Qiaoqiao Tianyi squatted in the bridge room and sighed in distress. She was worried about the two strangers staying on the ship. Although Yaleriga assures her that the two won't cause any trouble, she seems unfazed by the subtle animosity between them.
"Original males!" she said helplessly, "as restless as a yahoo. They can't unite at all!"
As the person in charge of all this, Yaleriga had to assure her that neither Yi nor Bodi - the sound names she gave to the slippery servants of the immortals - would never give the most important expert on the spacecraft cause any trouble. Yi was completely submissive to her and unusually insistent on joining the trip, and Bodie served as guide, hostage and shield if necessary on the journey to the Ageless Ones' base.
Qiaoqiao Tianyi finally compromised. They have more important issues. During the brief moment when Silence flew slowly and deliberately towards the edge of the world, they had to agree on a number of key issues.
"I'm a little confused about the situation here." Qiaoqiao Tianyi said, "As far as we know so far, the owner of the Frost House is the abandoned baby criminal, right? What did the male tell you?"
"There is nothing more useful. I want to hear your opinion about the aircraft placed in the city..."
"The same person. At least they must have been taught by the same person. That's how I look at it. I think the ones that were placed are a little behind the ones that went to Gate City. Their material is probably some kind of bismuth alloy... but the material is not the point. Its design ideas are very consistent with those of abandoned baby boats.”
Qiaoqiao Tianyi paused.
"But, I heard that the master of Frost House was defeated by the Immortal?"
“Every history that can be found in this land claims so.”
"They do have physical proof, don't they? But I guess the immortals must have paid some price. Think about what they have been doing on the back of this continent for more than a hundred years? Maybe they are all in the medical cabin now It’s sleeping inside.”
That was the most likely guess in their minds, but there were still some questions that were difficult to answer. In the more than a hundred years since Bodi was awakened from hibernation by the Immortal, trained, and then sent to the world, they did not leave a single person responsible for the aftermath. Perhaps the war with House Frost had severely weakened them and lost a considerable number of their numbers. The remaining people fell into dormancy, allowing the pre-made guards to take over the world - but if the guards could not contact the Immortal, what could they do even if they discovered the spies of the House of Frost?
This inevitably makes them face another question, which is exactly what kind of abilities the immortals have. They found that there were always people who stayed near the transportation hubs of every city for a long time. They may not all be as sophisticatedly transformed and trained as Bodi, but they had radio wave signal receivers implanted in their bodies and were hypnotized for a long time. Yaleriga tried two or three such people and found that most of them were demented and forgetful, with vague memories of past events.
These scattered spies and gatekeepers never had jurisdiction over each other. The immortals only operate each of them as independent functions: the spies are just unconscious eyes, observing and recording when they detect but unrecorded wavebands, and then the devices in their bodies will send signals to the city's guards, allowing the gatekeepers to Their tattooed fake skin stings and heats up.
That's what all goalkeepers are told when they're training, although Purdy reveals that this is the first time it's happened to him since he has coherent memory. He didn't know where the spies responsible for creating stings were transformed or how they were replaced - it seemed to be done by another system. He only understood that he, like the other guards, had three times the life span of ordinary people, but would be replaced by new guards before he aged. One day someone with tattoos came to him, cut his body open and burned it, and then it was over.
Perhaps this is a fate worthy of sympathy, but for Yaleriga, what is more worth considering is what kind of abilities this incident reveals about the immortals. The transformation and optimization of primitive organisms has always been a hallmark. In areas outside the trap zone, when a civilization can learn to actively use tools to evolve, it is often only a few steps away from finding the tunneling equation.
The transformation of the immortals is not that advanced - Qiaoqiao Tianyi argued. A complete and popular mature transformation technology should be balanced, taking into account capabilities, convenience and entertainment, which means that even if it is transformed, the technical part and the original part should be perfectly integrated without causing pain or morbidity. They saw that the creations of the immortals were not like this: the guards had stiff bodies, dull sense of touch, and were unable to adjust and enjoy sensory pleasures on their own; almost all of the spies were stupid, in order to allow their subconscious to communicate with the instructions of the radio wave receiver. Connected.
What if this was their intention? Yaleriga asked rhetorically. They can do it, but deliberately don't do it. Because pleasure will shake the will of the guards, and long and hopeless surveillance will make the spies eager to escape. In order to be unreservedly loyal, what they gave them was inherent torture and torture - but, judging from Bodi's example, it also completely failed without a watcher. The immortals are unable to keep people loyal from the ideological level, which at least means that they are not mages with spiritual power, but indeed technicians who transcend this earthly level. Are they outsiders too? Then why stay here? Why bother to conflict with the owner of Frost House? Have they always been part of this land? Where did the knowledge that made them transcend this world come from?
As Silence sank along the edge of the world, they made every possible guess. From criminals who have escaped and lived in seclusion here, to lucky people who have accidentally come into contact with other outsiders. They even speculated that the immortals might also be the out-of-control creations of others, such as the owner of Frost House. That's not surprising. Artificial life turning back on its creator is an enduring topic. If a mage and a technician were asked to tell such a story, they could take turns telling it for a dozen days and nights, until one fainted from overexcitement while laughing at the other.
Eventually, they had to go and see for themselves. Capturing Bodie yielded little useful information, and all probes flying toward the backside of the world were destroyed. From this, they learned that the immortals were good at using sonic weapons, and they had also developed lasers and electromagnetic pulses. But it also gave them confidence, because despite their blatant provocations, they had not encountered nuclear change, optical hypnosis, static pollution, or any intermediate product of imminent evolution.
There are signs that the Ageless Ones are more powerful than earthly beings, but they don't seem to be powerful enough to threaten the safety of the Silence. When they crossed the edge of the world safely, the monitors installed in the bronze statue and the lasers connected under the same sound tube caused no trouble. When they were convinced that the opponent's defense was not enough to cause harm, the Silence began to accelerate, and in just half a minute, it climbed from the life-bearing surface to its crumbling backside.
That's not significantly different from other areas in the abyss. The same darkness and sonic turmoil. The time is constantly being stretched. In the deeper part of the chasm, like a cold blue star shining on the dark ocean, it is the home of frost that is blocked by the upper world - but it is indeed shining at the moment. The legend has twisted the truth, or something has happened quietly. They will solve the mystery after visiting the undead.
Now they are going to a closer location. At the bottom of the constantly collapsing world, chains arranged in a ring-like manner and fixed frames arranged in a grid have replaced the land. They are like an upside-down tent inserted deeply into the world, holding the loose surface rocks and soil. And there is a huge iron ball on the upside-down top of the tent.
On the iron ball, near the fixed frame, sat a person. He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, but when Yaleriga approached him, he didn't show any awareness. He sat quietly in the void, his eyes lowered blankly, as if he was searching for the bottom of the chasm, or the cold and distant blue star. He was neither listening nor looking, and continued his empty thoughts that no one could understand until Yaleriga, who had eliminated all threats and traps, walked up to him and pushed away his arms wrapped around his abdomen.
Jingle Bell. A golden ball rolled from his arms. The thinker fell to the ground withered and wooden.
