Chapter 1 Numerous Guesses

He had guessed countless times before—what exactly was hidden in the depths of Vivian's soul? Given that this thing caused Vivian's frequent amnesia, dormancy, splitting, and berserker state, it was likely a mental virus, or perhaps the murmurs of an evil ancient god, or even a completely corrupted, evil version of Vivian Anseista. But no matter which possibility, he never imagined it would be a star chart…

Well, that statement wasn't entirely accurate.

He glanced at the crystal body in front of him, which was projecting a huge star chart. To be more precise, the thing rooted in Vivian's soul was still of unknown origin. What was certain was that it contained at least one star chart.

It might also contain something else.

"Many stars," Vivian said, also looking up at the projection. Although this thing had been rooted in her soul for over ten thousand years, she had never known of its existence. These unfamiliar stars were also the first time she had seen them. "I guess… this is the so-called star chart?"

Vivian hadn't put skill points into interstellar navigation like him, so she couldn't quite distinguish between a star chart and an ordinary snapshot of a galaxy. But she had been running around the universe with him so many times that she had a little intuition.

"That's right, a star chart, but it doesn't look complete…" He frowned, quickly comparing the mysterious star chart in his mind with known navigation charts—those navigation charts included all star sectors of this universe and the known universe of the Dream Realm that the drone swarms had detected. Their data volume was enormous, but they were deeply imprinted in his memory. The brains of normal humans couldn't directly read or process these star parameters, but he could understand the meaning of each piece of data and its expression in different dimensional spaces. Through this high-speed data comparison, he quickly discovered the anomaly of the star chart: "A portion of the star system used for reference is missing, and most importantly, there is no transformation guiding data…"

Transformation guiding data, also known as the celestial motion rule system, is the key data package to ensure that the star chart is applicable at all time scales and spatial scales. Because in most worlds, the stars in the universe are not static. In addition to the constant brightening and dimming of stars every minute and every second, the position of every star and even galaxy is constantly changing. Coupled with the various space-time effects generated by faster-than-light spaceships moving between these celestial bodies that are often tens of thousands of light-years apart, a fixed star chart is completely unusable. It must have a matching "parsing data package," which is the transformation guiding data. It consists of massive celestial motion formulas and predicted trajectories, which can ensure that even if the star chart library on your spaceship hasn't been connected to the internet for 100,000 years, your GPS can still be used—of course, this is a more popular saying.

However, transformation guiding data is not absolutely necessary. Many civilizations have alternative methods to allow their spaceships to navigate normally in the star sky. Some civilizations monitor every star in their territory and constantly update the navigation data of each spaceship to ensure that the star chart is always accurate. Some civilizations have set up special interstellar "lighthouses" to avoid spaceships getting lost by solidifying interstellar traffic lines. Some civilizations specialize in the art of sub-space drifting, in short, they just drive around blindly and stop wherever they end up…

However, none of the above situations are applicable to the star chart recorded in Vivian's soul realm, because it is an "isolated star chart." In short, Vivian's head is not connected to an uninterruptedly updated interstellar navigation channel, and this star chart does not have a bunch of auxiliary charts to correct it. This kind of isolated star chart must have transformation guiding data, otherwise, it is just an outdated old photo from ten thousand years ago—and a piece is missing from the photo.

His gaze slowly swept across the dark areas of the star chart. There should have been something in those areas, which could be judged by the distribution of celestial bodies around them. Their vacancy proved the incompleteness of the star chart.

"Maybe it wasn't read out, or maybe it was destroyed," Vivian didn't understand navigation science, but she could understand what he was saying. "After all, this thing… has always been acting as a source of pollution in my soul, so it's likely that it was 'broken' from the beginning."

Vivian's words made him react all of a sudden. He realized that the star chart was not important. The most important thing at hand was to figure out what the hell this "crystal pillar" was.

It was the product of Vivian's concretized world of consciousness, so he had to temporarily put aside the image of the "crystal pillar" and look at the essence through the phenomenon. What exactly was this thing that had storage space, could affect Vivian's soul operation, and carried pollution?

"You said before that the source of pollution in your soul was 'dead', and could only follow a complex but fixed logic to operate, like a computer?" He stroked the smooth surface of the crystal pillar with his hand. The touch was no different from ordinary stone. "Now it seems that it has an additional function of a storage device, and it stores at least one star chart…"

"You said it was like a computer, but I strongly agree. I didn't expect this thing to be in such a form at first. I just guessed through some of its manifestations that this thing was 'dead', but now it seems that it may have never been alive. From the beginning, it was a 'dead thing' that accepted stimuli and then made feedback, um, like you said, it's similar to a computer, or some kind of program."

He nodded gently, "Then there is another important question—do you think this thing was left to you by the Goddess of Creation?"

"There can only be this explanation," Vivian's tone was very certain. "Because the Lord of the Mad Realm wouldn't do such a complicated thing, and no mortal civilization in the Dream Realm should have the ability to do this kind of trick in my soul, so this thing must have been left by the Goddess of Creation."

"In other words, when the Goddess of Creation created you, she left something similar to an operating system in your soul at the same time, and then this operating system was polluted. Not only is it useless, but it also causes you a lot of trouble. Now we assume that the power of the Lord of the Mad Realm is polluting it… Then has the pollution of this thing been completely cleaned up?"

He looked at the crystal pillar in front of him with some unease. Although it looked stable and controllable at this time, nothing related to the Lord of the Mad Realm could be taken lightly. Maybe it would suddenly revive and erupt at some point… Should he just blow this thing up?

The thought flashed in his mind and was forcibly extinguished by him. He was kidding. Let's not talk about how much potential value this "operating system" has. First of all, it's a part of Vivian's soul, so it can't be blown up. What if Vivian really gets Alzheimer's after destroying this thing? She's only seventeen years old…

She has been a beautiful seventeen-year-old every year for the past ten thousand years. No problem.

"I'm sure," Vivian said confidently. "The Lord of the Mad Realm is not invincible… Maybe its main body is much more powerful, but the power it splits out is not that powerful. What's more, this is the surface world, separated from the Dream Realm by a wall of reality. This universe also has the Goddess sitting here. The power of the Lord of the Mad Realm is weak here. As long as it is eliminated, it will be completely eliminated."

As she said that, she gently tapped the dark red crystal pillar, "If the power of the Lord of the Mad Realm is still left here, it will definitely not allow us to read the information inside this thing so easily… Although I don't remember what these information are for, I can feel that these information are important information left to me by the Goddess of Creation, which may be related to the life and death of the Dream Realm and the ultimate destiny of the Lord of the Mad Realm."

"There must be more things inside, but we can't read them with our existing methods," he nodded. "Can you concretize it after returning to the real world?"

This was something he cared about very much. Now he could be sure that when the Goddess of Creation created Vivian, she also installed something similar to an operating system + database in the latter's soul, but Vivian herself didn't know the specific use of this thing, so she could only let everyone brainstorm to analyze this thing—but there was a problem, this thing was not a tangible "device". You can't dig it out from somewhere and put it into the laboratory of the Crystal Core Research Station…

This thing is Vivian's imagination (no problem)…

How to study such a thing that is invisible and intangible in the real world!

Now he was in the sandbox world. Due to the special attributes of this time and space, he could see the concretized result of Vivian's spiritual world, but such an opportunity was not replicable. As Vivian completely woke up, this open and chaotic time and space would also end, and he was not sure if there was a way to reopen it.

It's best not to open it.

Vivian also knew what he was worried about, but she was not sure about it: "I'm not sure… but I have a guess."

"Guess?"

"It's my Red Moon," Vivian's expression was very serious. "Haven't we always been unable to figure out what the Red Moon I summoned is? Now I suspect that the Red Moon is related to this red crystal…"

He was a little confused for a while, but soon felt that he had vaguely grasped something crucial: "They are very similar?"

Vivian nodded gently: "The Red Moon is also a concretization of my spiritual world, and this crystal in front of me is also. And when I interact with this crystal, I have a feeling… very similar to the feeling in the process of summoning the Red Moon. In fact, it is precisely because of this commonality that I read the star chart in the crystal."

Perhaps the Red Moon that Vivian summoned in the real world is another form of projection of this red crystal in front of her? It is manifested as a crystal in the spiritual world, and as a moon in the real world?

"If this is the case, then our research can continue…" He breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, but did not place all his hopes on this guess, "I will completely memorize the star chart first, and then we will leave this place, so at least we have some clues in hand."