20 Synchronization
The sun slowly descended, then once again rose gently.
On the next day, during morning prayers, Playa left his quarters and entered the chapel, just as he withdrew the Sacred Canon. The entrance to the chapel dimmed slightly as a small figure slipped in silently, quickly taking position to the right of the door’s pillar. The child placed his right hand on his shoulder, gazed quietly at the altar, and assumed a perfect prayer posture.
It was, unmistakably, young Los.
Playa turned to confirm, nodding slightly. Perhaps his thoughts had shifted; as he faced forward again, his gaze unconsciously flickered toward the sundial near the chapel’s side entrance.
Dawnshine Three Calendar.
Exactly on time.
As this thought crossed his mind, Playa’s right hand, preparing to open the Sacred Canon, suddenly froze midair. His brow furrowed, realizing he had overlooked a detail these past days: Los entered the chapel precisely as Playa was about to begin morning prayers each day. Such punctuality could not be mere coincidence.
Unknowable, unknowable without presumption, for you may seek and pursue the true gaze.
Reciting the Sacred Words of the Master, Playa opened the Sacred Canon and looked to his student. “Andrei.”
The small thirteen-year-old Andrei was standing on tiptoe, striving to place the water-filled vessel on the pulpit. The pastor spoke, but Andrei did not answer immediately; instead, he set the vessel properly, brought his feet together, bowed his head slightly, and replied in the humble tone befitting a servant of the Master—a slow, deep response: “Teacher?”
“Yes.”
Noticing the improvement in Andrei’s posture and tone, Playa’s expression showed satisfaction. “Andrei, when has Los been arriving at the chapel these past days?”
“Los?” Andrei’s expression was puzzled.
Playa pointed with his right hand, hanging below the pulpit, toward the small figure at the chapel entrance.
“Oh…” Andrei understood and shook his head. “Teacher, whenever I go out to fetch water each morning, Los is already standing outside the chapel.”
Earlier than Andrei?
Playa was surprised. In the whole village of Eclie, only the chapel’s side door had a sundial, but most villagers couldn’t read it, nor could they accurately track time, relying mostly on the sun’s position to estimate. In Playa’s mind, thirteen-year-old Los certainly wouldn’t possess such skill, yet he managed to stand outside the chapel, always on time for morning prayers—earlier even than Andrei’s water-fetching.
Could this be the budding of true devotion?
For three years, at last the gaze of the Master had turned to this—damned, no, ignorant, no, pitiable—little village?
Unconsciously, Playa tightened his grip.
----
Almost at the same moment.
Earth, Asia, Liberation Army Academy, Fifth Conference Room.
The nearly thousand-square-meter conference room no longer held its usual rows of tiered benches; only scattered metal scraps and screws hinted at their past presence. Now, the space was dominated by metal tables and an array of precise instruments. Each table was surrounded by at least a hundred officers and specialists, all grave and focused, watching the screens before them. The screens displayed high-definition footage of the sky, starring Los—or rather, Wu Qingchen—set in the ancient world, broadcast globally as a homegrown epic.
Yet, except for superhuman figures with lightning reflexes and keen vision, no earthly viewer could watch this film directly: its projection onto Earth’s sky raced ahead at thirty times normal speed.
On the metal table closest to the entrance, a projection screen at its center showed Los darting quickly into the chapel, vanishing at the threshold, then reappearing outside and again disappearing. The projection looped and replayed a segment of the sky’s imagery.
Other screens displayed identical footage—Los entering the chapel, vanishing, then reappearing outside—yet on these, Los moved at a normal pace, slowed to a thirtieth of the speed, so humans could follow.
There were over a dozen such screens; the first and fifth were surrounded by uniformed technicians, the sixth by linguists, the seventh by physicians, the eighth by architects, the ninth by behavioral scientists, the tenth…
Thus, at each table, hundreds of staff—officers, technicians, experts from every discipline—collaborated to study Los/Wu Qingchen’s brief passage into the chapel.
The process of Los/Wu Qingchen entering the chapel lasted about a minute in the ancient world, but only two seconds in Earth’s sky projection.
Three meters away, another metal table’s projection displayed Los/Wu Qingchen turning a corner and reaching the chapel’s entrance, again in two seconds, with corresponding slowed screens and experts encircling them.
The next table showed Wu Qingchen leaving a dilapidated house and turning a corner—again a two-second segment, with specialists at each screen.
In the Liberation Army Academy’s Fifth Conference Room, twenty metal tables and twenty large projection screens showed Wu Qingchen crossing a stream, passing two small hills, traversing ruined houses, turning several bends, and finally arriving at the chapel.
----
In the ancient world, Los/Wu Qingchen spent twenty minutes covering this journey; on Earth, the sky’s projection displayed it in forty seconds.
It was the segment Wu Qingchen had just walked.
As for earlier segments...
On the left side of the Fifth Conference Room, two hastily excavated holes revealed rebar and cement edges. Each hole, nearly two square meters, was flanked by thick steel cables suspending two temporary elevators, linking the Fifth Conference Room to the four below—Fourth, Third, Second, and First.
Each of these rooms, like the Fifth, held twenty metal tables with dense screens and circles of specialists, each team responsible for analyzing a two-second segment from the sky’s projection, corresponding to a minute in the ancient world.
At the same time, in Country Z, at the National Defense Technology University, Infantry Command Academy, Military Transportation Academy, Logistics Engineering Academy, Second Artillery Command Academy, Equipment Technology Academy, and dozens more military research institutes, command centers, and rapid response units, nearly all technical officers and adjacent university experts were gathered in similar setups, analyzing the sky’s projection.
A similar scene unfolded in the United States, Russia, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Sweden—every country of note.
Through metal tables, slowed screens, research teams, and temporary elevators, each two-second segment was distributed and analyzed by millions of soldiers and experts, allowing Earth’s attention to the ancient world to be focused simply, directly, even brutally, at the same instant.
This method involved enormous waste and redundancy, but less than three days had passed since the celestial event began. Even within the same country or city, with tens of thousands involved, optimal coordination was impossible; between nations, uniformity was unthinkable.
Moreover, the urgency meant military agencies dominated, using their most core intelligence resources, and no country would decide within three days to share such resources with others.
Yet, in the face of crisis, major powers exchanged key findings on the ancient world immediately, sharing mostly redundant conclusions, further increasing the analytical burden.
Chapter Twenty: Synchronization (Part Two)
Playa unconsciously tightened his grip.
----
The capital, National Defense University, Information Center, Fourth Floor.
The setup here was much like other universities and command centers, but each analysis point had three times the staff, as they handled the most recent twenty seconds of the ancient world, perfectly synchronized with the sky’s projection.
As Playa’s hands clenched on screen, at the eighth display of the thirty-five teams, among 537 behavioral science experts analyzing the ancient world’s character actions, expressions, and postures, 511 pressed their pale red buttons almost simultaneously.
The communicator opened.
“The priest’s emotions are agitated. Repeat: the priest’s emotions are agitated.”
“B3 subject exhibits significant emotional fluctuation. Repeat: B3 subject exhibits significant emotional fluctuation.”
“Target attention triggered. Repeat: target attention triggered.”
Instantly, three meters above, in the fifth-floor feedback center, 511 intelligence analysis officers received these similar responses, which were rapidly consolidated and sent to a higher-level processing center.
“Scheme 223, strategy effective.”
“Scheme 223 effective.”
“B3 subject, scheme 223 elicited response.”
----
“Excellent!” “Wonderful!” “Ha!”
Five hundred meters away, in another building, after receiving conclusions processed through the information, analysis, integration, screening, and comprehensive centers within seconds, cheers erupted throughout the building.
Normal enough: although there were metal tables, screens, and experts, this building didn’t analyze Los/Wu Qingchen’s ancient-world experiences directly; its soldiers were elite, its experts top-tier from universities and research centers.
This was the Strategy Room—the direct support for Wu Qingchen, the planning, proposal, and guidance center for Los’s actions in the ancient world.
For the locals of the ancient world, deciphering the convoluted symbols and rough surface of the sundial to track time was a headache. But for Wu Qingchen, accustomed to alarm clocks and every kind of timepiece, the sundial was trivially simple.
Supported by countless Earth experts, on his second day in the ancient world, Wu Qingchen picked up two sticks, arranged stones, smoothed the ground, drew a large circle, and, combining details visible from the sky’s projection, in just half a minute, he had not only the time but also rough estimates of the planet’s radius, stellar distance, and rotation and revolution patterns.
For the ancient world, these answers resolved problems their greatest scholars had struggled with for millennia.
Despite being able to track time so easily, Los/Wu Qingchen still arrived half an hour early outside the chapel, enduring an extra hour of labor—half an hour of waiting, ten minutes of morning prayer, twenty minutes of Andrei’s lessons—all squeezed from the four-hour daily toil that rivaled prison labor.
All this, of course, wasn’t just for Playa to clench his hands, but for the emotional ripple behind the gesture.
This was Scheme 223, one of hundreds devised by Earth, with a single goal: perfect the details, approach the priest, and display active faith.
The cheers in the Strategy Room lasted for a few seconds; three more minutes passed in the ancient world.
After his brief excitement and recalling the time he was deceived by cunning villagers upon arrival in Eclie, Playa composed himself, set the water vessel on the pulpit, and began daily morning prayers.
Ten minutes later, prayers ended. Playa signaled Andrei to sit, then opened another parchment for their daily lesson.
Compared to usual, Playa spent more time today, dividing his attention between prayers, lessons, and the child Los standing by the pillar.
----
Indeed, Los never moved; his prayer posture was precise.
Yes, Los was praying, aware of the prayer’s end and the timing for the holy rites.
Wait—could Los understand my teachings? This was exactly what Andrei never figured out.
As he went about his tasks, Playa observed Los by the door, silently noting details, and a small image gradually formed:
Very young, quite clean, devoted in prayer, intelligent, able to understand the Sacred Canon…
Gradually, a faint smile appeared on Playa’s face. With just a few glances, his understanding of Los deepened, and Playa felt a touch of pride.
----
Almost simultaneously.
Within about a minute, the atmosphere at every ancient world intelligence analysis center changed dramatically. If a minute earlier these teams worked like boiling water, now they were a surging ocean.
The reason was clear: B3, Priest Playa’s covert observation of Los/Wu Qingchen.
“B3 subject’s right ring finger tapped the table for the fourth time on the second joint—suspected as a writing difficulty thought gesture.”
“When facing the light source, B3 subject’s right pupil contracted, forehead skin tensed—preliminary assessment: some visual impairment.”
“While performing cleaning and other tasks, B3 subject’s voice steady, speech fluent, thoughts clear, logical reasoning high.”
“B3 subject exhibited frequent frowning, smiling, scolding, and other expressions today; rapid changes and significant emotional fluctuations.”
“B3 subject…”
Countless messages and analyses flooded in. At the bustling ancient world intelligence processing center, Playa’s personal model rapidly filled out:
John/Playa/Akfo
Designation: B3 Ancient World Subject.
Gender: Male
Age: Twenty-seven
Role: Pastor of Eclie Village.
Physical Status: Height 172cm, weight approx. 53kg, slight hunch, partial visual impairment, indigestion, malnutrition, arthritis in right arm…
Personality: Curious, devout, follows religious and noble etiquette, diligent, cautious, somewhat ambitious…
Personal habitual actions: …
Personal tendencies: …
Stress response model: …
Currently feasible strategies: …
The aged military man, with graying hair, head of the French Saint-Cyr Military Academy’s strategy room and a major general, scrolled through the three-page summary of B3’s profile, visibly displeased: “How much longer before the processing center stops pretending the apocalypse isn’t at our doorstep? Why are there still nine omissions in this damned report? Why does the stress response model only have three entries? And—it’s been almost three minutes! Where are the risk assessments and environmental impact estimates?”
At the same time, the processing center’s supervisor was shouting into the phone: “There’s no reason—no reason at all! This isn’t a wizard academy! We’re intelligence analysts!”
“What’s causing the priest’s arthritis? Hell if I know! Ask your own doctor—maybe he can diagnose arthritis from ten years ago just by looking!”
“Yes, I know this model is crude, but we only have this damned amount of time…”
“Wuh…wuh…wuh…” A shrill alarm sounded; red warning lights flashed.
“Wait! I see something…The priest is approaching the subject…Direct contact! Direct contact! Bang! Bang bang bang!”
The receiver flew, crashing to the floor and shattering.
No one looked away; everyone’s focus locked on their screens.
On the six celestial projections in the processing center: Playa moved with near-flashing speed to Los/Wu Qingchen, both figures subtly shifting with each movement, their lips rapidly moving for about half a minute. Los left the chapel; Playa flashed to the altar, paused for several seconds, then also departed.