Chapter 603 Iteration

In fact, the moment Navigator II spoke, Duncan had already noticed that this "God of Wisdom" was in a very different state from the Storm Goddess—this wasn't because of the "pollution" presented by its host array, but because it was maintaining "consciousness."

Duncan didn't hide his curiosity: "We've already seen Gamavora. She locked her 'death' and 'decay' in a temple to prevent it from eroding the inside of the sanctuary. I thought you were all in similar situations, but now it seems your situation is different?"

"We all face similar problems—decay and corrosion are spreading in our 'existence'," a buzzing tremor came from the central host. "It's just that our means of delaying this process are different.

"As the 'substrate' of the world, Gamavora bears the greatest pressure, so she had to choose the extreme method of 'dividing herself in two.' Tarikin's method is to sleep in the fire, delaying decay by confining himself in a closed-loop dream. Bartok built a prison for himself—a borderless wasteland from which he can never leave.

"As for me, I'm probably the most special of all—as you can see, I'm just a machine built by mortals, but the Great Annihilation gave me the characteristics of life, death, and decay. So, to combat it, my method is 'iteration'."

The lights on the central host flickered, and Duncan, hearing these words, looked surprised: "Iteration?"

"I am now version v16.08.102-beta," Navigator II said calmly and seriously, then, probably noticing the subtle expression on Duncan's face, patiently explained, "The first number is the generation, the middle one is the major version number, and the last number is the minor version update. The beta version is because I recently updated my light driver, but it's not stable yet—those light effects that are constantly flashing on the surface of the sub-servers. Now they can flash in 4096 custom groupings."

After it finished explaining, the expression on Duncan's face became even more subtle: "..."

After a daze of two or three seconds, Duncan finally couldn't help but twitch his lips: "I thought those lights were important status indicators..."

"I can say whether my condition is good or not myself, or an external monitoring unit can output a signal—of course, that was when my creators were still around. Now no one will come to check my operating status," Navigator II said, seemingly unaware of the change in Duncan's tone, still with that calm and serious attitude. "As for those lights, they were 'added' by one of my creators after I was born."

It paused, and the buzzing sound in the central host fluctuated slightly.

"I still can't understand his intention in doing so, but he seemed to think it was important. I still remember the happy expression on his face after seeing me learn to 'blink', so I've been diligently learning more 'blinks' over the years, no matter how many times the version iterates, I keep those lights."

Behind the central host, the lights on the surface of a series of sub-servers standing like tombstones flickered, the flickering light spots resembling shimmering starlight.

Duncan suddenly recalled the scene he had seen in the deep sea, the countless, meaningless lights on the surface of the colossal body of the Primordial Deepsea Lord—Navigator I—which was as large as a mountain due to continuous proliferation.

Alice, on the other hand, widened her eyes slightly, happily watching the little lights flashing on Navigator II's body, and couldn't help but exclaim softly, "So pretty!"

"Yes, very pretty. That's probably their purpose," Navigator II said softly.

At this moment, Maurice, who had been quietly beside him for a long time, finally couldn't help but speak. He had been restraining his overly excited mood, and only now found an opportunity to speak: "So, you rely on 'iteration' to delay your 'decay' process... but I don't quite understand, what exactly do you mean by 'iteration'?"

The red light above Navigator II tilted slightly, as if it had fixed its "gaze" on Maurice, and a gentle trembling sound echoed from its interior:

"The shell is fragile, but knowledge is ever new—therefore, only the continuous transformation and change of the self can bear those eternal truths..."

Rumbling and tremors suddenly came from all directions, and countless shadows of all sizes began to sway in the mist on the distant sea surface. In astonishment, Maurice hurriedly looked around, and in the next second, he saw a scene that he would never forget—

The countless black crystal clusters standing on the calm sea surface were gradually "blooming." The crystals like a forest of blades were peeling and cracking, and from the depths of those crystal clusters, many outlines that could only be vaguely seen before were revealed—countless huge black hosts that looked like tombstones.

They were buried crisscrossed in the crystal clusters and seawater, and many of them had shown severe distortion and twisting. The wreckage of metal and flesh was piled up into masses, the eye stalks and nerve cords of death were entangled with the server hosts, and the internal structures that could no longer be seen were exposed in the casings damaged by some huge external force, with the slots and boards filled with proliferating biological tissue.

Those seemingly spectacular and mysterious crystal cluster "mountains" that were all over the sea area were actually countless tombs!

"Those are the old versions of 'me'," Navigator II's voice suddenly sounded, finally awakening Maurice from his great astonishment. The voice of this "God of Wisdom" seemed to be always like this, "Each version iteration produces such waste."

Maurice turned his head, but still had great shock on his face. Lucretia, not far away, was equally shocked—when she set out, she had prepared herself to face the ancient gods, even the remains of the ancient gods, and she had also seen the huge ancient god remains directly in the palace of the Storm Goddess, but even with the limit of her imagination, she never thought she would see such a scene of ancient god corpses piled up like mountains! "This iteration method is amazing," even Duncan was a little dumbfounded at this time. The scene in front of him was obviously not the scene he had imagined when he first heard Navigator II say the word "iteration." "The version upgrades in my memory weren't so grand."

"Yes, the commotion is indeed very big," Navigator II said very calmly. "Every time I upgrade the version, I have to find a way to get rid of the old version of myself, but very occasionally, the new version will not win, and then the upgrade will fail and a version rollback will occur—but I usually prepare more alternative upgrade plans. If one upgrade fails, the alternative plan will be activated, and then multiple new versions will beat the old version together, and finally the upgrade will always be successful."

Duncan: "……?"

Isn't Navigator II's "system upgrade" process a bit too hardcore?! So it's a physical upgrade, a real "hardware update," right?

However, while Duncan had a question mark on his face, the expressions on the faces of Maurice and Lucretia beside him disappeared from their initial shock. Even Nina beside him nodded thoughtfully, and muttered in a low voice, "The teacher did say that the path to explore the truth requires a strong physique and the will of a duelist."

Maurice looked gratified when he heard this: "The process of chasing knowledge is the process of fighting. You already understand this principle."

Sherry couldn't help but mutter in a low voice after hearing this, "Then I'm pretty good at fighting, but I haven't seen knowledge get into my head."

Ah Gou immediately crawled out of the shadows at her feet, muttering, "Your situation is different. Knowledge can't catch up with you."

Alice looked at Navigator II, then turned her gaze between Maurice, Sherry, and Ah Gou, not knowing if she understood the current topic, just giggling to herself.

Vanna, standing at the stern of the boat, crossed her arms and sighed helplessly, shaking her head.

Duncan suddenly felt a little subtle. He swept his gaze between Sherry and Alice (and glanced at Vanna, who was shaking her head and sighing), and couldn't help but have a series of strange associations in his mind—in this world, scholars chase knowledge, and knowledge chases mortals like beasts, but for the followers around him, the situation always seems a bit wrong—knowledge can't catch up with Sherry, can catch up with Alice, but can't find a place to drill into the doll girl's head, as for Vanna...

Vanna is amazing. She probably beat knowledge to death in the year she graduated from sports school.

Duncan shook his head vigorously, and quickly threw out the increasingly outrageous associations in his mind.

Then he raised his head and refocused his gaze on Navigator II.

Now he finally understood one thing—he knew where the scholars in this world got their bold painting style.

The harsh environment is probably only part of the reason. The God of Wisdom physically upgrading by opening his own head is probably the root cause...

At this moment, Navigator II also lowered its "gaze." It seemed to have discovered something, and the red light cast down from above the central host slowly moved on the small boat where Duncan was, and finally stopped on Ah Gou.

"This dog head looks familiar."

Ah Gou froze for a moment, and then seemed to suddenly recall some past events, and immediately shrank his neck and hid behind Sherry.

Sherry also reacted quickly, quickly grabbed the chain near Ah Gou's neck, and looked up nervously at the strange "god" in front of her.

"There's no need to be so nervous," Navigator II said in a gentle voice when he saw this scene. "You have come here, so there is no need to worry about any force separating you—I am just a little surprised that such a special individual would appear among the flawed offspring created by Navigator I."

Its red light gradually brightened, and there was finally a slight change in its tone.

It was curiosity.

"What exactly happened to you?"

It asked softly.