Chris quietly stared at Shanice Doctor Jin on the other side of the screen, keenly aware that she was completely different from usual today.. She usually buttoned her shirt meticulously, but at this moment, her neckline was slightly open, showing a hint of messiness; her curly hair, which was always carefully tended, also appeared a bit loose and messy. What surprised him even more was that he could have sworn that he could clearly see the two heavy dark circles under the eyelids of this top Archmage.
"You look absolutely exhausted," Chris couldn't help but say.
"I really can't hold it anymore," Doctor Jin sighed, rarely showing her fragile side in front of patients. In order to save as many souls on the verge of collapse as possible, she had to frantically split her consciousness into more than 100 million independent parts. This was definitely an incredible move that could be called a miracle, but at the same time, it also imposed an unimaginable horrific load on her spirit and soul.
"Has the situation really deteriorated to this point?"
"In the few short days since that Cataclysm happened, the suicide attempt rate within the entire Empire has soared by an extremely shocking 700%!"
"So high?! Oh my God, then I simply can't imagine how many people have successfully committed suicide?" Chris took a breath.
"Fortunately, very few people actually succeed in committing suicide," Doctor Jin comforted him a little. In today's highly developed magic era, it is not easy to successfully end one's life. The Identity Arcane Terminal worn on the wrists of all citizens is extremely precise monitoring of individual vital signs 24 hours a day; once the data falls below the dangerous threshold, the terminal will immediately sound an alarm and forcefully call official rescue. Taking a step back, even if the terminal fails, the robot housemaids equipped in almost every household also have similar life intervention and rescue programs built in.
What's even more exaggerated is that in order to deal with this unprecedented psychological crisis, the Empire government even directly launched the super-large "Life Detection Barrier" covering the entire planet, and included the vital signs of all citizens within the Empire territory into Skynet's absolute surveillance. As long as anyone attempts to take the extreme act of committing suicide, the system will detect it immediately and immediately dispatch a dedicated person to the scene through space transmission for forced intervention and assistance.
"So, the current situation is finally under the Empire's control?" Chris heard this, and his tense heartstrings relaxed a little.
"It may seem so on the surface. But you have to know that the situation has become so serious that high-level government officials are discussing extremely seriously whether to implement 'Mass Memory Erasure Spell' as an ultimate solution," Doctor Jin's voice revealed a hint of deep helplessness.
There are too many ordinary civilians who cannot escape the extreme psychological shadow caused by that terrifying giant hand of bones that covers the sky. Although in the past years, the citizens of the Empire have been told in education that this multiverse is full of unknown fatal dangers, but it was not until a few days ago that they truly and personally experienced the suffocating terror.
Countless people realized in despair during that Cataclysm that in the depths of this cold universe, some kind of high-dimensional terrorist existence could descend at any time and anywhere. With just one the Snap, the entire civilization they were proud of could be completely wiped off the map of the universe. This extreme sense of powerlessness and deep fear of the unknown directly destroyed the psychological defense lines that many people had maintained their entire lives, leading to an extremely serious collective mental health crisis.
In order to cope with this invisible war, National Mental Health Bureau staff have been working overtime continuously, to the point of sudden death. Empire even urgently recruited all professionally trained psychologists, as well as a large number of top Arcanist majoring in the fields of psychology and Mind Stone, to jointly form a huge team to try to solve this difficult problem.. And Shanice King, who was originally only an external special consultant, was urgently appointed as the top chief of the department because of her irreplaceable supreme prestige in the field.
Among the series of emergency plans they proposed, the simplest and crudest one is to directly use magic to forcibly erase the painful memories of Purgatory in the minds of civilians. The core logic of this plan is: even if people later see the disaster video on the Internet, or hear other people's reports, they will only look at the Cataclysm from the perspective of an outsider like watching a movie - rather than as a witness, once again being crazily tortured by the immersive fear of death..
"Is that extreme method of forcibly tampering with memory really feasible?" Chris asked with some concern.
"I don't... Damn it, look at my current state, it's so unprofessional. As your attending physician, I shouldn't discuss these top-secret national plans with you, a civilian," Doctor Jin rubbed her twitching temples with great annoyance, feeling that the fatigue was almost completely overwhelming her.. She really crossed the line just now. This kind of top-secret conversation related to the strategic direction of the Empire should never appear in the psychological counseling of patients.
'I'm still too vigilant about him,' she warned secretly in her heart, and then quickly gathered her thoughts and forcibly returned to the role of a professional therapist. "Okay, let's bring the topic back, how have you been feeling recently?"
"I think I'm pretty good. I was really scared out of my mind at first, but now I've completely recovered," Chris replied truthfully.
"So, when you see..."
In the next few hours, Chris completed the entire set of in-depth psychological counseling treatments with great cooperation. In the end, Doctor Jin confirmed to him that his current mental state was extremely stable and healthy. However, to be on the safe side, she still strongly recommended that Chris undergo a few more cycles of consolidation treatments.
After the interview, Chris applied to the company for telecommuting and chose to continue to stay in a safe apartment. A few days later, when he was sitting on the sofa to rest, a piece of extremely shocking news suddenly appeared on the TV screen.
It was a horrifying case of collective corruption and terrorism at the top levels of the government that involved a wide range of things!
According to a top-secret investigation report disclosed in the news, the empire issued a death order many years ago, requiring that all civilian residences within the territory must be mandatorily integrated with the highest-standard "earthquake-resistant and anti-vandal enchantment array" to withstand various potential natural disasters and physical damage. . However, during the implementation of this huge project, countless greedy government officials and engineering contractors actually enriched their own pockets and pocketed all the huge funds used to purchase top-quality enchanting materials; they used extremely low-quality cheap materials, hired half-baked array masters, and completed the enchanting work with extremely perfunctory and even fatal flaws.
What is even more irritating is that a considerable number of house owners have seriously neglected their duties in the following years and have not carried out regular inspections, maintenance and repairs of these life-saving enchantment arrays in accordance with regulations. In addition, Imperial Intelligence Agency also found out that an extremely secretive terrorist organization secretly intervened and secretly tampered with and destroyed countless originally intact defensive enchantments in the vast territory of the Empire.
Chris opened his eyes wide and looked in shock at the long list of arrested politicians and senior officials on the screen. The faces of all suspects had been extremely strictly coded by the authorities, obviously to prevent the angry people who had lost their loved ones in the disaster from launching bloody and crazy revenge on the families of these corrupt officials.
Looking at this scene, Chris Wrath gritted his teeth and clenched his fists tightly together. As long as he thought deeply, he could guess: If it weren't for the heinous greed and malfeasance of these silverfish, countless innocent lives could have survived in that devastating earthquake! Now he wanted to punch hard, even if it was just a punch in the air, to vent the Fury. Luck in his chest that was about to burst out. But just when he was about to lose control, a crisp notification sound suddenly popped up on the identity terminal, forcibly diverting his attention.
When he clicked on the official message and read the contents clearly, he was shocked again - but this time, it was because of an extremely incredible surprise.
It was an official letter from the Empire High Honors Review Committee. The official informed him extremely solemnly: In view of his glorious deeds of bravely digging out and saving the trapped woman from the rubble without regard to his own safety when the disaster occurred, Empire decided to officially grant him the supreme title of [Honorary Citizen]!
This title is not just a vain reputation, it also comes with an extremely generous Arcane Points, as well as an ultimate reward of a full 1,000 Arcane Merit points!
In addition, it will also unlock a series of extremely unnatural stealth privileges for Chris: such as obtaining higher-level access rights to the Empire Grand Arcane Library, enjoying extremely exaggerated internal discounts when purchasing certain strictly controlled military supplies or magic products, obtaining higher-level employment opportunities, and having absolute priority when applying for the allocation of certain extremely scarce strategic resources.
'A total of one thousand points of merit! This... this just makes up for all the savings I had completely squandered in order to reach the Battle Aura realm!' Chris was so excited that his breathing became a little rapid. He never dreamed that his instinctive act of kindness at that time would actually bring him such a terrifying and generous reward afterwards that could even reverse the fate of his life.
The next day, with excitement, he boarded the interstellar flight to the capital to attend the grand award ceremony specially held for these new Honorary Citizen. This ceremony was so grand that it was even broadcast live to all Empire; what made Chris even more flattered was that the supreme commander, Queen Olivia, actually attended the ceremony in person and shook hands with each of them cordially with a smile. For Chris, this is definitely a highlight moment that will never be forgotten in his life.
Time flies, and another year has passed in the blink of an eye. Today is the holy day when Chris finally graduates from that Hell-like course. The graduation ceremony is extremely rare and arranged at the core of the Empire The venue - "Academy City" was held. This decision made Chris feel unprecedentedly excited, because this sacred city, known as "the ultimate cradle of magic civilization", has finally begun to open its doors to ordinary civilian students like them..
As soon as his feet set foot on this land, he couldn't help but look around. He raised his head and stared in awe at the hundreds of magnificent magic towers that towered into the clouds and seemed to pierce the sky. They were like ancient steel behemoths, proudly overlooking the entire bustling city.
His weathered eyes Blink were filled with unabashed enthusiasm and longing. He was daydreaming crazily in his mind, imagining what a supreme honor it would be if one day in the future, he could also own a tower that reached the sky entirely in this holy land.
"One day, I will definitely have a tower that belongs to me," he clenched his fists tightly and swore to himself in a low voice but with utmost certainty.
Since the free time before the ceremony was extremely limited, he did not dare to waste any time and immediately started his sightseeing tour. He visited all the areas open to his level of authority. However, during the tour, Chris was extremely keenly aware of an extremely abnormal phenomenon: the number of "undead" creatures active in the city seemed to have increased significantly.
This is actually not the first time that he has noticed this strange trend. In recent times, he has clearly felt that the appearance of the undead in the Empire society has become more and more frequent. More and more popular media such as movies, holographic games, and novels have begun to frequently use these undead creatures as protagonists or core elements, and most of the works are very deliberately depicting them as positive, positive and even charming existences.
Chris's programmer's intuition told him that there was definitely some deep layout hidden behind this that was extremely huge and even related to the Empire's strategic direction. You know, highly rational undead creatures like Vampire and ghosts have long been the norm in the Arcane Empire's society.; The ones that are truly repulsed and deeply feared by the public have always been dark monsters like Dementors and Yin Corpse that purely rely on killing and devouring instincts.
However, just recently, Empire's top academic circles have extremely abnormally released a large number of cutting-edge research reports on "how to perfectly integrate and integrate these extremely dangerous dark monsters into modern human society."
Chris shook his head vigorously, forcing these incendiary political and sociological conjectures out of his mind, and continued his sightseeing. Today, Empire is in an extremely tight state of mobilization for all-out war. A total world-destroying war destined to involve endless galaxies and shatter them is already as close as the Sword of Damocles hanging above his head.. He doesn't want to worry about these grand and heavy topics at all now. At least today, in this glorious day that belongs to him, he just wants to relax and enjoy the fruits of victory that he has worked hard for six years.
After the tour, Chris successfully participated in the graduation ceremony and received the heavy graduation certificate as he wished. Although the whole process was solemn, there were no spectacular unexpected episodes.
After the ceremony, he met up with the only good buddy he met in college - Gerard, and the two had an extremely luxurious meal in a well-decorated restaurant. With Chris's introverted and extremely goal-focused character, he is usually the kind of lone wolf who finds it extremely difficult to establish deep friendships with others.. However, Doctor Jin once warned him extremely seriously: If he wants to go further in his future career and spiritual practice, he must not become an autistic patient who is completely disconnected from society and has no social skills like most of the obsessed Arcanist.
"Chris, you are too tight-lipped, have you got any job offer that you like?" Gerard asked curiously while cutting the magical beast barbecue on the plate.
"Of course I got it. I will officially enter the military system to work next," Chris dropped a bombshell calmly.
He successfully got an extremely core and extremely hard-core high-paying position: writing the underlying defense code of the Psychic Energy driver and fire control system for the Imperial Space Fleet main star battleship.
"Not only is this job extremely intense, but almost all projects involve Empire's top secrets. But its rewards are definitely huge: the salary is ridiculously high, and the room for promotion is extremely broad," Chris added with great satisfaction.
It is no exaggeration to say that his current annual salary in this new job is at least seven times higher than when he was an ordinary programmer! But for Chris, those worldly gold coins are no longer the most important thing to him; what really makes him feel excited is that this core military job allows him to obtain a large amount of Arcane Merit at an extremely abnormal speed.
According to his sophisticated brain calculations, which can be called a supercomputer, without any other additional meritorious service or windfall, as long as he continues to work step by step in this job, he will only need 37 years to perfectly accumulate all the information to purchase that bottle of Third Tier Dragon Potion!
"You are one of the top thirty academics among our graduates! It's only natural that you get such a great job," Gerard Although he said Blessing, there was still a hint of Envy in his tone.
"What about you? What are your plans next?" Chris directed the topic to the other party.
"I received an invitation from a small virtual reality game design company, and I have decided to accept their offer."
"Considering your appalling transcript, it's a blessing to get this job." Chris complained mercilessly. Gerard is a typical young man who is drunk now and advocates hedonism. Because of this, in the six years of study, even though all the courses were extremely convenient online, he still set a brilliant record for skipping the most classes. The thing about Luck is that this kid has an extremely fanatical hobby in sports cars and mechanical modifications, and he happened to find a common language with Chris. This allowed him to borrow Chris's perfect academic notes and get the diploma in an extremely thrilling way.
"By the way, have you ever heard of this thing called 'Universal Web'?" Gerard suddenly lowered his voice and raised a topic in an extremely mysterious manner.
"No. What the hell is that?"
"It can basically be understood as a super Internet that covers the entire multiverse. It is an extremely common and mainstream ultimate means of communication in the huge civilizations and god systems outside the Empire territory. However, it is not until recently that it has begun to become popular secretly among our Empire folk, becoming more and more attractive."
"Is this kind of foreign network that is not regulated by the Empire... safe?" Chris captured the core blind spot extremely keenly.
"Well, I really can't say for sure. But the only thing I can be 100% sure of is: this is definitely a secret method that even the great Empire Skynet system cannot monitor! Because of its absolute concealment, countless people are now pouring into this network crazily, conducting all kinds of shady transactions and exchanges on it."
When Chris heard this, his brows immediately knitted together deeply. As an extremely senior Psychic Energy programmer, he knew better than anyone else how terrifying and destructive a huge, unregulated network could be in collecting and stealing user data.. And when this kind of theft is combined with Fusion's weird magic rules and extremely secretive soul spirit Divine Power, the danger level of the whole thing will exponentially increase exponentially, becoming horribly complicated. Therefore, from the bottom of his heart, he is extremely wary and repelled of this kind of foreign product of unknown origin and completely out of the Empire's control.
It is undeniable that Empire's Skynet system is indeed monitoring everyone's lives without blind spots. However, Chris can refute it very confidently: The fundamental starting point of Skynet's monitoring is to maintain the absolute security of the Empire's territory and to protect the best interests of ordinary citizens like them.. To take a step back, even if this statement is somewhat whitewashed, at least so far, there is no substantial evidence to show that the Empire government is abusing the Skynet system to persecute its people.
However, when faced with this so-called "Universal Web", the situation is completely different. He has no idea what kind of force is in the hands of this giant Abyss network that covers the universe, let alone what ulterior and sinister purposes those operators hidden behind the scenes want to use it to achieve. But he is absolutely certain that the forces behind this have absolutely no good intentions, let alone seeking Fawley for the citizens of the Arcane Empire.
"Isn't there any official statement from the government regarding this sudden cancer?" Chris asked with a frown.
"Absolutely not. The officials neither took a strong step to block it nor issued any tacit provisions. They just adopted a very strange and laissez-faire attitude and allowed it to grow wildly in the dark."
"In this case, I will decide whether to get involved with this thing after in-depth investigation and study of its underlying logic."
Gerard knew the character of Chris very well, and knew that his academic brother was an extremely loyal royalist and patriot at heart, so he very wisely did not continue to test this dangerous edge. Fortunately, Chris was not one of those blind fanatics who had been brainwashed into mentally retarded people and refused to listen to any negative criticism of the Empire, otherwise the two would never have become friends..
After this somewhat heavy dinner, Chris went straight back to the apartment and began to make final preparations for his upcoming military career. Since the top-secret military base he was about to join was located on another heavily guarded planet, he had to start packing his bags.
Exactly one week later, Chris, with Infinity's expectations for the future, boarded a military-exclusive interstellar battleship that exuded cold murderous aura, and galloped away at full speed towards his new destination full of challenges.
Time passed by like a white horse, mercilessly running through ten long years. When the supreme Archon Ian completed an epic cross-dimensional expedition and quietly returned to the throne of power Empire, the outside world still knew nothing about it.