"Sister Summer, I know that you have a lot of questions, but I don't know what's going on, either."
Thinking for a moment, Theresa said, "Let's talk about it later. Right now, let's check the surroundings first and figure out what's going on in the core area of the bridge!"
While it was said to be an inspection, the truth was that it was a silvery-white space that spanned a hundred square meters. Be it the ground or the walls, they were all as soft as sand and rubber. With just a slight push, one would be able to sink their hands into them. Even if one were to forcefully crash into them, they would still be cushioned greatly.
Such soft materials ensured the safety of the crew and the equipment when the starship was hit by a violent crash.
However, the surroundings were empty and there were no traps or secret passages. Theresa and Princess A Xia were puzzled and didn't know what to do next.
They couldn't be locked in this place for the rest of their lives, could they?
Recalling the details of the attack just now, Theresa pondered for a moment and cut her palm with the broken saber, leaving a bloody wound and a red palm print on the ground.
Sure enough, the blood droplets in the palm print were quickly absorbed by the silver-white fine sand. Then, the fine metal sand gushed out like a fountain, its range and height increasing. In the end, it became a silver-white pillar that was about the height of a person.
The cylinder looked like iron that had just been taken out of a furnace. The molten iron flowed down and soon revealed the outline of a tall and beautiful woman. Very soon, her facial organs, limbs, fingers, and toes were all separated. A vivid statue made of liquid metal was presented in front of Theresa and Princess Summer.
"Ahhh!"
Princess Summer exclaimed.
It was not because the liquid metal statue had surged out of the ground, but because the statue looked very similar to Theresa!
Their facial organs were not exactly the same, but the charm between their eyebrows and their valiant temperament gave them a feeling that they were related by blood, as if they were biological sisters or mother and daughter.
Theresa was surprised, too. She felt that she was looking into a mirror.
She knew very well that the real her did not look like this. Why was the liquid metal statue so similar to her when she was refined by 'Slime' Eric?
Under the shocked gazes of the two, the liquid metal statue completely separated from the floor. The details of the statue's face became even more lifelike, and even the fine eyelashes could be seen clearly. Its silver eyelashes trembled slightly, and not long after, it opened its eyes.
Her eyeballs were also made of silver-white liquid metal, but they were emitting a rainbow-like brilliance as if they had been sealed for ten thousand years. They swept past Princess A Xia and stopped at Theresa.
"You're finally here, carrier of the 'Witch Gene'."
The woman made of liquid metal spoke. Her voice was as calm as an ancient well, devoid of any emotion, as if she was a cold machine.
"Ah!"
Princess A Xia covered her mouth in surprise. She didn't expect that this thing could talk.
Although Theresa was shocked, she was still better than Princess A Xia. She took half a step back, took a deep breath, and said, "Who, who are you? Are you... the artificial intelligence in the central control system of Emerald?"
The woman tilted her head and thought for a while. Then she said, "Yes. I am Emerald itself. Or to put it in a more ancient language, I am the central thinking core in the fully-automatic control system of Emerald. I am a certain super artificial intelligence. You can call me 'Emerald'."
"Then, your appearance …" Theresa subconsciously stroked her cheeks, hesitantly saying.
"This is the last captain of Emerald, Kelly Kanna. After her death, Emerald ran out of energy and was seriously damaged. It had to hibernate for automatic recovery that lasted ten thousand years, "Emerald said matter-of-factly.
"At that time, most of the crew members who knew the skills of starship maintenance and operation were killed in the escape and the civil war. According to the Emergency Regulations, I temporarily took over the post of captain and waited for the arrival of a new captain in the darkness."
"That explains a lot. Is the so-called 'Witch Kelly', or 'Crimson Queen', the last human captain of Emerald? So to speak, the 'legacy of the Crimson Queen' is the highest authority of Emerald, or rather, the throne of captain? "
Theresa was greatly enlightened, but she was even more confused. "Wait. What did you call me just now? You said that I am … a carrier of the Witch Gene. What is that?"
"You don't know it yourself?"
Emerald said, "If you were not a carrier of the Witch Gene, it would have been impossible for you to enter the central area of the bridge, activate the automatic defense system, or talk to me. You would have been shattered into pieces mercilessly like the tentacles of the alien life the moment you invaded the central area of the bridge."
It was not until then that Theresa realized that her desperate attempt had succeeded not because of the pitiful 'Level One Firepower Control Authority' but because of the 'Witch Gene' contained in her blood. What the hell was that?
"It is not an easy task to command a super starship such as Emerald and lead the entire fugitive fleet to escape the pursuit of the Flood and wander forever on the Boundless Stars," Emerald explained.
"Therefore, when every new captain took office, they had to read the logbooks left by all the previous captains and master all their skills in order to be qualified.
"The brains of carbon-based intelligent lives could not digest and absorb such enormous data in a short amount of time after all. Therefore, the Primeval Clan invented the extraordinary technology of 'gene learning', which embedded tremendous information about the steering, commanding, and fighting of the starship into the gene segments.
"During the thousands of years of wandering in the universe, every captain of Emerald would secretly cultivate the super genes that contained infinite wisdom inside their body and pass them on to the next captain before they died. When the next captain received the gene segments of the captains of the previous hundreds of generations, it became his instinct to manipulate the starship, like a baby that could suck and cry when it was born.
"When it was Captain Kelly's turn to leave her legacy, the situation became even more severe. At that time, Emerald only had one percent of the energy reserves left, but the damage range was more than ninety percent. It was a standard 'major failure'.
"The automatic reproduction and cultivation system of the crew members was sabotaged, which meant that the new generation of crew members could only rely on natural reproduction and word of mouth. It was impossible for them to grasp the sophisticated starship operation skills. It was estimated that nobody could be qualified as a captain to lead Emerald to the sea of stars again in the next thousands of years.
"Therefore, Captain Kelly took out the essence of the genes of the captains of hundreds of generations and duplicated and sealed them at the cost of the last energy. She hoped that after thousands of years, when the energy reserves and the technical conditions were more or less mature, and Emerald was mostly repaired, the descendants of Emerald would extract the gene codenamed 'Witch' and inject it into their bodies to become the candidates for the new captain."
Theresa was stunned when she heard that.
The essence of the genes of the captains of hundreds of generations of Emerald sounded quite impressive.
However, she had just been teleported to the Emerald Continent not long ago and had no chance to get in touch with the so-called 'Witch Gene' at all. How did she become a carrier for no reason?
Wait —
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
