When I first heard that word, my first reaction was that it sounded amazing!
Because I didn't understand what they were talking about at all, and in my experience, hearing things from the mouths of scientists like Tarver that I didn't understand at all was always very impressive — by the way, I felt that everything they said was impressive.
"What is an original?" I couldn't help but ask Sandora. We were now on our way to the research center with Lin Xue and Alleria accompanying us. We had been staying in the City of Shadows ever since we returned from Kailudak.
Sandora thought for a while as if she was considering how to explain to me such a noun that obviously required a lot of Beijing's foreshadowing. Then, she pointed at herself and asked, "Ah Jun, do you know the life form of the Shiring Apostles?"
"Oh, a semi-energy construct," I nodded. "Non-fixed life forms. The basic unit of their body seems to be in a state between material and physical. They can be 'customized' according to their needs, so they have a strong ability to evolve and strengthen themselves. It seems that it is because of this that the Shiring Apostles have both physical and energy life forms. Moreover, these two completely opposite life forms belong to the same race …" As I spoke, I couldn't help but digress a little. The life form of the Shiring Apostles had surprised me from the beginning. That was why I had spent a long time researching them. For example, I gave Pandora a physical checkup … Erm, I meant chatted with them. That was why I had a deep understanding of this field of knowledge. "That's right, non-fixed life forms.
"That's right, a non-fixed life form. According to the needs of the battlefield and evolution, it can 'customize' its own body." Shadora nodded. "You also know that the Xi Ling Apostles have many branches, and the difference between each branch is so huge that they are almost two separate species. Just like the Armored Scorpion and Raven, Alaya and Pandora. Logically speaking, they are almost separate species, and their life forms are not similar at all, but in fact, all the branches are one species …"
As Sandora spoke, she suddenly fell into silence. After a few seconds, she raised her head and looked into my eyes. "Ah Jun, do you think such a life form can be a product of natural evolution?"
"What do you mean?" I couldn't react for a moment.
"The Shiring Apostles were created. I remember I mentioned it to you a long time ago." Sandora took a deep breath. "In order to defeat the enemy, an even more ancient race created … or should I say, modified the Shiring Apostles. It is because of this that we have the foundation to become strong. Our current life form is evolved from an ancient customization mechanism. This mechanism allows the Shiring Apostles' life form to adapt to the environment almost limitlessly. As long as there is a slight possibility, we can always modify ourselves to be able to face any kind of challenge that we might encounter. In the long evolution process of the Shiring Apostles, in order to defeat the enemy and the environment, there have been countless' evolutions' of the entire race. We have completely transformed ourselves into another life form to make ourselves stronger. In this process, the various branches that you see now were born: armored scorpion, raven, artificial angel, war machine, evoker … These independent branches of life form were all evolved to deal with a certain kind of strong enemy. Some people once called the Shiring Apostles a war virus. In fact, this is not wrong. Our evolution and self-modification abilities are stronger than viruses. In fact, even now, after the establishment of the New Empire, the Shiring Apostles are still undergoing the evolution of the entire race. The evolution process to become the third Protoss is essentially just a large-scale evolution. This kind of evolution has been with us for hundreds of millions of years. "
"Hey, what are you trying to say?" Lin Xue looked at Sandora and finally couldn't help but ask.
"What I want to say is that the current Shiring Apostles have gone through countless generations. The number of branches has also increased through the process of countless generations. Before all this happened, when the Shiring Apostles were first 'created', they actually had a single life form. At that time, we only had one kind of apostle …"
"The original!" At this moment, I suddenly understood the term that I heard from Tawil. At this moment, everyone had already arrived at the entrance of the research facility. Tawil's main body was personally waiting at the entrance with her high-level assistants. She had an excited expression on her face as she quickly walked towards me and Sandora. "Your Majesty, it is the original. We can confirm that the sample has an initial serial number stored in his body. There are no signs of evolution from head to toe!"
"Good, bring us there now." Sandora nodded and gestured for us to follow her. Even though I had a stomach full of questions in the past few seconds, it didn't seem to be the time to ask. Thus, I could only pull Miss Lin along and follow Tawil to the place where they were analyzing the remains.
This was a small comprehensive research facility used for precise analysis of smaller samples. The ancient remains that we had found on Ancach 5 were fixed on a long platform in the middle of the research facility. The power armor that the warrior was wearing had been carefully removed and placed on another platform in the corner of the room. It was currently being scanned by automatic equipment. The warrior who had removed his power armor laid lifelessly on the platform in front of everyone. His skin had a texture that was between metal and plastic, and there were specks of light swimming around.
When I looked at the warrior's entire body, his characteristics that were similar to a war puppet or a normal robot became even more obvious. There were obvious interfaces at his joints, and I could see blue inserts in the interfaces. Now, I knew that those were the original psionic adaptation modules that allowed the body to directly use psionic energy. In the current Shiring Apostles, these adaptations had already evolved into their basic body units. Even high-level apostles could directly use psionic energy without these modules.
All of this knowledge was explained when Tawil introduced us to her findings. As I listened to Tawil's introduction, I sized up the ancient Shiring Apostles who were known as the "original". At the same time, a large number of puzzling points were circling in my mind, and I couldn't suppress them any longer.
"The original is the first generation of Shiring Apostles, right?"
I looked at Tawil and asked. She thought for a while and said, "Not exactly, because creating a race from scratch is not something that can be completed in an instant. The ancient race that created the Shiring Apostles was not that powerful, so the first Shiring Apostles were created in batches over a relatively long period of time. Therefore, the 'first generation of Shiring Apostles' is just a general term. The original refers to the Shiring Apostles that were born in a certain period of history. They did not undergo evolution, but were completely designed by the ancient creators. The original retained all the characteristics of their birth, and at the same time, all the flaws. As you can see, this warrior is even similar to a war puppet. In fact, many of the components in his body are not very suitable for the actual situation, or the design is far from reaching the level where the best effect can be exerted, at least in theory. "
After Tawil's explanation, I understood the characteristics of the original, but it did not lessen the confusion in my heart. "Then, why would the Merovans want to get their hands on an original?"
"The meaning is unclear," Sandora said softly. "The original has a special meaning to the Shiring Apostles, but they are an ancient design after all. From a practical point of view, even the most powerful original is not as powerful as an ordinary soldier. Furthermore, the technology contained in the original … should not be of much interest to the Merovans. They have followed the Empire for many years, and they have more advanced technology in their hands. Now, I just want to know, why does the original still exist, and why did it drift to such a distant place … "
"Speaking of which, I just remembered." I slapped my head, remembering that I had a question that I did not have time to ask before. "Sandora, the original should be something very important to the Shiring Apostles, just like an ancestor, but … when you first saw the original on Ancach 5, why didn't you recognize it?"
I still remembered the expression on Sandora's face when she first saw the coffin and the remains in the coffin. It was pure surprise and confusion. There were many Shiring Apostles at that time, but none of them recognized the original. This warrior was only identified after he was sent to the research institute. This was indeed a little confusing.
"I knew you would definitely ask this." Shadora smiled faintly and glanced at me. "Because the information regarding the original body … Who knows how many years ago, it was almost a legend to us."
"Huh?"
"Even a civilization as powerful as the Schilling's had its ups and downs," Alleria said next to me. "In the early years, we were also homeless, our homes were destroyed, and the entire race was in exile. It was even said that during the most difficult times, we did not even have a planet to settle on. The inheritance of information was thus fragmented, and the records about the original … were gradually cut off under those circumstances."
Lin Xue and I were stunned as we listened to Alleria's narration in a trance. She was talking about an era that we had never thought of, an era where the Shiring Apostles had yet to reach their peak and were far from being powerful in the Void. In the future, the Shiring Apostles, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the gods and were known as the Third God, also struggled to survive and fought bravely.
It was not hard to imagine. In fact, it should be said that as a civilization that developed from the mortal stage, no matter how powerful it was at its peak, it was impossible to be born as tyrannical as the rich second generation of the Protoss. Although I knew this, I had never really understood this part of the history of the Empire, so it felt surreal at first glance. It was probably like suddenly knowing that Bill Gates washed dishes and Onyxia was also an egg. Although there was nothing wrong with it, it did not stop the psychological impact, okay?
"Most of the history of the initial birth period can no longer be verified, including where the ancient race that created us came from, what they encountered before that decided to create the super life like the Shiring Apostles, and the fate of our original homeland. There are only scattered records of these things, stored here —" Sandora pointed to her forehead. "In the basic memory bank. We only know that after that ancient race created the 'apostles', this type of life, they completely disappeared. They transferred all of their culture and knowledge into the apostles' database, basically handing over their entire civilization to their own creations, and then disappeared into the void. Their civilization and mission before they died continued in their own creation, so we call ourselves the Apostles, not the 'Schilling people'. Although many people who don't know the inside story often confuse the two, and in some cases, people will directly shorten the Shiring Apostles to the Schilling people, we never call ourselves that. The Schilling people are extinct, and we are the Shiring Apostles … "
"Did they create the Apostles to fight against the Abyss?" Lin Xue suddenly thought of something and asked.
Sandora thought for a moment and nodded. "Although there are no direct records, considering that the initial memory bank memory is the information of the battle with the Abyss, this should be the truth of that year. We were created to fight against the Abyss, or perhaps we should call them weapons of war, but no one knows why the Creators did it to this extent. They completely replaced their position with the 'Apostles', and handed over their entire civilization. They were a mortal race, but they created the Apostles, a life that could evolve in the direction of God. This is difficult for us to understand. The research on the Creators has not been interrupted throughout the Old Empire era, but until the collapse of the Empire, there was no progress in this research, and by the time the New Empire era, it had become impossible to carry out the project. "
"The records about the Originator are similar," Alleria continued. "The Originator and the Creators were basically in the same era. We have always speculated that during the first period of the Originator's birth, they may even have lived with the Creators for a period of time. Perhaps the Creators had carried out the final refinement and modification of the Originator during that time, but later they found that they could no longer understand these rapidly self-perfecting super life forms, and chose to leave. This is all the speculation of the scholars. After the complete disappearance of the Creators, the Originator became the successor of the Schilling Civilization. They continued to search for traces of the Abyss, fought everywhere, and followed the original instructions: evolve, become stronger, and destroy the Abyss, and continued to develop by any means necessary. In the process, there should have been several disasters that almost caused the destruction of the civilization, and records about them were also intermittent in those super battles. But each disaster failed to defeat the Originator. They ignored all obstacles and evolved, customizing their own life forms, occupying all places that could bring them value, and then evolved again according to the local environment. In the end, the 'branch race' appeared after the Originator, and once again turned the entire Schilling Civilization upside down. The single-evolution Originator was replaced by the branch race. The Originator divided themselves into several groups according to the needs of the race, and each group was modified towards a fixed function. The original Originator was comprehensive, and the Creators integrated all their racial talents into the Originator, allowing them to have a variety of combat styles. But the branch race chose to abandon this mixed and unrefined route, returning to the state of specialization differentiation like the Creators, and did it more thoroughly. Armored Scorpions, Ravens, Heavy-Armored Soldiers, and other apostles that were determined by race appeared in batches, ushering in the era of the branch race. The history after that is clear information in the database, and the records about the Originator are basically the same as my narration, similar to a story. "
When Alleria finished, Lin Xue and I stood beside the 'Originator', quietly looking at the latter's simple and primitive psionic parts. "This is the first Originator to appear before you in history, isn't it?"
Alleria, Tawil, and Sandora nodded silently.
"How did the Melovans know about the existence of the Originator?" I suddenly asked a question. "Have you ever talked to your vassal races about the original source? That shouldn't be possible. "
"The Melovans may have found the records of the Originator from some of the Empire's equipment that they stole," Alleria said. "When we took inventory of the supplies in the Celestial Realm, we found that a considerable part of the lost facilities were scientific research facilities. It's not surprising that the Melovans knew about the Originator from those materials."
"Then the question is back to square one: what do the Melovans want the Originator for?" This time, even Great Prophet Lin Xue was confused. She spread her hands and looked at each of us. "They want to create the Originator too? Is that even possible? "
Lin Xue's words shocked me. I instinctively felt that the prophet might have accidentally come into contact with the truth again, but Alleria immediately denied it. "It's meaningless. Replicating the Originator is meaningless. It's too obvious. From our point of view, the Originator is only slightly stronger than the War Puppets. The Melovans are not fools, even if they have the Originator. From the body structure of the original body, even if they studied it to the limit, they could only replicate a war puppet in its original form. That was because more and deeper knowledge could not be obtained from the original body, and the information at the beginning of creation had been lost along with the death of the creator. What's more, even if the Melovans replicated the same body as the modern apostles, they could only create a group of super soldiers. I know a little about that race. They worship power and think highly of themselves because of their ancient qualifications. Therefore, they must have ambitions that match their nature. What they are after … I'm afraid it's something bigger. "
"For example …" I thought for a moment. "They also want to become Shiring Apostles?"
The scene quieted down. After a few seconds, Sandora actually smiled. "Because God is dead, the servants of that day want to sit on the altar themselves … That's an interesting ambition."
"I'm just guessing." I spread my hands. "But Alleria also said that studying the Originator to the limit can only replicate the War Puppets. To think that only the creator knows the core technology used to create the Originator. I'm afraid the Melovans' ambition can only be that."
"With this ambition and the actions they have taken," Sandora narrowed her eyes, "it's already a crime worthy of death."
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.
