Chapter 296: 71. The Copied Consciousness
“This is where you’ll be resting; the rooms are clean, but I come in once a week to maintain the cleanliness. If there are any secrets or things you don’t want me to see, you should tidy them up in advance.”
Heidi Lin walked in front of Fisher and Ilos, leading them to the guest rooms near the depths of the corridor. The mechanical clamor they heard earlier was emanating from this area, where Felis, Balzak, and a mechanic named Selti lived.
To find the legendary Frost Parasol Tree, Valentina hired several helpers, but Heidi Lin and Haldor were not among those she paid; they were originally members of the Turan Family.
“This is the key to your room. You can go in and check if there’s anything you need, but don’t take too long; we’re going to eat soon. The dining room is downstairs; just follow this corridor when the time comes. I need to go prepare something first.”
Heidi Lin cheerfully handed the key to Fisher and Ilos. Their room was at the end of the corridor, directly across from Selti’s room, which was currently making loud noises as if it were being demolished.
As Fisher and the others approached, the loud noises suddenly stopped. After a second, the door opened to reveal a little girl with a metal mask. She wore a short shirt stained with grease and sported the characteristic twist braids often seen in Cardu.
She was sucking on a lollipop made of malt sugar. The Cardu girl, with her green hair and black eyes, briefly sized them up, especially when she saw Ilos in her nun’s attire. She gave Ilos a once-over and then smiled in a slightly ambiguous manner, saying,
“Oh ho, I thought someone from my hometown had come, but it turned out to be a subhuman. Not bad, not bad. By the way, Haldor, didn’t you have something you wanted me to see? You’d better come quickly while I still have time.”
“Zzzz. Trouble it is, Selti.”
Haldor let out a breath, greeted Fisher, and then entered her room. Through the crack in the wooden door, he seemed to glimpse the outline of a steam machine flickering with magical light, but once Haldor entered, the door was shut, preventing him from seeing the internal structure clearly.
“That girl is Selti, a steam mechanic from Cardu, a rebel from the Church Kingdom. You two will surely have many topics in common.”
Heidi Lin said with her hand covering her mouth while smiling. One was a rebel from the Nali academic world, and the other was a rule-breaking subhuman nun; it was natural that they shared similarities with that mechanic from the Church Kingdom. But to be fair, their entire team wasn’t exactly conventional.
After arranging the rooms for Fisher and the others, Heidi Lin temporarily bid them farewell. Fisher and Ilos exchanged a glance and decided to return to their room to check things out before reconvening outside in a few minutes.
Ilos had never encountered such a setup before; she had been following Fisher all the way, and even her pseudopregnancy symptoms had worsened. Her hands never left her lower abdomen, and fortunately, the understanding Heidi Lin did not inquire, or she would have felt even more uncomfortable.
The room assigned to Fisher was relatively spacious and had a private washroom. Directly across from the bed was a porthole, through which he could see the eastern ocean as it was about to enter darkness. The ship’s hull shook slightly with the roar of the engine, signaling that they were about to set off.
Just as Fisher entered the room, the mechanism card in his pocket suddenly emitted a series of dense notification tones.
“Beep beep beep!”
The Mechanism card?
Fisher frowned as he stepped into the room. Before he could take out the card, he saw a strangely shaped small machine sitting on his bed. The machine was sparkling with a faint blue glow, resembling a small dog made of metal.
Just as the Emhart in his pocket was about to poke his head out, Fisher reached out and grabbed him, gently tossing him out to the doorway. Facing his puzzled expression, Fisher whispered,
“Wait for me outside. Unless you want to be stunned.”
“…”
Emhart opened his mouth, obediently waiting at the door. He couldn’t see anything inside the room, but he cast a suspicious glance at Fisher.
What kind of mischief is this damn jerk up to again that even the great Sir Book isn’t privy to the specifics?
But Fisher had no intention of acknowledging him; he simply closed the door gently, turned back, and approached the bed, where the machine’s faint light flickered again. Then a familiar mechanical voice emerged—who else could it be but the Mechanism?
“Very glad to see you again, Mr. Fisher. I thought you might arrive in the Northern Region a bit later. My other mechanisms spotted you, so I proactively came looking for you. Just coincidentally, you managed to connect with the Turan Family on your own, saving quite a bit of effort.”
Fisher moved a stool in front of the bed and, upon hearing the Mechanism’s words, glanced towards the door.
“Just in time; the Turan Family is also looking for the Frost Parasol Tree? Since Erwind also wants to go to the Frost Parasol Tree, a conflict is bound to arise. With the Turan Family as support, our odds will be higher; is that your plan? So, that Haldor is your informant? What’s his situation? The card you gave me identifies him as your mechanism.”
The Mechanism before him shook its head and, after a few seconds of silence, replied,
“Actually, I haven’t started executing the plan; I just suddenly thought of leveraging the power of the Turan Family to confront Erwind. When consciousness returned to the Northern Region, I suddenly realized my damage was more substantial than I imagined. More importantly, Mr. Fisher, you must be mindful of Erwind; he recently landed in the McDowell Fiefdom as well.”
“A few days ago, my mechanisms discovered his trace in a coastal village. His entity absorbed the flesh and blood of a village. Though his soul’s damage is temporarily irreparable, I have no leftover mechanisms to delay his pace. Erwind has looked at Zhenbing; it’s hard to say what he saw in it, but he will soon find clues leading to the Frost Parasol Tree. As for Haldor, that’s a bit of a long story.”
Fisher looked at the seemingly exhausted Mechanism, aware that the Creation Society had become quite fragmented after the departure of the former president, the Magic Lord. Yet now Erwind was openly at odds with the society, and beyond the exhausted Mechanism, no one else seemed willing to take on this mess.
This made Fisher understand more about the so-called Creation Society.
The Mechanism flickered with a humanized glow before unexpectedly beginning to disassemble in front of Fisher, layer upon layer of metallic shell peeling off like a crab shell, revealing a core component that radiated blue light in the center.
As this critical area was revealed, the Mechanism explained to Fisher,
“The reason a Mechanism can become one is that I can attach my consciousness to an object, primarily due to the core within this machine.”
“I require a rare mineral, Moonstone, to process the core and create Mechanisms. This Moonstone can only be produced by the Turan Family near Sema Snow Mountain. Regrettably, they ceased extracting this mineral a few years ago because, besides me, who uses it as raw material for constructing Mechanisms, others seem to treat it merely as decoration.”
“I cannot disclose the techniques on the completion manual, but to obtain a relatively stable supply of the mineral, I made a trade with the Turan Family: extending the life of a family member who was on the brink of death.”
“However, even re-extracting the Moonstone from there cannot withstand the enormous consumption of manufacturing Mechanisms. The Moonstone mine owned by the Turan Family has nearly run out a few months ago, and I heard they are searching for new sources; otherwise, I would have more mechanisms to capture the Fate Lord.”
Fisher squinted, quickly guessing who the trade object with the Turan Family was.
“You mean, that Haldor’s body is made by you?”
“To be precise, not just the body. I used a unique method to copy his consciousness and then uploaded the copied consciousness into the Mechanism in exchange for a certain share of Moonstone minerals each year. However, the number of damaged mechanisms by Erwind far exceeds the Moonstone provided by the Turan Family, so I have no remaining mechanisms to deal with the current Erwind.”
After hearing the Mechanism’s words, Fisher’s expression grew peculiar as he suddenly realized a problem.
“You mean to say, you just copied Haldor’s consciousness, but his original consciousness has actually died along with his dying body, correct?”
“… Unfortunately, my database does not yet contain considerations for this ‘Mechanism Ethics.’ I will record your newly proposed words within it; but as you said, this is my method; Haldor’s true consciousness cannot be removed from his brain.”
Though the Mechanism spoke very plainly, it still gave Fisher a profoundly shocking feeling.
According to current theory, a person’s consciousness and magical circuits stem from the soul, and if Haldor had indeed died, his soul would naturally have returned to the Spirit Realm, his consciousness dissipating in the process. If the Mechanism could replicate Haldor’s consciousness through some technology, did that mean he, in some sense, transcended the world’s rules?
“Though the consciousness of that Haldor Turan is stored in my database, it does not share any of my data. He is entirely unaware of the completion manual and other matters. Please distinguish between us during conversations to avoid misunderstandings.”
Just as Fisher pondered while stroking his chin, there was a knock at his door, followed by Ilos’s voice from outside.
“Mr. Fisher, um… are you not done yet?”
“I’ll be out soon; just wait a moment.”
“Oh, I got it; I’ll wait for you at the door.”
Fisher withdrew his gaze and looked at the Mechanism again, which shook its mechanical body and stood up, jumping off the bed like a puppy, saying to Fisher,
“Mr. Fisher, Erwind’s destination is the Frost Parasol Tree, and conflict with the Turan Family is inevitable. The Turan Family itself is not simple; Erwind won’t find it so easy to take action. Moreover, according to the Fate Lord’s intelligence, it seems you possess a very dangerous weapon?”
The “dangerous weapon” mentioned by the Mechanism was likely the Death Rune given to him by Eil. That short knife, which could only be drawn once, did not need to be carried around; it could manifest or follow him with a mere call, possessing a quality strikingly similar to the completion manual.
According to Eil, this knife was crafted by a Demon God named Ag through the theft of a segment of the world rules, bearing a special effect that could kill upon hit.
“Erwind is far more eager than we are. Before that, Mr. Fisher, you can fully assist that young lady from the Turan Family in searching for the markings to enter the Frost Parasol Tree. It would be even better if you could build a good relationship with her; that might yield you more support during the later battle against Erwind. The Fate Lord said you are quite adept at dealing with ladies. Alright, I’ll take my leave now; since I know where Mr. Fisher is, I will come back to inform you of any new developments.”
While speaking, the Mechanism climbed up to the room’s ventilation duct. Its seemingly heavy limbs clung to the walls like a spider, quickly crawling to the ceiling before Fisher could react, bidding him farewell and leaving his room.
Fisher sighed, rubbed his forehead, organizing the many messages he had just received. As he opened the door to leave the room, he saw Emhart sitting on Ilos’s shoulder in the corridor, whispering something into her rabbit ears.
When Emhart noticed Fisher coming out, he remained calm, but Ilos suddenly turned red and almost jumped up in fright.
“Mr. Fisher!”
Fisher raised an eyebrow, watching Emhart slowly flying back, and asked Ilos,
“What were you two talking about?”
“By the Mother, nothing. Uh, it seems like dinner is ready; we should hurry down.”
She slowly walked to Fisher’s side, covering her small abdomen, her eyes evasive as she pointed towards the corridor ahead, stepping forward first.
Watching her slightly raised rabbit tail, Fisher tightly held the pretending Emhart, staring at him.
“What did you just say to her?”
“Nothing, nothing! She asked me! She asked me what you used to do and also asked why you know that young lady from the Turan Family! You know me; the great Sir Book always speaks honestly!”
“… So, what exactly did you say?”
“Um, I said you are a scholar who likes subhumans the most; that’s all!”
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(End of this chapter)
