Deep Sea Embers.

Chapter 800: Possibilities Beyond the Blueprint

Facing the slowly flashing dark red light of the "God of Wisdom", Agou was obviously a little nervous and afraid. He subconsciously shrank his head beside Shirley's legs, but after being nervous for a while, he slowly told the story of himself and Shirley to the ancient "god" in front of him.

A disaster caused by cultists, a Deep Hound that was originally no different from other Deep Demons, an instinctive "meal", a symbiotic chain - and human nature.

In Agou's empty eye sockets, a faint green firelight flickered. It gradually relaxed as he told the story, and after lying down, it leaned against Shirley. The latter reached out and stroked Agou's head, adding a few words from time to time.

After they finished their story, Pilot No. 2 was silent for a long time. The star-like lights flickered slowly, as if indicating that this "God of Wisdom" was engaged in complex thinking (of course, it could also simply have switched to breathing light mode).

After an unknown amount of time, it suddenly broke the silence: "So, you gained humanity, and your symbiote became the 'Deep Devil'... Little girl, what does your demon form look like?"

Shirley was a little surprised and subconsciously looked up at Duncan, who nodded slightly to her.

The crackling sound of bones exploding rang out on the boat, and within just a few seconds, Shirley's body quickly switched to another posture - dark bone plates covered her originally thin and short body, and arthropod-like bone wings extended from behind her. Her body gradually grew taller, a mixture of hideousness and weirdness in her maturity.

Then she carefully paddled the skeleton limbs behind her, carefully grasping the side of the boat while controlling her balance: "This boat is a bit small..."

The "eyes" of Navigator No. 2 were fixed on Shirley, and the buzzing sound inside its body became noticeably louder.

"Sample coupling..." The "God of Wisdom" finally spoke, with obvious surprise and confusion in its voice, which had always been calm and rational. "Individuals outside the blueprint! Why?"

Shirley was trying to keep her balance. She was startled when she heard this and looked up: "What?"

"...In this 'sanctuary', everything was manufactured and developed according to the blueprint. Even the extinction and disintegration of the sun itself was within the original design. In theory, only things that match my calculations will happen in this 'world'," Pilot No. 2 explained, "but we have not designed... individuals like you."

Its eyes moved between Shirley and Agou.

"This dog-head... the situation of the Deep Hound is still possible, because the Deep Demons are essentially unable to generate rationality on their own due to original defects. External 'human' stimulation may allow them to gain acquired thinking ability. Although the probability is very low, at least there is a possibility...

“But you… you confuse me, little girl.

"If you followed the original parameters set by Pilot No. 1 in the blueprint, you should be dead now. Although humans and Deep Demons do have the same origin, the 'transformation' process you went through is not reasonable, and the result is not in line with... the original design."

The dark red light gradually became brighter, staring at Shirley in confusion.

Unfortunately, the person involved is even more confused than it is.

But after being confused for a while, Shirley gradually reacted. She hesitated for a moment, raised her hand and pointed at her chest: "Maybe it's because of this?"

The crisscrossing black bone pieces formed a "bone cage" that accommodated two beating hearts, and inside this bone cage, there was a cluster of faint green flames burning quietly.

Navigator No. 2 stared at the small flame for a long time, and its eyes fell on Duncan.

"Fire Usurper, I want to talk to you."

Duncan was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted. He subconsciously raised his head and looked around: "But you don't have a place to talk privately here, right?"

Navigator No. 2 did not speak, but suddenly a slight "click" sound came from its central host. Then, Duncan saw a gap suddenly opened under the cabinet that looked like a tombstone, and a delicate mechanical structure popped out from it - it was a slot.

Duncan frowned subconsciously, then thought of something and immediately reached out to feel around his body, and touched something cold.

It was the puppet's brass key—the one with the infinity symbol on the end.

The key was changing shape in his hand. In full view of everyone, the brass key with the "infinity" symbol on the handle seemed to melt like wax, and then condensed into an exquisite rectangular object. Intricate and fine lines could be vaguely seen on the black shell, and at the end of the object was an exquisite metal interface with complex metal contacts clearly visible.

Duncan was not unfamiliar with the "appearance" of the key - that was when he first tried to use fire to explore the secrets inside the key. At that time, he saw the true posture of the brass key, and also saw the scene of the New Hope disintegrating and falling in this world.

He looked up and saw a dim blue light flickering around the slot on the surface of Pilot II.

A deep voice came into his ears: "The starter key of New Hope is universal."

This one turned out to be the starter key... the other one was a dedicated navigation key...

Duncan understood the nature of the two "wind-up keys" in his heart, and then, under the curious and nervous gazes of the people around him, he nodded slightly and took a step forward.

But at this moment, Alice suddenly tugged at his sleeve. Miss Doll seemed a little resentful and looked up at the red light of Pilot No. 2: "Let me make it clear first, this is my key."

Pilot No. 2 was silent for a moment: "...Lend it to me first."

"Oh," Alice let go of Duncan's arm, but still looked at him with some concern, "Then don't break it! I still have the spring to wind it up..."

Duncan nodded solemnly—Miss Doll was finally relieved.

The "start key" with a delicate metal interface was inserted into the slot of the Pilot II, and a crisp "click" sound came to Duncan's ears.

Everything around him disappeared, and an endless expanse of calm pure white descended before him along with the sound.

And just a brief second later, an astonishing scene suddenly appeared in the pure white world that seemed to be extremely empty!

The vast plains roared and spread out, lush vegetation covered the plains in the blink of an eye, rivers rushed on the plains, the outline of the distant city was vaguely visible at the end of the horizon, the sky was dyed with a layer of light blue, and then there were wonderful lavender clouds, and a dazzling sun finally appeared in the high zenith, illuminating everything.

Duncan stood on a small hill overlooking a large plain and river.

A tall and thin man wearing a white robe, dressed like some kind of scientific researcher, with messy hair and a tired look, stood in front of him.

"This is one of my creators," he suddenly said. "After turning it on for the first time, he told me that if I ever want to make friends with humans, I can use his appearance."

"...The one who set the lighting mode for you?" Duncan asked subconsciously.

"That's another one," the man whispered. He turned around and looked at the plain. "I have many creators. They left me many things... faces, suggestions, meanings to think about, countless codes, personality data, and... those beautiful lights."

"...This place is beautiful," Duncan said softly after a pause. He looked up and saw a huge unknown bird suddenly flying across the sky. Its dazzling wings seemed to cast a little light in the air, and then gradually dissipated in the air in the distance. "Where is your hometown?"

"No." Navigator No. 2 shook his head.

Duncan was stunned: "?"

"...I can't remember what my hometown looks like," Navigator No. 2 was silent for a long time, and finally said slowly, "I iterated myself again and again, trying my best to preserve the original data in each iteration, but no matter how careful I am, they are still constantly damaged, misplaced, unreadable, and unrepairable. Even if everything looks 100% restored, the appearance of my hometown is still changing beyond recognition bit by bit."

He paused, and it seemed as if he should sigh, but he didn't. He was just quiet for a few seconds, and then continued: "This is the scenery I 'guessed' based on the only vague description left. It is probably a little similar to my hometown."

"...Rotten?" Duncan hesitated and asked cautiously.

“Yes,” Navigator No. 2 nodded, “Although at the beginning, I thought I could avoid it by constantly iterating and updating myself, but it turns out that none of us can escape this process.”

Duncan was silent for a moment and did not continue on this topic.

"What do you want to tell me?" he asked.

"...You 'created' an individual that was not within the blueprint design," Pilot No. 2 turned around and looked into Duncan's eyes, "Do you know what this means?"

"You mean Shirley?" Duncan frowned. "...Well, at first I didn't expect her transformation to be so incredible to you. But strictly speaking, my participation in this matter shouldn't reach the level of 'creation', right?"

"For a closed-loop system whose ending was predetermined from the beginning, even a speck of dust that was not in the plan would subvert the entire system." The other party continued to stare at Duncan's eyes with an extremely serious expression. "You exerted influence, and then a slight change appeared in the blueprint that had already been determined. Moreover, this change did not lead to 'self-destruction'. The girl named Shirley survived and still exists stably. This dispelled my biggest concern."

Duncan was a little curious: "Biggest concern?"

"...I was once worried that the 'new world' you created would be a larger 'infinite ocean' because according to my calculations, this is very likely."

(End of this chapter)