Chapter 926 — A Thought Current Without Inclination

He knew well the time-sense of these gods—basically the same as his own when he had been a satellite spirit. So he had to ask now, to see whether this matter required tracking and attention. If the Goddess of Magic truly intended to find some place and sleep for three thousand years first, like Amorn... then once he returned he could practically toss the matter to the back of his mind. At most he would find a sturdy enough stone or a plate of mithril, carve some message on it, and enshrine it on a mountain, hoping that some hero or archaeologist a few thousand years hence would see it—and then go look for the Goddess of Magic's coffin lid to see whether she had come back to life...

Of course, there was a second option: he could simply live with all his might, strive to still be on the throne three thousand years hence, and then wait for the Goddess of Magic to crawl out of some crack in the Shadow Realm, walk over to her, and say: My lady, care to guess whether the times have changed...

Of course, all of this presupposed that mortal civilization survived the Magic Tide, and then survived the Black Pit; otherwise it was all fantasy.

"I cannot give you an answer, but I suspect it will not be long—perhaps not even long at all by mortal reckoning," Amorn's voice suddenly came, cutting into Gao Yang's musings. "She... though she appears to have taken a path similar to mine, her act of breaking free was clearly far more successful and thorough than my own. The aura I sense upon her has almost entirely washed away divinity. I do not know how she managed it, but she has clearly paid a great price..."

Hearing the intelligence Amorn revealed, Gao Yang's mind suddenly turned to the Goddess of Magic's "escape route" this time.

She had entered the Weave, then, at the risk of being captured by Narethiel, slipped into the deeper neural network. According to Duvalt's later report, she had even lingered for quite a while in the chaotic region at the boundary of the neural network—and it was precisely because of this final "lingering" that she fell into Narethiel's web and nearly failed in her escape...

As a god bent on breaking free of the cycle, one who had schemed for so long toward that end, she could not possibly have done anything useless while executing her plan.

Which meant that the Weave, and the neural network—especially the "unconscious zone" at the network's edge—were of great importance to the Goddess of Magic. Certain of their properties were the key to her successfully breaking her chains!

Beside him, Virodai had clearly arrived at the same thought as Gao Yang; she too fell into musing, and the shifts in their expressions did not escape Amorn's keen eyes.

"It seems you have some idea?" Amorn asked with some curiosity. "Will you tell me?"

Gao Yang looked at Amorn, hesitated briefly, then nodded.

"We have built something called the 'neural network,'" he said. "It is composed of a great many active human brain nodes and runs on human thought, and at the boundary region of this network lies a layer called..."

Before he could finish, Amorn's voice suddenly sounded in his mind: "A thought current without inclination?!"

Gao Yang looked at Amorn in surprise, his eyes widening slightly.

"So that is it... so that is it... a perilous and exquisite line of thought... first reduce oneself to the form of one's birth, then wash away those fetters..." Amorn seemed greatly shaken, muttering to himself, "Truly worthy of a god of the arcane domain—so reckless... and yet so fortunate..."

The Stag God was so agitated that the originally constant faint glow upon his body suddenly began to flow faster, a slight tremor appearing at the ends of his limbs; this body that had been still for three thousand years showed a trace of movement—yet the next second, all the trembling ceased at once: the layer upon layer of bonds still held him fast.

Gao Yang, for his part, was astonished that Amorn had grasped the properties of the neural network's boundary region in an instant—and that his summary, "a thought current without inclination," was even more precise than the "unconscious zone" proposed by Cecil's technicians, and fit better the role it had played in the earlier "Scream Incident."

In that instant he understood a great many things, and he spoke almost without thinking: "You mean the Goddess of Magic 'steeped' herself in the chaotic currents of human thought, and by that means washed away her own divinity and severed the 'chains'?"

"That should be it... in all likelihood, that is it," Amorn said, rousing himself from his murmuring. "It is a workable line of thinking..."

Virodai could not help stepping forward, her voice a little urgent: "Then if that method were applied to the other gods..."

"The premise is that it can be applied to the other gods," Amorn said, seeming to have recovered from his excitement; his tone quickly calmed Gao Yang and Virodai as well. "Not every god can enter the Weave—Myrmina is the only god born of magic. And even if you thought of a way to put 'non-inclined currents of thought' to practical use... it should have no effect on the other gods."

Gao Yang understood the first half of Amorn's words and agreed with it wholeheartedly, but the latter half left him puzzled: "Why would it have no effect?"

"Let me first ask—this 'neural network' you speak of, what is its scale? How many consciousnesses sustain its operation?"

Gao Yang thought for a moment, then answered frankly: "It is in fact still in its infancy... though we are working hard to spread it, at present its peak operating nodes number only in the tens of thousands..."

"That is precisely the crux of the matter—for any god, the mortal currents of thought behind Him are on a scale that tens of thousands of nodes cannot begin to compare with."

Virodai frowned: "Then why could the Goddess of Magic do it?"

"I suspect she must have 'starved' herself for a very long time..." Amorn said unhurriedly.

Gao Yang: "..."

His thoughts turned to what was peculiar about the Goddess of Magic, Myrmina—to that goddess's "habit" of never answering her followers' pleas, never sending down miracles, responding to her worshippers' prayers only to the barest minimum.

From what he understood, the goddess had been like that for several thousand years.

He shook his head and muttered to himself: "Well, it seems she really has 'starved' for a very long time..."