Chapter 465: Chapter 453: Virtual Rebirth

Three months passed in the blink of an eye.

During that time, the entire Aiselan Kingdom was consumed by a frenzy surrounding the new term: Cyber Spirit Realm.

Allen had handed over the manufacturing technology for the Spirit Realm Helmet to the kingdom’s Alchemy department free of charge. The palm-sized Spiritual Energy Resonance Rune Array blueprint wasn’t the crucial component; the true service was provided by the increasingly powerful Jarvis.

Yet, this crude creation was about to upend the entire world.

The outer shell was made of the cheapest stamped metal, and inscribing the core Rune Array was so simple that even Alchemy Apprentices could mass-produce them on an assembly line.

After King William personally signed the National Spiritual Advancement Subsidy Act, the final price of each helmet was suppressed to just forty-seven copper Naels.

A miner could afford a ticket to a new world with just half a month’s wages from the mines.

The distribution rules were brutally simple: place an order with your real name on the Spirit Communication Network, first come, first served. The quota was fixed for the coverage area of each Spirit Communication Tower.

The moment the news was announced, the network across all of Aiselan became congested for the seventh time. Inside the Cybertron Main Control Room, Jarvis watched as the network-wide load rate instantly spiked to 91%.

That very night, a peculiar sight unfolded in front of recruitment offices in every major city.

People lined up in massive queues, bringing blankets, water, and dry rations with them.

That’s right. The distribution of the helmets was being handled jointly by the kingdom’s military police and the recruitment offices—the King’s announcement had made it perfectly clear that outstanding performance in the Spirit Realm was equivalent to military merit.

「Golden Stone City, Third Recruitment Office of the West District.」

At the head of the line, one figure was particularly conspicuous. It was Yak, the newly crowned champion of the Martial Arts Tournament.

He leaned against the wall, his ardent gaze fixed on the recruitment office’s closed doors.

A camera from a Spirit Communication Terminal focused on him as an excited reporter asked, "Sir Yak! You’ve already earned the right to pilot the ’Unicorn,’ so why are you waiting in line here?"

Yak pushed himself off the wall to stand straight. Facing the camera, he broke into a wide grin, flashing a set of pearly white teeth.

"There’s only one ’Unicorn’ right now, and my time with it is limited." His voice spread across the kingdom through the network. "But in the Spirit Realm, I’m going to pilot every single Mecha! From the ’Zaku’ to ’Gipsy Danger’—I want them all!"

The clip, less than thirty seconds long, went viral across the entire network.

"I want them all!"—these four words were like a magic spell, igniting the greed and desire in everyone. The mad rush to buy Spirit Realm Helmets spiraled completely out of control.

...

「Southern Border, Grey Rock Town.」

Sixteen-year-old Cole, a young miner, stared with an ashen face at the ’Purchase’ button on his Spirit Communication Terminal. It had already turned gray. He hadn’t gotten a spot.

On the terminal’s screen, Yak’s video was still playing on a loop. The stark contrast between Yak’s confident smile and the coal dust packed under his own fingernails was jarring.

His father had died in a mining accident three years ago. Following in his father’s footsteps, Cole now toiled for twelve hours a day, three hundred meters deep in the mines, for wages that were barely enough to survive.

To him, the Cyber Spirit Realm wasn’t just some damn game.

It was the only way he could avoid rotting to death in the mines, just like his father.

That night, the boy didn’t cry or complain. He sewed his only Silver Nael into the lining of his clothes, pocketed two rock-hard loaves of rye bread, and walked out of town under the moonlight.

He had made a decision.

’I’ll walk the seventy kilometers to the distribution center in the neighboring Silver Moon City and try my luck. They have a bigger quota there.’

...

「On the day of distribution.」

All one thousand three hundred and twenty distribution sites across the nation opened their doors simultaneously.

One hundred thousand helmets, gleaming with a cheap metallic sheen, were all gone in less than forty minutes.

The crowds who failed to get one grew agitated. A small-scale conflict even erupted at the third distribution site in Golden Stone City, which was forcibly suppressed by the military police.

King William made an emergency address over the Spirit Communication Network, promising that second and third batches of helmets were already in accelerated production. He guaranteed that three hundred thousand more would hit the market within six weeks, which barely managed to placate the public.

Meanwhile, hidden from public view in the deepest sanctum of Cybertron, Allen watched everything unfold, his expression as serene as an abyss, without the slightest ripple of emotion.

A holographic projection of Jarvis unfolded before him. One hundred thousand soon-to-be-activated player nodes twinkled like a field of stars, all of them glowing green.

The final system stress test was complete.

Allen’s gaze swept over three core programs hidden in the system’s deepest layer.

[Distributed Processing Power Siphoning Protocol]

[Full-Spectrum Soul-Wave Collector]

[Reverse-Analysis Engine for Mental Activity]

Everything was ready.

"’Knights of Steel Online.’"

"’Launch.’"

...

Dragging his exhausted body, after countless shoves and scrambles, Cole had miraculously obtained the very last helmet for his district.

He had no time to celebrate. He clutched the cold helmet to his chest like a wild wolf protecting its kill, using the last of his strength to run back to his drafty dorm in Grey Rock Town.

He slammed the door shut and leaned his back against it, gasping for breath.

He looked at the crude, copper-colored helmet in his hands. It was hope made manifest.

Cole didn’t hesitate. He put on the helmet and, following the instructions in the manual, closed his eyes.

His consciousness instantly plunged into a boundless darkness.

The next second.

Cole "opened" his eyes.

He froze.

He found himself standing in a vast space made of steel and concrete. Above him was a dome that soared into the clouds, and in the distance, he could hear the sound of crashing waves and crying gulls.

The air carried the faint, salty tang of the sea mixed with the smell of engine oil.

’This is... the Gate of the Deep Sea Mecha base.’ He recognized it from a promotional video.

He subconsciously glanced down at his hands.

They were clean, with well-defined knuckles, long fingers, and neatly trimmed nails. The skin was fair, so much so that he could see the pale blue veins beneath it.

There was no coal dust, no scars, no calluses.

Cole stared blankly at these hands for a full ten seconds before slowly clenching them into fists.

A tangible sense of strength flowed from his palms.

He snapped his head up and looked forward.

A row of Steel Giants stood silently in the hangar, arranged from left to right by size.

On the far left was an eighteen-meter-tall ’Zaku’—stout, heavy, and built like a mobile fortress.

Next to it was the ’Unicorn,’ all sleek lines and sharp, aesthetic beauty.

Farther to the right were the three-armed ’Gale Red’ and the ’Striker Eureka,’ which boasted both heavy cannons and chain-saws.

And... at the far right, the seventy-nine-meter-tall titan that looked down upon the world like a god—’Gipsy Danger’.

Cole’s breath caught in his throat.

He could reach out and touch these steel creations, which had previously only existed in legends. He could clearly feel the cool texture of the metal plating and the subtle vibrations of the internal mechanisms.

The cockpit of the Zaku glowed with a green light, indicating it was accessible, while all the other Mechas were locked, bathed in red light.

A translucent notification box floated nearby: [Insufficient Combat Points. Locked].

Cole’s heart hammered in his chest. He practically sprinted toward it.

He climbed into the cockpit, and the hatch sealed shut.

The interior wasn’t cramped. The system automatically scanned his physique, and the seat, control sticks, and foot pedals all made micro-adjustments to fit him perfectly.

He took a deep breath and gripped the heavy, main control sticks, their metallic texture cool in his hands.

His feet settled onto the pedals; the spring-back tension was perfect.

Following the beginner tutorial’s prompt, he slowly pushed the control sticks forward.

—THOOM!

With a low rumble, the entire cockpit gave a slight lurch.

Through the forward viewscreen, Cole watched as the thousand-ton Mecha under his command ponderously took its first step.

The ground trembled beneath its feet. The unparalleled sensation of controlling such a behemoth was like a jolt of electricity, shooting from the base of his spine straight to the crown of his head!

He grinned, a wide, ear-to-ear smile that made him look like a fool.

And as he laughed, his eyes began to well up with tears.

He had never owned anything in his life. Now, he had the greatest toy in the world.

...

The novice training grounds were designed with tiered difficulty levels.

The beginner’s course had stationary models of Heart Eaters. The intermediate course had low-speed moving targets, and the advanced course featured a simulated Beast Tide.

All the new players were completely engrossed, unable to tear themselves away from the immense thrill of controlling a Steel Giant.

The first thirty minutes were a heavenly experience.

But when they tried to enter the intermediate training grounds and face the simulated, low-speed Beast Tide, the nightmare began.

The 0.5-second control delay and the immense inertia of the thousand-ton Mecha made every turn and every lift of an arm feel maddeningly clumsy.

BOOM!

Cole’s Zaku was tackled to the ground by a simulated Heart Eater.

In the moment of ’death,’ his vision was washed over in crimson. The piercing sound of the cockpit glass shattering filled his ears, and the dizzying, weightless sensation made his stomach churn.

Three seconds later, his consciousness returned to the respawn point in the hangar.

The Mecha was perfectly intact, and his body was unharmed. But the intense aftershock of having ’died once’ clung to his mind like a maggot on a bone, impossible to shake off.

’It was too real.’

「Six hours after the Cyber Spirit Realm went live.」

[Reporting, Commander.]

[First day live data for the Cyber Spirit Realm is as follows:]

[Peak concurrent users: 97,241.]

[Average session length: 4.2 hours.]

[Voluntary player log-out rate: 3.7%.]

[Data collection from peak emotional fluctuations, triggered by negative experiences such as ’death,’ has exceeded model projections by 231.4%.]

Allen’s eyes landed on the final, critical data curve.

The actual ’Distributed Processing Power Collection Efficiency’ was a full 18% higher than theoretical models predicted.

The reason was simple.

The level of immersion from these Aiselan natives far exceeded his expectations.

Every ounce of fear, despair, and ecstatic joy at gaining power they experienced in the virtual world sent their cerebral cortex into a state of extreme activity.

This allowed him to squeeze even more redundant processing power from these ’biological servers’.

The more addicted and immersed they became, the more realistically this virtual prison for their souls would operate.

And the greater Allen’s harvest.

[...Analysis of collected soul-wave samples is in progress. High-quality data has been successfully recorded.]

Allen watched the processing power curve climb steadily. He watched the players as they struggled and screamed amidst virtual mountains of corpses and seas of blood, only to pick themselves up and fight again and again.

’Thank me. Enjoy it. The sensory stimulation I’ve brought you natives far surpasses any AAA masterpiece—even I wasn’t lucky enough to experience this in my past life.’

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