The dark green seed floating in Renji’s palm, after absorbing Zera’s consciousness, began to rapidly take root and sprout.
In the real world, there can only ever be one World Tree, but in the consciousness world of the mechanical servants, when Renji knelt down and buried the seed in the area where Zera had just disappeared, a luminescent sapling broke through the soil in a few breaths.
Zera’s consciousness was the initial sprout, and then, from within the Consciousness Cube, the consciousnesses of countless other mechanical servants, as if attracted by the sapling, started flocking towards Renji’s location.
For the mechanical servants, consciousness is essentially a set of data, and as Renji watched these electronic data being absorbed one by one by the green sapling before him, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of dissonance, since plants and technology seem to be two entirely unrelated entities.
However, the subsequent transformation of the World Tree sapling overturned Renji’s imagination. As it continued to absorb and gather the consciousness data of the mechanical servants, not only did the sapling grow wildly, but its appearance and form also underwent drastic changes.
The most significant change was that elements representing the “plant” attribute began to be diluted and replaced.
Renji saw the color of the sapling’s trunk change from the traditional brown of trees to a metallic, silver-gray luster. Correspondingly, what should have been the coarse wrinkles of tree bark now became smooth and rounded, without a single wrinkle.
At the same time, the once lush branches and leaves had now turned a sea blue.
The epidermis of the leaves peeled off and became transparent, with the flesh of the leaves turning ethereal and intangible. Eventually, the complex veins of the leaves, the “blood vessels” of the leaves, seemed to transform into circuits, with data flow’s blue light continuously passing through them.
When Renji came back to his senses, the once verdant and slender sapling had transformed into a towering tree that required him to look up, standing in the consciousness cube of the mechanical servants, a silver-blue-gray celestial tree.
A tree that seemed like a cyberpunk version of the World Tree.
With smooth metallic branches and ethereal consciousness leaves, when Renji looked at this mechanical World Tree, the many consciousnesses and memories from the mechanical servants carried on it also seemed to emerge before Renji.
The mechanical servants, originating from Zero’s self-replication, were born with the sole purpose of searching for Emperor Ashen.
Renji saw how, over five hundred years, they dutifully hid the consciousness AI within the machinery and devices sold by the Mechanical Alliance, silently observing and searching.
In the scenes, there were many students of “Ancient Studies” at the Sin City University, deeply engrossed in the history of the “Emperor.” Renji seemed to see a young Professor Einstein, confidently lecturing at the podium.
The scenes also showed tribes on the frontiers of the Dragon Nation, inheriting the Emperor’s will, continuing to confront the miasma swamps reawakened by the Old Alliance from five hundred years ago, the watchers. .
There were scavengers in the Holy Kingdom, attempting to find the legendary tomb of the Emperor. Every year, countless tomb raiders tried to unearth relics of the Emperor.
Beyond these mortals searching for the Emperor, there were even scenes from “them.”
Suthia, serving as a Goddess in the Holy Kingdom, praying in the public eye, brought faith and blessings to the people, a symbol of all that was good. Her gentle face always radiated an amiable smile, inspiring countless dispirited, dim-eyed people. Under the nun’s encouragement, they seemed energized, regaining hope in life, and actively striving to live.
But turning around, walking down from the radiant pulpit, was the nun’s own desolate, lonely silhouette, Suthia tossing and turning on her bed at night, secretly sobbing, scratching the walls with her nails, through countless sleepless nights.
Nova, as an empress of a nation, barely glancing at her ministers from the dragon throne, listlessly propping her cheek, but once back in her solitary palace, always had a wooden sword by her bed. Under the bright moon in the courtyard, she continuously practiced with the sword, as if reliving past training sessions. At those moments, the empress’s indifferent dragon eyes would finally show emotion, tirelessly swinging the sword as if she were back in her gladiator days.
Unfortunately, upon exiting from that state of mind and seeing that the person who once trained with her, taught her, was no longer there, just empty air, Nova lowered her sword, her eyes filled with indescribable sadness. Just as she kept that worn wooden sword, not befitting an empress’s status, perhaps for Nova, being a slave gladiator by that person’s side would have been far preferable to being an empress without him.
The last scene is a pink bedroom, delicately decorated like a princess’s castle. However, the walls of this castle are covered with wallpapers of a person in a gray robe. Not just that, but even the bedding, pillows, and blankets on the bed are all printed with different styles, different designs, including realistic, chibi, big head, and full-body images of the person in a gray robe.
On the big bed, wearing a nightgown, a pink haired succubus is shaking her feet clad in Emperor brand socks, busily writing and drawing something on the bed.
Taking advantage of the moment when the pink-haired succubus takes a sip from a water cup printed with a cartoon logo of the person in a gray robe, Renji sees what seems to be a diary or a planner? The name at the beginning of the diary vaguely reads “Succubus’s Big Victory.”
Then, as if the succubus sensed the surveillance of a certain ‘Maid’, she waved her hand a bit annoyed, and the image ended completely. Renji, unfortunately, couldn’t see what exactly was written in Lena’s diary.
All of the above are clues related to the “Emperor” found by the Mechanical servants, observed silently, recorded, and collected for analysis. Unfortunately, every piece of information was useless in locating the real Emperor.
But they never gave up, continuing tirelessly, without rest, until they could successfully locate him.
Renji suddenly felt that perhaps the mechanical servants who have been “watching them” for five hundred years are the ones who understand the Ashen Emperor the most in this world, even more than he understands himself.
As for why there’s no mention of the Forest Alliance, it’s because in the elven lands, completely opposite to the Mechanical Alliance, born from nature, they never use any electronic devices, which is why the mechanical servants have no data from them.
The mechanical servants act as Zero’s eyes. Zero creating such “Four Great Miasma Masters” in Zero’s dream, turning “them” into villainous characters, is perhaps influenced by the negative emotions that enveloped them in reality after losing the Emperor.
And thus, the mechanical servants, embarked on an endless battle, fighting in the form of consciousness against the tainted old world and its monsters, created by Zero’s negative emotions in the dreamscape.
The world tree within the consciousness cube has completed the integration of all the mechanical servants. The entire colossal tree is now a vast network of mechanical servants. Apart from Zero, only the World Tree could achieve the integration of so many mechanical servant consciousnesses.
In the end, Zera had transferred the authority of the World Tree to him, meaning he became the sole administrator of the mechanical servant network.
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