As the most special and important planet in the Shadow Space, Gaia was rarely opened to the public. To the ordinary citizens of the City of Shadows, the upside-down land hanging above their heads was just a beautiful backdrop that could be seen but not touched. It was said that there were many urban legends related to Gaia in the City of Shadows. For example, the continent that Gaia's surface was made of diamonds, or that a goddess lived on Gaia, or that the current City of Shadows was actually dug out from Gaia. These wild fantasies that didn't know the truth were always refreshing. Although most of them weren't reliable, I felt that this was more or less a part of the City of Shadows' culture. The citizens of various races would make up stories about the facilities of the Empire in their boredom. Then, they would bring them back to their own world and publish them into fairy tales and supernatural novels to swindle money.
The alternation of day and night on the surface of the planet followed the Empire's common time. When Sandora and I left Avalon, the sky had just begun to darken. Thus, when we arrived on the planet, it just happened to be enveloped by the sunset. Because the planet itself wasn't affected by the space environment, and at the same time, there was the planet's shield filtering mechanism. Thus, the sky on the planet was just like the City of Shadows, artificially created by a simulation device. Today, the manager of the planet had set up a beautiful theme package for his home. The sunset glow in the sky was as perfect as a painting. The silver-gray alloy land beneath our feet extended to the horizon, while the other end of our line of sight was a lush mountain range. The combination of these sceneries was unexpectedly harmonious, and even gave off a sense of desolation and vastness.
Sandora always mocked herself that the Shiring Apostles didn't know anything about art. However, in my opinion, many of the things that they had unintentionally created were already enough to amaze shallow humans as magnificent miracles.
Sandora and I were currently near the equator of the planet. There was a small, roughly rectangular artificial continent here. The facility that Sister Gaia had mentioned was underneath this continent. The plaza that we were standing on looked like an extension of a large facility. The alloy land beneath our feet indicated that it was the standard base of the Empire's base. Behind us, there were huge silver-gray buildings that looked like neat swords pointing to the sky a few kilometers away.
"That's one of my redundant processing arrays. I just built it a few days ago." Just as I was looking at the neatly arranged buildings in the distance, I suddenly heard an ethereal voice from beside me. I turned around and saw a light blue, translucent figure standing beside me. The faint ripples of a halo behind her indicated that this image had just been projected. "When I'm bored, I make improvements to the planet and enhance my own functions. Now, the research center is carrying out a lot of large-scale projects. Bubble said that her type of mainframe is not good at handling large repetitive tasks. It just so happens that my core architecture is specially designed for such large data processing tasks. So, I intend to help her and her mainframe network share some of the data pressure. More similar arrays are being built on the planet. Hmm, I should have reported to you about this. "
I thought about it. The report that I read two days ago did mention that Gaia was adding some modules to herself on the planet. Then, realization dawned on me. "Oh … So that's what you are talking about. I remember now. I just didn't expect those things to look like this after they are built. You know, my impression of mainframe facilities has always been that of a pyramid. I thought you had built a bunch of new Mother Nests for yourself."
Sister Gaia smiled, and the light on her body flickered. "I can no longer use the standard Mother Nests in my current state, Your Majesty. Now, I am relying on these auxiliary devices that I have designed to work. This is probably a blessing in disguise. Without the restraint of the standard body, I feel that my expansion ability is many times stronger than the average mainframe. I can cover the entire planet with my own plug-in and use the planet's psionic well to recharge myself. I don't have to worry about overloading. Hmm, the only drawback is that I can't use a universal jack. I will need an adapter to communicate with other mainframes. Fortunately, there are only two types of mainframes in the Empire, me and Bubble. The adapter is also very simple. "
I looked at Gaia, feeling that the topic was rather subtle. From my point of view, this beautiful phantom sister was not in a good state. She had lost her body forever and was not even allowed to use artificial limbs. She could only be fixed to the planet as a program and a soul. To an intelligent being, this was definitely not something to be happy about. However, Gaia did not seem to mind this situation at all. She had lived in this state for tens of thousands of years, and it was possible that she would continue to be like this. Yet, she just smiled, expressing her satisfaction that she could continue working. Perhaps she really felt that she had no regrets. After all, I had talked to her about this more than once. I knew that she would not force a smile on her face to comfort anyone. This was not the style of the Shiring Apostles. I could only say that different lifeforms had very different ways of thinking. As a human … Alright, as a Void Creature, with the little bit of human worldview that I had left, it was really difficult for me to understand the thought process of the Shiring Apostles.
In the end, I decided not to dwell on the problem of worldview for the time being. I mentioned the crystal to Gaia. "Sandora and I are here to take a look at the big rock. I heard that you have already placed it?"
Gaia revealed a very happy smile. "Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you for your hard work. The Heart of the World has returned to its original position. I will lead the way for you. The installation is below … "
As soon as she finished speaking, Gaia's projected body turned into a stream of light and rapidly sank into the alloy ground. Sandora and I looked at each other. "… Did she forget something?"
After a while, Gaia appeared again as expected. As he opened the teleportation door, he smiled awkwardly at me and Sandora. "I am sorry, Your Majesties. It has been tens of thousands of years since I have led anyone into this place … I forgot."
I chuckled. "It's okay. Actually, I am used to it. When I was at home, Anveena would drag me to see her new dishes. Basically, she would drag me to the kitchen wall every time …"
Gaia's expression was stunned. A line of words appeared above his head. "Now Loading …"
I felt that this was another form of racial segregation!
The security facility that stored the crystal was deep underground. It should have already entered a part of the planet's mantle. Mother Planet Gaia was a custom-made planet. Its mantle itself existed as a storage point for all kinds of facilities with higher security requirements. In fact, there were actually more factories and data processing cores on this layer than on the surface of Mother Planet. We entered the underground world of Mother Planet through the surface teleportation door. What greeted us was an unprecedentedly vast space in the mantle. A few kilometers above our heads was a slightly curved alloy dome. On the dome, we could see sparsely distributed lights and a slowly changing psionic network. It should be the physical part of the energy network that supplied energy to the surface facilities. Below the dome, there was a large hole in the mantle that stretched as far as the eye could see. This hole was probably more than ten kilometers high. Dark red lava surged deep under our feet. In such an environment, ordinary people would probably faint if they lowered their heads to look at it. I couldn't see any 'ground' that could isolate people from the underground lava below. However, I was indeed standing on something. This should be a transparent cover. I felt that this design was quite bad taste, especially for those who had acrophobia, claustrophobia, falling phobia, fire phobia and agoraphobia. This place magically combined all the creepy landforms into one. I could only say that Gaia really didn't have a human mentality. When she modified this planet, she was completely based on practical and convenient standards.
On the invisible 'ground' under our feet, there was a series of large buildings. Gaia introduced the situation here to us. "This is the first big hole. There are a total of twenty such holes in the mantle. The first hole is actually the smallest one. This is where the main part of the Sky Data Center is stored. Of course, this data center is now undergoing remodeling because the fifteen Sky Sectors have disintegrated. The structure of this data center does not meet the needs of the current Empire. So, I plan to completely restructure it so that it can be used as a backup database for the research center in the future. As for the current data center in the New Empire, it is still being maintained by the Bubble. Well, this project will be completed soon. I have already started the construction. Look over there … "
Gaia led us into the air and quickly flew past the huge data centers that looked like dominoes. Then, she suddenly slowed down and pointed at a rectangular building not far away. I saw that the outer shell of the building had been dismantled, revealing the complex crystallized structure inside. Dim psionic energy was slowly flowing between the dazzling crystal grids. It seemed that the facility was still operating, but it had entered a minimum standby state. On this' construction site ', a group of autonomous robots were busy working.
The autonomous robots were the largest 'residents' on Gaia. Gaia treated them like her own children. I noticed that Gaia had a faint smile on her face as she looked at the busy robots. Then, she pointed at the largest autonomous robot, which looked like the commander of a small team. "Your Majesty, do you remember this one?"
"This is …" I was stunned for a moment. But when I saw the remodeling plug-in on the autonomous robot that had not been completely removed, I immediately reacted. "Ah, I brought it out from the ruins of the old Empire's deep submersible port! Has it started working again? "
"It asked for it." Gaia smiled. "Autonomous robots have a simple mind, but they have basic thinking. Even if they have no personality, they like to work. This child applied for a reboot on the third day. Now, it is the best performing one. "
I looked at the small robot that was excitedly flying around the construction site below, helping to dismantle the data center. Mm, perhaps I should call it the big robot. I felt a sense of relief. It seemed that it had returned to its favorite lifestyle.
"Speaking of which, you are really busy every day," I couldn't help but say as I glanced at Gaia.
To be honest, Gaia didn't have much of a presence around me. She couldn't leave the mother planet, so naturally, she couldn't participate in any meetings. Only her reports would appear in the headquarters office. This would probably give people the wrong impression that Gaia wasn't active in the ruling class of the Empire. But this was a completely wrong impression. On the contrary, Gaia was as busy as workaholics like Syves and Tawil. She took care of the mother planet alone. At the same time, she completed the reconstruction project of the ancient mother planet and the various central facilities of the New Empire. As a powerful and expanded Super Schilling Host with a large number of components, she also shared a large amount of complicated data for the Bubble and the Mass Bubble. In many areas that outsiders couldn't notice, Gaia took care of everything conscientiously. Only when you personally visited the mother planet and saw the busy data centers and factories, as well as the various reconstruction sites, would you truly realize this.
However, in response to my sigh, Gaia said calmly, "My idle system resources have yet to be fully utilized. I should find a way to speed up the reconstruction of the ancient facilities on the mother planet. Back then, the defense and control center of the fifteenth sky zone had to be synchronized with the headquarters of the City of Shadows. It has many logic hosts that are still in good condition, so it can't be left idle. Mm, my work efficiency needs to be further improved … "
A standard Shiring Apostles.
We came to the place where the crystals were stored.
This was located in the center of the underground cave. The crystal storage facility looked similar to the surrounding data centers, but it was nearly twice the size and the surface structure was more complicated. Even if my understanding of the data centers was limited, I could guess that this building and the surrounding facilities should belong to the same system. Gaia soon confirmed my guess. The large rectangular building in front of us was the host of the fifteenth sky zone's data center. It managed the 122 servers that were neatly distributed in the entire cave. It received information from all channels in the fifteenth sky zone, and after preliminary processing, it was sent to Gaia, various dedicated host arrays, various levels of command and administrative departments, as well as the Emperor himself. Its function was similar to the mass production Bubble host array in the City of Shadows. Of course, its ability was slightly more powerful than the latter. After all, the fifteenth sky zone back then … was larger than the entire New Empire (excluding the macro world).
"Because I lost the ability to mass-produce hosts, I started to build these huge servers." Gaia introduced us to the origin of these rectangular facilities. At the same time, it should be the origin of the various data processing facilities on the mother planet that far exceeded the standard. "They are a little more troublesome to set up, not as easy to use as the mass production hosts, and they don't have the ability to build. But because my body can be expanded infinitely, if I connect to these servers, I can greatly increase their efficiency. So, this system has always been working well. In certain aspects of batch and repetitive data processing, it is even better than the general-purpose Schilling host. As for the construction of the fifteenth sky zone, it was handed over to those specially designed autonomous robots. Now that I think about it, the work back then was actually even more arduous than it is now … "
With Gaia's introduction, we arrived at the core of the data center. In front of us was an ordinary hall that looked like some kind of computer room. The area of this rectangular hall was about the size of two basketball courts. On both sides of the rectangular hall were a large number of equipment that looked like standing cabinets. At the center of the hall was the huge crystal that had just returned to its position. It was floating on a non-gravity platform that protruded out of the ground. It was slowly rotating, reflecting light that was constantly changing.
"This crystal was originally a part of the data center."
Gaia should have activated some of the equipment in the hall. I heard a low hum coming from behind the wall. Then, the slow rotation of the crystal gradually stopped. Some bright blue light beams that looked like scanning lines were projected from the non-gravity platform to the crystal. After a while, a large number of holographic projections appeared in the air in front of the non-gravity platform. There were complicated diagrams, machinery that I couldn't understand, and large chunks of text. It looked like a database that had just been opened.
"Isn't this the Heart of the World?" I asked an idiotic question. As expected, before I could retract my words, Sandora rolled her eyes at me. "So, you really forgot what we told you. The Heart of the World is an invisible conceptual thing. It is a point of information entanglement. It is just attached to a physical object. This crystal is the carrier of the Heart of the World, but why can't it have its own functions?"
"I didn't realize it for a while." I smiled embarrassedly. To relieve the awkwardness, I looked at Gaia again. "Is this something like a database?"
The data center had two main functions. One was to temporarily store information from all over the Heaven Zone, and the other was to process it. The first impression that this crystal gave me was the former. Schilling Technology did have many databases that looked like crystals.
Of course, the internal structure of these databases wasn't as simple as it looked.
"It has a core database function. At the same time, it also has a secondary cache and basic command calling function." Gaia nodded. "It is one of the core components of the data center. Its function isn't limited to temporarily storing data. You can think of it as a 'hard disk' that has the ability to filter information. This should make it easier for you to understand."
"Oh …" I answered casually. I slowly approached the crystal that was in a direct reading mode. I still remembered Sandora's guess.
This crystal seemed to have a consciousness. It chose a route to escape from the Old Empire.
I placed my hand on the crystal. It was cold to the touch and it was trembling slightly.
If you really have a consciousness, then you are already home. Can you communicate with us?
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