The Wizard of Truth: Starting with Analyzing All Things

"Deep hibernation".

At the level of rules and information, this is not simply dormancy or loss of consciousness. It is an existence itself, in an extremely harsh, rule-inert, and information "entropy increase" environment that is slow and irreversible, adopting an extreme, proactive, conscious, self-"downscaling," "compressing," and "anchoring" state in order to minimize the dissipation of its own "activity" and prolong its "existence" time.

For Luo Wei, this meant suppressing, slowing down, and even nearly halting all the active, regular, informational flow, resonance, and calculations within the three-ringed star speaker's soul "crystal cluster" structure—those pale gold, three-dimensional, multi-dimensional "crystal clusters" representing different rules of understanding, knowledge modules, and power traits. Only the most core, representing the essence of his own "existence" and the anchor point of his "will," that constant, faint, yet incredibly resilient, pale gold, regular "light core," that minimal, self-sustaining "pulse," remained. He "sank" most of his consciousness, perception, and thinking abilities into the deepest part of this "light core," like a creature entering hibernation in the deepest dream, reducing his metabolism to its theoretical limit, his conscious activity almost to zero, retaining only a trace of the most instinctive "anchoring" and "vigilance" towards "existence" itself.

He could "feel" that his own "aggregate" of information was slowly, yet steadily and irreversibly dissipating its last bit of regular, informational "activity" and "heat" into the surrounding dark gray, regular, informational "graveyard" matrix. Each extremely weak "pulse" of the "light core," with intervals potentially several standard hours or even longer than external time, was accompanied by an imperceptible, regular, informational "ripple" that spread out, then was silently absorbed, diluted, and assimilated by the boundless, dark gray, inert "matrix." This process itself was continuously and subtly "wearing down" and "consuming" the outermost, already cracked edges of the "crystal cluster" structure of his soul.

His soul is slowly cooling, solidifying, and weathering in this absolute, empty space.

However, his attainment of the Third Ring realm, and the most essential part of the knowledge of the "Garden of Origins" that had just been imprinted upon him, gave him a clearer, more essential, and more rational "cognition" of this "cooling" process. He no longer merely "felt" "weakness" and "dissipation," but could "observe" and "understand" from an almost "observer's" cold, rule-based perspective how his own state of "existence" was slowly, but inevitably, sliding towards the final, rule-based, informational "heat death" and "assimilation" in this extremely rule-based, informational environment, following some more fundamental, cold law of cosmic thermodynamics and information entropy increase.

This "cognition" itself did not bring hope, but rather a strange, cold, rational, and calming feeling that transcended fear and despair. He knew the ending, knew the process, and knew his own insignificance and inevitability in the face of this vast, ancient, and cold cosmic rule. But this did not break him; instead, it made the last, undying obsession representing "will" and "protection" in the core, pale golden "light core" even purer, more refined, and more resilient.

During the intervals of hibernation, those extremely long, almost eternal "dream" intervals, he would very briefly and very sparingly "activate" a trace of the most core, pale golden, regular "imprints" related to the knowledge of the "Garden of Origin" within the soul's "cluster" structure. Then, with minimal power consumption, he would "browse" and "contemplate" those most primitive, most abstract, and closest to the "truth" of the universe—the theoretical fragments and conceptual models concerning the essence of "existence," "rules," and "evolution."

This knowledge was so profound as to be difficult to comprehend; its logical language and mathematical framework were entirely different from those of the "Cradle" and the "Hole of All Structures," approaching more descriptive rather than constructive, essential "philosophy." But in this slow, fragmented process of "reading" and "thinking," his understanding of himself, of power, of the universe, and of its rules was deepening, expanding, and reshaping in an extremely subtle yet irreversible way. He vaguely sensed that if he could leave this place and digest this knowledge, his three environmental realms might no longer be merely "initial," but might touch upon some more essential realms. But the prerequisite was that he could "survive."

Ai Rui's "dormancy" exhibits a more unstable, dynamic, and chaotic quality.

At the core of her consciousness, that slowly rotating, regulated, informational "vortex" of mixed colors, was not completely "silent." Her "harmonious" nature seemed to prevent her from suppressing her "activity" to its theoretical limits like Loewy. Her "dormancy" was more like a passive, continuous state of extremely weak but never-ending regulated, informational "communication" and "filtering" with the surrounding environment.

She could "sense" that the surrounding dark gray, inert, regular information "matrix" was not absolutely uniform or "empty." On a larger scale and over a longer time dimension, this "graveyard" itself seemed to follow some extremely slow, grand, imperceptible, regular "pulsation" or "cycle." This "pulsation" was not "active," but rather more like the periodic, extremely weak, regular "deformation" or "stress release" produced by this "logical sedimentary layer" itself, due to its enormous mass (information content) and special regular structure, under the influence of the deeper, gravitational, or regular "background field" of the universe.

Her "structural vision" (which transforms into an instinctive, passive, regular, informational "perception" during hibernation) can vaguely capture these "pulsating," extremely faint, regular "ripples." The cycles of these "ripples" can last for months, years, or even longer. Their intensity is so faint that they are almost undetectable by any conventional means. But for them, who are in "deep hibernation" and whose perception is compressed to the limit, each time a "ripple" sweeps across their "aggregate," it brings a very brief, yet real, regular, informational "disturbance" and "pressure change."

Airi's instinct for "harmony" led her unconsciously to record, analyze, and even attempt to "simulate" these "ripples"—their regularity, "patterns," and "rhythms." She discovered that these "ripples" were not entirely random. Their intensity, direction, and frequency seemed to be related to certain local, regular, uneven "density," and structural distortions within the dark gray "matrix" of this "graveyard." These "unevennesses" and "distortions," in turn, might originate from the vast, complex, regular, information systems—those extremely distant, indirect "gravitational" disturbances or "logical stress" transmissions—that are still "operating" to some extent above the "megastructure hub" of the system.

She couldn't understand the specific "meaning" or "origin" of these "ripples," but she could "feel" their existence, and vaguely "draw" their rough "paths" and "nodes" spreading within this localized "graveyard." This perception itself was slowly and continuously consuming the little remaining source of her "harmonizing" power, making her "vortex" state more unstable and its colors more murky. But this was also her only dynamic "connection" and "information input" between herself and this "dead" environment.

Verna and Anne's "hibernation" was the most "efficient" and "purposeful".

Their core consciousness, that dark gold and ice-blue interwoven structure filled with complex information fragments, possessing "technical officer" characteristics, was not completely "dormant." They had set up an extremely low-power, background-running, automatic, rule-based, informational "retrieval," "comparison," and "modeling" program. This program, powered by their own limited, rule-based informational "computing power," was like the most energy-efficient archaeological excavation robot, slowly but ceaselessly digging, filtering, and attempting to piece together fragments of information—those extremely vague but theoretically existing fragments of concepts, formulas, or technical blueprints—that might relate to "maintaining existence in an inert rule environment," "drawing 'something' from 'nothing' in absolute 'emptiness,'" or "exploiting vulnerabilities in the underlying rule interface."

Their goal isn't to understand the complete technology, but rather to find keywords, connections, and logical clues. This process is like searching for a few grains of sand in a vast desert that might possess a special structure or contain information. The success rate is despairingly low, but it's currently the only proactive, survival-oriented, technologically-driven "exploration" they can undertake.

Lilith and Anderson's "hibernation" is more "passive" and "protective".

Lilith's core consciousness, that weary, life-preserving imprint tinged with emerald green, like the most resilient moss, tightly enveloped, connected, and nourished Barton and Lina's two faint, fading, orderly, informational imprints. With all her spiritual conviction, she imagined the gentle flow of the "source of life," the healing of wounds and the bursting forth of vitality, attempting to use this pure, willful "resonance" to protect them from the continuous, cold, "erosive," and "assimilating" pressures of the external "empty" environment. This process was also a tremendous drain on her; her emerald green luster was slowly but steadily dimming and thinning.

Anderson's core consciousness, that dark gray, ancient reef-like "navigation" imprint, acted like the final ballast, providing an ineffable sense of stability and direction to this entire "aggregate" of information. Even in "hibernation," his old navigator's almost instinctive "feeling" and "assessment" of the "environment" and "his own state" operated at a minimum, monitoring the entire "aggregate's" regular, informational "balance" and "drift" (although in this almost absolutely still "graveyard," the speed of "drift" was so slow as to be negligible).

Barton and Lena's "hibernation" was real, deep, near-death, and stagnant.

Barton's greyish-white, cracked "mark," within which the last embers of the "Star Warrior's" indomitable fighting spirit, barely maintained a faint, intermittent, regular flicker under Lilith's continuous, spiritual "nourishment," like the last dark red light of an ember about to be extinguished. The regular "erosion" and "collapse" characteristics of his arm injuries seemed to have their "activity" greatly suppressed in this extremely inert environment, their spread almost halted, but not disappeared, like malignant, dormant "cancer cells" deeply rooted in the core of his soul.

Lina's self-enclosed, "static" state was like an extremely dense, hard, regular "ice shell," tightly enveloping and protecting her last core of consciousness, isolating her from almost all regular, informational "communication" and "interference" from the inside and outside. Her "existence" itself was like an insect sealed in amber at absolute zero, where time had stopped; although "alive," it had lost all "activity" and "response."

Time, in this dark gray, orderly, informational "graveyard," flows slowly, yet resolutely and relentlessly, almost frozen in time.

External time may have passed in days, weeks, or even longer.

For the people in "deep hibernation," this is merely a vague, long-intermittent alternation of "awakening" and "silence."

During the intervals of an extremely long "dream," Luo Wei would briefly "activate" his consciousness to conduct a rapid state scan and environmental perception, confirming that his own and his team's "existence" had not completely dissipated. Then, after feeling the continuous, slow "cooling" and "wear and tear," he would once again sink into the deepest dormancy.

Ai Rui, meanwhile, continuously and passively received and recorded the vast, slow, regular, pulsating ripples of the surrounding "graveyard." She "sensed" that the intensity and cycle of these "ripples" seemed to be undergoing some imperceptible change at an extremely slow pace. The regular, uneven "density" in certain areas seemed to become more "obvious"; the "paths" along which some "ripples" propagated seemed to have undergone extremely subtle twists or forks. These changes were so faint as to be almost negligible, but to her, whose perception was compressed to its limit, they were like the most subtle, turning of the wind in the darkness—extremely distant, yet undeniably present.

After countless futile attempts at digging and filtering, Verna and Anne's background "information retrieval robot" finally, at some point, locked onto, extracted, and pieced together several extremely obscure, fragmented, rule-based, informational "descriptions" from the deepest layers of the "Wan Gou Ji Shu" knowledge base, concerning its own underlying architecture maintenance and logical redundancy handling.

These fragments mention the massive, structured information system of the "Ten Thousand Structures Hub," which, in its long-term operation, generates massive amounts of "logical redundancy" and "information entropy increase." To maintain the overall efficiency and stability of the system, deep, automatic "logical settling" and "information compression" protocols are periodically activated to "discharge," "deposit," and "compress" those inactive and irrelevant, structured information "residues" and "redundancy" to the lowest, pre-defined "logical settling layer" or "redundancy buffer" at the bottom of the facility—which is very likely the dark gray "graveyard" where they are now located.

More importantly, the fragments mention that this "settlement" and "compression" process is neither instantaneous nor absolutely uniform. It is affected by the upper layers of the facility, the still-operating core systems, the logical load cycles, energy fluctuations, and potential internal "errors" or external "disturbances," generating periodic, regular, informational "stress waves" and "density flows" within the "settlement layer." These "waves" and "flows," though weak, constitute a part of the "settlement layer's" own dynamic, regular "background field."

The fragments even vaguely mention that at certain regular points of "density" anomalies or "structural" weaknesses within the "settlement layer," due to the long-term accumulation and uneven release of "stress," extremely unstable, fragile, regular, informational "cracks" or "channels" may accidentally and temporarily form, leading to certain incompletely "compressed," regular, informational "layers" or "bubbles" deeper within the "settlement layer." Inside these "layers" or "bubbles," there may remain weak, regular, informational "active" or "structural" elements that have not yet been completely "settled" and "stagnated," and may even... connect to the "hub of all structures," other deeper, more core, regional, regular, informational "leakage" or "echo" that have not yet been completely "contaminated" and "collapsed."

Of course, the debris also warns that attempting to probe or enter these "rifts" is extremely dangerous. They are highly unstable and could collapse at any moment; their internal environment may be extremely chaotic and contradictory, filled with unpredictable, informational "turbulence" and "contamination." Moreover, the exits of these "rifts" most likely lead to even more dangerous, unknown, and potentially even directly triggering deep defense or purification protocol responses from the "Hyperstructure Hub"—specifically, **regions.

These fragmented pieces of information are like striking a match—extremely faint, yet undeniably real—in absolute darkness.

The moment Verna and Annie's consciousnesses "retrieved" these fragments, they were forcibly and briefly "activated" from deep dormancy to a higher "operating" state! They used almost all the regular information "computing power" allowed by this brief "activation" to frantically cross-compare, correlate, and model these fragments of information with the data and patterns of the "pulse" ripples of the surrounding "graveyard" that Airi had been passively recording for a long time!

Their goal is to verify whether the "ripples" and "changes" perceived by Airi match the characteristics of "stress waves" and "density flows" generated by the processes of "logical settling" and "information compression" described in the fragments of knowledge from the "Myriad Structures Mechanism"! And whether they can deduce and locate, from the current patterns of change in these "ripples," potential regular "density" anomalies or "structural" weaknesses in the vicinity—that is, potential locations that may form or exist unstablely, leading to unknown "layers" or "bubbles," or "cracks"!

This process placed an enormous, additional burden on their already strained core consciousness, which was teetering on the brink of "information overload" and "structural fatigue." Verna felt her dark golden, structured "technician" mark being forged in an invisible, high-temperature, structured "furnace," sending waves of scorching, structured, informational, and excruciating pain through her. Annie's icy blue glow flickered violently, as if it might collapse and extinguish at any moment due to "computing power" overload.

But they persevered. Because this was the first truly meaningful, proactive, and technological "discovery" and "hope" they had experienced since falling into this "graveyard"!

Just as their deductions were barely managing to construct an extremely crude, low-probability theoretical "model" for a dark gray "matrix" region in a nearby direction, possibly hundreds of kilometers away from their "aggregate" (in this information "graveyard," the concept of distance becomes blurred), possibly containing a regular, anomalous "density" gradient, a preliminary, vague, unstable, and instantaneous **.

Ai Rui, who had been in the deepest, most passive state of perception, suddenly and violently trembled in her slowly rotating, murky, regular, informational "vortex"!

It was not a conscious, proactive "awakening" that originated from her own body!

Rather, it was her passive, "structural vision," instinctive, deepest, regular, informational "perception" that captured something... unprecedented, intense, clear, regular, informational "disturbance" and "echo"**!

It was no longer a slow, grand, "pulsating" ripple.

Instead, it was a brief but exceptionally "sharp," "concentrated" pulse or "scanning beam" filled with something indescribable, cold, inanimate, yet also carrying a hint of... eeriness, a sense of "order," rules, and information!

This "pulse," seemingly from an extremely distant yet seemingly very close "dimension" or "level" of rules and information, pierced and penetrated this dark gray "graveyard," precisely sweeping over the area where this "aggregate" of information was located!

The instant the "pulse" swept across, Ai Rui "sensed" that her own "aggregate," and the surrounding dark gray "matrix," experienced an extremely brief yet clearly discernible, regular, informational "resonance" and "feedback"! It was as if their "existence" had been briefly "seen" and "scanned" by a gigantic, cold, absolute, regular "eye" or "detector"!

Immediately afterwards, the "pulse" disappeared as if it had never appeared.

But after the "pulse" disappeared, an extremely subtle yet real, regular, informative "ripple," "aftershock," and "disturbance trace" was left in the surrounding dark gray "matrix" along its path. This "trace" is not the "pulse" itself, but rather a localized, regular, subsequent effect of stress release and structural loosening resulting from the interaction between the "pulse" and the "graveyard" matrix.

In Irene's keen, passive, "structural vision" perception, the end of this "trace" seemed to... point precisely in the direction of the dark gray area that Verna and Annie had just deduced, where there might be an anomaly in "density" gradient!

Furthermore, at the very end of that "trace," at the boundary with the abnormal area, at a certain extremely tiny, regular, informational "point," the surrounding dark gray, regular, stable, and inert "matrix" seemed to have produced a trace of extremely weak, yet real, regular "loosening" and "thinning" due to the previous "pulse" disturbance and subsequent "stress" release!

It was as if… a heavy, regular stone door, rusted and sealed for billions of years, had a tiny, almost invisible, regular rust chip shaken off its hinge by an extremely accidental, violent external impact. This caused the stone door to emit a very, very slight, regular groan that no one could hear, revealing a shadow of a regular crack, billions of times thinner than a hair!

"Airi?! What did you sense?!" The moment that "pulse" swept across him, Luo Wei's consciousness was forcibly "awakened" from its deepest slumber! His third-ringed, keenly aware perception of rules also detected that brief yet heart-pounding "pulse" and "disturbance"! His soul's "light core" began to throb violently!

"There...there was something...that looked at us..." Airy's thoughts were filled with an indescribable fear and confusion, yet also a strange sense of discovery and excitement. "And then...over there...it loosened...a little bit...the place Sister Verna mentioned..."

"Pulse source...analysis..." Verna's thoughts, filled with intense, informational, "trembling" and "overload" pain, forcefully inserted themselves, "Features...not entirely matching the known conventional scanning protocol of the 'Universal Structure Hub'...possessing...higher-level, 'order' rule characteristics...but...distorted, unstable...possibly...a deeper, still partially operational, some kind of...'error,' 'contamination,' or...'residual echoes of defense mechanisms'...an unconscious, regular, information 'leakage' or 'self-test pulse' emitted from within the facility..."

"That 'pulse'... disturbed the local stress balance of the 'graveyard' matrix..." Anne's thoughts, equally weak yet brimming with technical excitement, "created... a theoretically, extremely brief, regular 'weak point' or 'stress window' at the edge of the anomaly region we've simulated!"

"Window...duration..." Lowe's thoughts were cold, swift, and decisive.

"It can't be calculated precisely... but... it's extremely short! Maybe... only a few seconds! Or even... shorter!" Verna said urgently.

"What's connected to the other end of the window?" Rowe pressed.

"Unknown! It could be... a deeper, less contaminated 'interlayer' or 'bubble' within the 'Hyperstructure of All Things'... or it could be... a more dangerous, regular 'source of contamination' or 'logic trap'! It could even... collapse directly... and completely annihilate us!" Annie's voice was filled with despair and rationality.

Brief, deathly, regular, informative, silent.

After a long, desperate period of "cooling down" and "waiting".

An extremely faint yet real, rule-based, informational "window" and "possibility" appeared without warning before their dying embers.

Grab it?

Or... should we remain in this eternal "grave," slowly waiting for the final "silence"?

The moment of choice.

It will happen again.

"Everyone..." Luo Wei's thoughts rang out again after a brief silence. He was still exhausted, yet a final, cold, resolute, rule-bound, rational flame burned within him.

"One last time... getting ready."