Czedow’s learning ability was just too good. Not only was he picking a lot of practical experiences by interacting with others, his hobby was reading, and his favorite genre was all of them. During their stay the affiliated schools, he had read an ancient paperback classical literature analysis book that no student in their right mind would even touch for an entire day, and held nightly discussions with the students on all kinds of recreational and leisure activities. Heck, he just gave Wheeze of all people a lesson on psychology a moment ago.
“The question I really want to ask is, are you sure your cat won’t become a bigger headache in the future?”
Czedow was a logical “person” because that was his nature, but Wheeze was fundamentally different from all the other sapient robots they knew until now. To the cat, mechanical rationality was worth less than a single fish biscuit.
Cillin could not answer that question. The cat’s mind was nothing like a robot or an animal.
Speaking of which, the reason Czedow had an easier time reading the memories of robots than the others was because Cillin had created him using the Robert Family’s first generation liquid nucleus chip. Of course, that chip had taken on a completely different shape since a long time ago, but he still knew about their technology and circuitries better than anyone else.
Two days later, the Eleventh Squad was more or less done with their tasks, and the Free Army was ready to head home as well. This mission had been a fruitful one all thanks to the Eleventh Squad. Without them, the amount of people who could’ve escaped alive—and that was a big if—could probably be counted on one hand. They also collected all the debris because they could salvage plenty of valuable metals from them, and right now the Free Army lacked materials more than anything else. Cillin did not take that from them as a matter of course. The materials he and Xi Kai had brought back from the Mist Bodhisattva Empire would last them a long time still.
“Thanks for everything. I owe you another one. I might be the one who told you about this place, but I highly doubt we would’ve survived without the Eleventh Squad. So, thanks again,” Aikenseth said.
“You’re welcome. This is a partnership, and we’ve both done our part.”
“Yeah. I’ll keep an eye on the planet for you.”
“Sure.”
They could have extracted all of the energy ores on the planet, but instead they chose to extract only most of them. The rest were left behind as a primer so that these energy ores would form again thousands and thousands of years later.
After bidding the Free Army goodbye, Cillin rounded up the others and got ready to leave as well. The Origin robots had wiped out all remaining traces of the Xi Family from the planet, so they weren’t afraid of someone showing up and discovering some critical information in the future.
As for the secrets revolving around the planet itself, Cillin thought he knew the answer even though Moon hadn’t spoken to him about it. There was no way the Xi Family only had one such planet. The old Xi Family had probably hidden many more in undiscovered corners of the galaxy for the descendants who might need them in the far, far future.
And so the Eleventh Squad returned to their starship with a new recruit. There were plenty of projectors in the starship, and their new “alien” friend could be seen on most of them. Their super AI, Little Eleven was very happy that it got a new friend to converse with.
In his room, Cillin was sorting out some of the information he collected during the mission and considering some practical problems related to his new Water bullet. How powerful was the Water bullet if he were to use it in a water-deprived environment?
On the planet, Cillin had tested it out and found that the crystallization process was much slower than normal, and the effects subpar. Not only was it unable to unleash its usual power, the formed crystal was pretty impure. This meant that it was a lot more fragile and breakable than normal.
What if I use some other substance? Could I achieve the same effect?
Unfortunately, Cillin had to give up after calculating for a long time and finding no solution. It was like that sometimes.
Lying prone in his chair, Cillin sucked in a deep, relaxing breath before looking at Wheeze. The gray cat was currently dozing off on a table with its head hanging off the edge of the table. He had no idea how it was able to sleep so well with such a terrible posture. It had been silent for a time after Czedow’s lesson, but it wasn’t long before it returned to its usual annoying self. As if to prove it was fine, it even broke into Carry’s storage cabinet and stole his stuff as usual.
Cillin stretched his limbs for a bit before leaving his room. He was going to speak with Eudy about their future plans when he rounded a corner and saw Czedow sitting on a long bench and reading a book. The robot often did his reading here because the animals didn’t play here, meaning that there wouldn’t be any sudden interruption. It was also more isolated, quiet, and closer to his room compared to most places on the starship.
Suddenly, Czedow spoke up, “Save your energy. You won’t be able to infect me.”
A white figure appeared next to him a second later. It was White Ghost.
Czedow shifted his gaze over to the electronic entity before continuing, “Nothing can infect me without my permission.”
White Ghost stared at him for a moment before pointing at his book. “Why are you reading when you can just transmit the data to form permanent memories?”
“What I enjoy is the process of reading. While reading, I am able to learn many things and feel less like a rigid machine.”
White Ghost couldn’t quite understand what he meant. It was because Moon had said that they were all advanced robots that were nothing like a standard, “rigid” robot. She agreed, which was why Czedow’s explanation made no sense to her.
Sensing White Ghost’s puzzlement, Czedow flipped his hand over and projected a blank hologram above his palm. “Take drawing as an example. Let’s say I wish to draw a sea creature, so I do this…”
A huge, sinister-looking sea creature appeared on the hologram. Its large, wide dorsal fin looked like a massive blade that cuts through the waves.
“But is this really a drawing? No, it isn’t. It’s just a picture I projected directly from my ‘brain’. I hadn’t done any drawing at all.”
Next, he fished out a carbon-colored, ancient-looking pencil and a sketchbook from the backpack beside him. He put down his book, placed the sketchbook on his thighs, flipped to a blank page and began drawing with the pencil. He drew an outline first before adding in the details. Slowly but surely, the sea creature in the hologram began to take form.
White Ghost watched in silence as Czedow eventually finished his drawing. She felt like she was starting to understand what he meant, but only just. She did not have a physical body after all. Expressing data via virtual transmission was her daily life. She could not perform physical activities like Czedow or Moon, and she could only operate within the virtual world. Even the shape she assumed was fake; meshes of data combined to give the appearance of a woman. She was like a soul without a body.
“Would you like to give it a try?” Czedow asked smilingly.
“How?” Her voice remained cold, but this time there was a hint of hope within.
Czedow raised his right arm. Its color slowly transformed from human to silver; the silver of unfinished robots.
White Ghost looked surprised at first. Then, she sat down next to Czedow and—slowly, gingerly—overlapped their arms.
As Czedow said, nothing—virus or program—could infect him without his permission. But now, White Ghost could “possess” his arm because he had temporarily shut down the restrictions in his arm. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like their arms had merged as one.
The silver arm slowly regained its human color after that, but this time it had a white outline. It looked like they were holding the pencil with their palms pressed tightly against one another.
The duo started sketching a small, somewhat exaggerated but incredibly cute drawing of a sea beast next to Czedow’s drawing. It was Blueskin standing on its tail like a seal and spitting water out of its huge mouth.
A smile cracked across Cillin’s lips as he watched the duo from the corner. He was about to turn around and leave when suddenly, he felt a weight on his shoulder.
“Oh! Czedow’s picking up White Ghost?” Then, its eyes bulged in disbelief and envy. “Why are they drawing Blueskin? They should draw me instead!”
Cillin caught the fatty before it could disturb the duo and walked toward the other end of the corridor.
“Meow dammit, I’m gotta tell Moon and the others about it!”
After Cillin had exited the corridor and released Wheeze, the gray cat immediately took off to the Origin robots’ location to share his new gossip with them. On the way, Dough leaped onto its back and clung to its fur before they both vanished around the corner.
“Oh, good timing, Cillin. I was just about to call you,” Eudy said when he walked out of the bridge and saw him. Cillin followed him back into the bridge, and Eudy showed him the encrypted message he just received.
The message contained nothing substantial. All it contained was a frequency band and a message to contact the sender through the band.
After Cillin had decrypted the frequency band and altered the frequency band of the bridge’s comms device to match it, a person appeared on the screen.
“I was just wondering when you’ll respond to our message, hehe. Long time no see, kid!”
Cillin frowned. He hadn’t seen this man before, but he did remember his voice. It was a surprise to say the least.