Stored Data

Jon said he had left a gift for Angel.

At first, Angel did not think much of the gift. It was not until he opened the folder and saw the documents packed inside that he understood just how precious the gift his mentor had left him was.

—Jon had transferred every piece of data stored in the chip in his brain into this folder.

Astronomy and geography, scientific subjects, literary novels, even cultural fringe material, music, recipes, and more could all be found in the folder.

Angel had never understood why his mentor was so learned and well-versed. He could farm, build, cook, and possessed knowledge from every discipline. Now Angel understood. Earth's technological civilization had granted people such capabilities!

Every Earthling was implanted with a parasitic chip at birth. A parasitic chip was like an offline computer, capable of independently storing all sorts of data. It was also connected to the memory hippocampus in the brain, ensuring that nothing would ever be forgotten. Jon must have stored all kinds of information within it, so that even after crossing into another world, the flame of civilization would not be extinguished.

If the parasitic chip in Jon's brain could have been transferred, he might have sent the chip directly. After all, the parasitic chip was bound to the brain and could not be lost. Moreover, it connected to the brain's memory bank, which was equivalent to possessing the superpower of photographic memory.

Still, it did not matter if he lacked a parasitic chip. With the Holographic Tablet, although memorizing key points of knowledge was slower and it could not directly connect to the hippocampus responsible for memory, as long as he persevered, becoming learned was only a matter of time.

With that in mind, Angel solemnly tucked the Holographic Tablet away close to his body. At present, this item was worth more to him than everything else he carried combined!

And so, after obtaining the Holographic Tablet, Angel's life underwent enormous changes.

He immersed himself in the world of the Holographic Tablet day and night, setting it down only when it needed to recharge through solar power.

Angel did not begin by exploring the knowledge his mentor had left behind. Instead, he scanned the several large crates of books he had bought in Sea Moon City into the tablet, one book at a time. Just as Jon had said, knowledge was the most important thing to a scholar. That was why Angel had first thought to transfer the books into the tablet.

The scanning process was not easy. Although the Holographic Tablet had a camera capable of recording video and taking photographs, the scans were ultimately only image files. While the system had an image-to-text conversion function, it was limited to Earth's writing systems. The Golden Sparrow Empire's official script was not included in the system.

Furthermore, since the system only supported Earth's writing systems, Angel could only temporarily store all the images in a folder. When he had time, he translated them one by one into Chinese editions.

By the time he had scanned every book and sorted them into categories, a week had already passed.

After Angel finished scanning the books, he truly had nothing left to do. Life at sea was monotonous, and Alan and his sister were both cultivating the Guidance Method, rarely coming by his quarters. Angel felt even lonelier and more bored.

So, with a trace of curiosity, he began exploring the data within the Holographic Tablet.

At first, Angel read treatises published by famous Earth scientists. Later, he discovered that much of the data in those papers was useful only within the cosmic environment where Earth existed, so he read fewer of them, merely absorbing some of the ideas within.

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Later, Angel's interests grew ever broader. When he occasionally felt idle, he would even open the arts and entertainment folder, listen to Earth's music, and read grassroots novels that did not fall within the realm of literature.

After reading many novels, Angel finally understood why his mentor had shouted in the letter he left behind, "Live with a little more dignity than those transmigrated protagonists in novels."

Those cringeworthy lines like, "If heaven seeks to destroy me, then I shall defy heaven; if gods stand in my way, then I shall slaughter those gods," left Angel with an inexplicable sense of awkwardness. Still, some transmigration novels suited his tastes quite well, and he read them with great relish. At the very least, they were enough to pass the time.

After reading so many literary novels, Angel's curiosity about Earth grew ever stronger. He longed for a chance to visit one of Earth's great cities and see what kind of sights its prosperous, advanced technological world held. At the time, Angel did not know that the entertainment subfolder contained several thousand terabytes of film and television works. Any random urban drama could have shown him Earth's scenery. Of course, that was a story for later.

That day, Angel reorganized the folders on the Holographic Tablet, dividing the data into an Earth section and a section for this world. After reading another chapter of The Snows of Kilimanjaro, he prepared to head out for dinner.

But before he could reach the dining hall, a shrill whistle rang out, echoing throughout the entire ship.

The whistles rose and fell, three long and two short. Angel immediately realized that this was the Bauhinia's lockdown signal!

Once Angel understood what the whistle meant, his expression abruptly turned grave. He spun around and strode back. Moro had mentioned before they boarded that once the entire ship went into lockdown, everyone was best off staying in their own rooms.

On his way back, Angel found that most of the other gifted individuals had opened their cabin doors and were discussing the matter among themselves, making all sorts of guesses about the shipwide lockdown.

Some said sea beasts had attacked. Some said a storm was approaching. Some said they had run aground. Others claimed that the Cloud Whale in the sky was about to attack the Bauhinia... There were all kinds of speculations, but none of them were good. A faint worry and fear showed on every face.

In the vast ocean, fear was only natural. What allowed that fear to accumulate without end was the unpredictable future.

Angel was worried too, but he understood that no amount of worry would help. At present, he lacked the ability to change anything himself, so he could only silently pray that everything would go smoothly.

After returning to his cabin, Angel immediately opened the small ventilation window.

Through that narrow opening, he looked outside to assess the situation.

But to Angel's disappointment, he could see nothing beyond the window.

At some point, a dense fog had spread outside, reducing visibility to less than ten meters.

"The unknown" could always stir boundless imaginings in people. Angel was still only half-grown; no matter how mature and independent he usually was, he began to feel uneasy at this moment.

He repeatedly told himself that the shipwide lockdown had been caused by the extreme fog, and that everything would be fine once the fog dispersed. Yet he did not even believe that explanation himself. But at this point, he had no other choice. He could only use the most optimistic speculation to calm his restless heart.

The hour hand on the wall clock shifted little by little.

Until nearly four in the afternoon, the thick fog outside had still not dispersed, nor had the Bauhinia sounded the whistle announcing that the lockdown was lifted.

Everything seemed unchanged.

But just then, a sudden change erupted.