Chapter 504: Artificial Soul
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
My first impression of the current Timlad was: a familiar face, a slightly familiar voice, and a completely unfamiliar physical body.
“You received the letter directly? You didn’t reveal that I was here, did you?”
“Of course, I came immediately when I received the letter. There’s really the Halet... the scholars’ generation’s ruins here?”
“Of course, why else would I have you come here? The maid that’s currently with me should be a pure artificial soul. You didn’t notice?”
“For real? Back in the day... My current research topic isn’t related to this anymore. I’ve heard that pure artificial soul research has been unsuccessful all this time. There’s results now?”
“Unsuccessful?”
It would be strange if Timlad didn’t have his own secrets with all his accomplishments. He wouldn’t be able to conceal what his soul was truly like from me, but it wasn’t necessary to pry so deeply for everything. This was especially so after the Hell Faction successfully signed a contract with Kalumandas the God of Wisdom. Our cooperation was on yet another level now.
And with certain things brought to the surface, little Timlad’s real identity wasn’t much of an issue anymore. But, since I knew his real identity, I found it rather strange that he actually didn’t know about artificial soul research.
According to my knowledge, in the greatest ruins from the scholars’ generation, the Spiral Tower, there was a gigantic gravestone erected there which stated the three greatest “crimes” of the Haletdam scholars. Of course, you could also call those crimes their “achievements”—”Eternal life for the entire race, artificial souls, and the creation of life.”
But now, Timlad was actually mentioning that artificial soul research had been unsuccessful all this time? Of course, this piqued my curiosity.
“Yep, it’s always been unsuccessful. Actually, it’s still an issue with the foundational nature of the soul. Apart from the Creator, not a single person is capable of creating the essence of a soul from nothing. Pure calculations are still unable to arrive at the nature of a soul. If you want to create an artificial soul and activate it so that the artificial soul becomes like a living one and has the abilities to evolve and feel emotions, you can only combine it with natural souls. This is obviously taking the wrong path.”
“...Isn’t that the same as undead mages, then?”
Wasn’t that the field of undead mages, using souls as materials to create new soul products, along with toying with the structure of souls and physical bodies?
“Yep, the revolutionary technology we came up with was actually something left behind by others already. It was basically an insult to the researchers of the scholars’ generation. But, to my knowledge, at least when the scholars’ generation ended, there shouldn’t have been any major breakthroughs in the field of artificial souls.”
I nodded at this. I could sort of count myself as an expert on soul research, and I could also guess at the artificial soul research from the scholars’ generation. It could easily be analyzed from Timlad’s words that their artificial souls utilized pure calculations to simulate logic. But, just like computers from my original world, no matter how skilled at calculations a computer was, a computer could never be called a complete “person” unless there was some sort of foundational change or breakthrough.
“In that case, it’s similar to mage tower spirits. Your artificial souls were capable of making logical decisions, but lacked self’s will and emotions.”
“It’s not similar, it’s basically the same technology. Did you really think that mages wouldn’t stoop to grave robbing?”
“Ptui!”
I instantly spat and laughed at this as I imagined the wise image of a mage with gold-rimmed eyeglasses and a robe being replaced by a muscular man carrying a shovel.
Actually, many ancient technologies and magic spells had been unearthed by grave robbing. It wasn’t wrong at all to call mages skilled graverobbers. If some lucky bandit, villager, or farmer coincidentally discovered some ruins, and the news started spreading, mages would come running faster than anyone. Oh, right, the Sala Dukedom wasn’t that far from the Mage Country. I wondered if the Mage Country would be sending someone soon?
“But if that was all there was to it, that wouldn’t have broken the Gods’ taboos?”
What I recalled was that the scholars’ generation had been destroyed due to divine punishment. And since there was the Holy War as a cleansing mechanism at fixed periods, the Gods were actually quite tolerant of mortals treading upon their taboos. A normal level of anti-divine actions still wouldn’t lead to something as drastic as divine punishment.
“This technology alone would have been fine, but they just happened to invent human-created physical bodies and soul-saving technology. You know the Sky Tower, right, yep, that Sky Tower at some corner of the sea. Actually, that’s a soul-saving center. Each of the countless rooms within it contains the brain and soul of a wise scholar. They’re still performing their research within that tower, while simply waiting for their rebirth program so they can be reborn.
Rebirth program? I heard an interesting phrase just now. After Timlad explained, I finally learned what the great engineers from that day had accomplished.
Unlike what the mages of today called the scholars of that generation, since they were called scholars, those great engineers were no fools who didn’t foresee their own demise at all, nor had they done something so foolish as to give their entire race eternal life. After all, anyone with even the slightest intelligence would know that there was such a thing as a carrying capacity for the world.
However, the scholars had indeed gone quite overboard. They assessed the value of every “human”, and every human deemed as valuable according to their standards would be given eternal life. The others would await their turn to be reborn within the Sky Tower. The value assigned to each individual would determine the time of their rebirth and how long they could live. Population would be controlled and increased or decreased by societal needs. This way, the scholars could indeed control population growth even with eternal life. However, there was one part that they hadn’t realized.
“Then, doesn’t that mean that all the souls were locked within the Sky Tower? There’s only newborns that enter the Cycle of Reincarnation, but no dead are returning to the Cycle of Reincarnation. Although the population remains the same, the total number of souls in the scholars’ generation will only increase endlessly. That will definitely break the balance between Order and Chaos. The Chaos Faction would never allow such a unified and orderly society to appear. The reduction of the dead will directly cause the River Styx to receive fewer resources. That will directly threaten the balance in the lower planes, and as for the Order Gods...”
“How could any seeker of truth possibly worship a God? It would be impossible to seek the truth of the world with such a limited worldview. That’s why mages and engineers of today only respect and understand the Gods rather than worship them. The scholars definitely didn’t worship the Gods. In fact, some of them had even begun to research or even capture the Gods. There were quite a few Gods that perished due to lacking belief or having their divine statuses stolen by humans in that generation.”
The rest could be left unsaid. Humans could truly be foolish sometimes. The Haletdam scholars had been foolish enough to simultaneously antagonize both the Chaos and Order Faction, and tread upon the foundational workings of the Holy War. This was why they had been completely destroyed by the Gods.
“There were seven major Sky Towers back in that day, and I think they were all destroyed. Everyone that thought they had obtained undying souls were all instantly thrown back into the Cycle of Reincarnation. All the records were destroyed, and even if someone was able to survive the divine punishment, a plague that targeted only the Haletdam scholars stole away everyone’s lives. That ended the scholars’ generation.”
Timlad’s words sounded like he was sighing rather than actually mournful. This was because he hadn’t personally experienced any of it. He had simply inherited a certain scholar’s knowledge and memories, so he was more sighing about the lost knowledge and secrets from that generation.
There was no need to mention too much about the past, but I would need to ask more since this was all related to the future. Since Katarina originated from those ruins, there was something that still wasn’t quite right.
“So, the artificial soul technology from that year was something similar to mage tower spirit technology. Many natural souls would need to be added in order for the artificial soul to obtain a sense of self?”
“Yes, but it would be quite difficult. Maybe the technology had been perfected after all near the end. Right, there were also tower spirits in that day, and the mages even named them mage tower spirits after the Sky Tower spirits from our generation. Sky Tower spirits were the greatest achievement of artificial souls. They possessed astonishing calculative prowess. One individual Sky Tower spirit could manage the countless lives and souls in an entire Sky Tower.”
“Did the Sky Tower spirits have a sense of self?”
“No, that was strictly forbidden. First, creating an artificial soul with a sense of self and emotions would require the destruction of natural souls. The more powerful the artificial soul, the more natural souls would need to be consumed. And if a Seven-Star Scholar—that was the name for the seven Sky Tower spirits—if such an artificial soul received a sense of self, perhaps it would have ruled the scholars rather than have the scholars ruling it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud after hearing this. As expected, it wasn’t only Earth’s humans that had been afraid of being killed off by their own artificial intelligence. Humans were truly humans everywhere.
“Ha, such a familiar story. Could the next part be Skynet vs. Terminator?”
[Ding! Jinxer achievement activated.]
My System always cracked such terrible jokes that I was tired of. Now that I thought about it, all those jinx achievements or so on were all because of the System digging pitfalls for me.
[I’m not joking here at all. There weren’t only seven Sky Towers in the scholars’ generation. There was an eighth... which was also the largest Sky Tower of all. And, it’s not far from you right now.]
“What?”
[Just how do you think Katerina was created?]
“F*ck, why didn’t you tell me about such a major thing earlier?”
[You never asked, cough, I meant to say that you didn’t meet the requirements to activate the quest... Besides, just how many pieces of random information do you think I have to sort out in my memories?]
In the deepest part of the mountains, the ruins by the name of Z8 had already activated itself.
Z8’s code name was also known as “The Scholars’ Generation Reconstruction Plan”. This Sky Tower had been kept an absolute secret for safety reasons from all who were uninvolved.
The scholars’ generation was filled with wise individuals. Plenty had already foreseen the fate of total destruction, so of course they would make preparations. This Sky Tower was created with the setting that it would only activate itself two thousand years after all seven other Sky Tower spirits perished.
But, for a certain reason, Sky Tower Z8 was rather unsuccessful in waking up from its long hibernation, and soon entered a deep sleep again. However, slightly more than a decade ago, a reckless adventurer entered the ruins and took away an important part, which activated the entire Sky Tower again.
This Sky Tower actually reached far underground despite its name. Although it should have been filled with the souls and brains of great engineers, elites, and military personnel, more than half of the Sky Tower’s rooms were now completely empty.
In the deepest underground portion of the Sky Tower, some black-robed mages were now painfully screaming in front of Z8’s soul seat. Their skulls had been cut right open and their brains were exposed, directly leaking all their secrets through electrical stimulation.
The master of the Sky Tower, Z8, was now ignoring the mages. It was now concentrating on the void, where a venerated guest had just received its invitation.
“Emperor Conservation. Perhaps we have a mutual goal.”
After a long while, Z8 received a response from the void.
“Indeed, we do have a mutual enemy. Those hypocritical Gods that act so righteously!”
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