Chapter 983: Chapter 983: Super Evolution
If the Void Cataclysm is inevitably going to happen, do the Fallen Apostles know about it?
If the Fallen Apostles know the Void Cataclysm is imminent, would they take action?
These are two questions for which there is still no evidence to answer, but existing intelligence hints in one direction: the Fallen Apostles might have already detected changes in the Void, and their actions may be related to this.
According to Father God’s theory, if the Void Cataclysm occurs, the Fallen Apostles themselves might largely survive, but all their worlds would instantly perish. Then they would be completely exposed to the Divine Race and Empire’s view, and all foundational power would be cut off. It can be said to be their extinction. If they know this is going to happen, they will certainly take action.
Qianqian’s metaphor was quite apt, as no one had made such a connection before: the entire Void Cataclysm event is really like a complete antivirus process, executed by the Void itself, and Void Creatures, in another sense, are akin to the administrators of the Void. The worlds connected to this administrator group are equivalent to having legal identity in the registry. Whether they are programs directly installed by the administrator or shortcuts installed by the program itself, they can be seen as normal information. Meanwhile, the worlds of the Fallen Apostles have not been confirmed and authorized by the administrator and can be seen as data secretly altered by backdoor software. No matter how unreasonable this sounds, as long as Qianqian’s guess holds, then for the Void, worlds unauthorized by Void Creatures are illegal.
Therefore, when the cataclysm occurs, everything that cannot be found in the registry is deleted.
Father God has already discovered subtle traces in every world; those things are meaningless information fragments, and the information fragments of all worlds are the same. Furthermore, their structural forms do not conform to the process of world evolution, meaning they are not natural products. Could these things be ‘authorization’ tags?
‘It’s possible, quite possible,’ Father God nodded repeatedly. ‘Other than the innate information power of attraction of Void Creatures, I can’t think of anything else that could mark a world with such inexplicable tags. With that inference, the territory of the Fallen Apostles certainly lacks such information markings—but we still cannot confirm. Once Void Creatures like us truly confirm a world’s coordinates, that world will undoubtedly be marked. It’s a troublesome situation, completely unavoidable.’
My thought is, if Void Creatures are really like administrators responsible for ‘authorizing’ everything in the universe, then the three of us seem rather weak. Everything we see, or even things our subordinates see, must be unconditionally authorized, allowing them to survive the cataclysm. What’s the point of that? There’s no control at all! If only we knew how this authorization process actually occurs, I’d immediately tag all Fallen Apostles as Trojan horses and wait for the antivirus to take effect. How convenient that would be…
‘Let’s assume the Fallen Apostles know about the Void Cataclysm. How do they know that everything not ‘authorized’ by Void Creatures will be doomed?’ I had some doubts. ‘Thinking about it now, they went to great lengths to create a Void Creature, even allowing themselves to be used by a naughty kid like Xiao Xue. It can’t possibly be just for scientific investment, right? I feel their purpose in creating a Void Creature is to authorize their worlds—like forging an administrator account.’
‘I noticed this too. As remnants of the Old Empire’s collapse, the Fallen Apostles shouldn’t possess so much intelligence. The Void Cataclysm was deduced by me and that mad girl Huron. Nobody else knew or could know: without the perception of Void Creatures, even the Divine Race couldn’t detect any anomalies. If we are to assume the Fallen Apostles have obtained information about the Void Cataclysm, the first issue to solve is their source of information: how did they find out?’
‘What if they don’t know?’ Bingdisi yawned and swam freely beside me as the surrounding space had mutated into an open form. ‘It’s all speculation. They might have created Void Creatures just to deal with you, but since you and Father God both know about the Void Cataclysm, you naturally associate things in that direction.’
Bingdisi made a valid point. Father God and I exchanged a nod. If that’s the case, it’s even better. At least it proves the Fallen Apostles don’t have intelligence sources beyond our imagination. Still, it’s better to prepare for the worst with matters concerning that group. I feel things won’t progress smoothly: maybe the Fallen Apostles know even more than Father God and I combined?
That’s not impossible.
Just then, Sandora’s voice suddenly came through the spiritual connection: ‘Ah Jun, where are you?’
‘About twenty billion light-years from Earth—what’s up?’
‘We found several interesting… little ones, mass-produced host machines. You should come and see.’
‘What is it?’ Father God asked curiously, noticing my expression change.
‘Sandora called me. It seems there’s a little situation at home—’
Father God waved his hand at me. ‘I still need to check the material boundary, if you don’t mind me roaming around.’
I nodded, and, with Qianqian and Bingdisi, who had started dog-paddling in space, returned directly home.
I thought I would have to make a trip to Shadow City, but didn’t expect she had already brought them over. They were six or seven mass-produced Xyrin Hosts, identical small girls dressed in simple white dresses, sitting neatly in a row on the sofa. From appearances to expressions to postures, they looked like they were cut from the same mold, sitting still like paper dolls cut out with scissors.
Mass-Production Machine, without advanced thought reactions, similar to logical devices, with strong logical computing abilities, capable of coordinating any data processing—a string of definitions flashed through my mind instantly, then I saw the little girl sitting at the far left of this row of mass-produced Bubbles seemed a bit different. Her eyes were lively, and there were snack crumbs on her mouth, with a small patch of gray at the hem of her dress: she must’ve brushed against something.
I reached out toward this special mass-produced Bubble, and sure enough, she immediately let out a cheerful ‘Goo-ah’ and lunged at me, hugging my neck like an octopus, rubbing her little head against my chest: this was Little Baobao. It was her favorite game, blending in with her sisters and letting others pick her out. The little one never tired of it. After learning to play games from her mom recently, she had gained a new interest: posing with a sister for a photo, then turning the picture into a ‘spot the difference’ game for the family. Frankly, this game wasn’t difficult: it’s hard to keep a lively guy like Little Baobao quiet for more than five minutes. She’s always getting dirty running around like a naughty kid (another naughty kid) so it’s tough not to tell her apart from mass-production machines!
“What’s up with these little ones?”
I glanced at Sandora, who was sitting opposite on the sofa studying the data terminal, then bent over and casually patted the head of one of the mass-produced Bubbles. These little ones didn’t have any independent consciousness, but emotionally, I always felt they were like Little Baobao’s younger sisters, so I was quite fond of them. Usually, after meeting, I’d greet them, pat their heads, or give them candy—they loved candy.
“These six mass-produced host machines in front of you did something remarkable recently,” Sandora looked up, “Do you remember last time we went to Silvia’s dessert shop and Bellavilla mentioned a group of mass-produced Bubbles suddenly appeared and, astonishingly, ordered a bunch of fancy pastries?”
I blinked. This was a few days ago, but Sandora’s reminder jogged my memory: mainly because Bellavilla had given me a long list of things that left a deep impression, and that day Silvia was so swamped, thanks to the mass-produced Bubbles, she had Bellavilla’s personality come out to help.
“Under normal circumstances, mass-produced host machines, even those suddenly interested in candy and cakes, don’t exhibit noticeable subjective tendencies, or in their daily lives even if they develop personal preferences, it’s still mechanical. For simple personal hobbies, a plain white cake is enough to satisfy them, but that day six mass-produced machines suddenly ordered a huge cream cake and a pile of fancy pastries, which caught Bubbles’ attention.”
Sandora nodded towards the opposite side of the living room, and only then did I notice over there was a pile of ten-plus Bubbles, a group of expressionless little girls queued up making various reactions on command. In front of them on a small chair was the mother of all mass-produced host machines: Mama V2.0.
Bubbles was standing on the chair, loftily commanding the dozen or so mass-produced machines to turn around, report numbers, and conduct random Q&A, busy as can be. The living room was originally quite large, but now crammed with twenty or so little heads, and I suddenly felt like my house had been taken over by Bubbles…
“These few are the same,” Bubbles finished instructing her daughters, letting them sit down and rest, then pattered over, jumping up to give me a hug around the waist to welcome her daddy home, before turning to Sandora and saying, “Pure logical thinking, only command-obedience priority. Their thought process is exactly the same as when they were just born, showing no change. More importantly, they have no self-inclination, all giving the same answers to any random order of Q&A tests. These six, something’s definitely off.”
Sandora and Bubbles’ stern demeanor left me baffled, as I felt a gaze on me from beside. Looking down, I saw the row of six little girls on the sofa, all uniformly looking in this direction. While their emotionless little faces didn’t move a muscle, their eyes seemed a bit friendly. Okay, this is a normal reaction for the Xyrin Apostle.
“Later on, I asked the kids,” Bubbles stood in front of six little girls who looked exactly like her, speaking with the tone of a mother despite being a Little Loli herself, “These kids were having a celebration that day.”
I was stunned, and Sandora added, “Celebrating the birthday of one of the mass-produced machines.”
“This isn’t the behavior expected of a mass-produced Xyrin host,” Bubbles pinched the nose of the nearest Copy Body, as if teasing her, “If they were just interested in sweets, it could be attributed to the logic module being stimulated to reinforce a specific information: reactive behavior can explain simple personal hobbies, but when such behavior becomes complex enough for a group to plan a birthday party, and they even pooled money to buy a pile of fancy pastries and toy ribbons, it can’t be explained by logical thinking. I believe they’ve developed emotional thinking, and quite complex at that. Combined with their vast database, this emotional thinking could act like somewhat emotionless but normal humans. But theoretically, this isn’t possible, mass-produced machines aren’t designed with space for evolution. They need evolution: Xyrin hosts have humanoid forms, but are classified as building units or mechanical equipment. For equipment with fixed functions at birth, evolution isn’t necessary. That’s why Xyrin hosts only have a few Mother Machines, the rest are Copy Bodies. But these ones…”
“Although still far from the ‘Mother Machine’ level, at least they’ve taken a crucial step, they’ve started to develop creative and emotional tendencies.” Sandora passed the data terminal she’d been fiddling with to me, “This is the compilation I did. Over the past year, these six mass-produced machines made about sixty noteworthy operation reports. Since a year ago, their self-check speed slightly exceeded that of other ordinary machines, and they’ve repeatedly mentioned actions beyond the set tasks in their reports. The frequency of these actions is increasing over time, and inspections afterwards found no faults. Now, these six hosts are already clearly superior to the Copy Bodies. They can correct their own knowledge base, creating some optimization tweaks that no one thought of—although their effect on the overall workflow might be less than one percent. The two hosts with the most significant changes are numbered XL28 and XL34. They reset the coordination components of the Builders they created, and might be trying to simultaneously start two operational lines. For mass-produced hosts, this challenges their design limits, but the fact that they came up with this is already challenging common sense. Of course, the bigger challenge to common sense is the birthday party they threw for themselves. Although it was organized like a child’s playhouse, they clearly felt very happy…”
At this point, I was utterly shocked, squatting by the sofa to observe them left to right, the six mass-produced Bubbles stared straight at me with those big eyes. At first glance, they seemed a bit more spirited than the average ones, but still had that wooden expression. After observing for a while, I finally spotted a subtle sign from the eyes of the closest little girl—a hint of unease.
“What’s the matter, worried about getting dissected?” I suddenly channeled my inner Qianqian, a neural reflex causing me to blurt out, and the little girl across from me pouted: “Taville, really scary. She will, put me in, a coffin, and every day, cremate me, oh no, scan me.”
Me: “Why does she speak like that?”
“That’s number 34. She fried her language module researching dual-process simulation scripts a while back,” Bubbles nodded hesitantly and pinched the back of the mass-produced host’s neck, causing it to emit a series of strange “whirr—whirr—” noises, then it fell silent, “See, the new module has unexplained incompatibility, missing a driver, and these kids who tinker recklessly with themselves are a headache for both dad and mom. I have to recompile the driver for her!”
What I wanted to say was, if these six hosts are really evolving, it’s worth creating a whole new operating system for each of them!
There’s no doubt, the host numbered 34 has definitely evolved… no, super-evolved into a host beast. Just now, the things she proactively said weren’t something a logical machine could say, and another host, number 28, was showing notable action as she cautiously glanced at me and softly asked, “Your Majesty, we won’t be sent to a research facility, right? Taville Chief is really scary…”
“I’ll personally be in charge of your situation. I don’t trust those crazy scientists touching my daughters randomly.” Bubbles waved her tiny arms with boldness. If she wasn’t just one meter high, this action would look much more convincing. Then, all six mass-produced machines visibly relaxed, returning to their blank state.
“See, they’ve evolved, but definitely not comprehensively. Most of the time they’re still dumb as rocks,” Bubbles poked a mass-produced machine’s cheek, “There are a few more evolving too, just not as obvious as these six, so I didn’t bring them. Daddy, this matter is absolutely valuable. Just think about it, how precious Xyrin Mother Machines are. Even in the Old Empire Era, one Mother Machine could support the communication hub of nearly half a Sky Zone, only because we can infinitely self-duplicate. More importantly, we can evolve, and in extreme situations even complete scientific missions. One Mother Machine can serve as a hub, linking thousands of Submachines into a super network—with a Mother Machine and enough time, you’re practically equivalent to having the entire Empire—Ah yeah yeah, I’m amazing, hang on, I’ll sign an autograph for you…”
By the end, Bubbles was practically floating on air. Her ability to self-hype is truly fierce. I’ve never seen anyone whip out a mirror and say “You’re amazing” to themselves, but today I’ve witnessed it.
And finally, after listening for a long while due to not understanding, Bingdisi finally got the chance to speak. Pointing at Bubbles with righteous indignation, “Being so shameless is not right, let me teach you…”
(Network catastrophic failure, sending this from outside…)(To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to vote on Qi Dian () for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)