106: Whispers of Dreams and the "Echo" Project

After experiencing the initial setbacks of the "Thought Sandbox" and the subsequent emotional comfort, Excellence's life seemed to have finally sailed into a relatively calm course filled with the joys of small explorations.

He remained immersed every day in his formulas, models, and various "hand-crafted" experiments, only becoming more patient and better able to accept imperfections and failures in the process.

The companionship of Su Mu and Evelyn was like a sturdy anchor, giving him a sense of stability and peace in his heart as he sailed through the ocean of his thoughts.

Inside the base, the ethical review and security monitoring mechanisms established around him were also operating smoothly; everything seemed to be developing in a controllable and positive direction.

However, the waves of fate always like to rise at the most unexpected moments.

On a deep, silent night when the moonlight was like water and the vast majority of the base's population had fallen into a deep sleep, a strange and realistic "information storm" that far exceeded ordinary dreams quietly played out in the depths of Excellence's consciousness.

Abyss Dream: The Cold System The Whisper

At the beginning of the dream, Excellence felt an unusual sense of detachment.

He was not placed in a familiar scene or twisted memory fragments, but was suspended in a vast, boundless, and strangely empty void with blurred boundaries.

There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above his head, and all around were flowing, ever-changing bands of light like auroras.

Looking closely at these bands of light, they were actually composed of countless, extremely minute, cold-glowing mathematical symbols, data streams, and starlike quantum bits.

They flowed, collided, combined, and dissipated silently, as if the underlying code of the entire universe was slowly unfolding before his eyes.

Just as he looked around in confusion, a voice, or rather an "information packet" that acted directly on the core of his consciousness, sounded without warning.

This voice did not carry any human emotional color—no joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, no hesitation or cadence, only a cold and vast absolute rationality that was almost like cosmic background radiation:

[Detected host consciousness stability threshold breaking critical point ... Core protocol synchronization rate increased from 19.3% to 21.7% ... Synchronization process conforms to non-linear growth model expectations ...]

Excellence felt an inexplicable tremor in his dream, a feeling that was both familiar and strange.

[Warning: Detected persistent external high-dimensional information disturbance ... Signal feature analysis ... Identified as hostile marker 'Prophet' residual network activity ... Disturbance intensity: Low to medium, exhibiting intermittent pulse pattern ... Potential threat level assessment: Medium ...]

[Recommended response plan: Activate deep defense protocol 'echo' ... Construct dynamic consciousness firewall, filter and bounce back harmful information probes ... Protocol activation requires consumption of additional cognitive resources, authorize?]

[Additional system status scan report: Detected stable, connectable Node ... Identified as 'Emotional Anchor A' (corresponding individual: Su Mu) ... 'Emotional Anchor B' (corresponding individual: Evelyn Li) ... Node connection strength: Stable, fluctuation range normal ... Suggestion: Strengthen emotional interaction bandwidth with anchor Node, to improve system overall redundancy and anti-interference capability ...]

A series of cold, strange, yet seemingly logically rigorous terms and instructions rushed into Excellence's consciousness like a breached flood.

He felt as if his skull was about to be split open by this information, an indescribable tearing sensation and severe pain originating from his consciousness itself made him almost suffocate.

He bolted upright from the bed, gasping for air, cold sweat having already soaked his pajamas, hair on his forehead sticking damply to his skin, and his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

The rehabilitation room was silent, save for his heavy breathing and the low hum of the instruments.

Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains, casting a cold trail of light on the floor.

"System? Is... is it you? Are you awake?" Excellence called out in his mind, uncertain and tentative.

Ever since that mysterious existence had displayed god-like power during the last base crisis, no matter how he concentrated his mind to try to communicate, it had been like a stone sinking into the sea, receiving no response.

He had almost come to believe it was just a one-time miracle or a hallucination of his own.

But that dream just now... that immersive sense of reality, that cold and vast stream of information, could never be simulated by an ordinary dream!

After a few seconds of deathly silence, just when Excellence thought his call had failed again, an extremely faint, intermittent response, as if the signal was extremely poor, sounded deep in his mind like a candle in the wind:

[Energy level ... too low ... maintaining basic observation module operation ... 'echo' protocol ... set to standby mode ... waiting for host ... further authorization ...]

[Host needs ... to grow on own ... enhance consciousness carrying capacity ... critical ...]

The voice stopped abruptly there.

No matter how Excellence focused his thoughts to ask further, that ocean of consciousness returned to deathly silence, as if the response just now was a hallucination within a hallucination.

Morning Confusion and Obscure Sharing

Excellence sat on the bed, and it took a long time for his wildly beating heart to gradually calm down.

Under the moonlight, his face was pale, and his eyes were filled with confusion, unease, and a hint of indescribable excitement.

He tried hard to recall and organize the fragments of information from the dream: "External disturbance ... hostile marker 'Prophet' ... is it The Foundation? 'echo' protocol ... sounds like a type of defense system ... Emotional Anchor ... Squad Leader Su Mu and Evelyn ... so they are this important to me ..."

This information made him feel a subtle unease, as if an unknown threat was lurking beneath the calm water.

But at the same time, an inexplicable sense of responsibility began to sprout in his heart—the "System" seemed to be in a weak state and needed his "growth" to cooperate.

The next morning, when Su Mu came to the rehabilitation room as usual, she immediately noticed Excellence's abnormality.

His eyes were slightly dark, his spirit did not seem as focused as usual, and he seemed somewhat distracted while eating breakfast.

"Excellence, what's wrong? Didn't you sleep well last night? Did you have a nightmare again?" Su Mu asked with concern, reaching out to touch his forehead; the temperature was normal.

Excellence hesitated for a moment.

He remembered the "System" mentioning low energy levels and standby mode, and felt that perhaps he shouldn't fully reveal the matter of the system's response, so as to avoid unnecessary worry or attention.

He organized his words, trying to use a relaxed tone to say: "Hmm... had a very strange dream, just a mess.

Dreamt that I was in a place full of numbers and starlight, and it seemed like there was a voice saying something... 'external disturbance', 'hostile marker'... and something about an 'echo protocol', 'Emotional Anchor' and the like... sounds pretty cool, just a bit scary."

Su Mu let out a sigh of relief upon hearing this, then immediately felt heartache.

She thought this was a form of release for the fear and pressure Excellence felt in his subconscious regarding his past experiences.

She gently hugged his shoulder and comforted him: "It must be because you were too tense recently; what you think about during the day, you dream about at night.

Don't overthink it, those are all dreams, not real.

Relax a bit today, don't keep thinking about those complex formulas, shall we go out for a walk?"

However, Evelyn, who was also present, had her hand holding the water cup pause imperceptibly when she heard the keywords of the dream Excellence recounted.

Her eyes instantly became sharp.

"External disturbance"? "Hostile marker"? Especially the word "Prophet"... This existed with a disturbing coincidence to what she had learned through secret channels about a certain designation within The Foundation for the Morpheus faction, as well as some hard-to-track, low-intensity information probing activities against the base's peripheral network monitored recently!

"Could it be... that Excellence, at a subconscious level, or rather, through that existence within him that we cannot understand, is still able to perceive potential threats from The Foundation that haven't stopped even after going underground?"

A shocking thought flashed through Evelyn's mind, "Or even... that the 'System' is using this obscure way to try to guide him to build some kind of defense mechanism at the consciousness level?"

Evelyn did not reveal her doubts on the spot, but later, when reporting to Wang Jianguo separately, she described the content of Excellence's dream in detail and solemnly presented her analysis and concerns.

After listening, Wang Jianguo frowned deeply, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the desktop.

This matter was no small thing; it might mean that the cognition and control of Excellence needed to enter a new level.

He immediately gave the order to summon the top experts in neuroscience, information security, cognitive psychology, and even philosophy within the base, and held a small-scale, high-security emergency seminar.

At the meeting, the experts' opinions showed significant divergence:

Trauma Integration School: Represented by several senior psychologists, they believed this was more likely a way for Excellence's subconscious to integrate and express traumatic memories of past attacks by The Foundation.

In order to process intense fear and pressure, the brain sometimes reorganizes experiences through symbolic dreams; those terms might be twisted combinations of scientific information he was normally exposed to in the dream.

Intuitive Warning School: Some experts studying anomalous Perception (although the field is controversial) suggested that it could not be ruled out that in a state of deep rest, some highly acute intuition or subconscious information processing ability of Excellence was activated, capturing real, faint threat signals from the outside world and presenting them in the form of a dream.

This is a potential that has not yet been fully explained by science.

Internal System School: A few scientists who had deeply understood the details of Excellence's "Variable Awakening" event held views similar to Evelyn's.

They boldly speculated that this might truly be some kind of "built-in system" or "auxiliary consciousness" generated after the deep fusion of the mysterious "pandora" fragment within Excellence, which, after the host's consciousness stability reached a certain threshold, began to attempt limited information transmission and functional guidance.

Those terms might represent the unique logical framework of that system.

Despite the differences in opinion, Wang Jianguo finally made the decision: "Regardless of what the truth is, one thing is certain—this dream of Excellence points to potential external threats (The Foundation), and mentions 'defense' and 'Emotional Anchor'.

It is better to believe it exists than to believe it doesn't.

We must use this as an opportunity to strengthen preparations."

A highly confidential contingency plan was quickly formulated and launched, codenamed the same as mentioned in the dream: "echo".

This plan contained several core parts:

Active Monitoring Network Upgrade: Based on the "external disturbance" hinted at in the dream, significantly improve the monitoring precision and response speed for abnormal information activities (especially probing, low-intensity signals) in networks, communications, and even the surrounding physical environment inside and outside the base, attempting to establish an earlier early-warning window.

Consciousness Safety Research: Establish a secret group to specifically study how to build "firewall" technology (including hardware and software) to protect human consciousness from information attacks; although the technology is extremely cutting-edge, one must take precautions.

At the same time, study how to stabilize and strengthen Excellence's consciousness state.

"Anchor" Strengthening Protection: Raise the security protection level of Su Mu and Evelyn to the same level as Excellence.

This is not limited to physical security, but also includes psychological support, information environment purification, etc.

Clarify their strategic value as "key Node" for stabilizing Excellence's emotions and state.

Dream Analysis Plan: On the premise of obtaining Excellence's consent and ensuring his comfort, led by Evelyn, with the help of non-invasive EEG monitoring and dream log recording, attempt to conduct more scientific recording and analysis of Excellence's subsequent dreams, hoping to discover more regular or early-warning information from them.

After the plan was launched, the daily operations of the base appeared unchanged on the surface, but the internal security nerves were already tightened.

After Su Mu learned that she needed to pay more attention to Excellence's words and actions (on the grounds of "ensuring his emotional stability" as requested by Wang Jianguo), although she didn't quite understand the underlying reason, she took care of Excellence with increasing meticulousness and paid more attention to his emotional fluctuations, fearing he would bear too much pressure again.

As for Excellence himself, he remained in a state of skepticism about the reality of that dream.

But he began to consciously observe the surrounding environment, especially the subtle feelings when he was with Su Mu and Evelyn.

He vaguely perceived that when he was with them, especially when he felt their unreserved care and trust, that inexplicable, source-less irritability that would occasionally rise in the depths of his heart seemed to really ease a lot, and an indescribable sense of peace and security would arise spontaneously.

This experience made him cherish every moment spent with them more, and invisibly strengthened their status as "anchors" in his heart.

A hidden current was quietly surging beneath the seemingly calm daily life.

Excellence's bizarre dream was like a vague sonar echo from the deep sea; although the information was incomplete, it pointed out the direction of potential threats to the guardians.

They began to silently adjust their course, reinforce the hull, and make silent and firm preparations for the next storm that might come at any time and in any form.

The real test might have just begun.