Three Rules

Dawn breaks.

As dawn breaks, the barren desert takes on a beautiful golden hue under the sunlight. This golden hue, with its mineral-like brilliance, is different from the gentle shimmering of the sea in the early morning. It has a cold, hard texture, like a blade, making one want to squint.

After a good night's sleep, Lu Ban felt refreshed and full of energy.

I opened my eyes to a world filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers.

He saw the Robot Girl sitting by the stream, stroking the head of a fawn. The scene was peaceful and serene, just like any sunny morning.

"We plan to leave after we finish our investigation today and return to our city. Would you and your companions like to come with us?"

Beside her, Frostheart asked a question.

Upon hearing this, the Robot Girl tilted her head, seemingly deep in thought.

After a moment, she shook her head.

"The charging device cannot be moved. I judge that if we follow you, we may have to stop operating after a period of time. The risk is too high. As one of my underlying rules, it is necessary to protect our own operation."

Lin said, then added.

"Besides, I still want to wait for the people in the city to return."

"The fact that we were able to meet you all means that you will definitely come back. If they come back here and find that we have already left, they will definitely be sad."

Upon hearing the Robot Girl's words, Frostheart remained silent.

"What are the underlying rules you follow?"

Lu Ban couldn't help but ask a question.

"Well, first of all, the most basic rule is that you must never harm a human being, nor stand idly by while a human being is in danger."

Lin answered quickly, with a hint of pride on her face.

"The second rule is that you must obey human commands, but you cannot disobey the first rule."

"The third rule is that you must protect yourself, but you cannot disobey the first and second rules."

"These three rules constitute the most basic logic of our robots. All our actions are derived from these three rules. Therefore, we cannot guarantee anything else, but we will absolutely not harm humans."

Upon hearing this, Frostheart fell into thought. After pondering for a while, she finally gave up on letting Lin go back with her.

If they can stay here, perhaps they can bring more people over later. With a sage present, they might be able to solve the energy problem.

Another consideration is that if Lin and the others were to leave this place, the robots would realize that the world has been destroyed. Frostheart doesn't know their attitude towards the swarm of "new humans," and even without considering that, she feels it's somewhat cruel to expose this Robot Girl to this fact.

As someone who had never encountered robots or artificial intelligence before, Frostheart treated these robots not as tools, but as humans.

However, the cold Three Laws of Robotics have completely confined robots to the role of tools.

"Let's go."

The four rode Camel Insect and continued towards the ruins of the industrial park.

Electronic products cannot start without Lu Ban, so they would prefer to find some paper documents.

Paper used by humans typically becomes unusable after a few decades, but in extremely arid wastelands, this shelf life can last for more than a hundred years.

However, if the paper is stained with pigments, printing, or especially mineral pigments, then the surface of the paper will be covered with a thin film of minerals. Under good conditions, it can be preserved for thousands of years without any problem. This is why ancient paintings can be preserved for so long.

Modern coated paper, having undergone chemical treatment, can be preserved for hundreds of years without any problem.

So Lu Ban and his group's goal was to find those printed paper documents and see if there was anything they could take home.

Having visited the Industrial Park once before, the four of them were already quite familiar with the area.

Lu Ban used [True Sight] to search for paper documents that might exist in the building, but unfortunately, whether it was because the place was destroyed by the swarm of insects or because humans in that era no longer used paper to record important things, apart from some posted documents, he did not find any text like the files in the computer.

He could only repair these things using his "Last Words" and then print them out.

This process will take a long time, since only when Lu Ban touches them can these ancient artifacts from hundreds of years ago start to function slightly and spit out those hundreds of pages of documents.

While Lu Ban was printing documents, Frostheart was exploring other parts of the ruins.

Looking at the desolate ruins, she felt a sense of loneliness welling up inside her.

Old Era Humans possessed a magnificent civilization that was beyond its wildest imagination, yet even so, this brilliant civilization was easily destroyed in the most despicable way.

All the struggles I'm making now are probably nothing more than the insignificant struggle of an ant jumping in front of those supreme gods.

"What's wrong with you?"

The Singer asked, holding a discarded tablet, still puzzled as to why it glowed in Lu Ban's hands but felt like a brick in hers.

"I'm just a little uneasy. I have a feeling that something is wrong with this mission."

Frostheart looked at the towering rocket launch pad and frowned slightly.

"This place once hatched a swarm of insects. When the Old Era Humans civilization was destroyed, this place must have suffered severe damage as well. But why wasn't it devoured by the insect swarm first?"

"Perhaps this is just where the swarm was born. They were released elsewhere and didn't have time to come back and completely devour this place?"

The Singer believes that this place may have just escaped complete destruction by sheer luck, just like the Future City.

"Or perhaps, this place holds special significance for those insect swarms?"

Frostheart suddenly thought of something.

Holding the map of the Industrial Park that Lu Ban had promised to provide, she and the Singer headed towards the location of the rocket launch pad, which they hadn't had time to explore the day before.

Upon approaching this area, Frostheart noticed that the buildings here all bore charred marks, as if they had been burned by scorching flames.

The massive rocket launch pad was empty, with only blackened metal radiating a chilling aura.

Frostheart arrived beneath that magnificent creation and discovered a door that seemed to lead to the underground rocket launch pad.

The two walked down the stairs one after the other. The place was dark and dry, and the air seemed to be filled with a burnt smell that hadn't dissipated for a century.

After walking for about five minutes, Frostheart felt that the space in front of her suddenly opened up.

That sense of emptiness wasn't just the feeling of having a large hall; it was as if there was a plain or a huge cave in front of you.

She lit the wick in her hand.

By the flickering firelight, Frostheart saw a distorted shape emitting a faint glow in the vast hall.

The air was distorted, forming something like a lens.