Chiyo Saori's back instantly tensed up, and a chill shot straight from his tailbone to Tianling Gai.
She subconsciously bowed to take orders, and every joint made a tiny sound due to excessive tension, which was particularly harsh on the top of the dead tower.
She didn't dare to look into Uchiha Xuan's eyes. Those silver Rinnegan seemed to be able to see through the deepest throbbing of people's hearts. Any doubt or hesitation could be interpreted as betrayal.
When she retreated with absolute obedience, Uchiha Xuan's instructions were like an invisible spider web, with Scarlet Eye Tower as the center, instantly covering the entire empire.
Orders were transmitted through the spiritual network with precision and efficiency, and the empire's huge bureaucratic machine began to operate at an unprecedented speed.
At the same time, Scarlet Eye Academy, East Ninth District, Newborn Special Care Center.
This is the cornerstone of the empire's future and the cradle of a new generation of the Uchiha Clan blood and elite talents.
Within seven days, a total of forty-three babies with excellent chakra sensing potential were born here.
They are placed in independent constant-temperature incubation chambers, and the environmental parameters are simulated to the most perfect maternal state.
But today, a new "blessing" came to them.
In accordance with the empire's highest order, the moment every baby cuts the umbilical cord and cries for the first time, a micro Sealing Jutsu-like precise imprint - "Silencing Seal" - will be placed deep in the ear canal.
This talisman is not a simple silence, its structure is incredibly sophisticated.
It will first record the complete sound wave frequency of the original cry, convert it into a data stream and upload it to the core database of Scarlet Eye Tower. Then, the spell will be activated, completely blocking the ability to produce sounds, and returning the world to "order".
Uchiha Xuan is sitting on the throne at the top of the tower, with a huge light curtain suspended in front of him.
On the light curtain, forty-three data streams are being refreshed in real time in milliseconds.
His eyes did not waver at all, as if he was reviewing an ordinary financial report.
Soon, his fingertips lightly touched the light screen.
Thirty-seven of the data streams were instantly marked red.
"0.68%..."
A cold number escaped from his lips.
In the system interface, these thirty-seven seemingly unrelated first cry waveforms show an extremely weak resonance tendency after hundreds of millions of comparison operations.
The spectrum characteristics of this resonance overlap by as much as 0.68% with the "pseudo bell" signal that tried to invade the mental network a few days ago.
In the eyes of mortals, this is a negligible error.
But in the rules of Uchiha Xuan, this is a "threshold breakthrough warning" that cannot be ignored.
That night, a sudden change occurred.
East Ninth District In the nursery, the red light spots of all the monitoring puppets flashed at the same time, sounding the highest level of alarm.
In the picture, the thirty-seven babies who had been treated with Silencing Seal seemed to have received some kind of silent command, and they actually opened their eyes at the same moment!
Circles of light red ripples appeared in their pupils, like newborn Sharingan.
They were unable to cry or scream, but their lips were silently repeating the same action at an absolutely synchronized frequency - opening their mouths three times, pausing, closing, and then suddenly opening them again.
This strange and neat sequence was completely recorded by the monitoring puppet's dynamic capture system and uploaded to the central database.
After a while, the system's analysis results appeared in front of Xuan, accompanied by a comment from the ancient secret volume Uchiha Clan.
[Sequence analysis: Gate-Opening Rite.
A lost ritual offering the first sounds of life to an unknown god.]
The corners of Xuan's lips curved into a sarcastic arc, but that smile was colder than ten thousand years of Xuan Bing.
"Interesting. They started worshiping before they even learned the language?"
He whispered, and his fingertips tapped lightly on the armrest of the throne, making regular clicking and clicking sounds, as if to accompany this silent sacrifice.
Chiyo Saori hurried over and reported the panic in the nursery with a pale face.
Some of the caregivers have shown signs of mental illness.
"Master Xuan, do you need to use the A-7 level memory cleaning atomizer? A preventive neurological intervention for all babies can completely erase this abnormal 'instinct'."
"Cleaning?" Xuan shook his head slowly. The silver Rinnegan reflected the baby's mouth that opened and closed synchronously on the light screen. His eyes showed the indifference of controlling everything. "Cleaning can cure the symptoms, and domestication can cure the root cause. I don't need a bunch of blank disks that have been formatted. What I need is... parts that only understand one language and believe in one god from the factory settings."
Before he finished speaking, a new instruction had been issued.
"Start 'Fetal Movement Recall Plan'."
The moment the command was issued, the life-support system parameters of the entire nursery were reset.
A brand new "white noise" starts playing constantly in the room.
It was not a simple noise, but a carefully edited hypnotic audio.
Its bottom layer is the heartbeat rhythm of the First Uchiha Clan clan mother, the middle layer is the ambient sound that simulates the flow of amniotic fluid in the womb, and the top layer is implanted with a spiritual imprint compiled with a special chakra frequency that represents the existence of "Uchiha Xuan".
This audio will be played on a loop for sixteen hours every day. It will not tell any history or instill any knowledge.
Its only purpose is to deliberately confuse the cognitive connection between "mother" and "source of power", "security" and "absolute obedience" from the very source of the subconscious mind.
When the first "heartbeat" mixed with the imprint of Xuan's spirit sounded in the nursery, deep underground in the Scarlet Eye Academy, in an independent observation room, five-year-old Ling suddenly arched her body violently and began to vomit.
What she spit out was not food residue, but a pool of dark ink-like mucus. The mucus was also mixed with countless pale white bone fragments as fine as gravel.
The medical puppet on the side immediately stretched out a probe for testing. The data showed that in the past 0.1 seconds, Ling's digestive system had undergone a brief reverse operation, as if it had absorbed and "digested" the residue of a memory that did not belong to this world from the void.
"They are eating their own umbilical cords..." Ling huddled on the ground, her face pale, and her red pupils shrunk to needlepoints out of fear, "In order... to remember my name..."
Her voice was as thin as a gnat, but through the ubiquitous surveillance system, it was clearly transmitted to the throne at the top of the tower.
Uchiha Xuan's eyes finally changed.
He actively called Myriad Phenomena Devouring System for the first time, raised the scanning authority to the highest level, and enveloped Ling's body in the air.
On the system interface, a complex soul composition slowly unfolded, and in the deepest part of her ocean of consciousness, a dark, unactivated code was deeply embedded there like a brand.
[Inactive mental imprint detected: Collective Lament Code.]
[Source analysis: The collective spiritual residue produced by the co-incineration of the souls of seventeen 'neuron' experimental subjects before their death.]
This code is the last and most vicious curse left in this world for the seventeen children who were "purified" by his own hands.
It is like a seed, lurking in the soul of Ling who has had a spiritual connection with them, waiting to be awakened by a similar "sorrow".
"That's it."
Xuan's face showed a look of understanding, but he did not choose to clear this dangerous code.
Instead, he highlighted it on the system interface and added a new note: [First-level reserved sample, used to reversely decipher the group precognition and spiritual resonance mechanism.]
What he wanted was never to destroy, but to analyze, devour, and then... control.
"Transfer Experimental Subject S-01 to 'Echo Cage'." The cold order was issued again.
The so-called "Echo Cage" is a special secret room just completed underground in Scarlet Eye Tower.
Its walls are made entirely of rare minerals produced from Land of Lightning that can absorb 99.9% of sound.
And the most chilling thing is that its four walls are densely inlaid with seventeen pairs of dim crystals - the eyeballs left after the seventeen communication puppets were hollowed out.
That night, Ling was sent into this absolutely dead darkness.
The ultra-high-precision monitor inside the cage captured a "silent explosion" that lasted only 0.3 seconds at midnight.
That was not sound, but the violent vibration of air molecules.
After systematic analysis, this vibration mode is completely consistent with the resonance frequency produced by the extreme depression in the chest when humans suffer unspeakable grief.
Early morning on the third day.
Uchiha Xuan announced that "Silencing Seal" has been fully upgraded to the second generation version.
The new version adds a layer of spell named "Emotional Detachment Layer".
It can not only silence the sound, but also convert the baby's first strong emotional fluctuation (usually fear or hunger) into the purest spiritual energy Chakra that can be stored.
The first batch of transformed energy is like a trickle, collected by the talisman, and slowly injected into the core of Scarlet Eye Tower through the energy network throughout the empire.
Buzz--
A low hum sounded from inside the entire tower without warning.
It was neither a bell nor a human voice, but an ancient and desolate sound, as if it came from the trembling of Divine Tree roots slowly spreading deep in the earth's veins in ancient times.
In Echo Cage, Ling suddenly raised his head.
Where the tears on her face had long dried up, the skin was broken into pieces and turned into ashes falling down.
She Scarlet Eye looked blankly at the ceiling, as if she had penetrated the thick rock formations and saw the "waking up" tower.
She spoke softly, her voice hoarse as if it had been polished with sandpaper:
"This time, they... really can't get it back."
On the top of the tower, Uchiha Xuan faced the rising sun, and the golden light gave his dark robes a cold and hard outline.
He felt the pulse coming from the tower under his feet that was perfectly synchronized with his own will, as if he was caressing his own newborn limbs.
He slowly raised his hand and gave the final judgment to the void behind him.
"Send the order to prepare for the first phase of human adaptation test of 'Soul Coding Project'. Subjects - all registered S-class experimental subjects who have completed basic modifications."
The wind picked up the corners of his clothes and made a hunting sound.
At this moment, the first ray of "emotional energy" that was stripped and transformed in the Scarlet Eye Tower core array completed its first cycle.
An invisible ripple of silence that cannot be detected by any instrument, centered on the tower, spreads out silently, penetrating into every node and every corner of the empire's spiritual network.