When I wandered around the City of Shadows, I would often bump into Schilling. She was a little muddle-headed and always seemed to be wandering around aimlessly. She would unconsciously appear in a few specific locations, and these locations were basically the places that Sandora and I liked to visit. This was probably related to her life form. As the group consciousness of the Schilling tribe, she was more inclined to pay attention to the movements of the tribe leader. The coordinates that Sandora and I usually stayed at were probably the places that Schilling was most familiar with.
This could explain why Schilling always stayed in Silvia's dessert shop. This place was basically Sandora's second paradise. By the way, Sandora's first paradise was the kitchen at home.
Speaking of Schilling, her life in the City of Shadows was very comfortable. She always wandered around leisurely. Other than going to the research center to cooperate with Tawil's various experiments, she spent nearly twenty hours a day idling around. I was really envious of her leisurely life. However, according to Bubble, Schilling's daily workload was unusually large. Basically, every Shiring Apostles in the spiritual network were constantly uploading and downloading data through her. However, Schilling herself did not seem to be aware of her work. All the data exchange at this level was handled by the spiritual network's underlying protocol. As the highest consciousness of the network, Schilling could not even feel those things. This was the reason why the Xi Ling apostles' spiritual network was able to function normally even though Xi Ling had been wandering outside for so many years. Most of the work had been taken care of by the 'subconscious' side of the spiritual network. As the surface consciousness, Xi Ling was as carefree as a retired old cadre for seven or eight years. No, when I saw her silly and listless face, I couldn't help but think of the pile of reports on my desk. I had to quickly divert my attention.
"Yo, long time no see." I shook my head and put the doll on the table. Then, I suddenly realized something and put the doll on the chair. (The doll pays a lot of attention to her image outside. She feels that it's embarrassing to be placed on the table like a doll. She doesn't have such concerns at home.) I raised my hand to greet Schilling. "You changed your image again?"
The tall young lady with long black hair had been staring at Sylvia from the very beginning. She abruptly lifted her head when she heard my voice. Noticing my arrival, she frantically stood up and clumsily performed a military salute. "Greetings, Your Majesty. I saw an image in the shared data link and I liked it a lot, but I couldn't change it back after I changed it. End of report! "
I replied, "… Ugh, that's your style. Speaking of which, how long has Sylvia been asleep? "
My gaze fell on Sylvia. The silver-haired mole was still snoring on the table. She did not notice my movement, nor did she seem to care about Schilling. As the store manager, her image was really unbearable. She lived in her own little world forever. She probably had to filter out eighty to ninety percent of the stimuli from the outside world.
"I don't know. She was sleeping when I came here," Schilling replied seriously. "I'm waiting for her to wake up. When she wakes up, I can eat … Oh, I can also bring some snacks back for Tawil. Tawil asked me to bring some snacks back."
I was surprised. "Huh? Tawil also eats? "
Then, I felt that this question was really strange. It took me ten seconds to react. Usually, Tawil's iron man image of "working day and night, thousands of threads doing research" had already been deeply ingrained in people's hearts. That mad scientist who could lead several basketball courts and work three shifts at a time had almost become a special species in my mind. Suddenly knowing that she could actually eat and drink on a daily basis, the impact on me was definitely no less than an ordinary person seeing their parents pouring lubricant into their ankles while they were at work …
Schilling was also stunned by this strange question. However, she was the type who could easily forget things that she did not understand. Soon, her attention was diverted by my next sentence. "Speaking of which, a batch of relatively special 'nodes' have been merged into your network these past two days. How do you feel?"
The relatively special 'nodes' that I was referring to were none other than the large group of Fallen Apostles led by Halland.
Hundreds of thousands of Fallen Apostles had officially merged into the New Empire's spiritual network the afternoon before yesterday. Of course, because a portion of the Fallen Apostles had yet to be purified, they were installed in an isolated network segment. The superior nodes of this network segment were me and Xiaoxue. Through the information disturbance produced by the two Void Creatures, the low-level Fallen Apostles that were installed in the network would be purified. This was the fastest way for us to reverse convert the Fallen Apostles. Regardless of whether it was the isolated network segment or the Empire's main network, as long as it was a spiritual connection based on the Apostle nodes, there would definitely be an intersection with Schilling. This was determined by the network's structure, so there was no possibility of a detour. Strictly speaking, 'Schilling' wasn't a 'definite individual' that could be viewed as an independent entity. She was the collective will produced by billions of Shiring Apostles as nodes. Since her will was of such a high level in the network, there was no difference between a Fallen Apostle and a normal Apostle to her. They could only be considered as a node, and a node could only represent two states of 'connected' and 'not connected'. In the past, there was no such individual as' Schilling 'in our network. The Fallen Apostles that were connected to the network did not have any visible influence on the network itself. But now, we had an unblockable' Super Network Administrator ', and there were so many captured soldiers under Halland. I was a little worried that Schilling would be affected by some kind of … contamination.
Although it wasn't a good thing to say, before the soldiers under Halland were completely purified, they were indeed the most dangerous source of contamination within the Empire. Putting them on the network required hundreds of security protocols. The potential harm of these contamination sources was clear to see. Moreover, Schilling just so happened to be directly connected to these Fallen Apostles. Although the connection between the two wasn't a direct exchange of information, and the network also had security protocols for this type of situation. In theory, the chances of the latter infecting the former was zero. But this didn't affect my worry, right?
Schilling's expression momentarily became a little sluggish. I felt as if static electricity had appeared around me, as if I was enveloped in a certain force field. I knew that this was the other party completely inspecting her core program. A moment later, Schilling smiled and shook her head. "It feels normal."
Only then did I completely relax. Then, I looked at Silvia together with Schilling. I wanted to see when this sluggish and comfortable silver-haired mole would wake up. Speaking of which, Schilling was really honest. Who knew how long she had been sitting there, not thinking of going somewhere else?
"Actually, it's not that long." Schilling smiled peacefully. "It's very relaxing here. You can forget about the rift …"
Schilling once again mentioned the 'rift'. It was an information fault zone in the apostle's spiritual network. It was an undetectable network vacuum. This thing was an unsolved mystery. We didn't even know about the existence of the 'rift' until Schilling appeared. Tawil had already been operating a special project team to investigate the 'rift'. However, there had been no progress so far. Now that I heard Schilling mention this matter, I immediately became interested. "Did anything change in the rift?"
I was just asking casually. I didn't expect to hear any new information. However, Schilling actually nodded. "It seems to have shrunk a little. A few days ago, I carefully observed the situation near the rift and found that the nodes affected by it had decreased by about 1% … But sometimes, the rift will fluctuate like this. It's just that in the past, the amplitude of the fluctuation would not exceed 0.5%. This time, it seems to be a little bigger."
As a creature living in the material world, I needed some deduction to understand what Schilling meant. She meant that the fault zone of the Empire Data Network was decreasing? The network nodes that lacked termination marks were decreasing?
"That should be a good thing." I scratched the back of my head uncertainly. It was a little difficult for me to think about such a complicated problem. "What did Tawil say?"
"She is thinking of a way to create an interface." A holographic projection appeared in front of Schilling. It displayed some kind of complex and enormous device that seemed to take up the entire room. In the center of the device were several hibernation pods. "Your perception is different from mine. If I explain things about the rift to you, you will never be able to fully understand what kind of place it is. That is why Tawil wants to create such a device to completely transfer the minds of outsiders into the network. That way, you will be able to observe the rift from the same perspective as me."
I suddenly recalled that Tawil had mentioned such a device in the technical report that she had submitted a while ago. She said that she was creating a device that could share senses with Schilling and could even transfer a person's soul into the apostle's spiritual network. Of course, that was all I could remember. The report was quite detailed, but what I could understand was basically limited to the title and the conclusion at the end …
Just as I was chatting with Schilling, Sylvia, who was lying on the table, finally woke up. The silver-haired girl got up and stretched. She looked at the two guests in front of her in a daze. "Oh, Chen and Schilling, you're here?"
"I want to eat something." Schilling waved her hand in the air and created a holographic projection of a bunch of snacks. "These, two servings. Tawil wants one too."
Sylvia looked at the pile of pastries that needed to be processed on the spot and nodded. Then, she looked at me with a questioning gaze. I casually picked up the little doll that was dozing off from boredom and passed it to her. "I brought my child here. Make whatever she wants."
Sylvia conveniently tucked the doll under her armpit and went to the back of the shop to busy herself. Surprisingly, the Silver Mole was usually slow to the point of being in the late stages of Parkinson's, but when it came to making desserts, she didn't delay her work. Of course, that was only when she was making desserts. If you asked her to bring out the desserts after making them, you'd basically starve to death. According to Sylvia herself, she used to open an accessory shop and would often make her own little toys. At that time, she wouldn't be delayed either. It was simply inexplicable.
I thought about this problem for a long time and finally came to a conclusion: Sylvia's slow-wittedness was probably only limited to when she was interacting with others or focusing on the outside world. When she was busy in her own little world, she seemed like a normal person.
Listening to the movements in the back of the shop, Schilling smiled in satisfaction. "Alright, Tawil will be able to have his breakfast soon."
I was stunned. My neck stiffly turned ninety degrees and I looked at the sunset outside. The afterglow of the setting sun illuminated the streets …
Schilling actually brought breakfast for Tawil! She watched Sylvia sleep during the day. She watched her for an entire day!
Hopefully, Tawil wouldn't be as stubborn as Schilling or Sylvia. She would starve to death sooner or later if she interacted with these two clowns … if an apostle could be starved to death.
Looking at the small shop, I suddenly recalled something that Xiaoxue and Halland mentioned when they met two days ago:
Halland really liked the waterless round cakes that Sylvia made.
Now, Halland was still in a state of repair. Sandora and I had teamed up to make a few holes in his body. It would probably take another two to three days to repair. I guessed that Halland and Belavilla knew each other, but I didn't know what kind of expression he would have when he saw the current Sylvia. After he was "discharged" from the hospital, maybe I should bring him to this shop to show him the difference between waterless round cakes and Sylvia. Filled with malice, I began to speculate what would happen when the two "former fallen emperors" met. The current Sylvia was simply a broken version of the original Belavilla …
The puppet and I ate a stomach full of cakes, biscuits, and other snacks before we went back. Before we left, we agreed to go to Schilling's house next time to play. Well, after Tawil's conversion device was completed, we would go to the spiritual network to see what the world looked like in Schilling's eyes. Before we left, I packed all the leftover snacks that Sylvia had sold and brought them back as a gift for Sandora. Since Sylvia didn't sell anything for the whole day, I pretty much moved everything out from her display window and behind the counter.
Schilling packed a few boxes of pastries. Before she left, she happily said that Tawil could finally eat breakfast. I wasn't going to complain about whether eating breakfast would make him fat, since Tawil wasn't human anyway. I just wanted to complain about Schilling's strange worldview. She lacked an effective sense of the environment that we "outsiders" lived in, and she didn't understand the habits of people in the real world. She still stubbornly believed that it was morning because "Tawil hasn't eaten breakfast yet." I looked outside and saw that the sky was almost completely dark. I thought to myself that Schilling wasn't wrong: at least Tawil would have breakfast tomorrow …
"By the way, you're a puppet. What's the point of eating?" I carried the little lamp back home and told my sister that I had eaten outside for dinner. Then, I started to study the puppet's digestive problems. She ate almost as many pastries as I did. I pinched the little girl's chin and studied her neat set of white teeth. I didn't stop until she bit my thumb and fiercely chewed on it twice.
"Idiot, this is alchemy. You don't understand." The doll-sized girl said with a proud expression. Then, she jumped off the table and ran to the table to grab some buns. Her appetite was growing. Did dolls grow taller too?
After dinner, Sandora ate dessert as usual. So, I took out the pastries that I had packed from Sylvia and shared them with the whole family. Sandora got 90%. When I was distributing the pastries, I noticed that there was someone missing in the house. The fox that had a strong sense of presence in every sense seemed to have disappeared.
"Where did the fox go?" I held a bag of animal biscuits and looked around. These biscuits were prepared for her. I felt like a poor person holding a bone and calling for a husky at home. I deeply regretted raising an idiot …
"I don't know. He ran out before dinner." Shallow Shallow said without lifting her head. She was busy soaking the biscuits in milk. When the biscuits were almost soft, she scooped them up with a spoon and ate them. This was her weird habit of eating biscuits. It had never changed since she was six years old.
Of course, this habit of hers was incomparable to Sandora's. Sandora had a habit of smearing wasabi on her biscuits and dipping them in sweet sauce. She would always have a cup of salted vegetable soup by her side. If her eating style were to be popularized to the world, I reckon it would immediately reflect the spirit of unity of the people. It was a test of one's mental fortitude.
Just as I was about to call the idiot fox to come home for dinner, a spatial door suddenly opened in the living room. A messy golden ball of fur rolled out from the door.
Actually, she ran out. But you have to understand that a fox's tail takes up more space than her. Usually, when she runs around, she gives off the impression of a golden ball of fur rolling around.
After the fox ran out of the spatial door, she ran in the direction of the food smell. She was completely controlled by her animal instincts. I grabbed one of her tails. Only then did the fox immortal realize that there was a group of people around. I noticed that her body was covered in mud. Her tail was a mess. Even the fur on her ears had fallen off. She looked unprecedentedly pathetic.
"You went to fight with a dog again!"
My voice instantly rose an octave. I was so angry at the fox immortal that she was becoming more and more degenerate.
Fox's ears drooped. It was a tacit agreement.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I pinched her ears. "You're a thousand-year-old fox demon. You won't show your face even if you fight with a dog!"
Fox turned her face away. "… I lost …"
Me: "…"
The whole family: "…"
She went to fight with a dog and actually lost!
I asked with a shocked expression. I finally understood what had happened. Fox went to Avalon to find an old friend. She met a vicious dog wandering around the temple area. Of course, the problem wasn't how vicious the dog was. The problem was —
That dog was called Cerberus. It was raised by Jingle to guard the garden area of the temple.
Fox had fought with Cerberus for nearly two hours. Currently, she had zero wins, two losses, and three draws. She planned to go home and fill her stomach before going to fight again …
I worked hard for a long time before I finally resisted the urge to put a collar around Madam Fox Immortal's neck. I realized that if I didn't find something for this fox to do, her next step would be to go to Atlantis and challenge Zeus and the others …
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