Luo Binhan didn't know why an illusion needed to be ventilated, but he still stood up from his seat. Upsilon at the rim of the cup first slid down to the table, then jumped onto his shoulders. Luo Binhan squinted at him, not feeling any real weight.
"Oh, this feels more natural! I don't like the way I look like I'm walking in the air." Upsilon said on his shoulder, "Let's go, let's go, chatting indoors is too boring!"
Luo Binhan decided not to get entangled with a shadow. He walked around the table, found the elevator under Upsilon's guidance, and reached the top of the entire robot spacecraft. The stroller also followed him step by step to ensure that Upsilon could continue to communicate with him in phantom form. He had seen the robot spacecraft's open balcony, its mouth that could open outward. And now he has broken into a new area: under the robot's Tianling Cap, what Upsilon calls the "balcony." It is actually completely enclosed and cannot communicate with the vacuum of the outside world, but at least it looks like it is floating on the sea. Luo Binhan didn't even sit on a chair. He followed Upsilon's suggestion and lay on the floor, feeling like a floating corpse in the universe.
Colorful light spots flickered above them. The stars all appear clear and bright, each in its proper place. Now when Luo Binhan looked at them, he no longer thought it was a sea of stars - he had seen the "sea" that truly melted the stars, and now everything seemed so light and empty. But when he recalled that sunrise in the deep sea, everything became blurry and hazy, as if it was just a dream he had while lying on the floor and taking a nap.
"...I used to have a very good friend of the White Tower." Mini Upsilon sitting on his chest said, "Although he is also a White Tower mage, he does not belong to the traditional nine sects of esotericism, but a joint A mage from the Four Sects, belonging to a sect called the 'Seventh Iteration'. Does Mr. Luo know about this sect?"
"No." Luo Binhan said. He felt that there was no need for him to be interested in this topic, but after a while he thought of Lan Que, so he asked again: "What are the four connected sects?"
"Well, this is a bit like the Tower School, right? As we see now, the White Tower uses the 'Tower School' as its organizational method. In fact, it has not always been like this. That situation was promoted by the Secret Alliance and the Alliance. In In the past, all the Tower Schools once belonged to the nine major sects called the Nine Secret Sects, while the remaining eight sects were managed and controlled by the sect called the 'Secret Alliance' - the Secret Alliance provided the information to the top meeting This is the explanation. In fact, they have been arguing about this internally - for example, Mr. Luo, your mage friend, the Tower of Spiritual Rose she belongs to should be derived from the Leaf of Life in the Nine Sects. branch. Although there are examples like Yinhui who have almost abandoned their sectarian stance and focused on academic and alliance affairs, most of the Tower Schools still maintain a close relationship with their origin sect. This is the traditional Nine White Tower Schools. In addition, there are also alternative sects that were added later and are not so traditional, namely the Seventh Iteration, Cyberwalkers, Paradigm, and Pneumatology—these four sects are collectively referred to as the Four Connected Sects.”
Luo Binhan's wandering attention suddenly focused. It wasn't that he was interested in the historical stories of the White Tower. He just felt that he vaguely heard some words that were not so "mage".
"Syb?" he questioned. That might be something wrong with Yaleriga's kiss translator.
"Cyberwalkers, the mages who have received mysterious enlightenment and magic from the data stream, probably say so. The people in this sect are very interesting. No matter what happens outside, they always seem to be absent-minded, because More than half of their minds will always remain in a wandering state in contact with the data world. Many members simply call themselves 'Neuromancers'. They complete spellcasting in this form. In contrast, my The sect that the mage friend belongs to, the seventh iteration, looks a little more interesting in appearance. How to explain it... I don't know much about the White Tower. To put it simply, compared to the Cyberwalker, in addition to casting spells A loose group with no consensus outside the method, the mages of the seventh iteration are more orderly. They jointly pursue the "transcendence in the iteration", just like the Camarilla claims that they will be able to reach the ultimate truth through the October Ceremony. Iteration believes that by constantly improving itself, the perfect form can appear on itself.
"Perfect form..."
"Yes, but the way they implement this concept is quite strange. That is to say, it is not a nine-sect method like cultivation or meditation. Almost everyone in the seventh iteration of the mages has his own set of iteration views. They continue to replace their body structure based on that. My friend's full name is the 'third trowel core', because he 'adopts the third iteration consensus configuration, with the trowel element as the heart "A mage of other materials" - who can understand this kind of thing! So I just called him Mr. Core. Well, at first he was very dissatisfied with me calling him that, but then everyone followed me and called him that. He got used to it. Oh, he is a conservative, old-school but very upright person, and he is not as serious as I imagined a mage, and he laughs very easily. Although he happened to be humanoid when I first met him , in fact, his original body was that of a very small rodent, and he might be a close relative of Sage Shilebo. It is because at this stage he happens to look close to the Pansapien species, so he was assigned to come to my side. .”
Luo Binhan lowered his head and glanced at the illusion on his chest. Upsilon's tone sounded calm, but he was still not sure whether he should take the initiative to ask, so he could only say meaningless nonsense: "You had a good relationship in the past."
"Well, that's true. If I have to make an analogy, it's like Mr. Luo, you and my brother are almost the same. Oh, actually it's a little different. Because for the mages of the seventh iteration, the colonial equipment of our race It can be regarded as a kind of iterative matrix, so he was a little over-enthusiastic. After we first met, he told me a lot about the White Tower and wanted to try to see if he could be my human body. Although in the end It didn't succeed...ah, now that I think about it, it would be nice to succeed once. He, when he was on the Galaxy Front, he had been thinking about self-iteration. One time, he was going to a supply point to collect strengthening materials, and he told me before leaving 'Let's just iterate myself into the Yongguang clan next time'. That made me a little embarrassed, hahaha, so I didn't go with him... Then, he never came back. Although I finally found out that he was Who killed him, but the body and the like have not been recovered.”
"Murder?" Luo Binhan said. He tried to sound as unsympathetic as possible, like a robot reading input.
"You can say that. However, it is too simple to say so. Although the Cyberwalkers and the Seventh Iteration sound so casual, they are actually groups that rarely participate in the affairs between sects. They pursue the paradigm of physical and chemical concepts ' is even more low-key than them. At that time, the ones who could really be said to represent the status of the four connected schools were the spiritualists led by Dollingerism.
"Mr. Luo, what does the so-called 'Lian Xie' mean? In fact, it means 'connected with reason and carried with the laws'. In other words, the four Lian Xie sects all originated from the side of reason. They were considered to be a kind of redundancy in their own body by the Lishi regime they originally belonged to. They were gradually assigned to the other side in the previous conflicts between the White Tower and the Alliance, so they have traces of Lishi everywhere from their birth. Take spiritualists as an example. They believe that the structure of the world comes from the kink of elements, so everything can be mechanically classified into mathematics and formal expressions. Because of this theory, when the alliance is concerned about the unity of rational forms After the attempt failed, ectoplasmists also believed that the 'linga' as a form of magic was diverse, and each of them could be established. Dolingism, which was common sense for ectoplasmists at the time, was fundamental. There was no need for additional nouns to refer to it - until the opposite single spiritism appeared. What triggered this change was a group now known as the Bronze-blooded group. Those Bronze-blood mages were originally subordinate to the Camarilla Assigned to the control area of ectoplasmology, as leaders and communicators, their bodies will be covered with scales, and their backs are naturally rich in copper. Because they live in a harsh volcanic environment, they have the habit of introducing new bloodlines since ancient times, and That is to say, Bronze-blood mages will continue to complete hybridization and bloodline fusion with other schools in a biological way. When they are integrated with ectoplasmology, they raise questions that the original ectoplasmology mages have never thought of: Why can’t all spiritual beings be unified? If everything is a kink of the elements, then there will always be the greatest degree of perfect kink, right?”
"That's not necessarily the case." Luo Binhan interjected, "Does it have to be a mixture of white pot and red pot?"
"Yeah, that's not what you said. Because Bronze Blood itself is a school that is good at absorbing and integrating. In their fusion school, a new conclusion was finally born: the essence of all things is the kink of the ether vortex, and the ether The kink of the vortex forms all observable elements, and different forms of kink correspond to different elements. There are limited types of kink patterns, so there is no infinity that cannot be broken. At the same time, the kink pattern of the vortex in the ether will not change. , so in the end... Ah, I'm sorry, Mr. Luo, I don't really understand the theory of pure mages. In layman's terms, the new theory they put forward is: the most perfect supreme spiritual grid is the beginning of all things. The unique and only way and result of climbing upward.
"Does this view really sound so extreme? Even though I had heard Mr. Core say it a long time ago, I just laughed and giggled completely incomprehensibly. And there are probably many similar views in the White Tower Sect. ?For example, the Nine Sects’ Voice of the Celestial Body and the Perfect Iteration pursued by the Seventh Iteration. For people from other sects, Single Linguism has no real conflict with their own sect at all. It is just a different way of saying it. So. This school of thought developed rapidly. The more the doctrine spread, the more the bloodline was passed on. Coupled with the tradition of centralization caused by its bad origin, the power of the bronze-blooded group became more and more unquestionable, and all those who had objections were punished. Excluded, expelled or eliminated. What started out as a simple elimination of dissenters soon turned into a curse and assassination of the Camarilla patrol mages. In the end, just when we were about to win the victory in the theater to which we belonged, Single Linguism Launched a rebellion against the Camarilla. All mages who refused to climb up together and believed that the supreme source of law did not exist, all mages whose interpretation of the supreme was different from theirs, and all intellectual civilizations that did not recognize the existence of spiritual beings, were all The target of the massacre. Although Mr. Core belonged to the seventh iteration that was so closely related to them, he was dismantled into particles by them simply because he refused to assist the monolinguists in attacking our camp. In that rebellion there were How many people have suffered the same misfortune as him? Neither Central City nor the White Tower has announced this answer."
They stopped talking and just lay quietly on the floor filled with cosmic illusions. Luo Binhan seemed to hear the child in the baby cabin turning over in his sleep. He hoped it was a good dream, but if a Yongguang tribe was filled with sorrow, could his human body feel the same? Couldn't he feel the feelings of the other two beings during Senluo's moment?
"I often think about how to distinguish the right from wrong in that matter." Upsilon said, "Mr. Luo, when Single Lingeism was first born, it can be said that it injected inspiration into the Camarilla which was in the leading position at that time. Another new blood, the thirteen sects of the White Tower that originally only co-existed loosely were able to join forces to participate in matters such as the Galaxy Front. At the time, no one thought that would be a bad thing. It wasn’t until I lost an important friend that I discovered How did things turn out? At that time, I felt very desperate, not just because I lost my friends, but because I found that I had no ability to distinguish justice at all. It seemed to be well-intentioned at first, but in the end it turned out to be... More people brought misfortune, good and evil, happiness and despair, and it seemed that it was just a repeated cycle. After that, although single spiritualism was suppressed, it was followed by the Taoist war and the spiritual field theory. The thoughts in my head and the words in my mouth take away many, many people's friends and relatives. In this way, I can't help but suspect that there is no real progress in the world, only temporary good and temporary bad. Shared happiness for all is also impossible. Maybe when I was wandering in the dream world, I should have left forever? But, if that were the case, I wouldn't be here today, unable to identify the Houyhnhnms There is no way to save you from the frozen hands. In that case, Momolo will also lose his friend. Thinking of this, I feel that it is worth it no matter what.
"Then, regarding Single Linguism, although I cannot forgive it for taking away my friends, its contribution to the united front must have saved many people. Maybe it once had a right side. Although in the end It turned out to be a wrong thing, but that doesn't completely negate the moment it illuminated the darkness. Mr. Luo, if I want to talk about my current thoughts, now I no longer regard it as a one-time, one-person job; A long-lasting battle of inheritance. If there is only one light, it is destined to only illuminate a limited time and night, so what we have to do is not to let it never go out, but to find new lights during this time. There is no need to dwell on the darkness after every light goes out, but remember the moments when it brings light. Then, keep lighting up new light sources to illuminate the darkness - —Mr. Luo, if you have any doubts about what Dwarf Starker has done and his own thoughts, then this is the advice I can give."
Luo Binhan closed his eyes. He lay quietly on the floor, Upsilon's words and Senluo's figure constantly alternating in his mind. In the darkness, he recalled Asabam's cold and decisive demeanor when he left. He can't figure it out yet, but he still has a lot of time anyway.
He opened his eyes, got up from the floor, and announced the most meaningful decision he had made all day.
"I want to eat mandarin duck pot." He said seriously.
