I flew over the vast lands and wide oceans of the Empty Dream moving at roughly 1200 times the speed of sound. The realm of the Empty Dream had grown quite large over the years. The speed I was flying at was just fast enough for me to see it all in one night, while taking the time to properly observe the things I was looking at. Once my body was moving fast enough, I just needed to unthrottle the pacing of my neuro-processing enough, that everything happening below and above me would slow to a subjective crawl.

Ultimately, turning a race across the world into a genteel stroll, according to my perception of the world around me. From there I could just let my senses wander. Doing this allowed me to take a deeper, somewhat more accurate, look into how the Empty-Dream was operating, than if I simply looked down from above reading the flow of data throughout my virtual realm.

I wasn’t doing this alone. Kalpana was helping me. Kalpana, and nine of her sisters in the Harvesters’ Royal Council. The ten harvesters flew on either side of me, their sharp, diaphanous, wings emitted burning blue spiritual energy, and kinetic force like they were rocket engines instead of wings. Their sturdy bodies, and increasingly high cultivations, allowed the Harvester royalty to comfortably withstand the speed we were moving at. The only thing I needed to help with, was creating a temporary mental-network that would allow them to think at a similar pace to mine, so that they’d be able to do their intended tasks.

The Harvesters were already big users of the Empty Dream. According to Kalpana, after they’d expanded across the world I’d made for them in the chaotic sea, and the other planets that I’d given them when I sent their world over to me and Jack’s private dimension, they’d started to feel antsy…Pun not intended. The council of Queens didn't believe in getting something for nothing. Jack suggested that we should start making use of them as subordinates, so, I’ve elected to have some of them help me look after my archive, while others worked on the Empty Network and Empty Dream.

Kalpana was my head for the department of Administrators and Moderators in the Empty Dream. She was also head of the group I was currently informally just calling the Librarians. The Empty-Archive only had “one” archivist and I was it, but by jumping through a lot of hoops I was able to essentially deputize a number of the willing Harvesters into working for me in the Archive.

I had Kalpana running point here and in the Empty-Archive, because I knew her better than any of the other Harvesters. However, there was generally a lot of overlap between the Empty-Archive’s workers and those who worked with the Empty-Network and Empty-Dream. This was because of an overlap in skills, aptitudes, and knowledge base.

“Oh, hey...I think I see someone attempting to hack the firmament of the dream,” said one of the harvesters. I looked down towards the area that the harvester-princess was psionically pointing towards and spotted the offending user. Then with a thought, I willed the world to open up a hole filled with angry nothingness beneath him, killing his avatar and dropping the user out of the dream.

“A permanent ban?” said Kalpana. Recognizing the method of avatar dissolution that I’d used, and likely also nothing the alterations I’d made to the user’s data.

“Yeah…” I said. Nodding.

“Oh, there’s another one…” said another of the Harvester-Princesses.

I observed this new user and frowned as I streaked across the sky. Then I set up a script that had the user doing a little dance of glee.

“Huh? Why the different treatment?” said Kalpana.

“That one was a bender...Not a breaker…” I said.

“Ah,” said Kalpana. Her sound of understanding echoed by others in our flight formation.

I differentiated between those who were purposefully trying to break the systems that made up the Empty-Dream and those who were simply taking advantage of exploits in Empty-Dream’s underlying code. The line was thin, but there was generally a clear difference in intention and results.

The “breakers” were those who were trying to tear open the virtual world in ways that would circumvent its safety features and overall stability. Often they were people and beings trying to peel away my control over the Empty Dream. Other times they were just people trying to directly hack the systems to get free stuff. In either case, I’d ban them because their ill-intent and methodologies made allowing them to stay within the dream seem inadvisable.

Benders were admittedly similar but they were more “gentle”. Their actions were more acceptable because they weren’t trying to forcefully break the logic of the world. Their actions were all within the margins of what I’d set to be possible or “legal” within the empty-dream…I don’t know, it was the difference between those who found loopholes in the law and those who murdered and stole.

The difference was made thinner because I allowed certain types of law/logic manipulation just like in the real world. Which meant that I also allowed certain types of “rule-breaking”. Its hard to make the differentiation in simple terms. I could describe it as tolerating violations of the law of conservation and gravity but not accepting violations in the law of momentum and inertia, but even that metaphor wouldn’t be entirely accurate.

The best I could say was that I was much less tolerant than the heavens of the real world in certain ways, and more tolerant in other ways. With the result being that often Benders would be rewarded for their acts even if I might ultimately decide to close a loophole that they’d discover because their rule-bending deepened the laws of the Empty-Dream and my own understanding of the flow of cosmic logic.

*************************************************************************************************************

On the ground below, Yang Shichao, the former Sect-Master of the Forest of Life and Death, looked up at the distant shapes that streaked through an otherworldly, and bright, night sky. He’d stepped down from the role of Sect-Master roughly a century ago. Joining Fang Wei, and a number of other seniors of their generation in becoming a sect-ancestor.

Both old men weren't looking so old anymore, these days. The effects of leveling up by fighting the monsters of the dream, finding countless opportunities in the dream’s various wilderness areas, and progressing through their cultivation at multiple times the usual speed had de-aged them with Fang Wei looking like a man who’d barely entered middle-age and the former-sect head looking like a youth fresh out of college.

With the increases in their prospects and lifespans, there were many old seniors like them who’d quickly pushed off the troubles of the mortal world and waking world to focus fully on what they could get from the Empty-Dream. Now as he gazed upon the field of almost blindingly bright light that led to a region only those like himself, who were nearing the ascension, could enter, Yang Shichao was affirmed of his decision to put the real world aside for a time.

“Good, good, good...That young freak has done it again,” said Fang Wei. His face was as pinched and sour as it always was. His tone making it unclear whether he was scolding the creator of the virtual realm, or praising him.

Yang Shichao could only laugh as he read and re-read the description and disclaimer for the sealed-off region.

“To think...For thousands of millennia, cultivation has been a lonely road filled with endless peril...Now in my time, we’ve reached a point where one can not only safely cultivate, but even semi-safely gain immortality...Hah, truly wonderful,” said Yang Shichao. Laughing light-heartedly as he pressed the acceptance prompts and stepped into the region known as the “Endless Lands”. A brutally hard, highly dangerous, region of the dream that essentially served as prolonged, but softened divine tribulation. A series of interconnected virtual spaces that would allow users who’d reached the Empty-Dreams third and final level-cap to semi-safely enter immortality.

“Tch, aren’t those kids tired already? Will they only be satisfied if they flip the world on its head a dozen more times? Or...are they trying to flip even the heavens and hells on their head” said Fang Wei. Also accepting the prompt and stepping forward into the land of light.

Yang Shichao laughed.

"Well, thanks to those brats, we'll likely be around to see the end result...What a time to be alive, eh?!" said Yang Shichao

"Indeed," said Fang Wei. Grunting as he brought out a spiritual-energy clone of the massive Summer's Steel Fan that had already begun to diffuse into his body and soul, as part of the early-immortalization process.