Kai tapped the Aeterna Public Knowledge icon. The screen loaded for a moment, then a long text page appeared with several simple headings at the top. Kai scrolled slowly before tapping a title whose contents he already half knew.
The Aeterna Sector System
Then he began to read.
Aeterna is divided into sixteen sectors.
Sector 0 — World Tree
An illustration appeared of a colossal tree with a white trunk and branches, and black leaves. People in black robes surrounded it, posed as if in prayer. Below it was written:
No physical coordinates. No paths that can be traveled. Not a single photo, recording, or direct testimony can be verified.
All that is known about Sector 0 comes from the transmissions of the High Archons, beings who have completely shed their physical data forms to live as pure data by the side of the Tree. There, it is said, lies a data heaven where there is no body and no weight. Only consciousness flows freely, capable of shaping itself into anything without material limitations.
The High Archons themselves never leave Sector 0 once their transition process is complete. Their communication with the lower layers takes place in the form of data transmissions translated by The Covenant and disseminated by The Covenant and the Syndicate.
Sector 1 — The Server Capital
The highest cities. Every law, every protocol, every decision affecting life in the lower sectors is born here.
The center of The Covenant Immutable of Law. They are the sole authority authorized to interpret Aeterna's data laws, namely codes of conduct claimed to originate directly from the structure of the World Tree itself. Its members are called Immutables. Their positions cannot be revoked as long as their data remains stable and uncontaminated.
Beyond The Covenant, Sector 1 is also inhabited by the oldest elite families of Aeterna. Their ancestors have been in the upper layers since the sector system was first formed. Their wealth is measured not only by the amount of crystals and money they possess, but by the breadth of data access they hold over the sectors below. Some families possess access rights that surpass even those of certain members of The Covenant.
Sector 2 — The Aether Mist
The official research center of Aeterna. A collaboration between urban concepts and laboratories. These laboratories work on one primary goal: understanding data. How it is formed, how it is stabilized, how it can be purified further from its original state. All high-quality crystals circulating in the upper sectors undergo Sector 2's certification process before they can be legally traded, including those harvested from Sector 9.
Sector 2 is also the birthplace of most of the technology used in the Industrial Hubs and lower sectors, ranging from fragment scanners to first-generation compressor systems.
At the bottom of the page, one line was printed in a smaller font than the rest of the text: Several research divisions in Sector 2 operate under closed classification. Information regarding these projects is not available in the public database.
This sector features a perpetual thin mist in every corner, produced by massive electrical generators to accommodate the power needs for the entire Upper Districts operating beneath its surface.
Sector 3 — The Metropolitan
The busiest sector in Aeterna. A hub for trade, entertainment, and the circulation of information between sectors. Most of its inhabitants are middle-class—those with enough to live comfortably, but not enough to climb higher. This city never truly sleeps; data billboards, open crystal markets, and inter-sector transportation networks operate ceaselessly across every layer.
Sector 4 — The Upper Sky
A residential area on par with Sector 3. Buildings here are built piercing through layers of data clouds. At its heights, several floating city platforms stand separate from the mainland, connected by elevator shafts and airships. One of the few places in Aeterna where the horizon can be seen unobstructed by megastructures above, aside from Sector 1.
Sector 5 — The Districts
The Districts This sector is different from the rest. It is not a center of power, nor an industrial zone. Just an ordinary city.
A place for the lower-middle class.
Sector 6, 7, 8 — The Industrial Hubs
Three sectors with one goal: ensuring Aeterna keeps running.
Sector 6 is the center for synthetic food production and the distribution of low to mid-tier crystals, basic necessities that flow to the sectors below. Sector 7 handles manufacturing: weapons, equipment, vehicles, and all the physical objects needed by the lower layers to survive. Sector 8 is the second energy center, featuring massive reactors that process raw data fragments into the power that drives the entirety of the Industrial Hubs, Beast Fields, and Iron Forge.
Those who live in the Industrial Hubs work. That is the only guarantee. A decent life is available as long as productivity is maintained; once someone stops being useful to the system, their status is reviewed, and their rights to housing and monthly rations are brought into question.
Sector 9 — The Beast Fields
The widest sector that has not yet been fully mapped. Home to the Scrap Beasts that receive and absorb data crystals from various sources.
This region is where wild data fragments end up, a habitat for creatures called Scrap Beasts. Unlike normal animals, Scrap Beasts actively absorb data crystals from their surroundings, making their bodies increasingly dense and more dangerous over time. The longer a Scrap Beast lives, the purer the fragments stored inside it become. Around 10 regions have been mapped out. There is a boss in every region. The monsters in each region will always respawn, making it difficult to expand the territory.
That is why hunters keep coming back here, even though the risks defy common sense.
Sector 10 — The Iron Forge
Occupying the same layer as Sector 13, separated by a boundary wall called the Great Wall.
Sector 10 is a low-tier heavy industrial zone, old factories still operating at minimal capacity, a community of blue-collar workers who mostly refuse to relocate to the Industrial Hubs for reasons unrecorded in the archives, and hunters who occasionally descend to the borders of Sector 9 to find their catch. Its standard of living is far below the Industrial Hubs, yet still enough to make its residents reluctant to descend further.
Sector 11 & 12 — The Deep Web
Two sectors without an official government, without enforced laws, and without accurate maps.
All that exists are criminal networks, hacker communities, and people who choose to disappear from Aeterna's registry. Crystals here can be obtained for free in certain places—in exchange, the user's body slowly experiences a glitch: loss of skin color, loss of motor coordination, and loss of partial short-term memory. The process cannot be reversed once it passes a certain threshold.
Free, but with a price paid by the body itself.
Sector 13 — The Refuse
The smallest sector. The final dumping ground for those who no longer have a place in any layer. The population is not officially recorded because those who are here have technically been deleted from Aeterna's registry—they do not exist, administratively.
In the corner of the page, an additional note was printed in a different format from the rest of the text, as if added by a different editor at a different time:
Sector 14 — The Prison
Technically located within Sector 15.
Unlike Sector 15, which is fully infected, Sector 14 is still habitable—in the loosest sense of the word. The air is heavy, the structures are old, and no artificial light functions properly. This is where Aeterna places those whose sentences can no longer be redeemed by any other means.
The highest verdict in Aeterna is not direct execution. The convicted are brought to Sector 14, locked in cells directly facing Sector 15, and left to wait. At the appointed time, the cell doors are opened towards Sector 15.
There are no executioners. There are no weapons. Only an open door, and whatever lies beyond it.
Sector 15 — The Virus Domain
There was only one paragraph, and no editor's notes beneath it.
Sector 15 has no recorded lower boundary. It is the layer beyond layers—the depth beneath all depths. No expeditions have ever returned from it. Viruses too massive to be quarantined are dumped here. Others fall there by mistake. The difference between the two, in the end, is irrelevant.
At the end, an option to view more details was visible.
Kai closed the page.
He rested the tablet on his chest and stared at the dark ceiling of Diogenes' workshop. Outside, the wind of Sector 13 hissed softly through the piles of iron.
So this is the world, he thought. From Sector 0, which cannot be touched, to Sector 15, from which there is no return.
And he had woken up right in the middle of it.
His eyes gradually grew heavy. The tablet was still glowing in his hand when he finally fell asleep.