounts of spore odor over time.

The hive could use the spore trails to confirm the direction of movement of all living creatures in the Lost World.

"Judging from the actions of some people, it can be almost certain that they are alien players. The only two questions are their reason for being here and their purpose."

Li Ang's mind raced, and he thought, "The system's explanation for the Lost World is that 'players can attack each other, and when the number of surviving players becomes fifty, the remaining players automatically enter the official Doorway Competition. If the time limit ends and the number is still more than fifty, the players will be eliminated to fifty based on performance.'

This does not involve alien players..."

The alien world players that Li Ang had officially encountered, upon careful reflection, seemed to be the two beings who appeared as Yuri and Gandalf in the [High-Dimensional Hacking] script mission.

They allowed Li Ang and others to complete the task, and after completing the task, they kindly reminded Li Ang and others to go back and remind the other current world players that they must win the Doorway Competition.

Since it was a matter of "winning," then naturally it would not be an internal allocation of places, but there would be competitors.

Perhaps at that time, Yuri and Gandalf were hinting at the current situation in the Lost World....

"There's still too little information."

Li Ang's eyes flickered, and he said silently, "The current situation observed is that alien creatures either kill or kidnap Earth players, and they show no mercy.

Moreover, the Earth players who are kidnapped are obviously ranked relatively low among the top 300.

If they want to use Earth players as blood sacrifices, or refine Earth players into puppets, then naturally the more there are, and the higher the quality, the better.

Thinking this way, perhaps their goal is to control the number of Earth players,

so that the number of players gradually decreases to 50, artificially triggering the Doorway Competition in advance—if the top 50 Earth players who advance are all weak, it may be very beneficial to them."

Li Ang thought calmly, "Of course, these are just assumptions.

The most efficient way is still to directly kidnap an alien player, extract their memory, and find out their plan.

If possible, try to thwart their plot.

Since the hive cannot be too far away from me,

now is also the time for the identity of 'Li Risheng' to officially debut in a reasonable way..."

After figuring out the key points, Li Ang outwardly drove the vehicle at high speed, while his thoughts surged in his mind. The strong personal will of the psionicist, through the psionic link, was transmitted to a large number of hive units.

————

A certain battle that erupted on the 42nd floor was already coming to an end.

Xingyun of the Global Supernatural Alliance floated in mid-air, her eyes sparkling with starlight, her palm stretched forward and pressed down, summoning astral matter that could absorb energy and individual minds out of thin air (a non-solid, non-liquid, non-gaseous substance that flickered with starlight, similar to a supercritical state).

She trapped the hands and feet of two people dressed in ancient clothing.

"Who exactly are you?"

Alina, standing on the ground, asked in a deep voice, "Why are you here? Why are you attacking us?"

Crack.

Xingyun drove the astral matter, breaking one of their hands—he was trying to take out and press a golden token.

The token fell to the ground in response, and a determined expression appeared on the man's face. He shouted a foreign language to his companion, and the two bodies rapidly expanded like inflated balloons,

even Xingyun's summoned astral matter could not suppress them.

Boom boom!

The explosion resounded throughout the floor. The position where the two had been standing had turned into a deep pit with a diameter of ten meters.

The pit was charred black, filled with the smell of sulfur, and vaguely, some of the soil could be seen to have turned into glass-like crystallized traces due to the high-temperature burning.

"They actually committed suicide..."

Xingyun slowly descended from mid-air, her face a little pale—in a flash of lightning, she used astral matter to create a giant shield in front of the two of them, barely blocking the shockwave of the explosion.

Alina supported Xingyun and asked in a deep voice, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Xingyun shook her head, somewhat afraid, and removed the riddled astral shield, scanning the sunken pit, and murmuring, "That token..."

"It's here with me."

Alina held up the golden token that the two alien players had taken out. She did not directly touch it with her hand, but instead used the rising airflow generated from her palm to suspend the token above her palm.

[Name: Privately Engraved Aid God Contract]

[Type: Consumable]

[Quality: Perfect]

[Effect: Aid God. Summons the entity contracted by the Aid God Contract, causing the latter to teleport directly to the vicinity of the token, or remotely transmits transcendent power into the body of the user of the privately engraved Aid God Contract]

[Consumption: None]

[Cooldown: None]

[Usage Conditions: Intelligence attribute greater than or equal to 10 points, Perception attribute greater than or equal to 10 points, the user is a Liwei Mountain Registered Dharma Master]

[Remarks: The farther the distance, the worse the teleportation effect, the greater the loss of energy and information]

[Remarks: The contractor can refuse to respond to the Aid God Contract]

[Remarks: This Aid God Contract belongs to Dan Chenzi, a Liwei Mountain Registered Dharma Master]

[Remarks: Summon wind, call rain, summon gods, dispatch generals, descend the altar, escort the souls of the dead, exorcise evil and suppress demons]

The token was actually a perfect-grade consumable item?

Surprised and astonished emotions simultaneously surfaced in the hearts of Xingyun and Alina.

"This should be a magical artifact frequently used in Taoist rituals in the East."

As a mentor on the Wind Chaser program and an experienced, knowledgeable senior player, Alina had naturally seen information on the power inheritance systems of different regions of the world, and she was no stranger to Eastern Taoism.

"Most of the Dharma activities in the East, whether it is to report documents to the heavenly gods, or to pray for rain, clear skies, stop the wind, pray for snow, or drive ghosts and gods, require tokens made of jujube wood knots, pomegranate wood, cypress wood, and other materials to issue orders, otherwise the ghosts and gods will not obey the orders.

The entire process of making tokens, using tokens, and refining tokens is extremely complicated for outsiders."

Alina paused and said in a low voice, "The name of this item is [Privately Engraved Aid God Contract], and the entity contracted by the token is also indicated in the remarks.

Considering that the token is ultimately only a perfect-grade consumable item, rather than an epic-grade or legendary-grade item,

it probably doesn't have the ability to cross worlds and transmit energy.

In other words, the contractor of the token, the so-called Liwei Mountain Registered Dharma Master Dan Chenzi, is inside the Lost World."

"Hmm..."

Xingyun nodded and said in a deep voice, "Moreover, this item stipulates that the user must be a Liwei Mountain Registered Dharma Master, which means that the two players who committed suicide just now also belong to the Liwei Mountain force.

You said, could they be from the Other Learning Society..."

"Probably not."

Alina shook her head, "We have never heard of the so-called Liwei Mountain force in the East, and even the Other Learning Society could not hide it so well.

Besides, if they were really branch players of the Other Learning Society, then they would definitely not directly kill themselves in front of the detectors—the Other Learning Society's power system has extremely terrifying requirements for talent.

The number of people is small, the inheritance is difficult, and every member is extremely precious.

Even if they are captured by other forces and deprived of the ability to surrender,

they will propose a deal, handing over items and equipment in exchange for a way out of the competition to surrender."

"Then what exactly is this..."

Xingyun frowned, vaguely guessing something. She exchanged a glance with Alina, burying the possibility of alien players in her heart, and did not say it in front of the detector lens.

They were senior agents of the Global Supernatural Alliance, with the authority to access confidential information. They had seen some information about alien players.

Mech beasts, security guards, inexplicable *When the Stars Align* comic series, Earth players killing each other,

and now there are alien players similar to the ancient Taoist inheritance system of the East...

Complex information gradually formed an intricate web in their minds, vaguely showing the shape of something, but they could never see it clearly.

Alina and Xingyun remained silent. As time passed, the system detector on the side exceeded the gaze limit and automatically disappeared.

"What do we do now?"

Xingyun glanced at the position where the detector disappeared and asked in a deep voice.

"If there are alien players, then the situation is very different."

Alina thought for a moment and replied, "The previous struggle was still competition within the Earth. No matter which force wins, the ultimate prize will be for the various forces on Earth.

But now there are aliens, and judging from their performance, they are not friendly...

I think we need to unite others.

Did you record the scene where we encountered the alien players just now?"

"I recorded it."

Xingyun nodded, tapping the button-shaped camera on the chest of her Global Supernatural Alliance uniform with her finger.

Alina breathed a sigh of relief, "Good. If we meet other current world players, we will use the recorded video to persuade them to join us, unite, and find out the current situation..."

Before she could finish speaking, dense trampling sounds came from the tunnel in the distance.

Ants.

A massive swarm of giant ants, almost filling the entire tunnel. As far as the eye could see, all there were densely packed feet.

The just-disappeared detector reappeared, clearly recording the astonished expressions on Alina and Xingyun's faces, as well as the exclamations from their mouths.

"Ant King?"