The Sorin Hub should be the most special of all the Empire's magic network hubs. This was not only because its crystal array was built on the top of the tree, but also because Bertilla, the 'living hub carrier' had used the unique biological characteristics of the Sorin Tree to carry out a bold transformation of the entire hub. She had cleverly integrated the cold steel and crystal into the structure of the giant tree, and above the treetop, her 'design' was reflected everywhere.
Bertilla led Marguarita to the area where the crystal array was located. The metal devices that supported the crystal array were deeply embedded in the giant tree. A large number of wooden structures and vine-like 'pipes' extended out from the layers of branches and merged with the base of the crystal array. Along with a series of rustling sounds, Marguarita saw the 'ground' near the pedestal opening up. The originally neat and dense leaves trembled and retreated to both sides, revealing a slanted staircase that seemed to lead to a very deep place.
Despite being wrapped in layers of leaves and branches, the passage was not dark. A large number of glowing flowers and thin vines hung down from the 'walls' on both sides of the passage, illuminating the 'small world' in the treetop like lights.
"This is my 'research room'. I built it in my body, so it's more convenient to use," Bertilla said to Marguarita as she took the lead and walked forward. "Please follow me. Pay attention to your feet. This staircase is a bit steep. I've been thinking about how to make this part grow again."
"That's … ingenious." Marguarita followed Bertilla's' footsteps' and brought a few technicians and accompanying soldiers into this' secret space 'that belonged to Bertilla. She looked at the glowing plants on both sides of the walls and the ingeniously grown staircase and corridor in amazement. She could not help but sigh. "I didn't expect you to have such creativity, Madam Bertilla."
"… Actually, I almost forgot that I have such creativity." Bertilla's footsteps seemed to pause for a moment before she continued to move forward. "Curiosity, creativity, learning new things, observing this world … I have thrown away a lot of things, but recently I've been trying to find them back."
As they spoke, they had walked past the slightly steep staircase and entered a rather spacious space.
This was a roughly ellipsoidal 'world in the tree'. Marguarita swore that even in her most imaginative dreams, she had never seen such a strange and wonderful scene.
A sturdy wooden shell and supporting pillars held the place up. Countless green leaves and vines formed the walls, floor, and roof of this ellipsoidal space. Countless luminous plants, including flowers and hanging mycelium, provided illumination, making it look like a brightly lit plant cave. At the back of this' cave ', Marguarita saw many things that were incomprehensible to humans. There were glowing vines scattered along the ground, pouch-like objects that looked like culture bags hanging on the walls nearby, and wooden platforms stacked on top of each other. The most eye-catching thing was … a certain structure at the center of the entire space.
It was a huge capsule that hung down from the ceiling. Dozens of vines and tubular tissues of different thicknesses extended from the top of the capsule. The entire capsule was like a brownish-red bag, and it seemed to be filled with some kind of shimmering liquid. As time passed, some of the thinner "membranes" on the capsule were still pulsating slightly, and there were blood vessel-like things inside that were changing in brightness and darkness.
It was a little unsettling, but there was a mysterious attraction to it. Its style was obviously related to the biochemical technology of the All Things Will Die, but it did not have the bloody and crazy feeling.
"I didn't let anyone come here," Bertilla said to Marguarita. "As you can see, this is a place built according to my 'survival mode', and only I can use the things here. By the way, what I'm doing shouldn't be considered a 'violation', right? I'm not using any public resources, I'm just doing some research here. After all, I'm also a Druil. "
"Uhh … I don't think it's a violation." Marguarita thought carefully for a long time before she could organize her words. "Strictly speaking … this is your own 'physiological adjustment', I think the Imperial law can't dictate how you should grow …"
As she spoke, the Imperial female general seemed to feel that the current topic was a little too much for her to think about, so she quickly waved her hand before the topic became even weirder. "Let's not talk about this. Madam Bertilla, you mentioned that you've analyzed the clues from the signal. Does this have anything to do with this' secret base '?"
"Oh, of course, because I'm the one who found the clues here." Bertilla nodded and led everyone to a flower bud in the ellipsoidal space. As Marguarita and the others approached, the flower bud that was as tall as a person suddenly opened on its own. The originally curled green leaves opened up, revealing the pure white inner wall.
"What is this?" Marguarita frowned and asked curiously.
"It's just a little trick to show images. To me, directly controlling plants is more convenient than controlling the Magic Net crystal," Bertilla said casually. "This is just an insignificant detail. What I want to show you is … this."
As she spoke, she communicated with the plant structure before her. Marguarita looked on curiously and was surprised to see that the pure white inner wall of the leaf suddenly had dark green traces.
"Since the last time I received the strange signal, I've been thinking about the meaning of the signal. The scholars have tried many ways to decipher it, including codes, code words, turning it into sounds, turning it into an 'alphabet' … I've tried many methods, but they all failed. The short tremors seem to have no logic, they don't correspond to a code book, there's no numerical pattern, and after turning it into sounds, it's just noise … So finally, I suddenly had a thought: Maybe these tremors don't involve codes? Maybe they're something … simpler? "
As Bertilla talked about her various attempts, she adjusted the lines that appeared on the leaf, outlining more details in front of Marguarita.
"… I used a very simple method that no one has tried before: I directly drew the tremors. Look, when there's a strong tremor, there's a dot, just like an ink dot, very, very small. Then, there's a weak tremor or a blank noise, and then there's a blank space. If you look at the duration of a tremor as a 'grid,' then there's a number of 'grids' that are blank for as long as the tremors and the white noise last …
"Then there's this. This is very important. It took me a long time to figure out how to deal with the changes here. In the signal we received, there would be a very short and sharp waveform every once in a while. At first, I thought it represented some kind of 'line', but in the end, I realized that it meant … to change a line.
"Similarly, we also received a few other very short and sharp waveforms. They also have their own meanings, and they're used to position the subsequent 'dots' to a specific position relative to the previous content …"
On the leaf, there were more and more magical imprints. According to Bertilla's idea, the mysterious signal that Sorin's hub was' monitoring 'was quickly turning into a pattern of dots and blanks. At this time, Marguarita was almost certain that Bertilla's idea was correct!
Because the dots were not randomly arranged, they were arranged in a neat and orderly pattern!
"What's this?" Finally, a technician standing behind Margarita couldn't help but open his mouth. This middle-aged man in a short robe stared at the 'dot diagram' on the leaf and exclaimed in shock, "This …"
"A square. The dots are connected into a line to form a square. It's very … neat. The number of dots on each side is exactly the same." Bertilla said. As she spoke, the dark green pattern on the leaf was still extending.
The eye-catching dots had connected into a square shape, but it was clear that this was not all. There were still new dots popping up in the blank area next to the square, and it was very obvious that they were arranging into lines and combining into a pattern!
Marguarita and several of her entourage stared at all this with wide eyes, guessing what it would eventually look like. But after a few seconds, all of this suddenly stopped.
The subsequent dots only formed a short line before coming to an abrupt end.
"What's next?" Marguarita could not help but look up and ask, "Why did it stop?"
"The signal was interrupted." Bertilla spread out her hands. "That's all I recorded. You know, the efficiency of using these tremors to record the pattern is very, very low. We may have to continuously record the signal for a long time to complete this thing. But the signal I received was only for about ten minutes.
"… Damn it …" Marguarita could not help but mutter unladylike words. Then, she looked thoughtful. "So the nature of these signals …"
"It should be the Red Dust of Misty Rain.
Www .yyhcxs.xyz should be a picture, and what we saw is probably only a part of it. The size of the picture is unknown, and its meaning and sender are complete mysteries. "Bertilla spread out her hands like a human and shook her head." I even suspect that this is a drawing. Of course, this is just a guess. After all, there are too few parts that can be seen. "
"All in all, now we can basically be sure that this thing can't be some kind of 'natural phenomenon,'" Marguarita took a deep breath. "No matter who is doing this, someone has been continuously sending us a picture. It may not be deliberately sent to us, but it's a kind of indiscriminate broadcast that just happened to be captured by our crystal array. In any case, this matter must be reported immediately to the Imperial Capital. "
"Of course." Bertilla nodded. "This is very unusual. Think about the recent Internet howling incident … There are more and more disturbing things in this world."
"Hmm … Speaking of which, when did you discover these patterns?" Marguarita suddenly glanced at Bertilla with a curious look on her face.
"Just a few hours ago." Bertilla twitched the corner of her mouth, seemingly revealing a smile. "Most of it was luck. The idea that I came up with did not follow the normal code breaking rules under normal circumstances. I can only say that I was lucky enough to run into it."
"That is still an amazing result." Marguarita praised sincerely. Then, she could not help but turn her head and her eyes fell on the sac-shaped object in the middle of the ellipsoidal space. "Actually, I have been wanting to ask since just now. This thing … What is it for?"
There were many strange things in this ellipsoidal space, but most of them at least had the characteristics of vines, flowers, branches and leaves. Only the sac-shaped object hanging in the middle of the space was so strange and mysterious that it was hard to ignore. Marguarita's attention was drawn to it when she came in, but she was too embarrassed to ask because of her work. Now that the business was over, she finally could not help but ask.
The former grand pope of Everything's Demise … What was she researching in her 'private laboratory'?
Hearing Marguarita's question, Bertilla's face did not show any unusual expression (mainly because it was not easy to make expressions on her plant-like face), but there was a hint of pride in her voice. "That is my own optimization and supplement. This time, I was able to successfully decipher the clues in the signal thanks to the help of this thing. If you want to see, I can open the outer sacs, but the things inside may be a bit of a visual shock to ordinary people … You have to be mentally prepared. "
Marguarita smiled and said confidently, "Of course. We've all been specially trained. We won't lose our composure no matter what happens. You can open it now to satisfy our curiosity. "
Bertilla nodded and waved her hand. The sac-shaped object in the middle of the 'room' suddenly wriggled and rustled. Then, many neatly arranged cracks appeared on the surface of the brownish-red sacs. The entire structure of the sacs bloomed like a flower petal, revealing a transparent egg-shaped inner shell, a translucent nutrient fluid in the inner shell, and a huge and shocking biological tissue soaked in the nutrient fluid.
It was a brain! A 'synthetic brain' soaked in the nutrient fluid and was almost as tall as a person!
Marguarita, the specially trained imperial officer, widened her eyes the moment she saw the thing. She felt goosebumps all over her body. "What … What is this?!"
"I made a brain for myself. I tried my best to mimic the human brain. Of course, the size is a bit of a problem … I didn't want to make it so big." Bertilla said without any change in her expression as if it was a trivial matter.
Marguarita felt that her mind could no longer keep up with the vegetative person in front of her. She felt dizzy when she asked the question again. "How did you think of making a brain for yourself?"
Bertilla thought about it seriously this time and patiently explained. "After becoming a plant, I found that my way of thinking is getting closer to that of a plant. Recently, I even stood here like a real tree. My consciousness did not want to do anything other than basking in the sun, bearing fruits, and shaking the leaves in the wind … I was worried about this situation, so I made a brain for myself to help stabilize my cognition as a 'human'. As for the improvement in logical thinking and associative ability … It is actually an unexpected gain."
Margarita's widened eyes slowly returned to normal. She looked at the former Bishop of Apocalypse with a strange expression, suddenly feeling that it was indeed too difficult to communicate with a plant.
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.
