The male supporting character was actually myself.

After glancing at the other documents that were not particularly useful, Jiang Chen focused her attention on her work.

The female trainer is mainly responsible for training the instructors in meditation topics and guiding them through language to help them relax and deepen their understanding of the "pursuit of freedom".

And the fact that she was able to get a job with an annual salary of tens of millions of yuan naturally means she has some real skills.

The materials detailed the books the trainer had studied, including various religious texts, psychology, linguistics, and other professional knowledge. She even pursued further studies in Buddhism, psychology, and other related disciplines, and even while traveling abroad before her death, she made sure to visit renowned teachers and discuss various aspects of religion.

It is speculated that the female trainer encountered danger in the valley because she wanted to learn an ancient meditation technique—immersing herself in the natural environment and meditating to become a stone, a tree, or something similar, thus becoming one with nature and able to have close contact with wildlife.

Meditation, cultivation mantras, watching videos that promise to meet God...

“I had a hypothesis before.” Jiang Chen drew a vertical line on the paper and explained, “By comparing these cases of suspected entry into the virtual world.”

I think they can be roughly divided into two types.

The first type, like myself, Feng Yuan, and Li Zixuan, is where the soul leaves the body and enters the virtual world due to unintentional causes beyond our conscious control.

The second type is like Yao Tianyu, Lu Xinnan, the female trainer, and Qin Rufeng, whose intentional or unintentional actions induce their souls to leave their bodies and enter the virtual world.

In either case, the Spider-Man Unknown will eventually pull our souls back into our bodies in some way to save our lives;

The purpose of the virtual world may very well be, to some extent, to protect us.

According to a legend passed down orally in theological doctrines, a person whose lifespan has not yet ended should not die, but due to some accident, their soul separates from their body, and the soul temporarily enters a virtual world for some kind of transformation.

The Spider-Man Unknown Entity is responsible for guiding the soul back to the body.

This transformation process might be described as hell or heaven, time travel, or other such descriptions by some people who are lucky enough to remember some fragments.

Clearly, this transformation also involves some form of selection.

Those who died were most likely deemed beyond redemption; their souls had been wasted, causing them to dissipate and their bodies to die completely.

Li Chengze's eyes sparkled. "Your reasoning is to combine theism and scientism into one!"

But if you put it that way...

It feels like we're being kept by an unknown entity?

"That's why I said we need to reclassify them!" Jiang Chen pulled out a large catalog of paper materials. "In the past, we only classified unknown objects as harmful or harmless."

To put it another way, if they and our souls are both energy bodies but not the same species...

First, the Soul Eater must be released separately.

Imagine we are a happy flock of sheep living on a vast grassland. Some unknown entities are responsible for bringing back any sheep that accidentally wander off; while others, whose roles are known, are responsible for cleaning, promoting pasture growth, and even shearing wool and slaughtering certain threatening mutant sheep.

The Soul Eaters are more like a pack of wolves, occasionally trying to infiltrate and devour one or two of them.

Do you remember the 'warrior' unknown entities that we occasionally encountered a few years ago?

They've disappeared without a trace in recent years, but back then, these tall and ferocious 'warrior' unknown entities would directly confront the Soul Eaters. Although they rarely won, they never backed down.

"The 'Warrior' Unknown Entity is like a sheepdog?" Li Chengze was also opened up to new ideas by his deduction. "In recent years, the Soul Eaters have become more and more rampant, mainly because there are very few 'Warrior' Unknown Entities left, or they may even be extinct?"

"A certain balance in the dark side of our world has been broken. The unknown 'warrior' has disappeared, and the Soul Eaters are invading wildly, but the main system is still undergoing routine maintenance."

"To completely stop the invasion of the Soul Eaters, all we need to do is find a way to reach the endpoint of the balance, readjust it, and restart the 'Warrior' unknown entity to protect the world. Then we won't have to worry about the sharp decrease in new members of the security team anymore?"

Jiang Chen looked at the data on the various types of unknown entities thoughtfully, "Perhaps the sharp decrease in the number of humans among the unknown entities is also a chain reaction after some kind of balance has been broken."

After reorganizing the existing data into new functional categories, the two were speechless as they looked at the papers spread all over the floor.

Unknown Entity #7 occasionally devours souls and was previously classified as a threatening species. However, its corpse is an effective material for creating weapons to resist Soul Eater invasions, and the higher its evolution level, the more durable the weapons created.

"There has been no eyewitness testimony to confirm that Unknown 7 will actively devour human souls. Based on Qin Rufeng's situation, if the 'keeper' chooses to extract certain souls to feed Unknown 7, it is actually just a processor."

Li Chengze added, "Four years ago, a member of the security team witnessed and confirmed that a No. 7 unknown entity, which had evolved to the highest level, self-destructed before being surrounded and killed. What if this self-destruction was not to escape being surrounded and killed, but rather a cycle?"

Chapter Fourteen: Finding a Breakthrough

“Then we can connect with the materials of the Soul Eaters.” Jiang Chen found a line of text marked in bold in the Soul Eaters’ paper materials, “By observing the invasion of the Soul Eaters, we can find that they are more like trying to penetrate a kind of world energy membrane to come in. Before they can devour more souls to restore their own energy, they cannot leave the invasion location too far away for the time being.”

This is a different kind of energy struggle, one that we simply cannot see.

Unknown Entity No. 7 devours souls to evolve, and finally self-destructs and disintegrates, feeding its own energy back to the world's energy membrane to stop the invasion of the Soul Eaters.

If this inference holds true, it seems to explain why the Soul Eater invasions have become so frequent in recent years.

Li Chengze suddenly felt it was absurd.

Was all these years of fighting against the unknown entities a mistake?

"Before you joined, the security team was already working hard to hunt down the No. 7 Unknown Entity for research into various weapons. After you joined, the main objective was to deal with the Soul Eater, but..."

"But at the invitation of the Security Group, I killed many Unknown 7s that were beyond the Security Group's capabilities. Many more Unknown 7s were used to create weapons for human use, and only a very few were able to successfully complete their evolution."

“If the inference is correct…” Li Chengze looked at the new classification made by Jiang Chen, pushed up his glasses, and asked with a slightly pale face, “How can we verify our new inference?”

Besides, the security team is unlikely to listen to us.

Your abilities are there, but all you've done all these years is help with expansion and data collection. I don't think they're willing to follow your orders and give up hunting unknown entities.

Otherwise, when you proposed allowing the unknown entities to evolve and be observed to obtain more detailed data, it wouldn't have been unanimously rejected without any leniency.

It was from that point of disagreement that Jiang Chen began demanding exorbitant appearance fees every time the security team invited him to participate in a hunting mission.

“If I don’t go, more security team members will risk their lives, but if I go… I might already be an accomplice.”

The relationships in the human world are very complex.

Once a certain chain of interests breaks down, many people, driven by the desire to preserve their status and treatment, will try their best to maintain the illusion even if they know it's wrong.

How exactly can we verify whether the inference is correct?

After discussing for a while, the two fell into deep thought.

The larger environment makes it impossible for them to conduct experiments at will to observe whether those unknown entities are truly protecting the world. Moreover, with current technology, it is highly unlikely that an instrument capable of observing the world's energy shield will be developed in the next few decades.

If you can't see it, it means there's no evidence.

Sometimes even solid evidence can't change anything, and without evidence, relying solely on inferences is even less likely to convince senior security officials.

“I really dislike this feeling.” Jiang Chen frowned and looked out the window at the gloomy, rainy weather. “The first time I felt this powerlessness was when I put forward the conclusion of the observation of the unknown species. At that moment, I realized that I am not omnipotent. I am just one person and cannot change the will of the group.”

The second time was when entering the virtual world.

He fought against the entire virtual world all by himself, but he couldn't escape it no matter what he did, and he couldn't even retain any memories.

Humanity is now facing a crisis, and I am unable to even attempt to implement a remedy.

After a moment of silence, Li Chengze suddenly looked at him and asked, "Why have you always wanted to protect humanity?"

I don't know how you spend your long life in the virtual world.

In reality, you don't date, you have no hobbies, and your only research interests are either unknown entities or Soul Eaters. Why burden yourself with such a heavy load?

It's often said that life is short, only a few decades; live in the moment and don't worry about what happens after you die. Isn't it more comforting to think this way when faced with a reality we can't change?

“This is my mission,” Jiang Chen replied without hesitation.

Who gave it to you?

"You bear the responsibility of protecting all mankind, but do those high-ranking officials follow your orders? Don't tell me that with great power comes great responsibility; that kind of rhetoric is just moral blackmail nonsense to me!"

So, Jiang Chen, think carefully about why you have this idea.

Faced with Li Chengze's barrage of questions, he suddenly felt somewhat lost.

Images from many years ago flashed through my mind.

At just eight years old, my mind was blank as I stood on the street looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar world. Looking back at the network of roads, I couldn't even remember which direction I had come from.

Looking down at the cloth shoes on his feet, he even doubted whether he had ever walked at all, but had simply fallen from the sky and been abandoned here.

A pale gray shadow slid past him. Jiang Chen had a sudden thought that it might want to eat the garbage bag on the ground, so he picked it up and handed it to it.

Unknown Entity No. 2 swallowed the red wall with a slurping sound and disappeared.

The orphanage gates opened, and in the cool morning mist, the old director looked him over curiously. "Child, what's your name? What are you doing here so early in the morning? Where are your family?"

"My name is Jiang Chen, I'm eight years old, and I have no family. I... I'm here to protect the world..."

The slightly immature voice echoed in his mind, and Jiang Chen's head began to ache again.

"Could it be that the Horcrux implanted your consciousness? Could it have possessed you? The chosen person to bind to isn't you; perhaps it can create another Li Chen, Zhang Chen, or something like that..."

A jumble of noises filled Jiang Chen's mind, preventing him from hearing Li Chengze's complaints and speculations.

"You have no reincarnation!"

"Your soul is incomplete!"

"Find the soul fragments to complete it!"

"Find it!"

"Find it..."

A cacophony of strange sounds erupted into a roar, and he abruptly opened his eyes, saying in a deep voice, "I want to enter the virtual world again."

"What?!" Li Chengze's eyes widened, and he pushed up his glasses and exclaimed, "Are you crazy? You finally managed to get rid of it. As long as your soul doesn't leave your body, you shouldn't be dragged back in."

What are you doing in the virtual world?

What if some unforeseen circumstance occurs and all the soul energy is used up, making it impossible to return?

"Soul artifacts can grow and upgrade in some way in the virtual world;"

My experiences in the virtual world, after being filtered, still allow me to use my skills.

And I clearly remember many people there telling me that my soul was incomplete and needed to be pieced together, that I needed to find the missing parts. Considering my sudden appearance on the streets of this city, don't you think the virtual world might be a breakthrough in finding answers?

Li Chengze was speechless.

After all, all current speculations are based on information that Jiang Chen brought out from the virtual world. If he had not entered the virtual world and the Soul Artifact had not recorded any useful information, they would probably still be working, living, and eliminating various seemingly harmful unknown entities as before.

We wanted to find more clues, but there was no breakthrough in reality.

Jiang Chen's idea was clearly correct; perhaps some more clues could be obtained from the virtual world.

However, even with more clues, it's not guaranteed to be of any use, and the price to pay would be very high!

Chapter Fifteen: The Final Chapter