Once the theory is complete, it will be an unavoidable slash.

The mist is getting thicker. The Mist Weaving Antelope has activated its mist weaving features, and those hoses are getting closer to them.

The next moment, just before the Space Slash was launched, time made a leap.

In an instant, all the hoses froze in mid-air. Rowena opened her mouth in surprise, exhaling a breath of warm air. The temperature by the lake dropped by more than ten degrees, and by the time she regained her senses, the entire lakeside was frozen, unable to reflect anything on the water's surface anymore.

She didn't know what Lindong had seen, but it must not have been a pleasant memory. Since meeting Ethan, it had been a long time since Lindong experienced such a strong emotional fluctuation.

The ice Elemental Magic that freezes time always sends chills down one's spine, no matter how many times they've seen it.

Lindong, who had activated the Domain Magic, also returned to human form. She almost teleported past the Mist Weaving Antelope, arriving straight in front of the "robot."

The "robot" maintained its previous posture and expression, sealed in ice, not even realizing it had been turned into an ice sculpture. Rowena watched as Lindong raised her right hand—this was her old combat habit. When the raised right hand fell, the ice sculpture would shatter into pieces, and the frozen object within would eventually turn to dust.

However, just as her right hand was about to fall, Lindong suddenly seemed to change her mind.

White light flashed, she transformed back, gently returning to Ethan's side, moving up along his leg and arm, back to her rightful place.

Rowena asked, "Should we go back now?"

"Let's look a bit further ahead."

The frozen lake leads into the deeper fog, some memories seemingly reviving in his mind.

Mist Forest County and even this dimension might just be a discarded project. Perhaps they were never completed—only after building the framework and setting the basics did they get rejected by the superiors. Yet now, they appeared before their eyes, along with a complete Transcendent system.

The moisture in the fog, the sensation of stepping on the ice, and the feeling from the recent battle with the Summoner—all absolutely real.

Then, a new question surfaced.

If this is the last project of his "life," what virtue or ability does he have to create such a real dimension? Yet no matter how much Ethan thought about it, he couldn't recall the specific details of the project, not even possessing seemingly scientific theoretical knowledge like "uploading consciousness" or "holographic games."

The brief reflection on the lake was like a skipped result of all processes.

When he "woke up," this illusory world already existed.

Ethan stepped forward. Maybe this is the destiny of all programmers—you'll encounter code you completely don't understand, yet the program can still run, even running stably.

For a modern person like him, the existing information is enough for him to draw many conclusions.

The "Ancient Beings" mentioned by the guild actually refer to Earthlings. They came to this world through something similar to a crossover event. As the first group of pioneers, they established guilds, initiated investigations, and transformed from unheard-of little figures into "kings."

His identity is even more special. In a sense, he and his office colleagues seem to be the creators of this century. In people's eyes, they are like a creation god. The frameworks they designed gradually became worlds and power systems, and all the document settings became well-known histories.

After the entire project was completed, for some reason, he entered his consciousness into this world. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

From his "landing point" and the memory loss situation, Ethan speculates the situation at that time might have been very urgent, leaving no time for a complete "career plan." When he awoke, he randomly appeared in a refugee team. Thinking back, the situation at that time was akin to cutting into this dimension.

The people wearing white headscarves also regarded him as a companion. Before he betrayed the Poacher organization, they had never doubted his identity.

The natives of this world usually can't detect these people who suddenly appear.

Another conclusion is that the time flow rate between the two worlds is definitely different. As a normal modern person, he and the pioneer team had been here for no more than one or two years, but the King of Gold and others have been in this world for thousands of years.

They not only established their own forces, explored countless planes, but their lives entered a period of fatigue due to this endless lifespan, constantly needing to find "fun" to seek some mental relief for their long life.

So...

Where will the frozen lake lead?

Does it have anything to do with the "Ancient Beings"?

...

"Now, do you believe it?"

At the top of the distant Divine Tree, in the treehouse, a red-haired girl with twin ponytails still faced the mirror, and this time, the figure suspended upside down in chains in the mirror became emotionally charged. His agitation continuously projected into reality, causing tiny cracks to appear on the mirror surface. It may not be long before the entire mirror surface shatters.

"The real me and the reason I initially came here."

For someone who has survived a thousand years, those twenty years as an "Ancient Being" on Earth are fleeting, as if that distant place was just a far and illusory dream.

After graduating from university, she went to intern at a company, recommended by her superiors to become a pioneer for a project because of their favor. If they could find the "Goddess," they would earn a reward enough for her to achieve financial freedom for the rest of her life.

In the first year after leaving school and stepping into society, she could achieve the financial freedom countless people dream of... She was indeed a chosen lucky one...

Of course, it was all a lie, merely one of her many identities.

She had been lying since she was a child; it was what she excelled at.

And after scamming a huge sum of money from the company, those people found her.

She shared memories of the past with the giant shadow in the mirror for the first time, including her thoughts at that moment.

She wasn't surprised by Ethan's arrival; rather, it seemed like this moment arrived a bit late.

Ethan was different from them. Although coming from the same place, he received special attention, important enough that the guild and even the omnipotent Goddess existed just for him.

If this were a tale of adventure and epic, the story would end with Ethan defeating the guild founders one by one, incorporating the entire guild into his fold.

An outdated yet somewhat classic adventure story.

But she believed that their ultimate demise must have some other meanings.

The company admired her for her ability to lie, allowing her to join the pioneering crew with the purpose of deceiving someone with her best lies when necessary.

However, what was she to deceive Ethan about?

The Red-haired Girl and the giant shadow in the mirror exchanged glances, "O omnipotent Argos, can you resolve my confusion?"

Her answer was still silence.

Only this time, the silence differed from before. Argos appeared eager to answer her question yet found himself in a similar predicament.

To remind Ethan that this is an illusory world constructed of data and he is likely its creator?

If that's the case, her presence is redundant. She believed that as long as Ethan possessed normal intelligence, he would eventually discover the truth of this world.

Then there must be more important details she overlooked, and she had already shown Argos everything—what she experienced over thousands of years.

"Argos..."

She steadied herself, "What have we missed?"