GR2/en

· "Green Revelation" Phase 2 - Twisted Threshold ·
Chinese Version: Phase 2 - 扭曲的门槛
Previous Phase: Phase 1 - The Ambition of Students
Next Phase: Phase 3 - The First Time in Dipfield

In the Old Lecture Building

After passing through heavily guarded checkpoints, Seka and Saiko finally arrived at the Lecture Building 1826.

Unlike its usual hustle and bustle, at this hour, Building 1826 appeared exceptionally quiet before them. The building was empty, with hardly a soul in sight; you couldn't find another person on the entire level. All you can find on the ground is dust and scraps of paper scattered about. And several doors were weakly half-open, their locks long gone. Light streamed in through the Gothic-style windows, illuminating the dust motes floating in the air. The dilapidated scene seemed to silently narrate everything that had happened here.

Many images of past events flashed through Seka's mind. The last time he had come to this lecture hall, was about two years ago, while it was his first year of the Junior Department—At that time, Seka was just a confused freshman who had just enrolled in the Junior Department of the Northern Academy, and this was where his first class was held.

At that time, everything here was full of life—Seka easily got along with his classmates, with no barriers between them; the teachers were serious and responsible in their teaching, and all students were motivated to do their homework diligently. Back then, the Northern Academy seemed very harmonious; conflicts between political groups were not so severe, and students would not exclude each other for various reasons.

However, two years had passed in a flash—now, Seka returned to this familiar lecture hall to use a special piece of equipment that would be helpful for his experiment. Seeing such a scene, his heart was filled with countless fragments of the past, leaving him with a flood of emotions.

Seka's mind snapped to this, and he froze on the spot. His brain and soul were filled up with fragments of the past.

"Hey, Seka!" Saiko, Seka's friend, walking twenty meters ahead of him, called out when he noticed he had transcended Seka for a long way. "I mean, I totally understand where you're coming from. I too feel so nostalgic about how far the Academy has come. How we all used to love it, and how sad to see the changes. But we really have to hurry… If we don't finish our experiment soon, we'll be late!" Saiko continued.

Seka reluctantly regained his composure, coughed twice, and hurried to Saiko's location. "Can't let go of the past!" Seka lamented.

Seka seemed to be shrouded in a gloomy mood. He was totally overwhelmed with exhaustion. "Our academy is in terrible shape. I'm extremely disappointed!"

Seka and Saiko continued walking, sighing as they went.

Passing through the quiet lobby of Building 1826 and up the once-familiar stairs, they saw a faint light emanating from the crack of the oratory door. While the doors to most classrooms were dilapidated, the brand-new aluminum alloy door of the laboratory stood out conspicuously among them.

After an automated genetic verification of the two, the laboratory's door slid open silently. Seka and Saiko stepped into the cool, blue light. Inside the lab, the only things immediately noticeable were the two of them and the holographic projector's image floating in the air, which was displaying the glowing base pairs of a DNA double helix. At the far end of the lab, there were more than a dozen computers beeping in the corner.

Upon arriving at the laboratory, perhaps because they felt a sense of belonging, their past sadness and nostalgia quietly and progressively faded away, replaced by anticipation for the various steps of the experiment they were about to do.

Saiko walked to the other end of the lab and sat down in front of a computer. He began to operate it, processing all sorts of data. Meanwhile, Seka, dressed in a lab coat and wearing goggles, was handling the experimental equipment.

In the Laboratory

"The fifth repeat experiment data comparison complete, error rate is approximately 0.01226%." Saiko's fingers was producing crisp electronic sounds on the keyboard, and a dense gene-splicing map appeared on the hologram. "What if I say the improved CRISPR-FHigh-7 type enzyme we designed will definitely have a major impact on the Northern Academy's human-machine interface technology?" Saiko, sitting at the computer desk, said confidently to Seka, who was operating on the lab bench behind him.

"A ha! It's more than just that! As long as we do a good job on this project, we'll be in with a shot at getting into the Senior Department!" Seka replied. The thought of being admitted to the Senior Department made him more motivated to finish the experiment.

Seka started to do his next step. He put 3 tubes of a light purple solution he'd made earlier into the culture tank on the right side of the test bench. The two ends of the culture tank were made of various colored metals that emitted a golden glow. The body was made of glass and didn't seem very large; it was just a small cylindrical box less than a meter high. Inside the culture tank was the important RNA experimental material that Seka was about to finish processing.

As the experiment was proceeding without incident, the moment that the 3 tubes of solution were injected into the tank through the liquid delivery pipe, a sudden burst of liquid nitrogen mixed with various chemical substances vaporized for unknown reasons and spewed out of the culture tank, instantly fogging up Seka's goggles.

Seka was caught off guard by the sudden anomaly. Even More shocking, through the condensed mist on his goggles, Seka glimpsed a bunch of dark red rays of light suddenly appearing in the lab, flashing chaotically around the room.

Seka was momentarily at a loss. This dark red color seemed exceptionally ominous… However, in the next instant, these dark red rays mysteriously vanished.

The lab's monitoring system seemed to have detected the anomaly, and the alarm in the lab suddenly began to ring sharply. The chromosome structure on the hologram was totally mutating and collapsing…

Everything that was going on denoted that the experiment was having a rough time, even though the two of them were used to dealing with these kinds of situations.

Seka was barely trembling, and he froze for a second…

"Holy! Be careful!" Saiko suddenly went to grab his wrist. "Don't go overboard when it comes to efficiency. You're going way too fast compared to the usual way of doing things. At this level of precision…".

"STOP!…" Seka shook his numb fingertips; fine beads of sweat had already formed on the skin covered by gloves. "Since we have to finish implanting all the samples… The Senior Department's science and education administration recently made a bunch of changes to the Junior Department's graduation test regulations, and the inspection time for experimental data has been moved up by a week! Who knows? Trouble comes in waves! I did my best, with my utmost efficiency…"

"…Actually, this was not just because you were too efficient!" Saiko said evenly.

Saiko brought up the experimental data from 3 months ago with Seka. The hologram displayed the 3D image of the RNA that had been processed in that experiment. "You can imagine. I think what just happened was all because of the energy released by the RNA's mutation! Which is totally similar to the mutation that happened during our experiment at the start of this semester!… It seems, yes, hilariously, that we stupidly made the same mistake twice! — I think the connector didn't give the RNA the right info. I'll have to change up the electric dipole setup to get the RNA in the right place. I'm with you on this one. This is annoying, and I'm not the only one who thinks so!…" Saiko carefully examined the experimental data on the display screen, explaining his view on this scratch.

The lab alarm had stopped. The solution in the culture tank returned to calm, and the dark red rays of light vanished without a trace, as if the anomaly had never happened… Then, the two started to readjust the experimental parameters.

"Let's do it again," Saiko's voice came from the behind of Seka, his fingers typing rapidly on the keyboard. "I've already adjusted the electric dipoles's pole arrangement, so there shouldn't be any problems this time."

Seka nodded, refocusing his attention on the culture tank…

Seka then operated the experimental equipment more cautiously, deliberately slowing down his actions. He carefully placed the newly prepared RNA sample into the culture tank and quickly configured the RNA information connection.

Soon, they reached the final stage of the experiment. Seka took the 3 and a half purple solution tubes left from the previous experiment and, through the delivery pipe, slowly injected them into the culture tank again… Beads of sweat were clearly visible on Seka's forehead, the sharp gaze under his goggles revealed his extreme nervousness, and his body was already drenched in sweat under the lab coat.

Finally, the liquid didn't react radically, no visible anomalies appeared, and the data stream on the hologram flowed steadily, all signs indicating that the experiment was proceeding smoothly!

"Data is normal! And, the data shows an intended error rate of less than 0.001%!" Saiko said excitedly, his voice filled with elation. "It looks like the 'Electric Dipole Topology Network Theory' I read about in that book is actually pretty helpful!".

"What?!" Seka suddenly exclaimed in surprise. "You used the theory about electric dipole topology for the RNA information connection? This really increased the risk of the experiment!".

"Thanks to my brilliant mind! The new electric dipole arrangement I came up with doesn't make the experiment riskier, and it actually makes the electric dipole nodes more stable!" Saiko said with confidence.

A gratified smile appeared on both of their faces. They knew that this experiment could now be officially declared a success, which also indicated the inception of the final stage of data processing and conclusion for Seka and Saiko's graduation project, "Human-Machine Interaction".

An Unsettling Night

However, a trace of unease still lingered in Seka's heart, as if some unpredictable danger was approaching…

"Hey, I was just wondering about that cluster of red lights that suddenly popped up in the lab. What was that all about? Hey, have we ever come across this before? I've got a bad feeling about this, because… those lights definitely didn't just appear out of thin air!" Seka said to Saiko.

The two were sitting on chairs next to the lab bench, resting and chatting idly, reviewing the experiment they had just conducted on a computer.

"Ah! To tell you the truth, I'm not sure either! But, I'm certain that it's unlikely to be the energy released by the RNA mutation…" Saiko replied, and he started to harbor the same doubt.

In the end, they couldn't come to a definite conclusion—that strange cluster of red light seemed to linger in the lab, disturbing their peace of mind. Feeling uneasy, the two planned to stand up, grab the hard drive containing the data from the recent experiment, and leave the laboratory quickly.

In the lobby of Building 1826 stood a political propaganda statue recently placed by members of Sharkatalpus Class. The nearby, faint lights cast a shadow from the statue that resembled a giant. The band on Seka's hand showed that it was just past 9 o'clock at night, meaning they had been working hard in the lab all afternoon and were close to exhaustion. A strange, cold wind blew through the hall's corridors. The constant roar of the air conditioning units made the two of them feel a bit of a chill, even at the height of summer in the month June. The corridors at night, without the sunlight shining through the windows, appeared exceptionally dim. Some of the main lights seemed to flicker and buzz continuously due to old age. The ten-minute walk down the corridor felt longer and more eerie than imagined.

After overcoming numerous obstacles, the two finally pushed open the main door of the building. What greeted them was a sky full of twinkling stars, and… a moon glowing with a blood-red light! And… a drone? It even had the logo of "Elite Scholar Party" on it!.

Before the two could react, the drone zipped away with the sound "whoosh—!". The sounds of continuous, fierce fighting and explosions could be heard coming from far away, and the smell of gunpowder in the air grew stronger.

"Is this… the recent academy riot war?" Seka whispered, a hint of unease flashing in his eyes.

Saiko quietly nodded. Although he appeared calm, in reality, a sense of foreboding had already welled up in his heart. "Let's take a detour!" Saiko's voice trembled slightly as he spoke.

Seka and Saiko tried to avoid conflict so they could get to the bus stop quickly. They hoped they could catch a bus and get back to their dormitory safely. However, things did not go as planned. As they approached a crossroads, the scene before them left them completely shocked.

Ahead of them, the air at the crossroads was distorted and trembling from the aftershocks of energy weapons. To the east and west of the crossroads, two groups of people were engaged in a fierce standoff. On the east side, members of the Sharkatalpus Class wore deep red uniforms and held electromagnetic rifles, developed at great expense by their own group. They wore intelligent blue goggles that made them look like a burning flame. On the west side, members of the Elite Scholar Party wore silver-grey combat suits and held energy weapons that could fire lasers; each shot was accompanied by a deafening explosion. The official logo of the Elite Scholar Party — a hammer and a brain intertwined — was printed on the most prominent part of their weapons.

"Wait!" Seka suddenly shouted. "Is that… Shar and Shin? Two chief leaders of the two groups!" Seka was attempting to speak in a quiet voice, and there was a slight hint of disbelief in his tone…

The Academy Conflict

Sharkatalpus Sonich, the founder of the Sharkatalpus Class, was wearing a red jacket, a disdainful expression and a sharp gaze on his face. He held what looked like an extremely advanced shield covered in complex runes. Fully armed, he stood at the front line on the east side.

"Hey! Shinverse Studine!" Shar's loud voice echoed across the battlefield. "Does your so-called 'Elite Scholar Party' really believe that reading those outdated books with torn covers in the library qualifies you to propose solutions for running the academy?". With that, he slammed the shield into the ground, and a pulse wave spread out in a fan shape.

The hurricane-like pulse blew Seka and Saiko back a few steps, leaving them unable to open their eyes for a while.

"Now, let me and the whole class show you—what it means of 'practice makes perfect'!" Shar continued, and what answered him was a whiteboard floating in mid-air. Before Shar could react, line after line of dense quantum mechanics formulas appeared on the whiteboard. As the last symbol was completed, the whiteboard emitted an intense beam of light towards the sky, and Shin quietly appeared within this light, standing in the middle of the crossroads, calmly looking at the members of the Elite Scholar Party.

Shinverse Studine, the 6th generation leader of the Elite Scholar Party, wore a silver-gray combat suit and held the intelligent whiteboard in his hand. On the whiteboard, various complex formulas intertwined and flickered.

"Sharkatalpus Sonich," Shin's voice was frighteningly calm, yet each word was as sharp as a scalpel, "You can't even understand the preface to 'The Dialectics,' yet you delusionally want to lead a revolution? Haha…" The whiteboard suddenly split into twelve pieces, each of which began to perform computations automatically. "What was your grade in Electromagnetism? Oh right, 109—the score that you can take pride in your group but just a bare passing grade in the Elite Scholar Party. Haha…".

"Get down!" Saiko violently grabbed Seka's collar, and the two of them crouched down together.

Seka was startled by Saiko's sudden action and nearly stumbled as he crouched. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several stray grenades flying from somewhere. One of them suddenly flew over their heads, creating a hot wave in the surrounding air, and finally hit the building behind them, creating a spiderweb of cracks.

Seka subconsciously touched his backpack containing the hard drive with the experimental data; the hard drive was slightly warm in his inner pocket. He breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that his equipment was not damaged.

Seka looked up, his pupils constricting—Shar had somehow appeared on the roof of the fifty-story experimental building on the east side, wearing his goggles that covered his ambitious eyes, the edges of the lenses glowing with a blood-like red light. "Members of the Elite Scholar Party!—" his voice was so loud that it echoed throughout the entire war zone for a long time, "Can your differential equations solve for the time function of your own army's annihilation?".

The response to Shar on the tall building was an intense laser beam from the large crowd of the Elite Scholar Party, which accurately hit Shar's head. The goggles shattered into thousands of blue crystal fragments, and the impact threw him back a distance. Thick smoke billowed where the laser had passed, and the surrounding air distorted in waves.

Seka saw that in the Elite Scholar Party's camp across the street, the crowd had made way, and Shin was standing in the middle of the gap, slowly lowering the laser emitter that his whiteboard had transformed into, smoke still rising from its muzzle. Shin's gaze was extremely calm, yet it was more terrifying than any ferocious look.

Shar tore off his shattered goggles; a hideous wound on his face was bleeding profusely, yet he laughed even more wildly. He pressed a red button on his wristwatch, and the entire building began to tremble violently. He walked to the edge of the tall building again. Shar laughed loudly and said, "Do you think you're about to win? Then take a look at what's coming out from behind this building!".

The sound of machinery rumbled in the distance, mixed with the sounds of explosions and gunfire from the armed equipment of both the east and west parties, but the most prominent sound was still the roar of machinery.

The ground began to shake rhythmically, and soon after, the silhouette of a behemoth appeared in the mist behind the building. Then, 3-meter-high mechanical feet became clear from the mist, leaving cracked footprints on the asphalt road. What became clear next was the shoulder armor loaded with missile launchers. Finally, what appeared before everyone was the head of the machine…

There was a commotion in the Elite Scholar Party's formation. Seka saw that for the first time, a crack appeared in Shin's expression—He drew a circle, and then immediately undo it—for the leader of the Elite Scholar Party, that was already a fatal mistake.

The two were in a corner of the crossroads, watching this spectacular scene unfold. Saiko asked Seka, "This seems beyond my recognition! What was that?"…

Seka replied, "I think this might be the war machine that Sharkatalpus Class has been preparing, which has long been rumored in the Northern Academy—the 'Son of Sharpness'!…".

"… Waiting for what! The best solution now is for us to get out of here quickly!" Seka said to Saiko, and then gave him a push, signaling him to leave in the opposite direction.

"Run!—" The two people shouted simultaneously.

Escaping the Battlefield

The two held each other's wrists and weaved through the dense forest of bullets. They hadn't taken more than a few steps when an electromagnetic shell whizzed past Seka's ear, blasting a spider's web of cracks into the wall of the building in front of him. Seka's heart felt like it was about to jump out of his throat; every distant boom vibrated his nerves. It was as if the Eartho were being caressed by a mysterious rhythm and trembling violently. The "Son of Sharpness" advanced steadily.

"The alley on the left!" Saiko, which was previously known for its rational approach, performed unexpectedly well in this critical moment. Saiko decisively grabbed Seka and turned into the narrow passage beside them.

"Let's go, remember the last bus leaves in ten minutes!" Saiko turned and shouted at Seka.

Seka's eyes were already covered in sweat; he kept touching his backpack with the hard drive containing the experimental data to make sure it hadn't been lost, as if it was the hope he was desperately protecting.

After stumbling and turning three more street corners, the two finally passed through the edge of the war zone and arrived at the bus stop. They saw the last green bus at the stop slowly starting to move.

In the distance, the sounds of battle between the Elite Scholar Party and Sharkatalpus Class still rose and fell, and in the sky, the trajectory of laser weapons occasionally streaked past the blood moon.

"Wait—!" Seka shouted as he sprinted forward.

The driver, a middle-aged man, glanced at the two of them and said coolly, "You're a minute late, I should have already left".

"Huh! Let us tell you—we just escaped from a high-risk war zone!" Saiko slapped the bus door. "Look, there aren't many people on this bus now, you can take the two of us!".

The driver sighed: "Get on, little rascals!".

The two chose to sit in the last row of the bus. Seka looked at his wristband; the time was just one minute past ten-thirty at night. At this moment, the bus slowly started, and the scenery outside the window flashed past like afterimages.

"We… we made it!" Saiko panted excitedly, then took out two cans of energy drinks and a big bag of betel nuts. "Try this, it's a new betel nut flavor from Fat Brother brand. That flavor's absolutely strong! And this is the most popular energy drink from the nearby Dipfield City, called 'Monster Energy'. I heard it's the work of that church called the Trihydrate after they transitioned!" Saiko said, handing the goodies to Seka.

"I'll take the drink, but no thanks on the betel nuts, I hate them!" Seka replied.

"Oh! And, is the data safe?" Saiko continued to ask. Seka touched his backpack with the hard drive again, and after confirming the hard drive was still there, he nodded.

Gradually, the rain of bullets and the ruins outside the window receded, bringing this unforgettable escape from the fires of war to an end.

A Weight Off the Mind

3 days later, on May 22nd, an official email from the academy's general administration office arrived at Seka and Saiko's terminals. It was a confirmation notice from the academy's review system. When they received this email, Seka and Saiko were studying in a cubicle in the academy's central library.

"The project 'Neural Interface Optimization Based on CRISPR-FHigh-7 Type Enzyme,' by Seka Stellar and Saiko Ryo, after joint review by three academic committee members, has been found to have authentic experimental data with no signs of fabrication in the collection process. It is rated A- and has passed".

"Haha! I told you we could do it!" Saiko shouted.

After hearing the result, Seka slumped into his chair with excitement. He looked at Saiko beside him, who winked at him, a characteristic teasing smile on his face.

Since escaping from the war zone that day, the two had been busy day and night, focusing on the final stages of their project. After uploading the experimental data, they had been worried almost every day about whether it would be rejected due to some uncertain factors. Now that the project was finally approved, the huge weight on their minds was finally lifted. All that remained for them was the last and most important task—the graduation exam.

For the next month, they entered an extreme enclosed study mode—Seka and Saiko rented a house in the apartment complex next to the academy's central library. They forgot to eat and sleep in their respective rooms, making full preparations for the graduation exam, which was less than a month away.

In Seka's room, his desk was piled high with textbooks on the study of Human Functional Structures Studies, forming a kind of castle. Saiko even turned his own bedroom into a study trench—the walls were covered with knowledge point analysis charts and various concepts about Human Functional Design. Seka's notebook was filled with densely packed topology diagrams of human functional structures, while Saiko used a holographic projector left to him by a senior who had already graduated from the Junior Department to design and construct various modeling data for Human Functional Design Studies.

For the next month, apart from eating, the two occasionally chatted for a few sentences to discuss their study progress. The rest of their waking hours were almost completely occupied by studying.

Then, in the blink of an eye, a month passed by…

The Grand Trial

On the morning of June 20th (S.C.2021.06.20), Seka and Saiko went to their usual favorite breakfast spot for a simple meal, then bid each other farewell.

Seka went to the exam building for his subject, Human Functional Structure Studies, while Saiko went to the building for his subject, Human Functional Design Studies.

After finding his exam room, Seka quickly found his seat and sat down. The test terminal in front of him was already on, displaying a countdown: "5 minutes until the exam begins". In the center of the exam room, a holographic projector was displaying the exam rules in the air…

"Exam began!…".

The questions lit up in holographic form on the terminal in front of Seka, and his fingers began to fly across the terminal's virtual keyboard. After a month of extremely high-intensity review, seeing these difficult problems was obviously like meeting old friends for Seka.

A virtual space appeared before Seka's eyes. He imagined the laboratory in his mind, and with his eyes closed, he felt as if he were at the familiar lab bench—the culture tank, test tubes, projector, and even Saiko, who usually assisted with the experimental design, were beside him.

Seka's brain operated at high speed, his thoughts traversing the ocean of all the knowledge he had learned over the past three years—human structure, biological topology, information interfaces… The entire three-hour exam was like a marathon, a race against time.

[25. Using Topology Theories of RNA, please analyze the entropy changes in RNA information transmission under abnormal structural conditions. (20 points)]

This final question, which was clearly not on the syllabus, caused faint sighs to ripple through the exam room. But Seka thought of his own experience with this problem—that cluster of red light that had appeared in the lab. Seka's fingertips danced on the terminal screen. In his derivation, he even boldly combined the as-yet-unproven Quantum Magnetic Induction Theory from Quantum Biology with the Natural Coding Theory of RNA to prove his hypothesis about the problem. On the terminal screen, he drew a design diagram for an RNA information interface, and on it, Seka tried to demonstrate the process of information scrambling during RNA information transmission.

However, Seka began to distract. The more he tried to analyze it, the more his mind was preoccupied with the "red light" he had encountered in the lab. He thought that the red light was an intervention mechanism, a form of consciousness from outside the system that was constantly probing the boundaries of our understanding of "abnormal information"….

Just as Seka was multitasking—analyzing the exam question while thinking about the cause of the red light in the lab—he suddenly discovered a fatal error in his solution: he had drawn the positive and negative poles of the electric dipole in the diagram reversed!

"Oh no!!—" Seka thought to himself, almost shouting it out loud in the exam room. Cold sweat instantly drenched his back. If he chose to revise it, he would have to erase the entire solution and start over, potentially wasting the twenty-plus minutes he had just spent on this question.

Just as he was about to reach out and erase his analysis from the screen, Seka suddenly remembered Saiko's mocking laughter from last month's experiment, "You're so stubborn! There are no absolute positive and negative poles in topology!".

Seka tried again, creatively transforming the reverse interface into a self-regulating circuit. His analysis process bloomed with a silver-blue light on the holographic screen.

18 minutes and 03 seconds, 02s, 01s left in the exam…

[Final question — 26. What are the ethical dilemmas in human-machine interaction? (30 points)]

In Seka's memory, ethical questions were not usually set as the final, major question, but rather appeared as short answer questions. Seka realized that this question had appeared in a corner of his review materials, but he had never truly paid attention to it. And now, this question, as if following the previous one, struck a question that still existed in Seka's mind from another dimension: was that cluster of red light merely a system anomaly? Or… some kind of conscious feedback?

Seka slowly wrote down these answers on the virtual keyboard:

The extent to which human beings rely on machines is important. The question has been raised as to whether, by relying too heavily on machines, people no longer think for themselves or simply accept what the machines tell them.

If the volition of the human brain can be influenced or otherwise interfered with by algorithms, machines, or even the incomprehensible systems of a higher civilization, would the concept of 'free will' be considered anachronistic?

Secondly, should humans be allowed to form relationships with machines?

These theories may seem to be abstract, but real-world incidents can be so powerful that they block our common sense! For example, I once witnessed a strange incident in the laboratory while conducting a human-machine interaction experiment. I made a mistake during the experiment and, for reasons that I still can't explain, the lab was suddenly filled with a strange, bright red light that disappeared just as quickly!

I then started to think, "What does it imply?". So, I raised this example for eliciting: Are these unverifiable anomalies in the laboratory merely experimental errors, or are they perhaps an alert by a complicated system, or even a more advanced civilization, to communicate with us from another dimension?

If we are dare to acknowledge this possibility, however remote, this would unfold a "Pandora's Box" of ethical theories! Do we really have the right to consider this potential consciousness and study it as we wish? Can we allow human curiosity to trump the ethical implications of such an existence? Is it some objective reality or just an illusion formed from wishes thrown at a system we fail to decipher?

The most important question is, can we be sure that sensitive technology—human-machine interaction will be used properly? If not, can we hypothesize that the "red light" is a sign from a higher authority telling us to stop the experiment to be devoid of a fatal danger?

I firmly believe that the true ethical dilemma has never been technology itself, but rather the so-called 'Triple Paradox' from the bottom of our hearts. That is, the conflict between greed, curiosity and awe. We can never be sure that this technology will be used appropriately in the future…

Seka answered the question this way, but he always felt that something was still missing. In the final moments of the exam, Seka suddenly seemed to realize something and quickly typed this text on the virtual keyboard—

Finally, back to the question of ethical dilemmas, I believe that we still can't stop exploring the potentiality of technology just because we are afraid of the risks…

Actually, from the subjective perspective of Eartho, what we need to do, is to ensure that our exploration doesn't harm humanity itself.

The true ethical dilemma, is just how we use it…

On the exam terminal, the countdown slowly reached zero.

"Time's up. All candidates please stop writing immediately. The system will now automatically upload your answers—".

Results and an Anomaly

June 30th (S.C.2021.06.30), 2:00 PM, the results were announced.

After the graduation exam, Seka chose to return to the Residential Area in the Northern Area, where his family lived. Saiko, however, chose to stay in the Junior Department dormitory to continue working on an academic project whose details he had not yet finished.

When the results were announced, Seka and Saiko were on the phone. At that time, Seka was alone at home, his hand hovering over the mouse, the laptop screen showing the cursor paused on the grade inquiry button. But Seka hesitated to click on the inquiry page.

"Look!" Saiko suddenly activated remote control mode and snatched control of Seka's mouse. "Let me!".

"Saiko, NOOOO—!!!".

On the laptop screen, their results were displayed side by side:.

Seka Steller - Junior Academy Graduation Exam Grade

• [Exam Period: S.C.2021.06.20 - S.C.2021.06.22]
• [Subjects: Human Functional Structure Studies, Mathematics, Literature, Chandlese, Arts, Management]
• [Total Score: 650/680]
• [Ranking: 1.598%]
• [Admission Qualification: Northern Academy Senior Department - Confirmed]

Saiko Ryo - Junior Academy Graduation Exam Grade

• [Exam Period: S.C.2021.06.20 - S.C.2021.06.22]
• [Subjects: Human Functional Design Studies, Mathematics, Literature, Chandlese, History, Law]
• [Total Score: 642/680]
• [Ranking: 1.801%]
• [Admission Qualification: Northern Academy Senior Department - Confirmed]

"Ohh! my Goodness! We did it!" On the other end of the phone, Saiko could no longer contain his excitement, freely expressing his elation. His every reaction was transmitted in a distorted tone from the other end of the line. Here in Seka, tears silently streamed down Seka's cheeks. At that moment, it felt as if all their sleepless nights, all their stress, had been worth it.

After the excitement, the two immediately began to fill out their campus choices for the Northern Academy Senior Department, but at that moment, new information came from Saiko's end of the phone—.

"Seka, did you see that damn 'High-Tech Campus' on the campus area options?".

Seka took a closer look, and sure enough, there was an option on the enrollment page that he had never heard of before—"Northern Academy Senior Department: High-Tech Campus".

"'High-Tech Campus'? I've never heard of it!" Seka couldn't help but frown, suddenly feeling a strong sense of unease.

Saiko said in a low voice, "Let's check it out, I don't think this is right".

For the next two days, the two of them postponed filling out their enrollment choices and instead threw themselves into investigating the so-called "High-Tech Campus".

The Twisted Threshold

2 days later, at 2 a.m. in the midnight, Seka was sound asleep. Suddenly, he was awakened by a phone call.

On the other end of the line was an excited Saiko, panting in the call, "You'll never guess what I found!".

Seka forced himself to wake up from a deep sleep. On the other end of the line, Saiko continued to speak, still out of breath, "It's like this—I contacted a mysterious person hidden in the academy, he's the operator of the Northern Academy's unofficial archive, and in a few years, he's collected over 5TB of various public and a small amount of classified academy information!".

At this point, Saiko suddenly sneezed and then continued, "We investigated the academy's encrypted files from the past year, and we found something incredible!… Open the door, quick! QUICKER!!".

After hearing this, Seka was almost completely awake, and then came the sound of knocking on his front door downstairs.

"My goodness! Why would you come at this hour! My family is sound asleep!" Seka was surprised but managed to say this in the quietest voice possible, his mind a tangled mess of unease and confusion.

"This just proves how explosive the thing I'm about to talk about is!" Saiko replied.

Saiko rummaged through his jam-packed backpack, pulling out a laptop, a tablet, a magnetic charger, two textbooks on Human Functional Design, a bag of betel nuts, four cans of Red Bull, a box of fried rice…

"Found it!" Saiko said, holding a portable hard drive only the size of a fingernail that he had found at the very bottom of the bag.

"Hey, Seka, can I borrow your holographic projector?" Saiko pointed to the long-neglected projector in the corner of Seka's room. "Also, my laptop is dead, can I borrow some power?". Saiko's various devices seemed to have just gone through a series of storms, their batteries long since depleted. As a good friend, Seka was surly willing to lend Saiko all the equipment he requested. Saiko plugged his portable hard drive into the laptop, and then connected the laptop to the projector.

The projector lit up with a holographic display…

All sorts of data flickered as Saiko navigated the hologram, finding an encrypted file in the file manager.

"Look at this!" Saiko's heart was already consumed by anger, but his reason won out over his rage. On the hologram, an unregistered architectural engineering project plan was clearly displayed before the two of them, along with the design for a new type of large-scale construction vehicle, the "Wilson".

"This is the 'airplane' that the Northern Academy's administration group has been building lately! And these are the architectural blueprints for the so-called 'High-Tech Campus.' Moreover, the 'mysterious person' and I have already investigated, and all these architectural designs come from the rejected projects of architecture students!…".

With that, Saiko opened another project file. "This is a file that the informant decrypted for me, I won't tell you how long it took him to decrypt it! Do you see the title of the document?".

Seka was already stunned by the sudden news. He saw the title of the document was clearly written—The Large-Scale High-Tech Campus Expansion Plan.

"Now! Look at who the 'Initiator' and 'Collaborator' written on the document are!" Saiko said with a slight tremble in his voice. Seka continued to examine the document carefully…

• [Project: The Large-Scale High-Tech Campus Expansion Plan]
• [Initiator: Elite Scholar Party]
• [Collaborator: Northern Academy Administration Department]
• [Initiation Date: S.C.2021.03.02]
• [Objective: To increase the enrollment capacity of the Northern Academy Senior Department by 50%]
• [Note: The first batch in 2021 will accept approximately 900,000 underqualified sponsored students]

Seka felt a wave of dizziness; the dense numbers and clauses spun before his eyes, finally solidifying into a cruel fact—the qualification for admission, which they had fought so hard for, was being sold at a marked-up price!

"Do you know what the most disgusting part is? It's stated right here in the project plan! The so-called 'Wilson' construction technology was actually a plagiarized war technology from Sharkatalpus Class, and a lot of the equipments was borrowed from several core campuses of the Northern Academy, and they even plan to directly refurbish old, obsolete facilities! There are no hardware upgrades at all!… Also, have you noticed the curriculum section? The courses at the High-Tech Campus have obviously been watered down, core professional courses have been replaced with basic courses, and the graduation requirements have been lowered!" Saiko scrolled through the page, revealing the text hidden deep within the document.

"The irony is…" Saiko found 2 video files and projected them onto the holographic screen. The first video was a speech on the party's principles given by the Elite Scholar Party's leader, Shinverse, within the party a month ago. The second video showed Shinverse discussing how to expand the academy's influence with the academy administration.

"That hypocrite Shinverse Studine, he was always talking about 'academic purity' in his speeches, but behind the scenes, he was planning the so-called 'High-Tech Campus'!" Saiko took a few deep breaths, drank his Red Bull, and tried calming down.

Seka had been nodding along the whole time, wanting to say something but too shocked to speak. His heart was filled with disappointment and grief, a pain like losing something he cherished. Seka thought about the various lecture halls he had recently visited; almost all of them had a portrait of Shinverse hanging, with the words "Outstanding Alumnus" written on it. Now, whenever Seka thought of that cold-eyed leader of the Elite Scholar Party, he felt—he was so hypocritical it was nauseating!.

Seka pictured his "Northern Academy Senior Department Admission Notice" in his mind—the school emblem in the bottom left corner was gold-plated, an eye with flames bursting from its side, symbolizing insight and foresight. Once, this represented all his dreams, but now, that dream was covered in shadow. Seka thought as he walked out onto his balcony and looked at the night sky—the faint moonlight filtering through the gaps in the clouds merged with the faint glow of the neon halos, and the tightly packed skyscrapers were layered on top of each other, their dark silhouettes only vaguely visible…

After an unknown amount of time, Saiko pushed open the balcony door, holding two cans of iced coffee, the condensation on the aluminum cans clearly visible. "Have you made up your mind?" Saiko asked Seka about his choice of campus.

"The academy set its high threshold to protect its high standard of 'elite education'! But now, the Elite Scholar Party has completely distorted the Northern Academy's concept of 'elite education'! They treat education as a transaction, and I will not choose to enroll in such a 'Northern Academy'!…" Seka said, looking directly into Saiko's eyes. Behind him, the sun began to slowly rise, and in the twilight, the silhouettes of the two young men stood as firm as ever…

The Choice and the Next Stop

"System prompt: Are you sure you want to forfeit your admission qualification for the Northern Academy Senior Department?".

Seka pressed the red confirmation button without hesitation. The admission notice for the Northern Academy Senior Department faded and disappeared from his preference list interface. Saiko did the same.

Unfortunately, their rejection of the Northern Academy also meant that their paths diverged from that point onwards.

"I guess that's it! May we meet again at the summit! All the best!" The two wished each other well; and this was just the last scene before they parted ways…

Several days later, Seka, carrying a packed suitcase, boarded a high-speed train to Dipfield City.

He was reluctant to say goodbye to the field of the Northern Area, where he had spent his entire life. However, with the determination to find an excellent enough academy that would offer access to advanced resources for study, he finally decided to take the "challenge".

The high-speed train was passing through the Northern Area, from residential areas to operational areas and campus areas. The scenery outside the train window was scrolling by rapidly, disappearing from view in the blink of an eye. Seka's memories of the Northern Area was also scrolling past with it.

As he looked outside the train, Seka noticed that he was in the collective academy area. The academy's lecture halls flashed by. In one instant, Seka saw the famous school motto monument at the center of the Northern Academy, but the gold paint on it was already peeling. Even on the train, he could hear the solemn tolling of the stately academy clock tower—it rang a total of eight times, as if sounding the end of an era.

Seka put on an eye mask, wanting to take a short nap in his seat, but just as he was about to fall asleep, that familiar cluster of red light suddenly flashed in his mind again for an instant.

Seka was startled awake. He looked around abruptly and saw that outside the window was the construction site of the new High-Tech Campus—the steel skeletons of lecture halls rising up one after another came into view, like giant, greedy steel monsters. On the construction site, many large construction machines called "Wilson" were being operated, working continuously.

When the Wilson's plasma drill pierced the Earth's crust and began to rotate, Seka saw that immense energy was released and jagged dark red light spewed from the cracks in the ground. The light filled the entire area for almost miles—this was exactly the same as the eerie cluster of light that had flashed in the lab that day.

At this moment, Seka finally understood!……

As the high-speed train roared into a tunnel, darkness swallowed everything, and the red light disappeared with it. But Seka could still imagine a terrifying image in his mind—the red light formed the image of a smiling face, staring at him…

---

Next Phase: Phase 3 - The First Time in Dipfield