Chapter 1 The Moving Stone

The "weird rock" that had been squatting in the forest for a whole week finally stirred.

Early in the morning, the small animals living nearby were disturbed by the strange noises coming from the big pit, causing a flurry of panicked activity. After a chaotic scramble, they confirmed that this was not the prelude to a new explosion. Some of the bolder ones cautiously crossed the trees and bushes, peering at the edge of the impact crater to observe the "heavenly rock." They saw that the culprit that had smashed the forest into a pit had somehow been renewed. The once-black shell was now shimmering with a silvery-white light, and a beautiful halo was floating on its surface, rippling like the forest's great lake. It was a sight to behold.

A strange, cave-like humming sound continued to emanate from the depths of the oddity.

Several small, gray-white, sharp-eared beasts clung to the branches high above, hissing and roaring at the silvery-white boulder that was both glowing and making strange noises. They were furious, remembering their former home—a beautiful and imposing tree hollow—that had been destroyed by this thing that fell from the sky. Now, its remains lay beneath the strange object. The little beasts clung to the branches, roaring at the squatting thing from what they considered a safe distance, trying to drive away the uninvited guest as they had always done.

But this time, they seemed to have really succeeded.

After humming for a while, the silvery-white oddity actually began to float slowly upward. Bright blue light emanated from several long, narrow gaps in its rear, and bright light also shone from some of the grooves in its midsection. Under the influence of these lights, the seemingly heavy behemoth seemed to lose weight, floating lightly into the air, flying higher and higher, farther and farther...

That damn thing was finally gone.

The small animals in the forest stared blankly at the incredible scene, and then finally began to cheer—or perhaps it was just a jumble of startled scurrying and howling. Several small, gray-white, sharp-eared beasts clung to the branches, looking for their once-beautiful and imposing tree hollow in the crater left by the silvery-white oddity, but to no avail.

They chattered and exchanged opinions, finally deciding that this place was not suitable for settling down, and decided to move to the part of the forest with many shelves and stone trees, where they would find another beautiful and imposing tree hollow...

"How does it feel to be flying again?"

Hao Ren looked at Nolan, who was standing next to the projector in the center of the bridge, checking the ship's data with a look of triumph, and asked with a smile.

"Super awesome!" Nolan put her hands on her hips, her silvery-white ponytail flicking behind her head. "I thought I was really going to have some kind of flight phobia! I was worried for days! But it turns out I'm just a natural-born flyer—the feeling after taking off is just incredible!!"

"That's good," Hao Ren nodded with a smile. The ship spirit had been listless for a week, and she had finally recovered her spirits today, which was something to be happy about. "How's the ship?"

"Better than expected!" Nolan seemed really happy, so much so that she was using holographic projections to create a bunch of exploding fireworks and colorful lights around herself as she spoke. "The power core is running strong, the shields are stable and solid, and the weapon systems are as powerful as if they were newly installed! Although the main gun still seems to have some problems, I think it can be used to blow up anything in front of us in a few hours!"

"Okay, okay, I understand you're happy, but it's better to concentrate on flying the ship right now," Hao Ren waved his hand at Nolan, telling the ship spirit who was a little too happy to calm down. "We still have to be wary of the Divine Power Storms in this star sector—although the latest surveillance messages from the drone swarm show that the Divine Power Storms are only active in the deep space area and have now mostly subsided, if you get too cocky, you might taunt them back over here."

This sentence was quite effective. Nolan jumped like a frightened rabbit, and then shrank back and looked around—as if that would reduce the presence of her ship, which was hundreds of meters long, in the universe.

Hao Ren nodded with satisfaction. Compared to the "Gray Fox Mercenary" who had been through so much when she was first brought out of the Zolm Dream Realm, Nolan was much more lively now. Perhaps this was the "true personality" that this AI was originally designed to have?

The ship quickly left the planet's atmosphere, but it did not accelerate too much. Instead, it activated various interference and stealth devices and approached a high orbit at a leisurely pace. Ahead of its trajectory, the miracle space station built by the planet's primitive inhabitants—"Zenith"—was shining in the afterglow of the sun.

Hao Ren turned his head to look at the two robotic girls sitting not far away: N-4 and N-6.

The other "Executors" were also on the ship. After N-4 and Hao Ren's group reached a consensus, the ground force led by N-4 (including those who had run away before) also became temporary passengers on the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace at the order of their superior. They were all in standby in the ship's cabins now, while N-4 and N-6 stayed on the bridge as representatives to answer some of Hao Ren's questions at any time.

N-4 and N-6 had been curiously observing this place. They were extremely amazed by this aircraft, built with unknown technology and so advanced that it was almost incomprehensible, especially after it took off.

But Hao Ren was observing them.

Curiosity—another trait that was extremely close to humans.

Although the natives of this planet were only making average progress in aerospace technology (one piece of evidence was that they had not yet created such critical equipment as a jump engine), it seemed that they had outstanding talent in the field of artificial intelligence. These AIs, called "Executors," not only had nearly perfect emotional functions, but also had the ability to develop independently, such as curiosity and learning, which was truly a remarkable achievement.

Because it meant that they could evolve themselves.

N-4 had said a lot about the abnormalities of the "Mainframe," and now Hao Ren had a general grasp of the whole situation.

It sounded like the Mainframe hadn't broken down suddenly, but rather that there was a gradual process, and in the beginning of this process, no one noticed it.

Starting a few years ago, the vast AI began to generate some contradictory instructions. At first, these erroneous instructions were few in number and hardly involved important decisions, so they could be regarded as minor glitches in operation. The Mainframe itself had a mechanism to correct these glitches. Its thirteen servers were like a voting institution, and the servers that generated erroneous instructions were ultimately in the minority. The normally running servers would directly filter out the problematic code—that's how it was at first.

But then the situation kept deteriorating.

For some reason, the Mainframe hid its own error logs (which was perhaps the most fatal of all the faults), so the maintainers in the fortress were unaware that more and more erroneous instructions were accumulating in the Mainframe's servers. At first, only one or two servers were generating erroneous instructions, and the frequency was only three or four times every one or two months, but then the problem became increasingly serious. Erroneous instructions appeared more and more frequently, and more and more servers were generating these erroneous instructions, while the normal servers that could filter out these erroneous instructions—they naturally became fewer and fewer.

The Mainframe's servers were not unmaintained, nor were they lacking in updates. In fact, as the most important decision-making machine in the survivor society, the Mainframe's motherboard and main logic circuits were replaced every century, and other hardware was inspected and maintained every year. Moreover, system self-checks and other procedures were carried out as frequently as once a day. According to what N-4 said, the Mainframe's current motherboard and logic circuits had only been replaced less than twenty years ago, and were far from being in a state where they could malfunction.

But the malfunction happened so inexplicably, and when the ratio of normal servers to faulty servers in the Mainframe was reversed, its errors were finally exposed.

It issued two contradictory commands, one of which was inexplicably strange: the first instruction prohibited the circulation of information about the unknown spaceship on the home planet, and prohibited anyone from approaching the area where the spaceship "crashed," while the second instruction was sent directly to more than a dozen Executor soldiers, including N-4, ordering them to investigate the situation of the unknown spaceship.

At first, N-4 didn't realize that the two orders were contradictory. She thought this was a secret operation instruction issued by the Mainframe, but when she routinely returned the instructions she received to the Mainframe's lower-level server for confirmation, it triggered a serious warning within the system.

The Mainframe believed that she and her temporary team members were deviating from instructions and acting without authorization.

Then, the Mainframe sent her a transport plane, asking her to set off as soon as possible to complete the mission, and also sent a large pile of chaotic system logs to her memory bank...

And then, Miss N-4 and her temporary action squad came to Hao Ren's presence in such a muddled state.

"Don't you think this job is impossible to do?" Hao Ren looked at N-4, feeling very unreasonable. "Chaotic orders, completely blank mission details, and after you go back, you will most likely be listed as 'out of control elements' by the Mainframe... can't you just report a repair to the Mainframe's maintainers first?"

N-4 said expressionlessly, "The Mainframe's orders must be carried out. This is the foundation upon which we have been able to maintain ourselves to this day."

N-6 next to her also said in the same expressionless manner: "The Mainframe's orders must be carried out. The maintainers will naturally complete the work of the maintainers."

Nangong Sanba listened to their conversation and couldn't help but cover his forehead with his hand: "It's really difficult to communicate when worldviews are different..."

And while speaking, the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace had slowly approached the giant space station floating in the universe—Zenith.

Its silvery-white oval shell shone brightly on the holographic projection. The behemoth occupied everyone's view like a small moon.

"Nolan, get the tractor beam ready," Hao Ren tapped the console lightly, exhaling a breath of turbid air. "Time to get to work."