Lively events were rare on the Land of Rebirth. Most of the time, the planet remained quiet.
Only by calming their minds could those seeking a fresh start truly understand their past actions and acknowledge the wrongs they had committed.
Only then could they follow the principles of the Knights of Beauty, confront their past, and reflect on how to make amends.
That was why the atmosphere on the Land of Rebirth was usually so solemn and peaceful.
Now, however, a faint commotion had broken the tranquility, making this otherwise extraordinary world seem a little more ordinary.
The source of the disturbance was a figure clad in full-body armor, soaring through the sky on jets of silver-white flames.
Under normal circumstances, flight was prohibited on the Land of Rebirth to prevent certain individuals from escaping. Yet this armored figure openly disregarded the restriction, flying through the sky in plain sight.
Even the Knights of Beauty, who maintained order on the planet, turned a blind eye to the violation.
After all, the man backing that armored figure was none other than the planet's creator.
Not only had Sora created the Land of Rebirth, but he had also given the gradually declining Knights of Beauty a chance to regain their former strength.
The Knights of Beauty maintained exceptionally strict entrance requirements, but the Land of Rebirth had such an enormous population that some of its inhabitants, having genuinely turned over a new leaf, naturally qualified to join their ranks.
In just a few short months, the number of new recruits had already surpassed the total from nearly the previous ten years.
The results were so remarkable that even longtime veterans of the Knights of Beauty were left speechless.
"Why couldn't we achieve anything like this when we worked so hard to spread the word about IDRILA's beauty?"
Yet their friend had accomplished it with seemingly no effort at all.
They pondered the question at length but could never find an answer.
Still, the expansion of the Knights of Beauty was undoubtedly a good thing. As a result, they had grown even more appreciative of Sora, the creator of the Land of Rebirth.
And now that he had mysteriously disappeared, the Knights of Beauty had naturally dispatched personnel to search for him throughout the universe.
It seemed their search had finally turned up a few clues...
"I found something! I found something!"
Shunji's shout immediately drew everyone's attention.
The others looked at her in surprise. She had just removed her Iron Cavalry armor and appeared to be in quite a hurry.
More importantly, what exactly had she found?
"Found what?"
"News about Sora, of course!"
Shunji dropped that bombshell without any preamble, instantly sending a wave of excitement through the gathering.
"Are you serious?! You've found news about Sora?!"
Mitsutake couldn't help asking excitedly.
After all, their search had left them increasingly desperate.
The IPC, the Federation of Hope, and the Xianzhou Alliance had all been searching for Sora. Together, these three powers wielded enough influence to shake the universe, yet even their combined efforts hadn't uncovered a single trace of him.
It was almost as if he had vanished from the universe entirely.
After searching tirelessly for so long, the Iron Cavalry had gradually grown dejected.
And now Shunji had suddenly appeared, claiming she'd found a trace of Sora...
"Is that really true?!"
"You'd better not be messing with us! You're always joking around!"
"Exactly! This isn't something you can joke about!"
The Iron Cavalry bombarded her with questions, their voices filled with both doubt and anticipation.
They desperately wanted the news to be true, but they were equally afraid that their hopes would turn out to be nothing more than a fleeting dream.
"Of course it's true! Come on, look at this!"
Shunji proudly showed them the latest information she'd discovered.
The moment the others saw it, their excitement surged.
What Shunji had brought them was a news report.
[DID AN UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANY VIOLATE USERS' PRIVACY BY FORCING POP-UP ADS ON THEM TO PROMOTE A MOVIE?]
In short, the report criticized the recent incident in which massive numbers of users had been bombarded with pop-up advertisements.
Shunji didn't particularly care whether the allegations about the incident were true.
What mattered to her was the promotional image accompanying the report.
"That's the Silver Radiance. And the person standing on the Silver Radiance..."
There was no mistaking it!
They could never mistake that figure!
It was Sora!
The very same Sora who had disappeared without a trace some time ago!
"There's finally news of him! I was starting to think he'd abandoned us."
"Seriously, if he was making a movie, why did he have to keep it a secret from us?"
Once they confirmed that the information about Sora was genuine, the Iron Cavalry finally relaxed a little.
His prolonged disappearance had left them worried sick. Now that this photograph had surfaced, they could finally put some of their concerns to rest.
After confirming that Sora was safe, they immediately began following the clue, hoping to discover his current whereabouts.
Unfortunately, the results were disappointing.
"This picture is the only information we have about him. We still don't know anything else."
Shunji spread her hands helplessly.
At present, the most widely circulated image on the Galaxy Net was this photograph of Sora standing aboard the Silver Radiance.
But no one had managed to determine where it had been taken.
The universe was unimaginably vast. Trying to locate one person and one starship within it was like searching for a particular grain of sand in the ocean.
It was simply too much to ask.
The Iron Cavalry understood how difficult the task was, so they didn't blame Shunji.
Just receiving news about Sora was already enough to ease their worries considerably.
At the very least, he hadn't vanished completely.
However, the photograph had also created another problem!
"It looks like our standing has taken a bit of a hit!"
Shunji addressed the others with an unusually serious expression.
Her statement immediately piqued the Iron Cavalry's curiosity.
After all, none of them could understand how a single photograph could possibly affect their standing.
But Shunji wasn't making an unfounded claim.
"Look at the comments under this picture!"
She showed them the comments that had prompted her warning.
[Shameless media outlet! As an Intellitron, I think the company did the right thing this time! Without those pop-ups, I never would've known such a perfect figure existed in this universe!]
[I agree with the comment above! I'm completely captivated by the man in this picture now. I really want to know who he is!]
[+1. A lot of Intellitron bloggers I follow have enormous processing power, and they've already started running calculations. We should hear something before long.]
[Really?]
[Of course! Didn't you know that lots of Intellitrons have already become so fascinated with this extraordinary man that they've spontaneously formed fan clubs devoted to him?]
"Fan clubs?!"
Mitsutake couldn't help murmuring as she read through the comments.
"Exactly! And from what I've learned, some of those fan clubs are even being managed by professional entertainment agencies."
Shunji's expression remained deadly serious.
"They're clearly threatening our very foundation!"
The other Iron Cavalry members exchanged bewildered glances.
Seeing that her companions still didn't understand the seriousness of the situation, Shunji couldn't help explaining further.
"Don't you realize that Sora has already caused a massive sensation among inorganic life-forms?"
Indeed, after the photograph spread across the Galaxy Net, mechanical life-forms connected to the universal network had become fascinated with Sora.
The wave of enthusiasm had even inexplicably propelled him toward the top of the Galaxy Net's trending topics.
"If all those fans turn their enthusiasm into actual support, there won't be anything left for us to do!"
No matter how formidable the Iron Cavalry were individually, their small numbers put them at a disadvantage compared with the countless Intellitrons scattered throughout the universe.
If every single Intellitron offered Sora even the tiniest bit of assistance, their combined support would easily overwhelm anything the Iron Cavalry could provide.
Wasn't that a direct threat to their position?
"I believe Sora isn't that kind of person!"
Unkyō spoke with conviction.
"I know! But you don't want us to become useless in his eyes either, do you?!"
Of course Shunji understood that Sora wouldn't abandon them.
But the thought of becoming unable to help him in any meaningful way—and having to confront their own helplessness—would weigh heavily on them.
That was why Shunji believed their position was already being threatened.
"Could someone be manipulating things behind the scenes?!"
Mitsutake frowned, wondering why this particular photograph had triggered such widespread admiration among mechanical life-forms.
The Galaxy Net was full of photographs with better composition and color than Sora's.
So why had this one image, which everyone believed was a promotional poster for a movie, attracted so much attention from mechanical life?
Mitsutake couldn't help suspecting that someone might have released a virus with the intention of framing Sora.
However, that suspicion was quickly overturned.
"Members of the Intelligentsia Guild have already examined the Intellitrons that became obsessed with the photograph. They found that all of them were functioning completely normally."
Yet whenever these perfectly functional machines detected Sora's photograph, their logic cores would inexplicably register affection.
That was why the photograph had triggered such widespread admiration among inorganic life-forms.
If there really was a problem, it might lie in the core source code of the personality modules used by all mechanical life.
But...
"Wasn't the source code for mechanical life-forms' personality modules made public ages ago, with anti-decompilation systems installed?"
Those anti-decompilation protections had originally been introduced precisely because people feared figures like the Mechanical Emperor, who could control inorganic life-forms.
Of course, such protections would be practically worthless against members of the Genius Society.
But even if someone breached those protections, an alert would automatically be triggered.
And none of the mechanical life-forms who had become obsessed with Sora had triggered any such warnings.
In other words, their collective fascination with Sora appeared to have arisen entirely on its own.
"Of course, there's another possibility..."
Mitsutake adopted a serious expression as she proposed an extremely unlikely explanation.
"What if Emperor Rubert III is actually behind all this?!"
But that possibility was so absurd that anyone hearing it would immediately dismiss it.
After all, just think about it.
Rubert I had spread the Anti-Organic Equation throughout the cosmos, unleashing a mechanical rampage.
Rubert II had terrified the entire universe with his efficient slaughter.
And then Rubert III appeared, only for his great achievement to be...
Making every mechanical life-form in the universe obsess over some man!
Even someone with the wildest imagination would probably never have thought of something like that.
Mitsutake couldn't help laughing at herself the moment the possibility occurred to her.
"Maybe this really is just some kind of accident."
Regardless of what she thought, though, Shunji's earlier argument was sound.
Their standing did indeed seem to be affected by this wave of enthusiasm among mechanical life-forms.
"It looks like it's time for an emergency meeting."
Mitsutake gathered everyone together with a serious expression.
This was an extremely important meeting for them!
...
"The memetic contamination I created can only affect beings capable of advanced language."
Dr. Primitive continued his explanation.
"Whether organic or inorganic, all life follows a kind of internally consistent logic. When a crisis places the brain—or processor—under overwhelming pressure, it can shut down its response to external demands and prioritize basic needs instead."
And satisfying those basic needs was the first problem every civilization had to confront.
First, the mind had to be returned to its primitive state. Then the particles themselves had to be restored to their original state.
Only when primitive consciousness was paired with a primitive body could an atavistic experiment be considered perfect.
Dr. Primitive's research focused precisely on how beings with such primitive minds and bodies could satisfy their needs in different environments and give rise to a more perfect civilization.
"That is why my memetic contamination can bypass anti-decompilation systems and act directly upon the core logic of all inorganic life-forms."
His memetic contamination didn't target personality modules themselves. It reached deeper, into the countless zeros and ones underlying them.
Every inorganic life-form was built from binary code, and even anti-decompilation systems were no exception.
Thus, Dr. Primitive's memetic contamination could affect any inorganic life-form capable of advanced language without triggering a single alarm.
"What I didn't expect, however, was that someone would use my original memetic contamination for something like this."
Dr. Primitive studied the photograph before him with a hint of astonishment.
That's right.
This photograph was the source of the memetic contamination.
And it wasn't limited to this particular picture.
Every other photograph, and even the videos that had been specifically recorded, carried the same contamination.
All of them contained the memetic contamination he had originally developed.
"So the culprit responsible for infecting and crashing my entire Scepter system..."
Rubert II's voice grew increasingly low.
"...was YOU!"
On one hand, Dr. Primitive had asked him to use the Scepter system to calculate the probability of achieving his research objective: a "perfect civilization."
Yet on the other hand, the memetic contamination Dr. Primitive had invented had reduced the entire Scepter system to its current state.
"This has nothing to do with me. I may have developed memetic contamination, but I wasn't the one who introduced it into your Scepter system."
Dr. Primitive's interest was piqued.
"If anything, I'd actually like to know who managed to accomplish something like this."
Although the followers he looked down upon had subsequently developed all sorts of strange variations of memetic contamination, their fundamental purpose had never changed.
They were all designed to return living beings to their basic survival instincts.
Yet now, some unknown individual had created a special meme that deviated from his original intentions.
Although the other party's objective was entirely different from his own, the ingenuity behind their modifications had nevertheless caught Dr. Primitive's interest.
"Who else could it be?"
Rubert II sounded thoroughly displeased.
"It must be the bastard who rewrote and modified my Scepter system."
"In other words, someone of unknown origin managed to crack the memetic contamination I invented and then figured out your Scepter system as well..."
Dr. Primitive had just described something that would astonish countless people if word ever got out.
Although memetic contamination wasn't his most fundamental technology, it was undoubtedly one of the important techniques he possessed.
And the Scepter system hardly needed an explanation.
It was the inorganic neural network Rubert II had poured all his efforts into creating.
Either technology, taken individually, was something countless scholars could spend their entire lives trying to decipher without success.
Otherwise, why had Dr. Primitive never paid much attention to his followers?
Wasn't it precisely because those people knew only how to imitate his research without ever understanding the core of his technology?
Yet now, that very core had been cracked.
And alongside it, someone had also cracked the inorganic neural cluster network Rubert II had devoted his entire life to creating.
"Such intelligence. Such processing power..."
A faint smile appeared on Dr. Primitive's face.
"Could another member of the Genius Society have gotten involved?"
But almost as soon as he raised the possibility, he dismissed it.
Those dangerous individuals from the Genius Society certainly possessed the ability to decipher his memetic contamination.
But they had absolutely no reason to do so.
Those people had no interest in anyone else's research. They devoted their attention exclusively to their own projects.
Therefore, it was impossible that a member of the Genius Society had cracked his technology.
More importantly...
"I find it difficult to imagine those dangerous individuals from the Genius Society paying so much attention to a man."
Dr. Primitive closed Sora's photograph.
He had little interest in matters of romance or attraction between men and women.
Even so, he couldn't imagine other members of the Genius Society taking such an intense interest in something like this.
The thought filled Dr. Primitive with anticipation.
"The perfect life-form I create would never become obsessed with such things."
Every moment of a perfect life-form's existence would be devoted to making itself even more flawless, rather than wasting its resources on some man.
"Let me help you remove the effects of this memetic contamination."
If anything, the incident had made Dr. Primitive even more eager to see a perfect life-form for himself.
That meant he needed Rubert II to get the Scepter system running again as quickly as possible.
...
And so, while Dr. Primitive and Rubert II worked together to eliminate the special contamination within the Scepter system...
Sheila, who had been following behind Sora all this time, suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?"
Her sudden pause caught Sora's attention.
"It's nothing."
Sheila shook her head, indicating that it wasn't anything serious.
One of her data sets had developed a minor problem, but that hardly mattered. She still had four backup sets, after all.
Compared to what had just happened to her, she was much more interested in discovering what the temple in the Wowoya capital was actually used for.
And more importantly, why did this place feel so familiar to her?
These questions left Sheila deeply puzzled.
As they continued along the passage opened by the temple, they eventually arrived at an enormous hall.
The entire hall was filled with signs of advanced technology. At a glance, it almost resembled a rudimentary laboratory.
"So this is where we're supposed to receive an inheritance from a secret realm?!"
Rappa surveyed the hall with obvious excitement. It was far brighter than the laboratory they'd visited earlier.
However, while examining her surroundings, she seemed to accidentally trigger some kind of mechanism.
RUMBLE!
A series of loud, chaotic rumbling noises erupted as the pillars inside the temple suddenly began revealing their interiors.
"What is this...?"
Even Sora couldn't help feeling surprised when he saw what was hidden inside them.
As the pillars' outer casings rose, they were revealed to be cultivation tanks.
Inside the tanks, numerous creatures floated in liquid, and they looked extremely familiar to Sora.
"Aren't these the calamities lurking outside the city?!"
Indeed, although their eyes were closed, their body shapes made it obvious that the creatures inside the tanks were the very same calamities gathered beyond the city walls.
More importantly, the calamities were displayed in different states.
As Sora looked along the row, he could see that their bodies grew progressively smaller while their once-ferocious appearances became less threatening.
And at the very end of that progression, he encountered an extraordinarily familiar figure.
It had a round face, with two ears drooping behind its head, and stood only as high as Sora's waist.
"Isn't that a Wowoya?!"
That's right.
At the end of this series of cultivation tanks, which resembled a display of biological evolution, was a member of the Wowoya species.
And the moment Sora saw that figure, he seemed to understand something.
"Correct. This isn't so much a temple as a research facility dedicated to fostering the evolution of species, in the hope of counteracting atavistic experiments."
Just then, a voice rang out through the laboratory, confirming Sora's suspicions.
"Welcome, holder of the highest authority. Designation: IWX-521. It is a pleasure to serve you."
---
T/N: You can read free chapters earlier on my websiteee!
Here's how it works: If I release 5 chapters throughout the week on Webnovel, those same 5 chapters will usually already be available for free on my website at the start of the week!
So you're not getting extra chapters, but you get to read the week's chapters earlier instead of waiting for them to be released one by one on Webnovel!
Same chapters, just less waiting!
bonus chaps
200 stones → 1 bonus chap
400 stones → 2 bonus chaps
600 stones → 3 bonus chaps
and so on :3
100+ new chaps every week across all my TLs on the P website :)
hehe every 100 followers on either instagram or twitter = 5 bonus chaps...?
(for all ongoing tls)
website: wisetl.com
discord.gg/wisetl
patreon.com/wisetl
instagram: hanbaowise
twitter: WiseKingOfUruk_