Chapter 372: The Five-Stage Theory of Cognition

The main hall chapel is the most important and sacred core of the church’s architecture, but few people ever come here, and since autumn, even fewer.

Like other similar buildings, it replaced solid walls with large stained-glass panels, resulting in a sharp decline in insulation.

If this were north of Comfort Harbor, failing to light numerous firepots now would soon drive away even the most devout believers.

Even in the south, damp cold is unbearable. Since there were hardly any pilgrims coming to inquire, the dozen or so monks who attended morning prayers could simply stay in the prayer room, so the plan to activate the main hall was shelved.

Moreover, the Priel Domain had no glassmakers, so repairs were endlessly delayed until the task sank to the very bottom of the work list, forgotten by all.

The monks did a light cleaning, swept the floor and gathered the scattered remains of books, then renailed the main door and locked the smaller gate connecting to the annex.

They felt an instinctive dread of it; even during night patrols, they would hurry past without lingering, deliberately ignoring it and avoiding mention, as if afraid of awakening some unspeakable presence.

Vigilance is such a strange thing—even without any concrete evidence—it awakens the survival instinct and drives people to make irrational yet correct decisions.

Yet Kraft returned here, to the place where he last felt that thing.

Don’t ask how he got in—he’s the abbot, he has all the keys to the monastery, except for the Heavenly Gate, which requires permission from above; everywhere else, he can go as he pleases.

He relived that interrupted night, revisiting every spot where he’d caught traces of it, trying to recapture the feelings he’d had then.

Including the words he’d once glimpsed, hidden within the cloud patterns on the ceiling—after it left, he could never read them again.

No matter how he adjusted his angle, tried to replicate the design, or even used his spiritual senses for a full-spectrum scan, they were just ordinary shapes, merely drawn slightly oddly, revealing no extra information whatsoever.

Like classic optical illusions—the staircase that goes both up and down, the triangle with three right angles—initially they seem perfectly normal; once prompted, the perception flips entirely, revealing something entirely different, even opposite, within the same image.

The principle behind optical illusions lies in exploiting the brain’s habitual processing, misleading it into interpreting two-dimensional images as three-dimensional perspectives, while introducing deceptive cues at critical points—like a railroad switch, alternately directing the brain toward one interpretation, then another.

Using the principle of optical illusions to explain “it” may not be precise, but it does aid understanding.

In simple terms, from a higher-dimensional perspective, you cannot drastically alter the information itself, but you can influence the way it is perceived.

It is not a simple piece of knowledge—like where to find something or how to see it—but rather a “cognition” descending from a higher level.

Kraft sat cross-legged amid the books, like a fisherman lowering his hook beside an ice hole—even though whatever moved beneath the ice was no longer there, the act itself aided his thinking.

It is a cognition—but what is this cognition?

The medical psychology course he barely passed once explained: cognition is not a single concept; it is a complex process encompassing the entire cycle of acquiring, processing, storing, and utilizing information.

First comes perception: the prerequisite is receiving information, whether through the physical body or the spiritual body.

Then comes attention and memory: consciousness focuses on the received information and transfers it to short-term storage. This step is nearly instinctive in all sentient beings—alive, they passively and actively absorb vast amounts of information, yet cannot choose what to receive.

Like an assembly line, after storing the raw information, consciousness processes it, interpreting it through existing experience and concepts, transforming it into compatible products and combining it with other information for reasoning.

If the processed information is judged valuable in reasoning, it may enter medium- or long-term memory—equivalent to storing it in inventory for future use.

Finally, in specific application scenarios, the information is retrieved, triggering external responses such as speech or action, or internal reactions like emotional shifts or Dongyao of belief.

Perception, attention, processing, memory, and response—these five steps constitute “cognition.”

The difference between “cognition” and “knowledge” is that cognition is a capacity and process, while knowledge is a fixed result and structure.

Knowledge is equivalent to long-term memory storage in the fourth stage of cognition—the factory’s product prepared for later use.

Examining Dominic’s “madness” reveals that the entire cognitive process went awry.

He seemed to perceive additional information in folk crafts and written records, and his attention quickly focused on such information, relentlessly reinforcing and filtering it, gathering more and more.

From “I can perceive its existence” to “I cannot help but notice it.”

In the subsequent information processing, specific content was identified as differing from others’ perspectives—such as “something exists above” and the ever-present swirling patterns.

Logically, the next step should have been forming a concrete conceptual knowledge. But the problem arose: he failed to form it, remaining trapped in the preliminary processed information, endlessly repeating “something above,” “swirls.”

It was as if the final product composed of information was too vast for consciousness to fully contain, forcing it into a cycle of constant assembly and collapse.

The overwhelming concept drove him, manifesting as a series of Fengkuang behaviors both others and himself could not comprehend, chasing a presence still utterly incomprehensible.

Thus, a twisted, incomplete cognitive process took shape.

“Fascinating…” Kraft felt his thoughts clarify. This was far more sophisticated than directly dragging someone into the depths—it worked subtly, silently, impossible to guard against.

It seems to favor appearing when the target is thinking, reading, or deeply absorbed in something—states where the mind naturally absorbs and filters vast information, making it ideal for infiltration.

To it, information in the present world is merely a flat pattern; it can subtly deflect perception during the processing stage.

If further reasoned, the anatomical regions governing cognition and emotion are primarily the frontal lobe, hippocampus, and amygdala.

Abnormal cognition and associated emotional activity overactivate these regions, projecting through the emotion-endocrine pathway to the hypothalamus, which releases various releasing hormones, stimulating the pituitary gland until tumor growth occurs.

The growing tumor then secretes abnormal hormone levels, further promoting emotional disturbances and cognitive extremization.

A perfect, self-reinforcing cycle on both mental and physiological levels.

For those who are sensitive and contemplative, cognitive deviation is nearly impossible to consciously detect or resist.

For those less sensitive, they may not even notice the subtle shifts.

Exceptions exist—if sensitivity to information stems from repeated exposure to higher-dimensional complex data, granting inherent ability to understand, process, and distinguish, then its cognitive influence is like a fully armored cavalryman trying to sneak past from behind.

For instance, Kraft himself—he recognized the disturbance the very first moment.

Thus, beyond removing the pituitary tumor, the simplest, most brutal method is to expose severely affected patients to the depths, until their minds and consciousness adapt and recognize information foreign to this world.

It’s somewhat like giving children oral capsules of bacterial lysates to boost immunity.

Actual implementation is likely far more complex—it will require careful planning.

【But what if one does not resist it?】

Reverse thinking stirred.

Treating one or a few patients only solves the immediate problem—it does not advance actual understanding of it.

If there existed a consciousness with sufficient resilience, and it willingly followed the abnormal cognition, might it, at the fourth stage of cognition, truly “know” the vast concept that ordinary minds cannot bear?