The feeling at this moment was as if a fleeting instant had passed, yet also as if countless years had gone by.
Han Xiao's vision gradually cleared, and he was able to see his surroundings more clearly.
This was a boundless, white world with no gravity. His body was suspended in mid-air, and countless white orbs of light, large and small, floated all around him. From a distance, it seemed as if each orb was playing a blurry image.
"The scene at the Third Sanctum is not much different from the Oathkeeper's description..."
Han Xiao looked on with curiosity and suddenly turned around. He saw that the portal he had come from was shaking violently, as if it was about to collapse.
Suddenly, he had a gut feeling and, as if possessed, reached out his hand and grasped at the passageway.
Buzz--
Just then, a special energy suddenly surged within his body, and six streams of heat seemed to appear out of thin air, converging in his palm and transforming into a unique pattern that shone brightly.
The next moment, the passage seemed to be blessed by some kind of power, stabilizing instantly and transforming into a slowly rotating portal of light, like a luminous mirror, obscuring the view outside.
"What's this?"
Han Xiao was surprised. He had just had the thought that he didn't want the passage to disappear, but suddenly he had an intuition that he could do it, and the result was exactly as he had imagined.
He looked down at his palm, observing the mark that had appeared out of nowhere. It looked like six lines pieced together, but the pattern seemed incomplete.
"Strange, when did this kind of thing get inside me?"
Han Xiao was about to open the panel to check his status when he was suddenly stunned to find that the panel could not be opened.
This is the first time the ever-reliable control panel has failed to respond!
Han Xiao frowned, clenched his fist, and tried to mobilize the energy in his body. Streams of brilliant golden Mechanical Force shot out.
"Hmm, although the panel can't be opened, my status remains unchanged; I'm still at my peak."
Han Xiao checked his physical condition and secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Although the panel was temporarily inaccessible, it did not affect his abilities.
From the very beginning, he experienced things with complete authenticity, and all his abilities eventually became skills he mastered, readily available to him. If it were an ordinary player, without the skill panel, they wouldn't even be able to use their skills. It's like manufacturing machinery; he needs to personally complete all the steps, while an ordinary player only needs to cast a loading bar—there's a huge difference between the two.
This was also Han Xiao's first time entering the Sanctuary, so he could only slowly figure out the situation.
He tested various skills and found that he could use most of them, but he was unable to make any contact with the outside world. Quantum communication and Dimensional Factory were unusable, and even the Sovereign's Teleportation failed for the first time.
Although the Sanctuary passage was inexplicably maintained, all external communication methods failed, and communication with the Sanctum Organization was also cut off.
"Interesting. The Sanctuary has a unique nature; not only is it useless to Sovereign, but it's even impossible to access the control panel..."
Han Xiao narrowed his eyes, his brain racing as he stared at the handprint. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck him.
"Six patterns... six... if I remember correctly, that's about the same number of fragments of the Third Sanctum I possess, right?"
Han Xiao's eyes lit up.
Although he couldn't see the panel at this moment, he still remembered this information.
Originally, I only had two [Third Sanctum] skill fragments, one from the [Primordial Esper Ability Collector] milestone and the other as a reward after defeating the Sanctum Elders.
The third task of [Relay Across Iterations] requires entering any Sanctuary and is rewarded with three corresponding Sanctuary fragments. Although the panel is not visible now, Han Xiao felt that the panel might still be running and had issued the task reward even though he could not see the prompt.
In this way, I will have five [Third Sanctum] skill fragments.
As for the extra piece, Han Xiao had several guesses. Based on the experience of the Oathkeeper, the most likely possibility was that entering any Sanctuary would automatically grant him a corresponding fragment.
If this line of reasoning is correct, the numbers match, which is enough to explain the current situation and prove that the mark did not appear out of thin air, but had been dormant in the body for a long time, and the activation condition is to enter the corresponding Sanctuary.
"I've never understood the purpose of the Sanctuary Fragments, yet they just stabilized the Sanctuary passage... Could it be that the Sanctuary Fragments are related to my authority within the Sanctuary, and the more fragments I have, the more I can do? Since each fragment is independent, the Sanctuary Fragments don't manifest as items, but rather as skills?"
The Oathkeeper said he felt like he was dreaming in the Sanctuary, his mind wasn't clear, but I was just a little distracted, not as exaggerated as he described. Could this also be an effect of the Sanctuary fragments?
Han Xiao fell into deep thought.
Suddenly, he snapped back to his senses and shook his head vigorously.
"We can only speculate about this for now, so we can't waste too much time on it. Once we get out, we should be able to find out what happened by checking the panel... Right now, our top priority is to observe the Sanctuary!"
Han Xiao steadied himself, maneuvered his body to fly to the nearest sphere of light, and opened his eyes wide, trying to see the illusion inside clearly, but it remained completely blurry.
He hesitated for a moment, then extended his palm, bearing the mark of the Sanctuary, and carefully touched the ball of light.
Splash--
The moment we made contact, a massive flow of information, like a surging wave, flooded my mind.
In a daze, Han Xiao saw a vision, as if he saw a race from its Germinal to its extinction, creating a glorious civilization, giving birth to generations of great people, constantly advancing technology, and finally being destroyed in a disaster.
Han Xiao was stunned for a while before withdrawing his hand. He realized that he could only remember part of the illusion's content. A portion of knowledge had appeared out of thin air in his mind, which seemed to be some technologies created by this civilization during its development.
"This knowledge primarily focuses on technologies in the fields of biology and genetics; it doesn't encompass all of this civilization's technologies, only a portion of them..."
Han Xiao savored this unexpected gain, then turned to touch even more orbs of light.
After numerous tests, he gradually gained a better understanding of the Sanctuary mechanics, and guessed and summarized several patterns:
First, each sphere of light is Information State collection, recording data on different things, primarily civilizations. Generally, one sphere of light represents one civilization, none of which exist in the current history; they should all be entities that have existed in previous iterations.
Secondly, touching the orb allows you to read the information inside, but you can only remember a portion of it. The amount of information is likely related to the number of Sanctuary fragments that represent your access level.
At the same time, there is a limit to the total amount of information that can be memorized. Once a certain limit is reached, when reading new light orbs, some of the data from the previous light orbs will be forgotten.
Based on the principle of Information State, it is very likely that the memory capacity will be limited each time you enter the Sanctuary, and will be reset and refreshed on the next entry. This means that the knowledge you can take out of the Sanctuary each time is limited, and the upper limit of memory capacity each time you enter may still depend on the number of Sanctuary fragments.
Third, after contacting multiple orbs of light, the technologies obtained were mostly in the fields of biology, genetics, and supernatural abilities. This may be the difference between the Sanctuary, representing that the knowledge of these iterative civilizations is stored in categories, with different Sanctuary representing different types of knowledge that can be acquired. The Third Sanctum is likely to contain technologies related to biological genetics and supernatural abilities research.
Fourth, some light spheres contain the contents of Beyond Grade A powerhouses from different iterations. Reading these Information State light spheres allows one to immerse oneself in their life experiences and even obtain some of the information they possess.
However, the Third Sanctum only houses people with supernatural abilities. According to Han Xiao's deduction, if the information collection of mechanics and mages is read, it is very likely that he could obtain the knowledge, technology, spells, blueprints, and other information possessed by them.
"Jess didn't lie to me..."
Han Xiao's face showed surprise, and his heart was filled with turmoil.
Although these patterns contain elements of conjecture and speculation, he felt that the truth was probably quite accurate!
The Oathkeeper gained almost nothing from the Sanctuary last time besides completing the revival objective, likely due to insufficient permissions.
He himself had six fragments at the beginning of the Third Sanctum, which was five levels higher than the authority level of the Oathkeeper, and he should be able to do far more than the Oathkeeper.
Thinking of Jess, his request from back then came back to mind.
"Let's see what the Sanctuary Revival is like."
Han Xiao composed himself and took out the medium given to him by the Oathkeeper.
The moment the idea of Sanctuary Revival took root, the mark on his palm seemed to sense it and lit up briefly.
call out--
The next moment, a portion of the light spheres suddenly shot out a thin beam of light, which converged in front of Han Xiao. Then, a flash of bright light appeared, and a glowing mark floated in mid-air.
Han Xiao glanced at it, then his face lit up with joy.
"This design... that's it, it's the Sanctuary Revival Mark drawn by the Oathkeeper."
Han Xiao immediately extended his other palm and touched the mark. The mark instantly transformed into a stream of light and imprinted itself on the back of his hand.
At the same time, a stream of information flooded into his mind, containing instructions on how to use the Sanctuary Revival Mark and all the objects to be revived by this mark.
However, Jess was not among them.
"It seems we've failed..."
Realizing this, Han Xiao sighed.
Either his medium is not recognized by the Sanctuary, or, as Jess said before, there are certain limitations to the resurrection across iterations.
Although they hadn't spent much time together, Jess had left a deep impression on him. The attempt to revive him had failed, and he wouldn't have the chance to see Jess again. Han Xiao felt a mix of emotions.
"Oh well, it's just fate."
Han Xiao shook his head, composed himself, and his thoughts involuntarily jumped from Jess to the Federation of All Stars, muttering to himself:
"Shouldn't the Information State set of the Federation of All Stars iteration also be stored in the Sanctuary?"
The moment the idea arose, the Sanctuary Mark reacted, illuminating a white light and pointing in a direction.
Han Xiao was caught off guard and was momentarily stunned upon seeing this.
Then, following the guidance of the markings, he flew over and finally stopped next to a group of orbs of light.
"Could these be Information State light spheres from the iteration of the Federation of All Stars?"
Han Xiao had a sudden thought and read the contents of one of the light spheres, immediately confirming his guess. It was indeed the data of a certain civilization that the Federation of All Stars had iterated.
Coming to his senses, Han Xiao glanced at the mark on his hand in surprise.
"Looks like I guessed right. The Sanctuary Fragment is the access point, and I didn't expect it to even have an indexing function... But that makes sense, with so much Information State stored in the Sanctuary, finding specific information is like looking for a needle in a haystack."
The thought had just formed when Han Xiao paused, suddenly having a bold idea, and muttered to himself:
"Since we have an indexing function, if we find the target by searching the iterative data of Galaxy, does that mean we have already...?"
Buzz--
Before he could finish speaking, the Sanctuary Mark once again pointed him in the right direction.
"There really is one?!"
Han Xiao's breath hitched, and his heart sank.
He pursed his lips, silently following the guidance, and arrived next to a sphere of light.
He stood there for a while, then mentally prepared himself, took a deep breath, and slowly touched the ball of light.
However, the next moment, Han Xiao was suddenly stunned.
The sphere of light was completely empty!
"Why is there nothing here?!"
This was the first time Han Xiao had encountered such a situation after touching so many light orbs.
He then attempted to search for the Three Universal Civilizations in the Galaxy and other advanced civilizations.
Every search was successful, but none of the target orbs contained any data; they were just empty shells.
Han Xiao's expression was one of surprise and uncertainty, yet he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
He was worried that seeing information about the Explored Universe in the Sanctuary would mean that Galaxy Iteration, like the Federation of All Stars, was just a phantom of the past. But the current situation was unexpected. Although they could search for target civilizations, they were all empty shells. Han Xiao didn't know what was going on, but at least it wasn't the worst outcome.
This is interesting, what exactly is going on...?
Han Xiao frowned, pinched his chin, and pondered deeply, secretly forming a guess.
"The reason for the empty shell... Could it be that the Galaxy is undergoing an ongoing iteration, the so-called 'present tense,' and only after we experience the Great Restart will the relevant information be included in the Sanctuary? If that's the case, then it should be considered good news..."
At this moment, Han Xiao suddenly thought of something, and his expression changed slightly.
So, these empty shells... are the tombstones that the Sanctuary reserved for this iteration?
"Is the Sanctuary implying that nothing can escape destruction...?"
Han Xiao fell silent.
Gazing silently at the blank sphere of light before me, a sudden, overwhelming sense of sorrow washed over me.