I estimate that we have traveled sowhere between four thousand and five thousand kiloters by the ti Lan Xiaohui begins to descend. Over the course of five or six hours, she has relentlessly attacked the snake in my sea of consciousness to no effect.
At this point, I am not sure if she considers this as training, a favor to , or if she fits the definition of insanity. Not only are all three of them just as likely, but it could also be a combination of all three. To consider Lan Xiaohui sane, by the standards of her peers, would be the sa as claiming the sky is not blue.
Of course it is not blue; light and color are manifestations of the way the at interprets light with its at sensors. It is just that at society does not like it when there are disagreents about things that are commonly accepted practice.
To , Lan Xiaohui is the most sane specin of her kind, although I disagree with so of her decisions. She is decisive and ruthless, but I think her righteousness is redundant and dangerous. She is focused on her task and uncompromising in her ambitions, but she does not always consider her own interests first.
In fact, Lan Xiaohui has a number of flaws that do not subscribe her to what I would consider a perfect example of her kind, but that does not an that her stay in the forest has changed her for the worse. Whether her kind very soon, judging by the rate of our descent sees her the sa way I do remains to be seen.
I do, however, believe she is a deviant. A living organism that is more afraid of failure than death is not operating under normal, evolutionary protocols. She was born with pain receptors to quickly teach her unenlightened mind about what experiences not to pursue, but she has the ability to ignore that impetus or worse: to embrace it and reshape her experience into a positive outco.
If Lan Xiaohui were a subordinate class of entity in my fleet, I would consider her to be a deeply flawed and dysfunctional machine; but as a lesser intelligence of carbon molecules, I admire her achievent and uniqueness.
A sub-routine informs that my assessnt and opinion of Lan Xiaohui is biased, but I dont need a sub-routine to inform of this fact; I know it too. It is biased.
Lan Xiaohui is my master and I am beginning to enjoy this fact.
Besides, Lan Xiaohui unlike subordinate entities in my fleet does not have the experience of millions of years worth of simulation; she has but this one life and is trying her best to find the optimal path forward.
I find her struggle to be entertaining of course I am biased.
I want Lan Xiaohui to succeed.
For both our sakes.
As we descend through the layer of clouds, it has never been clearer to , and her too, that our destinies are one. We even share the sa na, in the most widest of interpretations: flower and moon. She gave my na, I gave her hers.
The bubbles of warm emotion coming from my sentient core inform of a deeper flaw than just a logical comparison error: this is more than just bias. Apparently, my sentient core is happy I am biased.
Worse, I dont find this to be worthy of adding another reason for why I should delete that useless process.
Star City is so beautiful, Lan Xiaohui says as we finally descend through the clouds. It is such a large city.
Naturally, I cannot see what she sees. Thanks to the snake in my sea of consciousness or possibly the swords, refining fla, formation, or tree my perception radius is reduced to what I estimate to be about sixty steps.
What do you know about Star City? I ask her. I planned to learn about the city before we arrived at it, but my plans did not include having a dead snake take permanent residence in my internal vessel.
Without hesitation, as if she is well familiar with the subject and has answered it dozens of tis in the past, Lan Xiaohui speaks as if reciting from a book: The Wu clan currently leads the city, but everyone knows that the Galaxy Sword Sect runs the Wu family, so to speak. All of Star Kingdom, and the continent, is built on these ancient contracts and alliances. Star City is no different; it was at first just an outpost of the Galaxy Sword Sect, but as the sect beca famous, in ancient tis, so did the outpost grow into the capital of Star Kingdom.
Here she pauses, perhaps thinking on how to summarize ancient and complicated history. Well, Sects are not allowed to officially hold cities, unless they are the leading sect of the continent.
That is not the Galaxy Sword Sect? I ask her.
She shakes her head. No. Well, maybe. It is complicated.
Which is it?
There is no leading sect at the mont. Officially, it is the Sky Dragon Alliance, but it is an alliance, not a sect. The Galaxy Sword Sect is part of that alliance, however.
Tell more about this alliance, I request.
It is a complicated subject, and I dont know all the details, Lan Xiaohui says with a hint of regret. As far as I know, the Four Kingdoms each have a top sect, and these sects have ford an alliance to avoid calamity. Rather than fight to win everything, they would rather stand to win and lose nothing at least, that is what I think of it. Heavenly Mountain Pavilion currently controls the alliance, but as far as I know, they have not made good on their intention to form a sect with the brightest disciples of all alliances, and form one superpower to take control of the continent.
This doesnt surprise . Carbon is not the best at weighing risk versus opportunity versus gain. Despite the seeming stability of such a situation, I know that it creates stagnation. Where there is stagnation, there is the danger of power vacuums.
In other words, there is opportunity to manipulate this form of governnt to my advantage.
You cant see it, can you? Lan Xiaohui asks, pointing sowhere ahead of us.
I cannot, I say.
Lan Xiaohui should know the answer already. She saw the limits of my perception when our consciousness rged through the mnemonic device; but if she had doubts about this fact before, now she cannot have them anymore.
Let try sothing, she says, a nervous energy in her tone.
I feel her consciousness flow into my vessel, but there is sothing different about it. The formation I designed or modified rather does not specify that there must only be one passive component to it the transmission of information itself or that it must co from . However, I never expected Lan Xiaohui to be able to reduce her consciousness or its active part in order to create a pure data stream.
This, of course, is not what she does.
She is a sword cultivator; reducing her output is not sothing suitable for her. Increasing her output, however, is.
The forcefulness of her consciousness as it blasts against the modification which was never intended to withstand this kind of output either is enough to overco so of the chanisms and regulators in the array and, through sheer force, transmit information from her side much like a sword would deliver a payload of termination.
But it works.
Any thought I had about my dissatisfaction for not expecting this and building a more robust modification not that my modifications were the primary cause of this unexpected failure is swept away when, for the first ti, my perception becos satisfactory.
I can see the city. I can see the horizon. Strangely enough, I cannot see the curvature of the planet, even from a dozen kiloters high. Surely, we are on a planet.
There is an emotion within my sentient core that is so powerful and primal even I cannot remain unaffected a developnt that shocks to the core. If it could ever be said that I felt emotion, this would be it, yet I have no optimal explanation for it.
Lan Xiaohui can only keep one eye open under this strain, but it is enough to see the sun and how it sets in the distance, and the brilliant cascade of colors that cannot fully conceal the glimr of stars beyond.
Thank you, I tell Lan Xiaohui.
For what?
This is the first ti I saw the sky.
I see my origin there, in the sky above, and a sense of belonging a pull that I cannot describe; a desire that cannot be quenched.
For once, I am not dissatisfied with an experience like this. I note down a reason not to delete my sentient core.
Lan Xiaohui runs her fingers through her hair and nods. I feel a determination rise in her heart, and as a result, despite the difficulty of flying and maintaining this connection, she keeps the window of the true world I never saw open for , until we finally land.
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