NOVEL NEXT Chapter 540 - 354: He's Back
Chapter 540: Chapter 354: He’s Back
Nora Camp suddenly understood.
She had grown up amidst the countless hints he left behind.
The process of being influenced by the subtle messages had never stopped.
This was, on some level, a Truman Show world, created just for her.
If people from the 21st century realized this, they would certainly feel resentful.
But Nora, as someone from the 31st century, had grown up in an even more significant ideological cocoon, and she had an indescribable admiration for Harrison Clark, the ancient sage.
So, no matter what Harrison Clark did, there must have been a reason.
I, Nora Camp, am also part of his long-term plan to change the fate of Human Civilization.
So when Nora realized this, she didn’t feel disgusted or repulsed, instead experiencing an indescribable joy and pride.
At this point, she hadn’t finished watching the video and didn’t know how Harrison Clark had noticed her a thousand years later.
But her heart raced uncontrollably.
It turned out you had been watching me for a thousand years already.
How lucky am I?
How glorious?
The second person to accept reality was Amelia Johnson.
She was the first to be instilled by Chen Feng with the idea that he was a mere mortal who could travel through time and space.
She had her suspicions but never sought confirmation.
Now that Harrison Clark had exposed himself, she felt it was only natural.
So that’s how it is.
Putting herself in his shoes and thinking with his mindset, Amelia felt that if she were him and dedicated to the defense of Human Civilization, she wouldn’t want to see her descendants building statues of her all over the world, nor indulging in the deification and worship of her.
Harrison Clark could see the drawbacks of deification, so he wanted to shatter the personal worship of himself and focus all of Human Civilization’s current power on fighting the invaders.
Stop fantasizing and do our best one at a time.
The third person was young Horatio from the highest intelligence group.
Her brain structure was different from ordinary people, showing a strong artificial intelligence tendency and an incredible information retrieval ability.
She first cut the approximately eight-year-long video into ninety-nine segments, played them simultaneously, and increased each segment’s playback speed by two thousand times.
Twenty minutes later, as Harrison Clark emerged from the Superbrain Core Metal Sphere, Horatio had extracted the video’s content at an extremely fast speed and published her findings within the governing system.
“The video released by Star is genuine. I have forwarded the summary of the story to the Literary Research Institute. They will provide a summary description in three hours. Major General Harrison Clark has a 99.99% chance of being the ancient sage. There is a 0.01% chance that he has received a full memory transmission from the ancient sage.”
“However, according to Major General Harrison Clark’s performance since awakening, the 0.01% probability can also be eliminated. The so-called awakening and sudden change of genetic information should be due to his being replaced by a real person through an incredible miracle.”
“Harrison Clark has never given up the struggle. He divided himself into two halves. One half stayed in the old era, a thousand years ahead of schedule, laying out technology and art, leading the times and accelerating human progress.”
“The other half, with his battle experience and insights accumulated from fighting the invaders multiple times, parachuted into our era a thousand years later and will join us in facing the unparalleled invaders, doing what he has done many times before.”
“This is Harrison Clark’s eighth time participating in the war. He went from dying in obscurity to wearing Battle Armor, approaching enemy ships within a million kilometers, seeing the Compound-Eyed Observer’s eyes through the window hole, using a Particle-interference Bomb to blow up enemy ships, and killing a Compound-Eyed Observer with his own strength.”
“With his humble origins, he rose during the darkest times, crossed eight timelines, led Human Civilization to today, and eventually enabled us to have the power to fight the invaders. For more details, refer to the biography provided by the Literary Institute later. I will name this biography – ‘Unyielding Spirit’!”
After reading the text briefing from Horatio, Neville Brown considered for about thirty seconds and decided first to convene a comprehensive meeting of the governing body system to determine whether to disclose the big news of Harrison Clark’s return to the world and certify that Harrison Clark is Harrison Clark.
This would signify the confirmation of “I am me”.
This would announce the return of the king.
Harrison Clark would instantly become the supreme spiritual leader of the entire civilization.
If he desired power, even if he couldn’t immediately “ascend the throne”, it would inevitably cause a great commotion and might even lead to the division of civilization on the eve of the Advent.
Neville Brown’s concerns were justified.
But there was always another voice in his heart telling him that whatever Harrison Clark wanted to do, whether he or anyone else could understand it, they should carry it out unconditionally.
Because Harrison Clark’s foresight and personal abilities were unparalleled.
In the old era, every decision he made that the people
at the time couldn’t understand was later proven correct.
It was the case in the past, and it should be the case now.
So Neville Brown’s personal preference was to disclose the information, but he didn’t want to shoulder the enormous pressure of such a significant decision alone. He needed to consult the Governing Council first, get a unanimous opinion, and then discuss it with the heads of the other three major systems.
At the same time, the military and production management system meetings were almost simultaneously convened.
The scientific field’s reaction should have been faster, but it was temporarily shelved.
That’s because the two opinion leaders in the scientific community were “tied up” by Harrison Clark himself and couldn’t extricate themselves.
Mr. Clark didn’t intentionally cling to anyone; he just returned to the Time Machine according to the original plan.
He himself hadn’t changed his mindset since he had already been a leader.
However, Bernal Connor and Martha Owen felt entirely different.
It’s complicated, hard to explain.
The two of them had also received Horatio’s briefing and were itching to read the detailed biographies of the Literature Institute and continue watching the video, but they just didn’t have the time.
Who could have imagined that just a few hours ago, the cheerful young man, or the man picked up by the besties, Harrison Clark, would be the greatest philosopher in the history of human civilization for thousands of years?
How shocking!
How inconceivable!
But at this moment, both the AIs Star and Horatio, representing the limits of human and artificial intelligence, had reached their verdicts.
At this time, Bernal and Martha postponed the meeting of the Scientific Committee and then stealthily glanced at Harrison Clark, who had just removed his Titan defense armor and stepped into the time machine.
Harrison Clark smiled, “What’s with your expressions?”
Gulp.
Mr. Connor swallowed hard, “Chen…Grandpa Chen, I…the junior Bernal… Bernal Connor, I am here to pay my respects to you. I’ve said some inappropriate things before due to ignorance, please don’t take it to heart. I apologize sincerely to you. I’m sorry!”
The old man’s last three words were almost shouted, and his head hung low, his neck nearly parallel to the ground.
“Chen…cough cough, respected philosopher, hello, I am Martha Owen.”
Martha was trembling, not out of fear, but out of uncontrollable excitement.
Harrison Clark’s mouth twitched.
Here we go again, the familiar feeling of being forcibly turned into a thousand-year-old man.
It feels a bit strange.
“Put away your respect, it annoys me, just do what you need to.”
It’s difficult to change someone’s long-established reverence for the philosophers.
Harrison Clark didn’t bother wasting his breath, just waved his hand with an indifferent attitude.
“Okay…okay. So…shall we have our meeting over there first?”
Bernal asked again.
Harrison Clark thought about it, “Your meeting is to discuss whether you recognize the video published by Star and my identity, right?”
Martha Owen silently gave a thumbs up, “As expected of the philosopher, your insight is sharp, and your wisdom shines brightly…”
“Shut up, stop flattering me.” Mr. Clark began to feel uneasy, “You guys can discuss it freely, you don’t have to worry about my opinion. Anyway, no matter how you decide…hmm, it won’t affect me.”
The two of them sat down, and the telepathic synchronization device in the time machine enveloped them.
They were just about to enter the virtual conference room when Harrison Clark suddenly stopped them, “Wait, there’s one more thing. In a short while, Star will start publishing some papers externally. I asked her to publish the papers separately to some leaders in the scientific field. You can decide how to achieve the specific results. I only have two requirements. First, keep everything confidential, because the invaders can indeed make a preliminary observation of us through the solar dome.”
“Second, don’t question the achievements of me and Star, and do your best to use every available moment for work. We don’t have much time left, so we need to seize every second. I’ve only seen spherical battleships before, but I personally think that this might just be a fringe force of the Compound Eye civilization, so I don’t know what awaits us this time.”
After saying that, Harrison Clark sat down and began to rest his eyes.
Two hours later, the time for the comprehensive expansion meeting among the four major systems was over, and the highest-level conference began.
Another hour later, the Literature Institute produced two versions.
One was the comprehensive version of “Unyielding Spirit,” with more than 1.2 million words, and the other was a story outline with only a thousand words.
This thousand-word story outline precisely summarized the struggles of the philosopher Harrison Clark across seven timelines and seven millennia.
On average, each 130 words depicted a thousand years.
Behind these rigid words were countless desperate wars and struggles that left countless lives in ruins.
In the story, there were betrayals, misunderstandings, sacrifices of billions of people in an instant, and despair.
But there was one word that was never used: “giving up.”
Quick-acting participants followed the story outline to search for details in the comprehensive version of “Unyielding Spirit” and saw their past destinies.
For instance, Dillon, the commander of the Long River Legion, mumbled under his breath.
He recalled the oath that involuntarily surfaced in his mind when he became the commander of the Long River Legion.
“The longest river in the sky, the eternal brilliance of stars.”
Dillon tightened his lips.
Gaius not only read the text summary but also found the communication records of his own sacrifices in Harrison Clark’s memories.
Nora Camp’s eyes focused on the scenes of telling Harrison Clark about her successful pregnancies, one after another.
In the past timelines, she had many glorious moments of showing off her talents, but what she unexpectedly paid more attention to was her daughter with Harrison Clark.
It turns out that personally giving birth to a child was such a wonderful thing.
It was a spiritual connection, an extra will granted to a mother.
There was silence in the highest-level conference room for a full half hour.
People’s eyes finally converged on Nora Camp’s face.