Chapter 1 The Importance of the Genesis Engine

The urgent communication from Rementusa immediately killed Hao Ren's appetite. The importance of the Genesis Engine was self-evident. With the great war about to begin, whether it could be successfully assembled and activated would directly affect the outcome of the war. And now... something had gone wrong?

"What exactly is going on?" Leah's expression was also exceptionally serious. She stood up abruptly. "Didn't we solve the compatibility issue with the Heart of God during the previous simulation tests? And the hardware of the Heart of God passed the first connection test..."

"The compatibility between the Heart of God and the Genesis Engine as a whole is indeed not a problem. The problem lies with the three golden discs," Rementusa explained. "The abnormal information fluctuations are being released from the discs. We tried to reset their databases, but encountered a very strange... situation."

The "golden discs" Rementusa mentioned were the three that Hao Ren had collected during his mission in the Dream Plane. Although the other nine discs had been taken into the Dark Abyss by the Goddess of Destruction, the remaining three were in Hao Ren's possession. Although they could not form a complete computing array, they were still installed in the nearly completed Genesis Engine—to serve as secondary processors and instruction caches, a function that was quite necessary.

After all, the Heart of God was not the original core of the Genesis Engine. As a product from a different technological tree, synchronization problems between it and the Genesis Engine were inevitable. Although software could make them compatible, hardware buffering and switching were still indispensable. The best solution Rementusa found was to have the Genesis Engine's original computing core—the golden disc array—act as the secondary processor. This solution was also confirmed by Leah as the only feasible one.

To be honest, Hao Ren would rather have heard the news of his boss exploding on the spot than to hear that this only solution had gone wrong—after all, Raven 12345 exploded on the spot every now and then, but there was only one Heart of God...

"The golden discs have a problem... could it be that they malfunctioned after being lost for so many years..." Leah muttered with a frown, then waved her hand, and a shimmering portal immediately appeared beside her. "You wait there, I'll go see what's going on myself."

"I'll go too," Hao Ren immediately followed. "Although I can't help with the technical aspects, I found those three discs, and I know a little about their respective situations."

"Vivian, you come too," Leah suddenly turned back before stepping into the portal, and pulled Vivian up. "Maybe you can help."

The three of them hurriedly opened a portal and left, leaving the companions in the banquet hall looking at each other. No one intended to join in the fun, after all, they couldn't help with the technical aspects or the event itself. And this matter seemed quite serious, even Lily realized that this was not the time to join in the fun...

Nangong Sanba looked at the light particles left in the air after the portal disappeared, and then looked at the "Divine Kingdom Cuisine" that hadn't been touched much. He hesitated and said, "Well... shall we continue eating?"

"Of course we continue eating," Lily said casually, stuffing food into her mouth as she spoke. "You need to be full to have the energy to fight..."

Nangong Wuyue thought for a while: "I don't think the landlord needs us to help him fight this time. He obviously needs technical support."

Lily rolled her eyes: "When has the landlord's technical support not ended in a fight?"

Everyone was immediately speechless, only Sanba rubbed his forehead: "Damn it, sometimes I really envy her worldview..."

On the other side, Hao Ren and the others had already crossed thousands of light-years in one step and arrived at the "Stellar Forge" factory deep in the Xul'un Nebula.

The portal landed on a white platform floating in the depths of space. This platform was built from piled-up boulders, several kilometers wide, with temples, towers, and huge crystal clusters of unknown purpose built on it. The ancient stars of the Xul'un Nebula shone brightly in the background of the platform, and in front of the platform floated a space structure so huge that one couldn't help but pause their breathing.

That was the nearly completed Genesis Engine.

In fact, the white platform under Hao Ren's feet itself revolved around the Genesis Engine. It orbited like the latter's satellite, used to monitor and debug this most incredible super-artifact in the history of the Dream Plane.

The nearly completed Genesis Engine now looked more like a metal planet. The original complex and mysterious internal structures had been covered by layers of thick, light-gold shells. The light flowing between the seams of the shells made the metal star shine brightly. On its solid "steel" land, one could see countless sharp protrusions like antennas, which were the engine's law-manipulating "contact points." Around each contact point, one could see a large number of small aircraft flying around, which were the engineering machines making the final adjustments to the Genesis Engine.

Rementusa strode over and bowed to Leah: "Mother, you've arrived."

"Get straight to the point, what's the situation now?" Leah waved her hand and said quickly, "I sensed the state of the engine just now, and its energy is very chaotic... although everything looks normal on the surface, most of its functions are in a rather uncoordinated state."

"Because those three golden discs are quite 'uncooperative'," Rementusa said in a deep voice, "They refuse to accept the instructions sent by the Heart of God, and instead release a lot of messy information on their own... This information not only fails to stabilize the Genesis Engine, but makes it even more chaotic. We have now had to temporarily cut off the engine's secondary instruction flow, and those chaotic energies should subside soon."

Leah frowned: "How did the simulation test pass smoothly before?"

"At that time, we didn't really connect the Heart of God and the golden discs, we just paired the former with the latter's blueprints."

"In other words... at least from the blueprints, there is no conflict between the two," Leah nodded, "Let me see the real thing."

"As you command."

Under Rementusa's control, the white platform moved to the back of the Genesis Engine. Here, one could see a huge opening in the Genesis Engine's crust, with a large amount of light flowing and a steady stream of engineering machines shuttling inside the engine. The Heart of God floated in front of the opening, and a little distance away from the Heart of God floated three golden dots that were almost invisible to the naked eye—they were the three golden discs.

The originally huge golden discs had become tiny in front of the celestial-level Genesis Engine. If Hao Ren's eyesight wasn't amazing, he probably wouldn't even be able to see them...

"Because it was just a test installation, we didn't put everything into the engine's core cabin," Rementusa's voice came from above, "We were also fortunate to have left the connection lines outside, so we could cut off the physical connection at the first sign of trouble, without causing damage to the engine itself."

"Well handled," Leah nodded, and raised her hand to gently beckon to the golden discs. The three golden dots immediately disappeared and reappeared on the white platform in the next moment. "Now let me see... what exactly is the problem."

The three golden discs floated quietly in front of Hao Ren, Vivian, and Leah. The light of the distant stars was reflected on the discs, which were ten meters in diameter. When Leah approached them, some incomprehensible symbols and texts immediately flashed on their surfaces.

"Everything is normal when responding... there doesn't seem to be any external damage..." Leah mumbled as she approached the discs, "Energy fluctuations are very stable, rune groups... a little bit missing, but not a fatal problem, within the scope of self-repair..."

She put her hand on one of the discs and began to try to communicate with the information inside the disc, while saying: "To be honest, after seriously studying information control theory and looking back at these discs... I really found that they have a lot of room for improvement. The information cluster integration method I used back then was too cumbersome. It's a pity that we don't have time now, otherwise I would definitely reset them all."

Hao Ren didn't answer, but subconsciously looked at his right hand: On the palm of his right hand, a blood-like red color was faintly emerging, and emitting a clearly perceptible heat.

"The data doesn't seem to be lost, and the hardware is in normal condition, but..." Leah frowned while communicating with the discs, and then suddenly made a surprised sound, "Huh? How come it seems like there's an extra piece of something..."

Hao Ren looked at his palm. The red "bloodstains" on it were as clear as if they had just been printed on. The crimson color was like fresh blood, and a burning sensation was as if it was directly branded on the soul and could not be ignored.

At this time, Vivian also noticed the abnormality here, and immediately came over and asked with concern: "What's wrong... How did this thing come out again?"

"Eh?" Leah finally noticed Hao Ren's actions. She took her hand off the disc and turned her head curiously, immediately discovering the abnormality on the other's palm. "What's that on your hand?"

Hao Ren felt the red bloodstains on his palm gradually calm down, and the burning sensation was faint. He shook his hand and explained the origin of the imprint: "This thing is actually related to you—actually, this is what I left behind when I last came into contact with the golden discs."

Then, he told Leah the origin of the bloodstains in detail. When he mentioned the ancient memories he saw in the illusion, he couldn't help but show a strange expression: "To be honest, when I saw those illusions at the time, I felt that they were very mysterious. Your image in the illusion was even more mystical than my boss—especially when you glanced up, I was sweating. At that time, I really couldn't imagine that your real style would be like this..."

"What's wrong with my style now? I've always been like this! You guys are all imagining things..." Leah said dissatisfiedly with her hands on her hips, "But those things you said... I really didn't expect that just splashing blood on the disc would leave behind that kind of 'illusion'?"

While saying that, she looked at Hao Ren up and down a few times, as if thoughtfully: "And you also have the ability to read these illusions... How strange..."

Hao Ren scratched his head: "I also think it's quite strange."

"No, I was thinking..." Leah couldn't help but glance at the red imprint on Hao Ren's palm again. It had completely faded now, but there was still a faint trace left. "This bloodstain..."

Hao Ren felt chills all over his body from being stared at by the other party: "What exactly did you think of?"

"Vivian, use your mental power to connect to these three discs—I'll teach you how to do it," Leah didn't answer, but turned her head and quickly instructed Vivian, then grabbed Hao Ren and walked towards the discs, "You come and cooperate with me."

The power of a god was amazing. Before Hao Ren could ask, he was grabbed by the other party and pressed against the surface of the disc with a palm, and at the same time, Leah also pressed her hand on a nearby position.

Everything happened in an instant. Hao Ren only felt a violent tremor in his mind, and then he was plunged into darkness...