Chapter 60 The First Network

• Three weeks after the war council, I stood in a circle with nine other volunteers in the castle's reinforced training chamber. Each person represented a different aspect of our society—a farmer, a merchant, a priest, a guard, a noble, a scholar, a craftsman, a healer, and a child who'd shown remarkable aptitude for dimensional magic.
• The experiment we were about to attempt could revolutionize our defenses or drive us all insane. There was no middle ground when dealing with the kind of consciousness merger required for the distributed sacrifice.
• "Remember," Master Dorian said from his position at the monitoring station, "the goal isn't to lose yourselves in the collective. You need to maintain individual identity while allowing your minds to touch at the deepest levels. Think of it as building bridges between islands rather than merging the islands themselves."