The Martial Unity

While the Transcendent was drowned in his newfound state of fear, he missed the arrival of two new presences outside the underground laboratory.

WHOOSH

Rui teleported to the location in the blink of an eye with a surprised expression, examining his surroundings.

He found himself in a deserted part of Greater Tekvoria with scant human presence, albeit infested with infrastructural engineering that covered every inch. A hyper-technologically integrated environment that gave even the Esocline Federation a run for its money. The setting sun was drowned behind massive skyscrapers, causing the environment to be much darker than it should have been at twilight.

WHOOSH

A second teleportation after his own drew his attention. He found himself staring at a familiar old dwarf, one who still hadn’t changed out of his craftsman attire.

”Dwight.” Rui nodded in an acknowledging manner. ”You sensed it too?”

”Emperor Rui, it appears that we both did.” Dwight was not surprised. His attention shifted to the environment as his Verse detected the underground facility.

As well as its sole inhabitant.

His eyes widened with understanding. ”Argenton...! But how?”

Rui was also surprised, but not stunned. ”I gave him some help more than a month ago. It turns out he really made the best use of it. I didn’t expect that of him. Frankly, I didn’t think he was Transcendent material, to be completely honest.”

Rui had helped him out because it was a low-effort investment. If it worked, then that was great. But if it didn’t, he didn’t really lose anything. However, he did not expect that Argenton would become the fourth Transcendent of human civilization.

[Your low expectations offend me.]

They both received a radio message that they could compute directly.

WHOOSH

A third Transcendent presence emerged amidst them as the figure of Argenton suddenly appeared before them. Both Rui and Dwight curiously studied the information of his existence with their Verses. Dwight was quite metaphysically exhausted from his day-long creation session to upgrade God’s Hammer, but he still exerted his consciousness to study the man’s information.

They were both stunned when they saw that the organic brain had been replaced with a crystalline, prismatic brain.

”What... did you do?” Dwight studied the construct with an especially intense curiosity. He respected Argenton as a scientist and innovator, even if he didn’t like the tekvores very much. He was especially curious about this light crystal technology that he had never seen. Even he found it difficult to fully comprehend the technology at a single glance.

A smug smile emerged on the Transcendent tekvores’ silvery cybernetic skin. His demeanor had changed with the breakthrough. He began to resemble who he had been before the Unfolding, although that was not the best outcome.

At the very least, the posture of visible uncertainty, depression, and doubt had completely disappeared. Argenton had become a bit of a loser in the pathwalker community. While the other pathwalkers were brimming with confidence as they made progress, he had come off as a stagnating relic of the past who lacked any confidence in front of others.

But now, he brimmed with a powerful ego that shone like the light of the sun. His back straightened while his head was lifted; his line of vision never fell below the horizon.

[I pioneered a new realm of power for my people], he ’spoke’ with light signals. [I have become a god.]

Both Dwight and Rui exchanged glances. The two of them had gotten along swimmingly well after the former’s breakthrough, but they sensed this might not be the case with this fourth Transcendent.

[I shed the mortal shackles of my neurology and elevated to light], he continued, speaking with an ego bursting with so much arrogance that Rui felt like he was trying to compensate for all the years of low confidence he had been through.

”Don’t put on airs with me,” Rui simply scoffed. ”You would not be a Transcendent without me, and I didn’t truly have to help you, but I did. You owe me an explanation.”

Argenton’s expression softened, something his cybernetic face was not accustomed to doing. Not even he could deny that Rui had been of extremely vital help to him; that was far too shameless even for a tekvore.

He toned down his bearing a little before people he could regard as peers, speaking more casually and explaining what he had done. Both Rui and Dwight listened with enraptured attention as the Transcendent described the prismic lattice brain that he had created. Rui had grown especially shocked when he heard that he made every single photon a never-ending signal, causing all conscious information to become connected with each other.

”You madman.” Rui stared at the Transcendent like he was looking at an alien. ”You could have lost your sanity in a destructive manner. The boundary between internal phenomenology is one of the pillars of our sanity. You don’t need to destroy them in order to have phenomenological uniformity. And trying to destroy them before you have phenomenological uniformity is a risk that not even I would take!”

And Rui was accustomed to taking risks. He had replaced half his neurons with the neurons of another humanoid species, after all. But this was even more extreme than that, far more so. It was a miracle, as far as Rui was concerned, that this didn’t completely shatter his sanity.

[I was desperate.] Argenton admitted candidly. [At this point, I would have rather died, in one form or another, than to continue living in disgrace. Thankfully, my knowledge and mastery of light connected with the nature of my phenomenology, creating the uniformity that I had been seeking. I believe that this is the path that tekvores must take towards Transcendence.]

”Wait...” Rui’s eyes widened. ”Does that mean that you can create a prismatic lattice brain for all other peak tekvores and start mass-producing Transcendents?”

If that was the case, then the tekvores would very quickly become the strongest race. Not even Rui would be able to prevent them from surpassing him with sheer numbers!