138: Chapter 139 Nationwide Blackout, Jiang Cheng Calls His Name Back

"Failed sample of Jiangcheng, please stop resisting."

"We have already proven—"

"Children are more suited to become gods than adults."

The youth's voice traveled through the national awakening network.

Calm.

Clear.

Devoid of any nervousness, smugness, or fear typical of his age.

It was as if the six Divine Seatss shared a single mouth, using the child's vocal cords to read out their conclusion.

On the map, one hundred and twenty-five awakening halls had gone completely black.

Six hundred and seventy-four Divine Seats vessel markers were scattered across the country.

And this number was still rising.

[681]

[693]

[704]

Each tick meant another child who had not yet truly acquired a class was written in advance into the shape of a certain chair.

The parents in the awakening hall, who had just held their children close and hadn't even had time to feel relieved, turned pale with fright at the black dots on the national map.

Tang Xiaoman looked up, staring at the youth on the screen.

"What is his name?"

No one answered.

The Divine Seats vessel on the screen only had a serial number.

[Northern Main Node - Six Seats Composite Vessel 001]

No name.

No age.

No original files.

It was as if from the moment he was chosen, all that was left of him was "001".

Thirteen sat in Chen Ye's arms, the six wounds on his forehead still bleeding.

He looked at the youth, his gaze gradually turning cold.

"He isn't speaking."

"It's the six chairs taking turns using his mouth."

Lin Jin saw it too.

Every time the youth's lips opened and closed, the six emblems on his chest lit up in sequence.

The first sentence came from the Record Seat.

The second sentence came from the ruling seat.

The last sentence, "Children are more suited to become gods," came from the continuity seat.

From beginning to end, the youth himself had not spoken a single word of his own.

"Can we establish a reverse connection?"

Lin Jin looked at the old calibrator.

The old man's hands were already wrapped in bandages. Hearing this, he immediately shook his head.

"The national awakening network is managed by the Department of Education's main node."

"Jiangcheng is only a local port."

"We can receive the broadcast, but we can't send anything back."

Zhou Heng looked up at the six black nails shattering on the ceiling.

"Just now, the Divine Seatss were able to connect to the entire nation through here."

"That means the line is still there."

The old calibrator smiled bitterly.

"The line is there, but the authorization isn't."

"Without authorization from the main node, any reverse information will be intercepted as awakening pollution."

Chen Ye helped Thirteen sit down, panting as he said:

"Then we must find a way to make it not perceive us as pollution."

Lin Jin's gaze fell on the old calibration disk in the center of the hall, which had already been switched back to manual mode.

Before the complete automation of classes, the first step of awakening was to state one's own name.

This was the old procedure.

It was also something that the class system had later deleted.

The Divine Seatss cultivated vessels through the national network by relying on the new procedure shared by all awakening halls.

But what if what Jiangcheng uploaded was not "rebellious information"?

But rather a forgotten, old awakening step?

Lin Jin quickly walked to the console.

"Old gentleman, will the national network synchronize with standard process updates?"

The calibrator was taken aback.

"Yes."

"But only the Department of Education's main node can issue new standards."

"What can local nodes submit?"

"Malfunction reports, calibration deviations, unrecognized class samples..."

Halfway through, the old man understood too.

He suddenly looked at the three hundred and twenty-six pages of class books in the hall that already had names written on them.

"And process completion applications."

"If a local node proves that the current awakening process is missing a necessary step, it can upload a completion test to the national network."

Chen Ye's eyes lit up.

"Upload the name-stating step?"

"It's not just uploading a single sentence."

Lin Jin placed Tang Xiaoman's class book on the calibration disk.

"It's submitting the entire process of what just happened in Jiangcheng as evidence of an awakening malfunction."

[Current Process Deficiency: Personal Identity Confirmation]

[Consequence: Unawakened individuals are predefined by external positions]

[Fix Test: Personal confirmation of name prior to class identification]

The old calibrator stared at these three lines, his breathing growing rapid.

"The national network will review it."

"It requires verification from at least three different class systems."

Shen Tingxue pressed the Ice Key against the edge of the console.

"Lockdown Role verification: Name confirmation can block external position pollution."

Zhou Heng laid his Thunder Spear horizontally on the other side.

"Barrier Breaker Position verification: This step does not disrupt the normal awakening structure."

Chen Ye raised his shield.

"Protection Role verification: All three hundred and twenty-six people survived."

Finally, Lin Jin placed the cracked F-grade school badge into the central slot.

"Maintenance Position submits malfunction."

The four emblems lit up simultaneously.

Yet, the awakening hall did not respond immediately.

[Applicant's class level is insufficient]

[Involves national standard processes, minimum requirement: Three S-grade certified classes]

Looking at the prompt, Chen Ye almost smashed his shield into it.

"When saving over three hundred children, they didn't ask about class levels."

"But to upload how they were saved, they ask if we are S-grade first?"

The old calibrator's face darkened.

"This is a threshold for standard modification that the Department of Education added later."

"To prevent low-level local personnel from interfering with the national awakening system."

Lin Jin did not argue with the threshold.

He looked at the three hundred and twenty-six youths.

"We don't have enough official classes."

"Are there enough test samples?"

The calibrator snapped his head up.

Three hundred and twenty-six participants.

Every single one of them had experienced the restoration of the old procedure.

Every single one of them could prove that writing the name before the class would not disrupt the awakening.

Furthermore, they had not yet completed their class evaluation.

They belonged to neither F-grade nor S-grade.

The existing level threshold had no way of excluding them.

Tang Xiaoman was the first to step forward.

There were still tear stains on her face, but she pressed her class book onto the console.

"Tang Xiaoman."

"I confirm that I only woke up after my name was written first."

The second youth followed.

"Zhao Chen."

"I do not confirm the class that chair chose for me."

The third.

The fourth.

One after another, the three hundred and twenty-six pages of class books were spread out, like a long river composed of names, winding around the entire awakening hall.

[Unrated Test Samples: 326]

[Process Completion Approval Rate: 100%]

[Local sample count has reached the emergency review standard]

[Applying to upload to the national awakening network]

At the very bottom of the console, a gray button finally lit up.

But the old calibrator did not press it.

"Once uploaded, the Divine Seatss will immediately lock onto the Jiangcheng node."

"This place might be completely destroyed by a reverse surge from the entire national network."

Qin Shanhe's voice came through the communication channel.

"Evacuate everyone in the hall."

"Equipment can be rebuilt if it's broken."

"But if names are lost, they can't be recovered."

The parents immediately evacuated with their children.

But Tang Xiaoman did not budge.

"If we leave, will the class books still count as evidence?"

The old calibrator nodded.

"Yes."

"Then I will leave my book."

The girl put down her class book and turned to run toward her mother.

The three hundred and twenty-six youths left one after another.

No one took their own book with them.

Because at this moment, the names written on the paper were not mere records.

They were a path they left behind for other children.

In the hall, only Lin Jin's group of four, Thirteen, Teacher Xu Wenzhou, and the old calibrator remained.

Lin Jin pressed the button.

[Process Completion Application Uploaded]

The national map suddenly darkened.

All the black nodes stopped growing simultaneously.

Immediately after, The Six Seats composite vessel on the screen turned his head.

For the first time, his eyes truly looked toward Jiangcheng.

It wasn't The Six Seats using him to observe.

Rather, the child pinned beneath the six emblems seemed to have heard something.

His lips moved with great difficulty.

There was no sound.

But Thirteen understood the lip movements.

"I..."

The next second, the Record Seat emblem lit up.

The youth's expression returned to a complete blank.

"The Jiangcheng node is broadcasting invalid personality information."

"The national awakening network should isolate it immediately."

One hundred and twenty-five black halls directed connections toward Jiangcheng simultaneously.

It was not offensive energy.

It was a massive wave of awakening records.

The names, talents, class inclinations, and family backgrounds of hundreds of thousands of children turned into a black torrent, pouring frantically into Jiangcheng's calibration disk.

The console instantly began to smoke.

[Data Overload]

[Local Node Imminent Collapse]

The old calibrator rushed to the mechanical gate and manually cut off three interfaces.

"They want to use the national archives to burst this place!"

Zhou Heng thrust his Thunder Spear into the wiring, forcing a portion of the records to be routed to an empty awakening array.

Shen Tingxue quickly froze the overheating calibration module.

Chen Ye's shield pressed down on the protective cover that kept popping up.

"Lin Jin!"

"How much longer can we hold on?"

"It's not about holding on."

Lin Jin stared at the massive wave of incoming records.

"They've delivered the evidence to us."

The files of all the children being cultivated as Divine Seats vessels were in this torrent.

Their names might be covered up.

But their original awakening registration could not possibly disappear completely.

As long as we find the names within this data—

The children nationwide can, just like these three hundred and twenty-six from Jiangcheng, first confirm who they are.

The Hand of Rules was already flickering from overuse.

Lin Jin did not force its activation.

He looked at Luo Wensheng's frozen, preserved right hand.

"Can you hear the original registrations in the national network?"

Luo Wensheng's fingers curled slightly.

A line of words appeared on the ice.

[Too many.]

[I cannot write them all down alone.]

"You don't need to write them all down."

Lin Jin looked at the three hundred and twenty-six pages of class books left in the hall.

"We just need to find the first batch of names."

"And let them call out to each other down the line."

Luo Wensheng's hand paused for a moment.

Then, her five fingers slowly spread open.

She no longer held a pen.

Instead, she pressed her palm against the calibration disk.

Hundreds of thousands of echoes simultaneously flooded into that hand, which had been severed for twenty years.

Cries.

Parents' instructions.

School teachers calling attendance.

Names that children had softly repeated to themselves before awakening.

Black blood immediately seeped from Luo Wensheng's wrist.

Shen Tingxue's ice layer developed countless cracks.

"She can't bear it."

Thirteen walked to the calibration disk and placed his own hand over the back of Luo Wensheng's.

"I don't have a class interface."

"The records of the black chairs will enter my mind a bit slower."

The next second, his body jolted violently.

Countless foreign lives flooded into his mind.

He saw a boy practicing with a blade in the snow.

He saw a girl's father tying her hair before she went out.

He saw some who feared failing their awakening.

And others who only hoped their awakening would save their families a bit of tuition.

They were not vessels.

They were individuals who had not yet had the chance to grow up.

Thirteen bit his lip and caught the first clearly heard voice.

"Beihe City."

"Gu Xinghe!"

The old calibrator immediately input the name into the national process completion application.

[Original Registration Matched]

[Gu Xinghe: Identity Confirmed]

In the north of the national map, a black hall suddenly flickered.

The Six Seats composite vessel on the screen trembled violently.

For the first time, a voice that did not belong to the Divine Seatss squeezed out of his mouth.

"Gu... Xinghe."

A fine crack split open on the Record Seat emblem on his chest.

Thirteen continued to call out.

"Xichuan City, Lin Mai!"

"Haidong City, Zhou Yuqing!"

"Nanling City, Fang Yan!"

With every name shouted, a blank class book in the national network was rewritten with a name.

In the beginning, there were only a few people.

Then, the awakened children began to shout the names of those around them.

"Your name is Xu An!"

"She is Song Nan!"

"The teacher called our names just now!"

Voices traveled from one hall to another.

Parents also began to call out through external broadcasts.

Schools uploaded student rosters.

The Hospital provided birth registries.

Piece after piece of evidence of names, which did not belong to the class system but belonged to real life, flooded into the national awakening network.

On the black map, more and more nodes began to flash.

[Identity Anchors Restored: 129]

[Identity Anchors Restored: 1047]

[Identity Anchors Restored: 8932]

For the first time, the number of Divine Seats vessels stopped growing.

Then, it began to decrease.

[674]

[639]

[581]

On the screen, the six emblems on Gu Xinghe's chest cracked continuously.

The Six Seats took turns controlling his mouth, trying to overwrite his name.

"Vessel 001."

Gu Xinghe grit his teeth.

"Gu Xinghe."

"Six Seats Composite Vessel."

"Gu Xinghe!"

"God cultivation sample."

"My name is Gu Xinghe!"

As the last shout roared out, the pure blackness in the youth's eyes shattered.

An eye that still belonged to a child was revealed once more.

The national awakening network shook.

[Main Node Vessel displays independent identity]

[Six Seats synchronization rate has decreased]

In the Jiangcheng hall, just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Gu Xinghe suddenly raised his hand.

It was not an attack.

He pressed his five fingers against his chest, forcefully grabbing the six Divine Seats emblems.

Blood dripped from between his fingers.

"Lin Jin of Jiangcheng."

His voice trembled.

"Don't just save our names."

"The Six Seats no longer need the awakening halls."

Lin Jin's face darkened.

"Where did they go?"

Gu Xinghe violently ripped off an emblem.

The national map switched accordingly.

It no longer displayed the class awakening halls.

Instead, it displayed schools, orphanages, hospital maternity wards, and children's archives that had not yet been entered into the awakening system.

Densely packed black dots covered the entire country.

"They are looking for even younger ones."

Gu Xinghe's face contorted in pain.

"They have no classes."

"No independent choices."

"They can't even say their own names yet."

"The Six Seats said—"

"Children who cannot speak their names are the cleanest gods."