Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Yan Ke's finger was already on the final stroke of the trigger. The cold, hard feel of the metal trigger traveled up through his fingertips, and he could even foresee the image of the bullet piercing Lin Shen's skull in the next second.

Lin Shen leaned against the rusted iron gate, blood still dripping from the wound on his left arm, the bloodstains on the ground spreading to the size of a palm.

He didn't move, nor did he reach for the three-centimeter-long utility knife in his pocket again.

The calculation result was clearly etched in my mind: 0.2 seconds, not enough.

Even if he could lunge out now, the bullet would pierce his heart first.

The scent of death enveloped him in a detached, almost imperceptible way, like the smell of sulfuric acid in an abandoned chemical industrial park.

He even had the time to mentally review the remaining three nodes to be verified in the beacon theory: compensation for delay errors in neural signals, algorithm optimization for multi-channel synchronous decoding, and biocompatibility testing of the implant.

So close, so very close.

He has already completed the framework. In just six months, no, three months, he will be able to debug all the parameters.

Song Yuanming once said that the beacon theory needs to be completed.

He blinked, bracing himself for the excruciating pain of the bullet piercing his skull.

In that instant, a glimmer of light suddenly appeared deep within his consciousness.

It wasn't external light; it shone from the very core of his consciousness.

The light was very faint, like a tiny waveform that had just jumped up on an oscilloscope, gently touching the edge of his sea of ​​consciousness, like a drop of water falling on a calm lake, rippling out in an almost invisible circle.

Lin Shen's thoughts paused for a moment.

He had conducted countless experiments on neural electrical signal stimulation in the lab and was all too familiar with the sensation.

That is a tiny depolarization waveform superimposed on the resting potential when a neuron is stimulated by an external electrical signal. The peak value, rising edge, and decay period of the waveform are all as precise as if they have been carefully calculated.

He felt no fear or resistance; he simply instinctively connected the signal with something he knew best—the core of beacon theory is to inject coded external electrical signals into the nervous system of paralyzed patients, decode their motor intentions, and then transmit the signals to the prosthesis.

The stimulation waveform of the micro-implanted chip he designed and the signal that has now entered his consciousness are almost identical in underlying logic.

Who is doing this?

What technology is used?

Where is the signal source?

These questions all lit up in his mind at the same time, like all the indicator lights on an unfolded circuit diagram being turned on simultaneously.

His brain automatically began to analyze the parameters of the signal: frequency 127 Hz, pulse width 0.3 milliseconds, amplitude 75 microvolts, modulation method is phase encoding, and the matching degree with the output waveform of the chip he designed is as high as 97%.

impossible.

He wrote the core algorithm of the beacon theory. Only he and Song Yuanming knew the stimulation parameters of the implanted chip. Song Yuanming is dead, and all the data in the laboratory was burned to ashes in the explosion. How could anyone possibly send a perfectly matching signal?

……

It was in room 101, fifth district, Chenxi City.

Wen Yan's consciousness was sinking into the depths of the Sea of ​​Souls. Floating on the surface were three faintly glowing seeds: Xu Suyuan's pale blue, Liu Zhen's deep blue, and Meng Zhaowen's dark green. They were burning.

Deeper beneath the sea's surface, three extinguished seeds lay silently at the bottom—Han Xiao's, Li Rui's, and Chen Guohua's. They had merged into his very soul, becoming nourishment to repair his body, no longer pulsating independently.

His senses extended outwards along these seeds, like an invisible net being spread out.

Xu Suyuan's seed is currently inside the wall of the abandoned chemical industrial park. The energy fluctuations in that area suddenly trembled, like a small stone being thrown into a calm lake. A faint ripple traveled back along the seed's connection.

Wen Yan's attention was immediately drawn to it.

It wasn't the usual hatred, despair, or even the fear of facing death.

It was a weight of pure "incompleteness," like a person standing on the edge of a cliff, not wanting to jump, but because there was still half a road to walk on the other side, and he had to walk across it.

He followed the direction of his senses, his consciousness traversing seven kilometers of darkness, landing in a half-collapsed factory building in an abandoned chemical industrial park.

He "saw" Lin Shen being pointed at by five guns, and he also "saw" the structure of that person's sea of ​​consciousness—not the chaotic emotional mass of a normal person, but a series of clearly arranged logical chains, like a precisely constructed mathematical building, where the position of each brick had been precisely calculated, without a trace of unnecessary chaos.

What's even stranger is his physiological data.

Five guns were pointed at his chest, the muzzles already aimed at his forehead. A normal person's heart rate would rise to at least 180, but this person's heart rate was stable at 62 beats per minute, and his breathing rate was 12 breaths per minute, even more stable than that of an average healthy person in a calm state.

It's not a calmness that comes from training, but rather an innate, extremely high threshold for perceiving pain and danger, almost to the point of being insensitive.

Wen Yan's eyes lit up.

He had sown so many seeds of souls, and had never encountered such a suitable candidate.

Other people's obsessions are driven by emotions; whether it's hatred or resentment, they are all products of burning emotions.

But this person's obsession was driven by logic—"There are still goals to be achieved, so I can't die." There was no emotional fluctuation, only a clear and mandatory instruction.

The purity of this obsession is more terrifying than the most intense hatred.

With a gentle tap of his fingertip in the Sea of ​​Souls, a silver-white seed of soul rose from the surface and, following the pathway of perception, flew like a shooting star through the void towards the deep sea of ​​consciousness seven kilometers away in the forest.

……

In Lin Shen's sea of ​​consciousness, the faint light grew brighter and brighter, slowly spreading from the size of a pinhead into a soft, silvery-white halo, like the sterilizing lamp of a clean bench in a laboratory, illuminating his entire sea of ​​consciousness.

He "saw" the seed.

It was a seed with a silvery-white metallic luster, its shell engraved with extremely complex patterns. Each pattern was a logical link, almost completely overlapping with the patterns of the beacon theory algorithm he had written.

The seed floated in the center of his sea of ​​consciousness, rotating slightly. With each rotation, a stream of silvery-white information overflowed from the seed's surface and merged into his consciousness.

Just like when he reads academic papers or tackles code, those complex formulas and logics automatically flood his brain. Then his thinking automatically categorizes, archives, and connects them. He doesn't need to consciously memorize them; they are already engraved in his mind.

【Illusion Weaving】

Using mental energy as a guide, a fabricated sensory signal is injected into the target's nervous system, allowing them to "realistically" see, hear, or perceive a completely fictitious scene. The range of mental energy can reach up to ten meters; the further the distance, the higher the precision and energy consumption required for injection. The realism of the hallucination is affected by the target's mental state—those who are highly alert or have strong willpower may detect subtle flaws and break free on their own; those who are panicked, exhausted, or cognitively confused are more easily manipulated. The host can weave fear-inducing hallucinations to directly impact the target's mental state, even causing cardiac arrest; false memories or sensory distortions can also be implanted, causing enemies to attack friendly forces in confusion. Maintaining the hallucination requires continuous mental energy consumption; simultaneously controlling multiple targets or forcibly maintaining complex hallucinations beyond one's capacity will lead to sensory disturbances, auditory and visual hallucinations, and in severe cases, permanent damage to the nervous system.