Reality Instrument

AI Rick was truly worthy of being the magical AI butler of Cthulhu Rick's household.

Anything Rick could do, he could do as well.

Anything Rick couldn't do, or hadn't had the time to study, this guy trapped in a wooden cabin had all the time in the world to learn.

After Morty finished his meal at the priest's house, he saw that a small-scale processing plant had already been constructed by AI Rick.

From wood to steel, and finally to an alloy capable of maintaining physical stability in the vacuum of space—the entire manufacturing process was laid out plainly before Morty.

This gave Morty, who had eaten a pile of roast meat and was in desperate need of some digestion time, an opportunity.

"Did you make all of this by hand?"

"Not entirely. The main concept is tool automation."

"What is the concept of tool automation?"

Even though he knew Morty was trying to pick up his secrets, AI Rick, like all Ricks, loved to show off his knowledge in front of Morty.

To them, a smart Morty was like a pure-blooded heterosexual pervert seeing a trap—they liked it at first glance, but felt disgusted upon closer inspection.

So, to regain a bit of ground in the intelligence department, AI Rick kept working with his hands while his mouth didn't stay idle.

"The concept of tool automation refers to a method of infinitely increasing output throughout the entire production process."

"When you want to chop down a tree, you find your fists are useless, so you use a stone. But the stone is too inefficient, so you discover a sturdier metal—iron."

"But its form isn't suitable for an axe, so you smelt it and turn it into an iron axe."

"Yet, what lies before you is an entire forest, so the problem becomes that you need n-number of iron axes, but there is only one of you."

"At this point, your line of thinking shifts from manufacturing tools to making tools automate their own operation."

"From simple machinery at the start to complex machinery later on, you eventually arrive at large-scale logging trucks and robotic logging."

"So, you mean..."

Morty: "Manufacturing something isn't just about finishing the build; you also have to think about how to make it so you spend less time using it."

AI Rick: "Correct..."

AI Rick was left speechless by Morty's summary.

He understood even better now why the old man treated this Morty the way he did.

Because compared to other Mortys, this one was truly absurdly smart and possessed excellent comprehension.

He was even on par with the old man when it came to having a sharp tongue...

"For such a simple thing, you babbled on for so long. Why didn't you start from the creation of the world by Pangu?"

"And 'the main concept is tool automation'!"

"Even an ape knows how to use tools to make their daily life easier, alright!"

"I think you've stayed in this world too long, missing the beatings of outside technology. Your brain is filled with nothing but second-hand magic potions or the dung of Deep Ones!"

"Hurry up! Just tell me how you used the existing resources to build a spaceship capable of interstellar travel in such a short time!"

Berated by Morty, AI Rick pointed toward the lawn being excavated in the distance, signaling for Morty to go take a look himself.

Walking over, Morty saw a spaceship buried deep underground, appearing before him in a dismantled state.

"This... where did this thing come from?"

"Just wreckage from the previous historical period. Otherwise, with nothing on me, did you expect me to build a spaceship and a processing plant in the time it takes to eat dinner?"

Standing at the edge of the pit, Morty hesitated for a few seconds before leaping down into the ship, which had a large hole opened in its top.

Using the flashlight on his phone, he illuminated a path of decaying steel filled with the scent of earth.

Morty walked forward a few steps and found a yellowed, old diary in a cabin around the corner.

Based on what AI Rick had just said about the "previous historical period," Morty figured this diary had to be at least a thousand years old.

After all, once the knowledge accumulated by a civilization is destroyed in one fell swoop, as long as people are still alive, it takes about a thousand years to start over.

Well, that only refers to the period from ancient times to the modern era.

It doesn't include the rapid advancement period after the appearance of computers.

Using the translation system to convert the text into something he could understand, Morty was quickly drawn into the diary.

Setting aside the diary owner's rambling, an interesting idea proposed in the book made Morty exclaim that his imagination was truly far behind.

In this world where Cthulhu existed, every time an intelligent species transitioned from ignorance to an era of reason, they inevitably encountered the Cthulhus at some point.

The first intelligent beings might not have had much experience.

But as long as the planet wasn't destroyed, the relics and fragments of information left behind by the previous civilization would be passed down like a torch.

So, the civilization preceding the one Morty was in had proposed a super bold idea.

Domestication!

Since these monsters like Cthulhu were in deep slumber most of the time, could we build a tool to search for them and then utilize them?

One had to admit, targeting non-physical gods was an extremely suicidal idea.

Yet, they actually played it that way!

The content of this diary recorded that the people of that era had already stepped into the galaxy, only to find that the universe seemed to be full of forbidden zones.

And the masters of these zones were the Great Old Ones, the Old Gods, and the Outer Gods.

Thus, the God-Hunting Project was born.

Although they weren't as smart as Rick, who had directly forged a Silent Sword, their idea wasn't to destroy the Cthulhus.

Instead, it was like raising a dog.

They wanted to hunt these gods and then use them for their own purposes.

Therefore, this spaceship was equipped with a Reality Instrument.

The specific explanation was that since this world possessed both a spiritual plane and a physical plane, this Reality Instrument utilized atomic collisions to create an atomic storm in a certain area, disrupting the stable order between the spiritual and physical planes.

This chaos, generated from the most basic elements, was something even the Cthulhus couldn't stop.

If they could have stopped it, Old K wouldn't have been beaten by the Old Ones and forced to sign a peace treaty.

So, the only problem with this thing on the ship was...

After it was built, other than being tested, it had never been used in actual combat.

Because the reason for that civilization's destruction was that the Great Toad fellow was busy fighting the Old Gods at the time.

The two sides fought for a full hundred years, and they wiped out everything that civilization had...