For Yvette, deploying an ordinary AI model would be aningless; she wasn’t looking to install a chat application in her mind. Therefore, her focus was on specialized AI, which, in simpler terms, ant models with low versatility but excellent performance in specific fields.
As is well-known, the data used to train AI is far more precious than the algorithms themselves, and these datasets are monopolized by gacorporations. Thus, there was no choice but to spend money.
After so investigation and seeking input from Firefly, Yvette settled on a target: a research-grade AI model from Black Tower Pharmaceuticals called “Core of the Sage.” This model ca with its own database and was primarily designed to assist in detecting and analyzing various pharmacological properties, making it an essential tool for creating potions, rune elixirs, and even active runes.
Of course, she had long mastered the knowledge of rune dicine, capable of crafting many potions and rune elixirs by hand. However, she faced two issues: firstly, she had no real need for it, and secondly, while she understood high-level theoretical fraworks, she lacked foundational pharmacological material knowledge—specifically, which materials could be used to create which potions involved rote morization she had never delved into.
This led her to a frustrating situation where she possessed extensive knowledge about rune dicine yet faced significant difficulty when it ca ti to practice.
Now, with this AI, things would beco much easier. She would finally be able to engage in the production and compounding of magical potions—albeit still as an unlicensed practitioner.
……
By July, in a small county neighboring Firth River, Yvette, Lianna, and Firefly rented a modest apartnt, leading a low-profile life for two months.
During this ti, the attention surrounding the Firth River catastrophe had considerably waned; whether on Rustbone’s internal networks or the international networks from Black Tide Continent, few people still ntioned it.
However, the internal investigations by Rustbone officials and the Holy Spirit Sect had never slackened. In particular, the small county where Yvette resided, which had never had surveillance at its intersections, now had drones zipping through the streets—a clear indication of who they were targeting.
This was easily understandable; who could tolerate a creature capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties roaming within their borders? Even if the Pope of the Holy Spirit Sect was willing to overlook it, the Pri Minister and cabinet mbers of Rustbone certainly would not.
Thus, to avoid stirring any trouble with the Rustbone authorities, Yvette kept a low profile, living as an ordinary apothecary, arranging glass bottles filled with various liquids in her room and familiarizing herself with the combinations of magical potions.
Of course, remaining here also had another reason: it was still close to Firth River. Yvette worried that moving further away might lead her to encounter the boundaries of the dream world.
Even if Zero had ntioned that this wasn’t an entirely false world, she preferred to spend the remaining ti practicing potion compounding here rather than risk any dangerous actions.
As ti passed, autumn arrived.
With the ti left in the dream dwindling to less than a month, the chase for Yvette and the others by Rustbone officials beca noticeably slack again. The streets returned to normal, and the drones flashing red and blue lights vanished from sight.
At this point, Yvette finally decided to take Lianna and Firefly and leave, aiming to traverse Rustbone toward the eastern coast of Black Tide Continent, ultimately planning to take a smuggling route to another continent.
The process progressed remarkably smoothly.
With hacking skills obscuring surveillance systems and a deliberate choice of winding rural routes, they drew closer to the eastern coast.
Simultaneously, as their spatial distance from Firth River increased, Yvette determined sothing significant.
The dream world was indeed complete; it was not limited to a small area where dreams were entered. It seed to possess no boundaries.
In other words, it probably was not a dream, nor a collection of fragnted mories left by Zero—otherwise, how could one explain that through mories, a world so vast and complete, with ticulous details, could be created? The original host wasn’t omniscient.
However, this realization led to a new question that puzzled Yvette imnsely.
Why did the people in her view appear differently from everyone else?
When she first entered the dream, she had noticed that the people around her seed slightly hazy and sowhat translucent. This made her quickly deduce she was likely not in the real world but had entered a false illusion.
Later, upon entering the dream with Rosalyn in the Blackwater District of Ish City, she observed that Rosalyn’s body remained solid and unaffected by any ghostly effects, which further entrenched her belief that she possessed the ability to discern between false beings and real ones—she could identify genuine individuals even in a dream setting.
Yet now that the dream world was not rely a dream, and while Zero appeared as if a false being, she seed to be sothing other than a dream local.
Could it be that her peculiar perception wasn’t rely for distinguishing the living from the false?
What if there were no false beings to identify at all, and everyone was real?
With such thoughts in mind, one day while at a roadside inn, Yvette observed the pedestrians on the street once more.
As if ripples were playing across her vision, those translucent and blurry figures abruptly beca crisp and defined, as though returning to the real world.
Yvette was stunned, and only monts later did she concentrate her thoughts, causing the figures to revert to their forr hazy and transparent states.
She was even more astonished, realizing that she could switch this effect on and off at will.
Why had she never discovered this before? Was it due to her lack of understanding beforehand?
Then…
She thought of sothing, lowering her gaze to her own body.
In the next second, she noticed her form becoming hazy and transparent, just like those people on the street.
She turned toward the room, where Firefly was charging itself in the corner with magitek lines, and Lianna was reading a linguistics textbook on the Jadeite language. Sensing her gaze, Lianna looked up with her clear eyes and blinked, asking, “What’s wrong, sister? Is there sothing on my face?”
Yvette replied, “No… you just look too pretty, Lianna.”
As expected of a child, Lianna didn’t cover up her emotions. Her pale face instantly turned rosy with embarrassnt as she shyly lowered her head, unconsciously twisting the corner of her garnt. “N-no, sister, you’re the one who’s way prettier than …”
Yvette chuckled and turned her gaze away, thinking to herself that it truly seed the visual effect was sothing only she could perceive…
But then another thought crossed her mind.
If she could use this thod to disguise herself as a local of the dream world, wouldn’t Zero also be able to do the sa?
What was this—a kind of virtual ga’s online invisibility?
……
Ten days later, Yvette, along with Lianna and Firefly, arrived at a coastal port city in the Rustbone Free State located on the eastern coast of the Black Tide Continent.
With the ti to exit the dream world fast approaching, Yvette gave the two so instructions, leaving enough funds for their living expenses, then rented a room and quietly awaited the right mont to exit the dream.
As the surrounding scene dissolved and darkened into an engulfing void, then gradually coalesced into light, Yvette opened her eyes to see a moss-covered, rust-stained ceiling, breathing in the icy, damp air. This confird for her that she had finally returned to the post-apocalyptic world, the Water Tower Nation of the chanical Race.
Ah, my height has returned; that’s wonderful.
She stood up and saw that beside her, remnants of the magical isolation wall she had created were left behind. She pulled it down, gracefully soaring upward on the winds, exiting the subterranean ruins. Sunlight generously bathed the area, illuminating the flooded city. The crystal-clear river sparkled like a school of golden fish.
She exhaled a lengthy breath, reflecting that although the post-apocalyptic world is a savage place governed by the law of the jungle, it still suited her better than the origin world before the apocalypse; at the very least, it wasn’t as suffocating in terms of physical sensation.
Of course, this didn’t exclude the possibility that she felt oppressed due to being hunted down, compelled to wander the world with Lianna and Firefly. Ordinary civilians likely had an easier life than she did… probably.
Then, recalling sothing, after leaving that subrged ruins area, Yvette flew low along the subrged streets, soon leaving the Water Tower Nation and entering the surrounding wasteland. She accurately arrived at several coordinate points she rembered, and began to dig cautiously downward.
Each digging session passed with the passage of ti. After multiple repetitions of digging without uncovering any buried ti capsules from the dream world, Yvette could finally confirm.
Indeed, the dream was an independent world, and actions taken within it could not affect reality or alter the future.
This brought a sigh of relief to Yvette. She had no affection or sense of belonging toward the Origin Civilization; she rely needed their technology. If she inadvertently removed the apocalypse or altered the future, then the fate of her encounters with Rosalyn and Duglabi could also be changed, which was the last thing she wanted to see.
Now, maintaining the current state was satisfactory enough for her.
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