Millennium Witch

But it's not over.

Whether it was to suppress the hype surrounding Incident Zero or to divert attention, another event quickly rose to the top of the headlines across various media outlets, and the content was the thrilling epic battle between the national hero "Nameless" and Soulfire Seiji.

……

Although the Fusijiang massacre was more horrific and shocking, the materials, evidence, and news channels were ultimately in the hands of the authorities. If the New Eden government, the Rustbone government, Black Tower Medicine, the Holy Spirit Cult, and other informed parties intended to cover it up, it would naturally not spread. At most, it would only circulate in the streets and alleys of the area as an urban legend.

The duel between Nameless and Soulfire Saint was different. There was no need to cover up the fact that the battle scene was gorgeous, exciting, and full of the public's imagination of the battle between top mages. Therefore, it quickly became a hit on the United States' internet and gradually spread to the international arena. Even netizens in Emerald Continent and Silver Mirror Continent were discussing it.

It's impossible not to discuss this. How many level six mages like Soulfire Saint are there in the whole world? Normally, such battles are not shown to ordinary people because they involve national security secrets. Now that there's finally a public battle between top mages, who can resist taking a peek and chatting about it over tea?

and so……

Although she hadn't stayed in the Origin Civilization for very long, Yvette had already become a genuine international celebrity. To use a martial arts novel analogy, she was like a mysterious young swordsman with unparalleled martial arts skills who, at such a young age, could already exchange blows with top elders of prestigious sects.

In particular, after that exchange of blows, Soulfire Saint mysteriously disappeared!

While most people would certainly not believe that the dignified incarnation of the Grim Reaper would die so easily, many others believe that the Soulfire Saint must have been defeated and seriously injured, which is why he has secluded himself and dared not see anyone.

This adds even more mystery to the legend of the nameless mercenary.

……

In the following days, Yvette, who was still hiding in a hotel in the small county town to avoid trouble and had changed into a children's dress, also saw the battle video of her and Soulfire Saint on the Black Tide Continent's network.

The uploader was war correspondent Cromwell. This guy livestreamed for more than two hours before being taken away by the Rustbones military on charges of "threatening Rustbones' national security" and "illegally filming." Luckily, he escaped the indiscriminate distortions in the city and is still alive and kicking.

However, his live stream content still spread and caused a huge reaction all over the world.

However, after reading the various heated discussions and praises under the video, Yvette felt a little embarrassed.

She and Soulfire Saint were actually still locked in a stalemate. Considering that he had only sent a clone, she had to be extremely careful to conserve her mana. If it really came down to a fight to the death, she couldn't say for sure that she could win in a one-on-one battle.

Who knows what trump cards the Soulfire Saint has that he hasn't used yet?

But now netizens are praising her as if she has won a great victory, and she feels embarrassed.

Then, thinking of the death of Soulfire Saint, she felt somewhat melancholy.

Soulfire Saint was killed by Zero, along with the Bone Dragon and the Corpse Saint. Yvette was quite certain of this, as they returned to the Aberration Legion after their mutation.

But this is awkward, because she has become the bottom, and the Holy Spirit Cult will definitely hold her accountable for those debts, whether she admits it or not. Otherwise, with such high sunk costs, are they just going to swallow their pride and bear it?

Of course, given Zero's abilities demonstrated in the Fusjiang massacre, the Holy Spirit Cult will certainly not try to monopolize the spoils again as they did this time; they are not stupid.

Therefore, in the future, the Holy Spirit Sect will most likely cooperate with Black Tower Medicine to form a joint arrest team to jointly suppress them.

Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

……

That afternoon, after searching for the latest information online, Yvette logged into her private account and saw the message from Hoyle.

This requiem priest, who was essentially a good person, was very dissatisfied with the fact that the chief priest of reincarnation, Linde, was a general. Unable to disobey his superior, he simply took a long sick leave and went back to the countryside to recuperate.

This period of recuperation allowed him to escape the Fusjiang tragedy caused by Zero, and he was recently invited back to continue handling the main affairs of the Fusjiang Soul Fire Church.

Hoyle knew nothing about how the Fusjiang massacre happened, but one thing he kept in mind was that the nameless lady had indeed killed the general and completed the mission he had been tasked with long ago.

Although at this point he could no longer follow the church's procedures to pay the mission reward—after all, the church did not recognize the general as the reincarnation priest Lind—on a personal level, he still managed to obtain enough digital currency as a token of his gratitude.

"You're quite wealthy," Yvette said, looking at the sudden influx of 500 million into her cryptocurrency account.

“Hehe, actually it’s still going through the church’s accounts, but the names have been changed a bit.” Hoyle said happily, but quickly became serious again. “Sigh, after such a serious incident, the church needs a lot of budget to appease the public, and there have been many donations from all over the country. We had no choice but to resort to this measure. But no matter what, the use of this money is legitimate, at least I have a clear conscience…”

Considering that she was taking the blame for the Fusjiang massacre on behalf of Zero, Yvette didn't dare to continue the conversation on that topic. After exchanging a few pleasantries, she ended the conversation.

She then tallied up her current assets. Including the 500 million she had just received, she had a huge sum of over 700 million in her cryptocurrency account. Part of it was the reward she received from the human trafficking incident, and the other part was the profit she made from selling the Neon Nightmare assassin's unique skill, "Spinning Magic," cheaply on the dark web.

This money could actually be spent to replenish combat strength, but unfortunately, she is currently in Rustbone and things are inconvenient for her. If she wants to spend money, it would be best to return to New Eden, but that would mean returning to Black Tower Medicine's territory.

So after thinking it over, Yvette decided that she should buy some software.

She now has a Soul Brain, but its system architecture is terrible, and the Holy Spirit Cult, as a group that studies necromancy, is practically a makeshift operation in the field of rune compilation, so they can't provide any good software compatibility.

Of course, she could write some system architecture and software for the Soul Brain herself, but to achieve an excellent level, it would take a lot of time to polish it. Moreover, there are some things that she cannot do on her own—such as AI algorithms. Without data, she cannot raise an excellent AI, which is completely beyond her rune mastery.

and so……

After much thought, she decided to purchase a ready-made system and deploy some existing AI models into her brain, which would make everything much easier in the future.

There's no time to spare, so I'll just post one chapter today and make do. I'll revise it later.

Chapter 133 Online Invisibility

For Yvette, deploying ordinary AI models is meaningless; she's not trying to install a chat application in her head. So, in choosing a direction, her goal is specialized AI—in other words, professional AI with low versatility but excellent performance in specific vertical fields.

After all, it is common knowledge that the data information used to feed AI is more valuable than the algorithm itself, and these things are monopolized by super companies. There is no other way but to spend money.

After investigating and consulting with Firefly, Yvette identified her target as "Sage's Core," a research-grade AI model in the pharmaceutical field sold by Black Tower Pharmaceuticals. It comes with its own database and its main function is to assist in the detection and analysis of the pharmacology of various materials. It is an essential tool for making magic potions, rune elixirs, and even active rune sets.

Of course, she had mastered the knowledge of runic medicine a long time ago and was fully capable of manually concocting many magic potions and runic elixirs. However, she had no need for them, and she only mastered the high-end theoretical framework. She had little knowledge of the basics of magic potion materials science, such as which materials could be used to make which potions. These were things that required rote memorization.

This means that if she wants to concoct potions herself, she has to manually test the properties of the basic ingredients first. It's like a top architect starting to dig clay from a mine to build a skyscraper. It's not that it's impossible, but who can handle that?

Therefore, to this day, she remains in a state where she possesses knowledge of runic medicine, but faces numerous difficulties in putting it into practice.

Now that she has this, things are much easier, and she can finally refine and mix magic potions, even though she's still an unlicensed doctor.

……

In July, in a small county town near Fusi River, Yvette, Liana, and Firefly rented a small apartment and lived a low-key life for two months.

In the past two months, the attention given to the Fusijiang tragedy has waned considerably. Neither the Rusty Bone intranet nor the Black Tide Continent's international network has mentioned it anymore.

However, neither the Rustbone government nor the Holy Spirit Cult has ever relaxed its internal search efforts, especially in the small county town where Yvette lives. There used to be no surveillance cameras at intersections, but now shuttles are flying around the streets and alleys, and it's obvious who they're after.

But it's understandable. Who could accept a monster that can cause hundreds of thousands of casualties running rampant in their own country? Even if the Pope of the Holy Spirit Cult tolerated it, the Prime Minister and Cabinet of Rusty Bones certainly wouldn't.

So, in order not to provoke the Rustbone officials, Yvette kept a low profile here, like an ordinary apothecary, placing glass bottles containing various liquids in her room every day and familiarizing herself with the combinations of magical potions.

Of course, there was another reason for staying here: it was still very close to the Frost River, and Yvette was worried that if she continued to move further away, she would come into contact with the boundaries of the dream world.

Although Zero had mentioned that this was not a completely fake world, out of caution, she preferred to spend the rest of her time practicing potion-making here rather than taking any risky actions.

And so, autumn arrived.

With less than half a month left in the dream, the Rustbone authorities relaxed their pursuit of Yvette and her two companions, and the streets returned to normal, with the shuttle flashing red and blue lights nowhere to be seen.

At this point, Yvette finally decided to take Liana and Firefly away from here, cross the entire Rustbone, and head towards the east coast of Black Tide Continent. Her ultimate plan was to take a smuggling route to another continent.

The process went very smoothly.

Using hacking techniques to evade surveillance and deliberately choosing various rural dirt roads, the group got closer and closer to the East Coast.

Meanwhile, as the spatial distance from Fusjiang continued to increase, Yvette also confirmed one thing.

That is, the dream world is truly complete, not limited to the small area where you enter the dream; it seems to have no boundaries.

In other words, it's highly likely that it wasn't a dream, nor was it a fragment of memory left to her by Zero. Otherwise, how could you explain creating such a large, complete world with meticulous logic and order in every detail through your memories? The original owner wasn't an omniscient and omnipotent god.

But this led to another problem that puzzled Yvette.

Why are the people she sees different from others?

During her first dream, she noticed that the people in her eyes were somewhat blurry and semi-transparent, which led her to immediately conclude that she was not in the real world, but had entered a false dream.

Later, in the Blackwater District of Ish City, after entering the dream with Rosalyn, she discovered that Rosalyn's body had not become illusory. This further reinforced her belief that she possessed the ability to distinguish between a fake person and a real person at a glance, and that she could tell even if there was a second person entering the dream.

But now, the dream world is not just a dream. Zero looks like a mannequin, but he doesn't seem to be a native of the dream world.

Could it be that my strange vision isn't used to distinguish between real people and fake people?

Actually, there are no fake people, they are all real people?

With this thought in mind, one day, in a small town hotel along the way, Yvette looked at the pedestrians on the street again.

Then she saw, as if ripples were spreading before her eyes, the bodies of the pedestrians who were somewhat transparent and blurry suddenly became clear, as if she had returned to the real world.

Yvette was stunned. Several seconds later, with a thought, the bodies of the pedestrians became illusory and transparent again.

Yvette was even more surprised, thinking, "So this can be switched?"

Why wasn't this discovered before? Was it because we lacked awareness about it?

Immediately...

She thought of something and looked down at herself.

The next second, she saw her body begin to become illusory and transparent, just like the pedestrians on the roadside.

She turned to look around the room. Fireflies were charging themselves with magic wires in the corner, and Liana was reading a linguistics textbook on Emerald Language. As if sensing her gaze, Liana raised her clear eyes, blinked, and asked, "What's wrong, sister? Is there something on my face?"

Yvette said, "No... it's just that you're too beautiful, Liana."

Liana was still just a child and didn't know how to hide her feelings. Her fair face instantly flushed red, and she lowered her head shyly, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes. "N-no, you're the one who's prettier than me, sister..."

Yvette smiled, looked away, and thought to herself, "As expected, only I can see this visual effect..."

But soon, she thought of something else.

If she can use this method to disguise herself as a local in the dream world, then wouldn't Zero be able to do the same thing?

What is this, online invisibility in virtual reality games?

……

Ten days later, Yvette, Liana, and Firefly's cyber wanderings came to an end in a port city on the east coast of Black Tide Continent in the Rustbone Free State.

Since it was almost time to leave the dream, Yvette gave the two some instructions, left them enough money for living expenses, rented a house, and quietly waited for the time to end the dream.

As the scene before her dissolved, blurred, and was swallowed by the boundless darkness, before slowly gathering back into light, Yvette opened her eyes. What she saw was a rusty, moss-covered ceiling, and the cold, damp air she inhaled made her immediately certain that she had finally returned to the post-apocalyptic world, to the Water Tower Kingdom of the Machine Race.

Yes, my height has returned to normal, that's great.

She stood up and saw the remaining earthen wall she had magically created standing beside her. She tore it apart, gracefully soaring upwards through the air, emerging from the entrance to the underground ruins. Sunlight generously streamed down, illuminating the submerged city. The crystal-clear river reflected shimmering light, like schools of golden fish.

She let out a long breath, thinking that although the post-apocalyptic world was a savage world governed by the law of the jungle, it was still more suitable for her than the pre-apocalyptic world, at least it wasn't as oppressive.

Of course, it's possible that she felt oppressed because she was being hunted and had to wander around with Liana and Firefly. Ordinary people's lives were probably a little easier than hers... probably.

Then, remembering something, after leaving the underwater ruins, Yvette flew low along the flooded streets, quickly leaving the Water Tower Kingdom and entering the surrounding desolate area. She precisely arrived at several coordinates she had set in her memory and began to carefully dig downwards.

Each excavation was accompanied by the passage of time. After repeated attempts, yet still unable to find the time capsule buried in the dream, Yvette was finally certain.

Indeed, dreams are an independent world, and actions taken in dreams cannot affect reality or change the future.

Yvette, on the contrary, felt a sense of relief. She had no love or sense of belonging to the Origin Civilization; she simply needed their technology. If she had accidentally canceled the apocalypse and changed the future, her fate of meeting Rosalind and Dugrabi might have been altered, which was the last thing she wanted to see.

For now, she's content with maintaining the status quo.

Chapter 134 Farewell

The warm morning sun pierced through the dense canopy of trees, casting dappled patterns on the face of the girl in the woods.

After lazily stretching her body, she remembered something and quickly checked her soul brain.

When she escaped from Agasher's dream for the third time, she conducted an experiment to see if she could bring out any living creatures. The conclusion was that she could bring out the bodies, but the spirits disappeared.

However, the soul brain is not quite the same as a pure spirit.

First, it does not fall under the category of living beings. Second, it is not entirely an aggregation of soul runes; other runes and rare elements were incorporated during the crafting process to reinforce it. Finally, Yvette maintained a connection between it and her own spirit, essentially turning it into a temporary extension of her own spirit.

Yvette didn't know exactly what the process was for bringing things out of a dream, but she felt that if she still couldn't bring them out after all she had done, then there was really nothing she could do.

A few seconds later, after confirming that her soul brain was still intact, Yvette breathed a sigh of relief. She then activated the system self-check, letting it examine itself to see if anything had been lost during the process of leaving the dream.

then……

It's not a big deal if you don't check, but what you find is shocking.

According to the system's self-check results, she discovered that the remaining memory fragments in her soul brain had disappeared!

It should be noted that this is the biggest drawback of using the Soul Brain. Even the Holy Spirit Cult's own Reincarnation Priest must be constantly vigilant about the influence of those memory fragments when using the Soul Brain. If he is not careful, he will become a cyber psychopath, and the usage time often cannot exceed half an hour.

Yvette herself discovered during the testing that it would take her at least six hours to feel the abnormality in her memory, indicating that her spiritual strength could sustain her for nearly six hours without falling into chaos.

This is already quite good and can meet most of the usage needs, so she doesn't find it troublesome.

However, what she never expected was that after escaping the dream's fog, her soul brain was still there, but the various memory fragments stitched together within it were filtered out and not brought out at all.

Doesn't that make them invincible?

……