Above the mage!

Chapter 539 A Groundbreaking Advance (Part 1)

"Northern Ethernet." The compound eyes of the Ether Spider began to flash intensely once again.

Ether is its name, and the web should refer to its spiritual fiber network; these are all easy to understand.

However, when combined with the North, its specific meaning becomes somewhat unclear.

This is an obscure phrase for it.

Gaode was very patient, slowly explaining all his ideas.

Although it is described as gradual, it is actually very fast because it is a direct exchange of consciousness, and the exchange of information happens in an instant.

Moreover, Gaode only needs to state what he needs the Ether Spider to do, without explaining the specific principles—even if he did explain, the Ether Spider would most likely have difficulty understanding it, and it would waste the time of [Whispers of the Spirit Realm].

This time, the location was precise, directly targeting the Ether Spider, thus saving a lot of spirit energy from being wasted.

But Gaode has a lot to do this time, and he must hurry to avoid being forcibly pulled back to the North before completing everything before Yugathira's spiritual energy runs out.

The next [Whispers of the Spirit Realm] won't be for nearly two months.

At this moment, Gaode Maps doesn't want to wait even a day longer.

Anyone who knows they need to connect to the internet will want to get it done as soon as possible.

If it drags on for two months, wouldn't that be incredibly frustrating!

And as it turns out, the Ether Spider is indeed exceptionally pure.

After receiving the request from Gaode Maps, it didn't even bother to ask for the specific reasons, and simply started trying it out according to Gaode Maps' requirements.

The etheric spider's pure spiritual instincts mean it only knows how to "execute" and "weave," and any unnecessary questions never linger in its consciousness.

The North, Flora Forest, Yggdrasil.

Suddenly, ripples, like waves, spread across the space around the tree trunk.

The air was distorted into layers of overlapping arcs of light.

The unique energy of the spirit world, interwoven with its deep blue and silver-white hues, seeped out through the gaps in the ripples, instantly making the spirit world energy here much denser.

The next moment, a silver-blue "tentacle" emerged from the center of the ripples.

That was a newly condensed spiritual fiber from the Ether Spider.

However, compared to other spiritual vein fibers, this one was incredibly thick, as if it were a combination of spiritual vein fibers, with a liquid-like spiritual aura flowing across its surface.

In order to penetrate the dimensional barrier, the spiritual energy inside the fiber was compressed to the extreme, and one could even see the energy flowing through the fiber.

There are dimensional barriers between different planes, and it is almost impossible to break through these barriers, which are enough to isolate all exchange of matter and energy.

Unless it's like the leyline plane and the void plane, where there's a direct inter-planetary intersection with the mage plane, creating a stable spatial channel, it's unlikely that leyline creatures and void creatures would set foot in the mage world.

However, the spirit realm is relatively special because it is not a material plane, but a transitional plane connecting the mage plane and the inner plane.

It is a special plane that is attached to the plane of mages, and it corresponds to the plane of mages in every way. In the spiritual plane, one can even catch a glimpse of the plane of mages.

To put it simply, it's like an inner layer of skin tightly attached to the mage plane.

In this situation, it would be relatively easier for spirit beings to enter the mage plane.

In fact, there are also some spirit creatures that have wandered into the mage plane and gotten lost, or spirit creatures that have been summoned by the mage's spells.

By drawing energy from the spirit world, Yugathira essentially created a small hole in the barrier between the spirit world and the mage plane.

The Ether Spider, through the small hole opened by Yogg-Sarah, extended its excessively thick spiritual vein from the spirit realm and entered the mage plane.

After the spiritual vein fiber arrived in the mage plane, it paused briefly in the air before quickly finding its target.

It twisted and turned nimbly as it flew toward the secondary canopy of Yugathira.

There, several branches intertwine to form a sturdy base.

At the very center of the base is a crystal that is crystal clear and radiant.

【Heart of the North】.

Without the slightest hesitation, the spiritual vein fiber flew towards the [Heart of the North] like a bird returning to its nest.

The moment the end of the fiber touches the surface of the crystal, the white light of the crystal suddenly surges, and the silver-blue halo on the surface of the fiber intertwines with the white light, forming a brief bridge of light.

The fibers seemed to be alive, slowly climbing along the facets of the crystal. Each time they climbed over a facet, a silver-blue line would light up on that facet of the crystal.

The fibers continued to extend and branch, quickly splitting from one into two, then two into four. The fine, silvery-blue threads, like a woven net, slowly spread out along every facet and corner of the Heart of the North.

Not only in Flora's Forest, but also in Phoenix, the same scene is playing out.

Amidst the ripples in space, several spiritual vein fibers emerged.

However, compared to the spirit vein fibers in Flora Forest, these spirit vein fibers are much more normal. Like other spirit vein fibers in the spirit world, they are as thin as spider silk, but more resilient than the toughest mithril threads.

Their target is the access key generated by the Heart of the North.

In the spirit world.

"Broadband connection successful." The Ether Spider's compound eyes gleamed, a hint of joy in its consciousness.

It doesn't actually understand why Gaode calls the act of connecting the spiritual fiber to the [Heart of the North] "broadband expansion".

It has neither belt nor width.
However, being of pure mind, it doesn't care about or pay attention to these details.

For it, Gaode's instructions are the direction of weaving; as long as the fibers can take firm root on the [Heart of the North], the mission is accomplished.

"It really worked!" Upon hearing the information from the Ether Spider, even Gao De, who had seen many great things, could hardly contain his excitement.

Simply put, anyone from the same world as him can understand how exciting it would be to achieve internet access in a place without it.

However, we shouldn't get too excited yet, because "getting broadband" is only the first step in the whole plan.

The purpose of "uploading broadband" is to break the access distance restrictions of [Heart of the North].

Currently, there are two ways to access [Heart of the North]: either through direct contact or by establishing a mental link with [Heart of the North] through a key, thereby accessing [Heart of the North]'s knowledge base.

The former goes without saying, and the latter must also be within 100 meters of the [Heart of the North].

This limitation means that the Heart of the North can only be used as a large local database, and its value cannot be truly spread to the North.

But now, with the Ether Spider and its necromantic fiber web, there is a real possibility of breaking this distance limitation, making the Heart of the North not just a database, but also a server.

The access range of the key will no longer be limited by physical distance, but will depend on the coverage of the venom fiber network.

As long as you are within the area covered by the Aether Spider's veil fiber network, you can access the Heart of the North using a key.

The "addressing routing protocol medium" was repeatedly relayed by EtherSpider to Gaode Maps.

It couldn't understand the meaning of these words at all, but they were so novel, complex, and obscure that it liked them very much, so it kept repeating them. Of course, this novelty and complexity only applied to the Ether Spider; if it were someone from Gaode's previous life, it would definitely understand them immediately.

Gaode's overall approach is actually not complicated:

Drawing inspiration from the internet of the previous era, and combining the capabilities of the [Heart of the North] and the Ether Spider, a Northern Ethernet will be created.

In order to maintain the functionality and normal operation of the Northern Ethernet, the specific logic and the operations that need to be performed need to be clearly explained to EtherSpider.

Gaode was aware of this, so it allocated a lot of time for explanation and clarification.

The entire Northern Ethernet will have a four-layer architecture.

The first is the physical layer, or data link layer, which serves as the "foundation" of the entire Northern Ethernet network. Its core functions are provided solely by EtherSpider.

The physical medium is the spiritual fiber network woven by the Great Spider. This network not only covers most of the spirit realm, but also extends to the mage plane, forming a basic communication network that connects the two realms.

Its task is simple: to transmit the raw information.

However, compared to the network cable of the previous life, it can transmit extremely complex and direct information, instead of only being able to transmit binary data.

Due to the Ether Spider's amazing ability to transmit information across its web, coupled with its dependence on the spirit world and the mage plane, it can indirectly achieve distance-insensitive transmission within the area encompassed by the spirit vein fiber network.

Each key generated from the Heart of the North will be "registered" in the Spirit Vein Fiber Network during its creation.

This means requesting the EtherSpider to provide a unique message that it can understand and distinguish, thereby possessing a unique identifier as the physical address of the key.

After registration, the "administrator" can then assign access permissions to the key through [Heart of the North].

This registered and authorized key will be called a key.

In this layer, the EtherSpider acts more like a "silent administrator." It doesn't need to understand complex permission logic; it simply relies on instinct to do what it's always doing.
Manage the daily operation of the fiber optic network, repair broken fibers, expand uncovered areas, and ensure network connectivity;

It provides long-distance, high-speed information transmission channels, enabling information to flow instantly;

Handle basic information conflict, error detection, and access control to ensure that only registered keys can access [Heart of the North] and log in to the Ethernet.

The Heart of the North has two very fatal limitations: generating each access key requires a considerable amount of valuable materials, and the daily energy consumption of the Heart of the North increases with each additional key.

Actually, both are easy to understand. The former means that if you want to connect to the internet, you have to spend a lot of money to buy a computer first.

As for the latter, isn't it just that the server maintenance cost increases with each additional user?

The former goes without saying; it's an ironclad rule that cannot be bypassed.

As for the latter, it is something that must be avoided.

Otherwise, with each additional remote user, the load on [Heart of the North] as a server will increase linearly, and it will eventually be overwhelmed by the terrifying increase in energy consumption.

As for the method, Gaode has already figured it out.

In the old model, each key established an independent, peer-to-peer spiritual link with the Heart of the North.

The North Heart needs to process all links simultaneously, which is the fundamental reason why its energy consumption increases linearly with the number of keys.

The key to solving this problem is to prevent the [Heart of the North] from establishing an independent and continuous mental link with each key.

This is where the Ether Spider needs to step in.

All keys are first connected to the Ether Spider's Fiber network.

All communication between keys, and between keys and the Heart of the North, is relayed through the network of the Etherspider.

【Heart of the North】does only one thing: process data requests from the thick spiritual fiber connecting the Ether Spider to itself and return the results.

In other words, you only need to maintain one connection with the EtherSpider and process the information packets sent by the EtherSpider.

It no longer cares how many keys there are in the world.

As a result, the number of active connections that [Heart of the North] needs to maintain instantly drops from 'n (number of users)' to '1', namely the connection with Ether Spider.

Whether the number of users grows to one thousand or ten thousand, the energy consumption of [Heart of the North] will remain almost unchanged.

The immense pressure shifted from the Heart of the North to the Ether Spider.

The Ether Spider's talent lies in multi-threaded information processing, which is instinctive for it. Whether it is managing the information flow of ten fibers or one hundred thousand fibers, there is no essential difference.

Another important layer of Ethernet architecture is the network layer, with the functionality provided by [Heart of the North].

At this level, the Heart of the North has two main missions:

Assign a spirit coordinate to each valid node in the Ethernet, i.e., a key, based on the key's relative position in the Ethernet spider network and its functional permissions.

"Spirit Realm Coordinates" is the term used in the mage realm.

In Gaode's previous existence, this spiritual coordinate had a familiar name: "IP address".

Its function is like a house number, accurately locating every node in the Ethernet network and ensuring that information is not transmitted to the wrong object.

The second mission is routing.

All information must include the spiritual coordinates of the source and destination, then be packaged into an information packet and transmitted to the Heart of the North via the spiritual fiber network.

[Heart of the North] Based on the request of the information packet, it performs addressing and retrieval in its knowledge base, and feeds back to Ether Spider through the routing table, accurately sending the information packet (request and response) from the source coordinates to the target coordinates.

That is, "routing".

Throughout this entire process, the Ether Spider didn't do much.

It doesn't need to understand the meaning of spirit world coordinates, nor does it need to understand the logic of the routing table.

Its sole responsibility is to deliver information packets along the designated fiber path, following the instructions given by the Heart of the North.

The Ether Spider does not produce information; it merely acts as a carrier of information.

The third layer of Ethernet architecture is the transport layer.

The functionality is provided by [Heart of the North] and the key. The core task is to select different transmission methods based on the importance of the information.

It mainly implements two transmission methods:

One mechanism is used for important operations such as knowledge and information retrieval. The receiving key must return an acknowledgment signal; otherwise, [Heart of the North] will automatically retransmit the information packet until an acknowledgment signal is received.

This method can minimize the loss or damage of important information, achieve "resumable transmission after interruption", avoid packet loss, and ensure file integrity.

Another transmission method is for information with high real-time requirements. Once the information is sent out, it is not needed again and the transmission is completed directly without secondary confirmation, ensuring that the information can arrive as soon as possible.

The final layer of the architecture is the application layer.

This is the layer that the key owner, or user, directly interacts with.

Currently, Gaode Maps has only planned two core functions for it: Wanwei and Lingxin!
(End of this chapter)