Chapter 1 The Feeling of a Moment

The feeling at that moment felt like an instant, yet also like countless years had passed.

Han Xiao's vision slowly cleared, and he gradually made out the surrounding scenery.

This was an endless, white world, devoid of gravity. His body floated in mid-air, and countless white orbs floated in all directions, some large, some small. From a distance, it looked as if each orb was playing a blurry image.

"The scene of the Third Sanctum is no different from the Oathkeeper's description..."

Han Xiao looked around with curiosity, then suddenly turned back. He saw the light gate he had come through shaking violently, as if it was about to collapse.

He suddenly had an intuition and, almost unconsciously, reached out his hand toward the passage, clenching it in the air.

*Buzz—*

At that moment, a special energy suddenly surged within him. Six streams of heat seemed to appear out of nowhere, converging in his palm and transforming into a unique pattern that shimmered with light.

In the next moment, the passage seemed to receive some kind of blessing, stabilizing instantly and turning into a slowly rotating light gate, like a shining mirror, making it impossible to see what was outside.

"What is this?"

Han Xiao was surprised. He had only had the thought of not wanting the passage to disappear, but suddenly he had an intuition that he could do it, and the result was exactly as he had felt.

He lowered his head to look at his palm, observing the mark that had appeared out of thin air. It looked like it was pieced together from six patterns, and the design didn't seem complete.

"Strange, when did I get something like this in my body?"

Han Xiao was about to open his interface to check his status when he suddenly froze, realizing that the interface wouldn't open.

This was the first time the ever-reliable interface had failed to respond!

Han Xiao frowned, clenched his fist, and tried to mobilize the energy within him. Streams of brilliant golden Mechanical Force shot out.

"Well, although the interface won't open, my own condition hasn't changed. I'm still at my peak."

Han Xiao felt his body's condition and secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Although the interface was temporarily unavailable, it didn't affect his own abilities.

From the beginning, he had truly felt everything, and all his abilities had ultimately become skills he had mastered, ready to use at any time. If it were an ordinary player, they wouldn't even be able to use skills without the interface. For example, when manufacturing machinery, he had to personally complete all the processes, while ordinary players only needed to read the progress bar. There was a huge difference between the two.

This was also Han Xiao's first time entering a sanctum, so he could only slowly explore the situation.

He tested various skills and found that most of them could be used, but he couldn't make any contact with the outside world. Quantum communication and the Dimensional Factory couldn't be used, and even the Emperor's Descent failed for the first time.

Although he had inexplicably maintained the sanctum passage, all means of communication with the outside world had failed, and the call with the Covenant Organization was cut off.

"Interesting, the nature of the sanctum is special. Not only is the Emperor's Descent useless, but I can't even call up the interface..."

Han Xiao narrowed his eyes, his brain racing. He stared at the mark on his palm, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him.

"Six patterns... six... if I remember correctly, that's about the number of Third Sanctum fragments I have, right?"

Han Xiao's eyes lit up.

Although he couldn't see the interface at this moment, he still remembered this information.

Originally, he only had two \[Third Sanctum] skill fragments. One came from the \[Original Esper Collector] milestone, and the other was the reward for beating up the Covenant Organization's old folks.

The third stage of the \[Relay Across Iterations] task required entering any sanctum and rewarded three corresponding sanctum fragments. Although he couldn't see the interface now, Han Xiao felt that it might still be running and had issued the task reward without him seeing the notification.

In that case, he would have five \[Third Sanctum] skill fragments.

As for the extra one, Han Xiao had several guesses. According to the Oathkeeper's experience, the most likely reason was that entering any sanctum would automatically grant a corresponding fragment.

If this idea was correct, the numbers would add up, which would be enough to explain the current situation and prove that this mark didn't appear out of thin air but had been dormant in his body, and the activation condition was entering the corresponding sanctum.

"I never knew what the sanctum fragments were for, but just now I stabilized the sanctum passage... can I understand this to mean that the sanctum fragments are related to my permissions within the sanctum, and the more fragments I have, the more things I can do? Since each individual is independent, the sanctum fragments aren't manifested as items but as skills?

Speaking of which, the Oathkeeper said that he felt like he was dreaming in the sanctum, and his consciousness was unclear, but I'm just a little distracted, not as exaggerated as he said. Could this also be an effect of the sanctum fragments?"

Han Xiao couldn't help but fall into thought.

Suddenly, he snapped back to reality and shook his head vigorously.

"This kind of thing can only be guessed at the moment. I can't waste too much time on it. I'll take a look at the interface after I get out, and I should be able to find out what happened... Right now, the top priority is to observe the sanctum!"

Han Xiao composed himself and controlled his body to fly to the nearest orb. He opened his eyes wide, trying to see the illusion inside clearly, but it was still blurry.

He hesitated for a moment, then stretched out his hand with the sanctum mark and carefully touched the orb.

*Whirr—*

At the moment of contact, a massive stream of information, like a surging wave, flooded into his mind.

In a daze, Han Xiao saw an illusion before his eyes, as if he was watching the entire process of a race from its germination to its extinction. They created a brilliant civilization, gave birth to generations of great people, and made continuous progress in technology, but ultimately they were destroyed in a disaster.

Han Xiao was stunned for a long time before withdrawing his hand. He found that he could only remember a portion of the illusion's content. A portion of knowledge had appeared out of nowhere in his mind, which seemed to be some of the technologies created by this civilization in the process of its development.

"This knowledge is mainly in the fields of biology and genetics, and it's not all the technologies of this civilization, only a part..."

Han Xiao savored this sudden gain and turned to touch more orbs.

After several tests, he gradually had a better understanding of the sanctum's mechanism. He guessed and summarized several rules:

First, each orb is a collection of information states, recording data of different things, mainly civilizations. Generally, one orb represents one civilization, and none of them exist in existing history. They should all be past iterations.

Second, touching an orb allows one to read the information inside, but only a portion can be remembered. The amount of content likely depends on the permissions represented by the number of sanctum fragments.

At the same time, there is also a limit to the total amount of memorable content. After reaching a certain level, reading new orbs will cause one to forget some of the data from previous orbs.

Based on the principle of information states, it is very likely that each entry into the sanctum will limit the memory capacity, and the next entry will reset and refresh it. This means that the knowledge brought out of the sanctum each time is limited, and the upper limit of memory capacity each time may still depend on the number of sanctum fragments.

Third, most of the technologies obtained from touching multiple orbs are in the fields of biology, genetics, and knowledge related to espers. This may be the difference between sanctums, representing that the knowledge of these iterative civilizations is stored in different categories. Different sanctums represent different types of obtainable knowledge. The Third Sanctum is likely related to biological genetics and esper research technologies.

Fourth, some orbs contain information about Super-A Grades from different iterations. Reading these information state orbs allows one to immerse themselves in their life experiences and even obtain a portion of the information they have mastered.

However, there are only espers in the Third Sanctum. According to Han Xiao's deduction, if one were to read the information collection of a Mechanic or Mage, they would likely obtain the other party's knowledge, skills, spells, blueprints, and so on.

"Jess didn't lie to me..."

Han Xiao's face was filled with shock, and his heart surged.

Although these rules contain some guesses and speculations, he felt that the actual situation should be close to the truth!

The last time the Oathkeeper entered the sanctum, he gained almost nothing besides completing the revival objective, which may have been due to insufficient permissions.

He, on the other hand, had six fragments in the Third Sanctum from the start, five levels higher than the Oathkeeper's permission level, and he should be able to do far more than the Oathkeeper.

Thinking of Jess, his request floated into his mind once again.

"Let's try what sanctum revival is like."

Han Xiao composed himself and took out the medium that the Oathkeeper had given him.

As soon as he had the idea of sanctum revival, the mark on his palm seemed to sense it and lit up.

*Swoosh—*

In the next moment, a thin ray of light suddenly shot out from a portion of the orbs and converged in front of Han Xiao. Then, a bright light flashed, and a glowing mark floated in mid-air.

Han Xiao looked at it and his face lit up.

"This shape... that's right, it's the sanctum revival imprint that the Oathkeeper drew."

Han Xiao immediately stretched out his other palm and touched the imprint. The imprint immediately turned into a stream of light and was branded on the back of his hand.

At the same time, a stream of information poured into his mind, containing the usage of the sanctum revival imprint and all the revival targets of this imprint.

However, Jess was not among them.

"It seems it failed..."

Realizing this, Han Xiao sighed.

Either this medium of his was not recognized by the sanctum, or there was some kind of restriction on revival across iterations, just as Jess had said.

Although they had not spent much time together, Jess had left a deep impression on him. The revival attempt had failed, and he would not have the chance to see Jess again. Han Xiao's mood was mixed.

"Forget it, this is also fate."

Han Xiao shook his head, gathered his thoughts, and his thoughts couldn't help but jump from Jess to the Galaxy Alliance, muttering softly:

"The information state collection of the Galaxy Alliance's iterations should also be stored in the sanctum, right?"

As soon as this thought appeared, the sanctum mark reacted, lit up with white light, and pointed in a direction.

Seeing this scene, Han Xiao was caught off guard and was stunned for a moment.

Then, he followed the guidance of the mark and flew over, eventually stopping next to a batch of orbs.

"Could these be the information state orbs of the Galaxy Alliance's iterations?"

Han Xiao had a thought and read the content of one of the orbs, immediately confirming his guess. It was indeed the data of a certain civilization of the Galaxy Alliance's iterations.

Coming back to his senses, Han Xiao looked at the mark on his hand in surprise.

"It seems that I guessed correctly. The sanctum fragments are permissions, and I didn't expect them to come with an index function... But that's right, the sanctum stores so much information state data. If you want to find specific information, it's like searching for a needle in a haystack."

As soon as this thought arose, Han Xiao's body paused, and he suddenly had a bold idea, muttering to himself:

"Since there is an index function, then if I search for the Sea of ​​Stars' iterative data and find the target, does it mean that we have already..."

*Buzz—*

Before he could finish speaking, the sanctum mark pointed in a direction again.

"There really is?!"

Han Xiao's breathing stagnated, and his mood suddenly sank.

He pursed his lips and silently followed the guidance, arriving next to an orb.

He stayed in place for a while before preparing himself, taking a deep breath, and slowly touching the orb.

However, in the next moment, Han Xiao was suddenly stunned.

There was nothing in this orb, it was empty!

"Why is there nothing?!"

Han Xiao had touched so many orbs, but it was the first time he had encountered this situation.

He also tried to search for the three great civilizations of the Sea of ​​Stars and other advanced civilizations.

Each search was successful, but there was no data in any of the target orbs, just empty shells.

Han Xiao's expression was one of surprise and uncertainty, but he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

He was worried about seeing information about the explored universe in the sanctum, which would mean that the Sea of ​​Stars' iteration was like the Galaxy Alliance's, just a past illusion. But now the situation was unexpected. Although he could search for the target civilization, they were all empty shells. Han Xiao didn't know what was going on, but at least it wasn't the worst-case scenario.

Interesting, what exactly is going on...

Han Xiao frowned and stroked his chin in thought, secretly making a guess.

"The reason for the empty shells... Could it be that this represents that the Sea of ​​Stars is an ongoing iteration, which is the so-called present progressive tense, and that only when we experience the Great Reboot will the relevant information be collected into the sanctum? If that's the case, then that should be good news..."

At this time, Han Xiao suddenly thought of something, and his expression changed slightly.

So, these empty shells... are the tombstones that the sanctum has reserved for this iteration?

"Is the sanctum saying that everything is doomed to perish..."

Han Xiao fell silent.

Quietly looking at the blank orb in front of him, a sudden, immense feeling of sadness crashed into his heart.