"So, how do I do it?" Xiao Lin sat in a chair, relaxing his whole body, waiting for Lin Niannian's guidance.
"Mr. Xiao, do you know the concept of the Collective Unconscious?" Lin Niannian countered.
Xiao Lin nodded: "A concept proposed by Jung. It's the most bottom layer unconscious part of the personality structure."
"Exactly." Lin Niannian took a bite out of half an osmanthus cake. "When Wisdom City built the mental internet, they considered its ease of use, so they set it up within humanity's collective unconscious.
"That means if you meet two conditions, you can go online. First, be a mental superpower user or a Transcendent. Second, know the existence of the internet.
"The method is also very simple. Close your eyes, imagine that virtual world, and then silently chant 'connect,' and that's it."
Xiao Lin looked at Lin Niannian skeptically: "Just that simple?"
"Yeah, what else? Could it be that because I just ate one of your osmanthus cakes, I'm intentionally messing with you?"
"You can just try it and see. Oh right, the default login location should be at Assembly Point 3. After you get in, don't run around randomly. There are super many people there, hard to find."
"Okay, okay, I got it."
Xiao Lin sighed, closed his eyes, and started following the method Lin Niannian taught him. However, he waited for a long time without feeling any change.
"Honestly, Lin Niannian, are you..."
Xiao Lin opened his eyes. All around him was an endless darkness. The only thing was a checkerboard-like grid under his feet that stretched beyond the horizon, forming a grayish-white line.
The only thing that could be called an object was a wall. A black wall, a colossal wall made of countless stacked prisms, reaching from the ground to the sky, constantly fluctuating.
This place... seemed to be the mental internet, but not quite.
Moreover, this place didn't look like an assembly point at all, let alone crowded with people as Lin Niannian said.
"Lin Niannian, Lin Niannian, are you there?" Xiao Lin shouted, but his voice was quickly swallowed by the silence.
"Exit," he whispered again, but nothing happened.
Unable to exit?
"No, I just ate one of your snacks. Is it necessary to retaliate like this?"
The moment Xiao Lin finished speaking, for some reason, a huge palpitation suddenly welled up from the bottom of his heart, and his hair stood on end.
He looked in the direction opposite the black wall. He could sense an extremely powerful and huge entity roaring towards him along the grid plain.
Before Xiao Lin could think of a result, he had already seen that entity. It was a chaotic mass of scarlet red, covering the sky and earth, gigantic, galloping over with a momentum that crushed everything in its path.
It possessed the power to destroy everything. Wherever it went, the checkerboard grid on the ground collapsed inch by inch, leaving only primordial, pure darkness.
It was as if the entire world was being smashed apart by it.
Unavoidable, nowhere to escape. Xiao Lin stood there, his heart filled with unparalleled shock.
At the same time, for some reason, he felt a strange sense of familiarity from this terrifying entity.
Just then, a line of text appeared before him. "You have received an invitation link from Lin Niannian. Do you want to jump to Assembly Point 3?"
Xiao Lin froze for a moment, then immediately nodded and said: "Yes."
The next instant, the entire world began to operate. He instantly passed through the colossal black wall. Behind the black wall was the city he knew well.
The city moved rapidly. In a moment, Xiao Lin arrived at a huge plaza.
This plaza was endless, densely packed with about a million figures made of lines. A huge geometric crystal hovered in the air, with the number "3" appearing in the center of the crystal.
Xiao Lin panted slightly, unable to recover from the shock for a long time.
Another prompt popped up before his eyes: "New Session: Lin Niannian has initiated a connection request. Do you agree?"
"Agree." Xiao Lin nodded.
Then, one of the line figures beside him gradually gained substance, turning into Lin Niannian's form. As soon as she materialized, she put her hands on her hips:
"I say, Mr. Xiao Lin, why are you so mischievous? Didn't I tell you? Wait for me at Assembly Point 3. How did you disappear as soon as you came in?"
The muscles on Xiao Lin's face twitched for a while before he said: "What if I told you I just glitched? Would you believe it?"
"Are you kidding? The mental internet was built by Wisdom City. How could there be a bug? Mr. Xiao, you're still denying it!"
Xiao Lin was about to explain when, the next instant, the entire virtual space suddenly roared. The huge geometric crystal hovering above their heads suddenly turned a warning red.
"What's going on?" Xiao Lin hurriedly asked.
"Y2K attack." Lin Niannian looked in a certain direction.
"Y2K?" Xiao Lin was stunned.
"Yeah, it's said to be an ancient monster wandering in the collective unconscious, confirmed to exist in 1999."
"It's said it can destroy the entire human collective unconscious, turning all mental superpower users into madmen, and ordinary people will also suffer huge mental damage."
"Wisdom City has always been guarding against it."
Xiao Lin froze. He also knew about the Y2K bug, but wasn't that a computer date expression bug from 1999?
Although the impact was huge, affecting the whole globe, it was eventually wiped out by programmers worldwide.
How did it become... a monster wandering in the collective unconscious?
Xiao Lin also looked in the direction of her gaze. A huge black wall had somehow risen at the end of the city.
Boom!!
Something seemed to heavily strike the wall. The entire virtual city shattered in that instant, fragments flying everywhere.
Even Lin Niannian before Xiao Lin's eyes was shattered into pieces.
But the next instant, it began to reverse. As if time was rewinding, everything that was smashed began to piece itself back together, restoring to its original state in a moment.
From various corners of the city, hundreds of figures shot into the sky, trailing long streams of light, rapidly approaching the black wall.
On the surface of the black wall, countless massive codes flowed at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
"Who are they?"
"Wisdom City's Cybersecurity Legion."
Boom!!
The second strike!!
The entire city shattered again. This time only half shattered, but it still restored to its original state in the next instant.
Boom!!!
The third strike!!
The shattered area was smaller, but the restoration was also slower. Both sides were consuming each other.
When the strikes reached the seventh time,
Everything calmed down. That terrifying entity outside the black wall seemed to have left.
Xiao Lin was very sure that the thing that just struck the black wall was the entity he saw on the grid plain.
"Alright, alright, this is all very normal. The probability of Y2K getting in is basically zero." Lin Niannian waved her hand. "Oh right, didn't you want Simon's works? I brought them for you."
Several books abruptly appeared in her hand, and she stuffed them all to Xiao Lin.
"Then I'll log off first. I'll come find you when it's time for the negotiation. I still have a lot of work today."
Before Xiao Lin could answer, the girl had already disappeared from the spot.
Xiao Lin was helpless. He could only sit on a bench at the assembly point and start reading.
And in the real world, looking at the "sleeping" Xiao Lin, Lin Niannian revealed a sinister smile.
"Alright, finally fell for it. Now it's time for revenge!" She slowly approached Xiao Lin, took out an oil-based marker from her pocket, uncapped it, and blew on it gently.
"Mr. Xiao Lin, do you like a beard, or do you like a turtle?"