Chaotic Information X Useful and Useless

The battle has begun.

However, this did not affect Kevin.

Not long after.

Everyone gathered in the center of this city, where Bronze Tower stood in rows.

Everyone gathered at the heart of the fiercest battle, where Qi and Bellolight dragged several struggling mechanical bodies.

These mechanical entities varied in appearance, but the one thing they all maintained was that their form was exactly the same as the previous Octopus.

Tuck stood beside him, somewhat silent.

At the same time, Morel was also carrying a bag of crystals.

These crystals are undoubtedly Storage Crystal.

At that moment, a box floated in front of Tuck, and inside the box were several crystals that gleamed brightly.

Those crystals had a certain color, which was clearly different from the ones in Morel's hand.

"So, everyone, have you discovered anything?"

9

Kevin asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

There were discoveries, of course, but none of them seemed particularly significant.

"Besides the signs of battle, there are only a few unconscious life forms left."

Morel held up the crystal in his hand. "This is the Storage Crystal that Tuck took me to find. The crystals inside are all pure raw ore that hasn't been infused with any spiritual will."

"These are individuals that have already developed willpower and spirit. I only need to instill certain basic data into them, and they will become my companions."

The analogy is that of a human baby.

Everyone looked at the Metal Box floating in front of Tuck, which contained six colored Storage Crystal.

Morel looked around at the situation; the damage here was quite severe.

"This must be the epicenter of the battle. The traces are obvious, and the destruction is complete. A major battle took place here."

These are all pieces of information that could be gathered from eyewitness accounts, and they are quite obvious.

The group found a relatively clean spot and sat down together to organize all the intelligence they had gathered.

Kevin looked at the mechanical beings struggling beside him.

Turning to look at everyone, he said, "First, there are these mechanical beings that have lost consciousness but can still act on their own."

"Tuck, what do they mean to you?"

You should ask Tuck, a member of his tribe, about this first.

"Unlike you humans, we don't normally have the concept of death, only the concept of wear and tear. Perhaps what corresponds to human aging is our wear and tear."

Rather than calling Tuck and his ilk Machine Lifeform, it's more accurate to describe them as some kind of Spiritual Lifeform.

Their will was born from the Storage Crystal; strictly speaking, they could also be described as mineral life forms born within the crystal.

Regardless of their origins.

But at least they possessed wisdom and even developed their own civilization.

The Storage Crystal is like incubating their eggs, while their own consciousness and spirit are like human sperm.

If a fetus fertilizes an egg, there is a chance that a highly autonomous offspring will be born.

Once they develop self-awareness, after some nurturing, their consciousness will be reborn.

Even without Storage Crystal their spirits, they can temporarily reside in other objects.

These temporary conditions can actually last for a century. The larger the data volume, that is, the longer people live, the longer this temporary situation can last.

Rock, grass, metal—any of these will do.

Perhaps because they are born from minerals, metallic ores are a more comfortable place for them to reside.

But none of these compare to Storage Crystal, since Storage Crystal are a type of mineral that can protect and store spiritual substances.

It has a positive effect on the will and spirit of life.

When it exists on other objects, it is more susceptible to wear and tear from the environment, and excessive wear and tear will drive it crazy.

The longer a organism survives, the larger its data volume becomes, making it more resistant to unprotected external wear and tear.

They had done some preliminary research before.

Such madness is more a manifestation of the wear and tear on their information. With too much information wear and tear, and given their independent consciousness, they become completely unable to process external information normally.

This can be roughly compared to human memory loss or mental derangement.

This is a chaotic situation, like treating friends as enemies or comparing knives to food.

That's why they go crazy.

Even if Storage Crystal, they will wear down over time, so they need to be replaced with new ones.

When the time has been long enough...

It's roughly measured in millennia.

Even the constant replacement of crystals took a heavy toll on their spirits.

It manifests as aging in humans.

At this point, they will truly enter into annihilation and death.

Therefore, normally speaking, they are very difficult to actually kill.

Having destroyed the mental crystal and the mechanical body, they can simply find something to live in.

But regarding Kevin's question...

"I have no idea."

Tuck gave this answer.

"These mechanical beings acted like my people, but they couldn't answer questions, couldn't recall anything, and I couldn't even find their spiritual anchor when their bodies were disassembled."

This is what Tuck is struggling with.

They were able to recognize their own people.

So, judging by appearance alone, they thought he was just an uncontrollable member of their tribe, perhaps driven mad by constant wear and tear.

Over the years, he had grown accustomed to it.

However, when broken down, it becomes a completely different concept.

It's fine if they don't have Storage Crystal.

Even the physical entities that housed our will and spirit no longer exist.

It's like a human seeing a car that needs to be operated to start.

I subconsciously assumed there was someone driving the car.

Then they opened the car door and dismantled the car; there was no one there, and the car couldn't start automatically.

"Okay, since that's the case, let's talk about other things."

"First, there was a war here, no doubt about it, but the traces we saw indicate that the Automated Puppet did not launch an attack, which is the first point of doubt."

"The second point of doubt is, where are the corpses? Besides these mechanical beings that move around randomly, where are the other Machine Lifeform? Even if they are dead, there should be some remains, right?"

"The third point of doubt is: what is the enemy's objective? What is the significance of the battle?"

These are all speculations based on the current situation.

The first question still needs to be asked of Tuck.

Tuck stated directly, "The first type Automated Puppet that has no ability to recognize enemies, or is paralyzed from the start."

"The second possibility is an internal war among us machine beings, but when I left, there was absolutely no sign of such a thing, and I even learned the term 'internal war' from you."

Unlike humans, machines are emotionally detached, yet they are very closely connected to one another.

They possess their own individual wisdom and will, as well as civilization.

However, they are very easy to understand each other, or rather, there are not many differences between them.

Humans are complex beings because of their intense and complex emotions, including jealousy, and a mixture of other factors.

Driven by love, hate, and grudges, people might harm their own kind without any self-interest.

These Machine Lifeform wouldn't.

Therefore, there is almost no concept of civil war, nor is there any idea of internal mutual hostility.

These kinds of words and ideas were only learned and acquired through communication with humans.

They also learned from observing other creatures that some organisms devour each other.

This is due to the different habits of the organisms.

But they almost never have such thoughts about each other.

"So it might be a targeted enemy?"

Kiy asked directly.

Tuck couldn't draw a direct conclusion, but given the current situation, the first possibility seemed more likely.

"Okay, let's assume the first scenario. What's the enemy's objective, Tuck? What do you feel is missing from your homeland compared to before?"

Tuck was able to understand the meaning behind human speech, so he gave a negative answer.

"I don't know. I haven't found anything missing yet. Apart from the traces of the battle and the damage to the Automated Doll, I haven't found anything missing."

Those devices, that information storage, the crystal storage—all exist.

As he spoke, he shook the box in front of him.

Even the Storage Crystal that had already hatched into individuals with spiritual will were left there, untouched.

Although these items are stored in a relatively secure location, this security refers to the security provided by Machine Lifeform, not that they are hidden in a secret place.

Unless the enemy is an idiot, they will definitely be able to find it.

"If we have to say, the other members of the tribe are gone, not even their remains have been found. Only these insane mechanical beings remain, and it's impossible to determine if they are members of the tribe."

This is the seriousness of the problem.

It's like a human Village being attacked; you can't be sure what happened to the people in those Village, but at least they're no longer there.

But then you leave a few crazy people stuck in the same place.

I don't understand what they're trying to say.

At this point, Tuck scanned his surroundings.

"Furthermore, the battle marks here don't resemble our fighting style."

The surrounding battle environment can provide clues about the situation.

A massive, extremely heavy individual is fighting against a group.

"We do not have powerful, exaggerated individuals, nor do we possess similar mechanical devices, and the traces left by the groups we fought against are completely different from our fighting style."

After hearing this, Morel stroked his chin and said, "In other words, two kinds of enemies fought in the heart of your homeland, and you may have been caught in the crossfire, or you may have been injured by one of them."

The likelihood of being harmed by both sides simultaneously is low.

Logically speaking, it's possible that someone was injured by one side, and then that side's enemy came chasing after them.

Or perhaps the fighting between the two sides spread, and the entire city suffered an undeserved disaster as a result.

The problem is that something wasn't taken away.

Regardless of who won, the battlefield was cleaned up in a very rough manner.

But then they took away the remains of the Machine Lifeform.

"This is the trace I found, just a tiny bit of evidence."

Kevin placed the wrapped-up small fragment in the middle.

Everyone watched carefully.

A white shard.

"It's not metal, and it doesn't resemble any mineral—this feeling, is it ceramic?"

Bellolight examined it, even touching it, and discerned its characteristics.

Kevin nodded.

"Yes, it looks a lot like ceramic. You know what that means, right?"

First of all, everything about these Machine Lifeform —everything about them—is made of metal.

In some areas of the city, you can see Bronze Tower specifically used for smelting.

Apart from the Storage Crystal, everything else is made of metal.

Even the devices used to store information are carved out of metal plates.

This is a city constructed Pure Gold.

Therefore, such a ceramic fragment must belong to an outsider.

"Ceramics suggests that the other party is likely a group with its own civilization and some use of tools."

If there are certain requirements for using the tools, then the other party is very likely to be a collective civilization.

"But this is the Dark Continent, anything strange is possible, and it's impossible to predict anything using common sense."

Kiy offered a reminder from the side.

This is his deepest impression of the Dark Continent since he came here.

There's simply no way to deduce it using common sense and logic.

"Well."

Kevin scratched his head.

The main problem is that the traces are too old, and the remaining traces in this city are also very complex.

The overly complex traces, coupled with a lack of decisive evidence, resulted in a situation where everything piled up and became impossible to sort out.

You've just come up with a seemingly logical solution, but something else breaks your reasoning.

But this place happens to be the Dark Continent, and its vast area and peculiar abilities make anything possible.

"Two different entities are fighting here, affecting the mechanical entities here. I can't find the information I need at all."

What is Kevin's purpose in coming here?

He guessed that the destruction of the mechanical beings was likely related to the Red Line of population size he knew.

That's why I came here looking for clues.

The clues they found, however, didn't lead them in any way.

In the words of the Wearer Ghost, this Red Line for population size is a very deadly and vague concept.

It's a strange rule.

The claim that a group will encounter natural enemies and be wiped out when it reaches a certain size is unfounded.

It cannot be attributed to luck.

It cannot be attributed to the fact that once the Red Line is crossed, luck will plummet and a fatal crisis will occur.

Attributing this entirely to metaphysics is inappropriate.

Although fortune is a real phenomenon that does exist in this world, rather than being entirely a matter of metaphysics and probability.

However, the information gleaned from the Wearer Ghost revealed an irresistible change brought about by some objective reality.

It's similar to an existence or mechanism, which is essentially the same as the existence itself, specifically covering all groups of life forms.

Either powerful individuals are few in number, or there are a large number of weak individuals.

Moreover, neither should be taken to extremes; there are Red Line.

But there must be ways to avoid it.

There are roughly two known ways to avoid this.

One option is to escape to a remote, uninhabited place, like humans do, and use something to create a closed environment, isolating oneself from the outside world.

Another possibility is the existence of Folded Zone. Life forms living in Folded Zone may very well be trying to circumvent these rules.

Actually, if we have to say, both of these situations use the same method.

Find a place to shut it off.

However, it is also clear that it is not completely closed off.

Humans can reach the Dark Continent through various means.

The beings living within the Folded Zone continue to monitor the outside world and can even enter and exit freely.

So is it really just bad luck?

Kevin pondered.

Were these Machine Lifeform truly destroyed simply because they were unlucky and encountered a conflict between two existences?

Was it not due to some kind of mechanism?

The problem is, after carefully examining the current state of the Machine Lifeform, Kevin felt that they had almost crossed the Red Line.

Although the Wearer Ghost didn't know what problems the Red Line would cause, he knew roughly how much of Red Line.

That's why Kevin wanted to know how the Red Line actually manifested.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have followed Tuck here to gather intelligence.

Let's take another look, search carefully.

And so, they spent three days collecting things here.

We didn't manage to gather any more useful information.

They just found more pieces of broken ceramic.

It can be determined that another group, fighting against a massive individual, used this ceramic.

This is something that exists on the other side; it could be armor, a weapon, or something else.

Maybe the other person is a ceramic figurine.

The Dark Continent, well, that's how it is.

Its infinity and strangeness make it an existence that cannot be predicted by human logic and thought.

They found the vein, which still looked exactly as it did when it was being mined.

Then something was determined.

This vein is long and narrow, with most of it close to the ground, and part of it is completely exposed on the ground, making it a bare ore deposit.

Moreover, the veins are long and thin, and not numerous.

Tuck and his team have already dug about a quarter of the way.

Are you leaving?

Morel asked, "It seems there's no point in staying here any longer."