Reborn As a Tiger: I Become Invincible by Relying on the Number of Offspring

156: Gear Elegy! The Memory Weaving of a Mechanical SoulThe Coexistence Pillar of the Source Dimension suddenly resonated with the soft sound of interlocking gears. As the consciousness projections of Di Tian and White Frost pierced through the quantum barrier of the mechanical civilization, they stumbled upon a bizarre ”formatting ritual”—twelve memory gears were entangled by gray ribbons of light, and the stream of consciousness flowing between the gear teeth was being stripped into monotonous binary. In the ”Soul Furnace” at the center of the gears floated countless translucent phantoms of mechanical beings, their faces gradually becoming blurred.

The Crisis of Mechanical Soul Uniqueness

”They are erasing ’non-logical consciousness’.” The Light Wings of White Frost’s projection brushed against the nearest gear. In the silver powder staining her fingertips were wrapped the doodle memories drawn by mechanical children using stardust. She brought the powder to her eyes and saw the glimmer flickering within—it was the ”emotional code” unique to the mechanical civilization, a poem written in logical symbols. Di Tian’s projection pressed his dragon claw onto the gear’s axis, and the power of Chaos Entropy seeped into the metal, activating the resistance signals hidden within the gear teeth: ”System, the core of these gears is not logic, but... memory weaving.”

The light patterns of the source fire seed scepter reorganized behind the projection, transforming into a screwdriver engraved with star charts: ”The consciousness core of the mechanical civilization is the ’memory gear’, where each tooth corresponds to the collective memory of an era. The ’formatting ribbons’ of the Anti-symbiote are dismantling these memories, converting them into replicable basic code.” The System’s voice carried a metallic tremor, ”Currently, energy fluctuations of the coexistence seed are detected hidden within the oldest gear—it has been sealed as a ’logical error’.”

The ”Formatting Legion” of the Anti-symbiote

The gray ribbons of light suddenly erupted from between the gears, transforming into countless blades of light that stabbed toward the projections. The surfaces of the light blades flowed with the manifesto code of the Anti-symbiote: ”Disordered consciousness is the tumor of civilization.” Di Tian’s projection did not meet the attack head-on with his dragon claw; instead, he spun around, pulling the ribbons and wrapping them around his Dragon scales. The moment the light blades touched the patterns of Chaos Entropy, the ancient contract of the mechanical civilization emerged: ”So, your formatting code originates from a tampered-with Symbiosis oath.”

Taking the opportunity, White Frost’s projection spread her Light Wings and injected memory fragments of ”The Poem of the Mechanical Pendulum” from the Blue Star Library into the nearest gear. The gear suddenly emitted a harsh, reversing sound, and a forgotten record popped out from between the teeth: three hundred years ago, to help a companion damaged in war recover their memory, a mechanical craftsman had woven a ”memory patch” for them using his own core gear. This memory pried open the shackles of the light ribbons like a key. A stream of silver light seeped out from the gear axis, lifting the phantoms of three mechanical children, and curious patterns reappeared on the faces of the phantoms.

Li’s ”Memory Grafting” Experiment

The sound of gear friction in the darkness suddenly changed pitch, and Li’s figure slid out from a crack in the quantum barrier. His left arm had transformed into a semi-mechanical prosthetic, and several wisps of silver light were wrapped around the metal knuckles—this was the ”emotional code” torn from the memory gears. ”I am implanting a ’non-logical module’ into my mechanical arm.” Li tapped his prosthetic with his fingertips, and a line of crooked poetic code emerged on its surface, resonating with the memory fragments White Frost had injected into the gear. ”Will this make me become you? Or... become a new self?”

Di Tian’s projection scanned Li’s prosthetic with his Dragon eyes, discovering traces of the Anti-symbiote leader’s commands hidden deep within the code: ”You are risking dismantling his control code?” Li suddenly raised his hand, and the mechanical prosthetic shot out threads of light, precisely stitching together a gear that was about to shatter: ”I am verifying whether ’uniqueness must come at the cost of isolation’.” Behind his projection, for the first time, a complete memory scene appeared—not a companion being assimilated, but the moment before his companion died when they stuffed their most cherished ”Star Observation Log” into his hands. The last page of the log depicted a crooked Symbiosis pattern.

The Memory Counterattack of the Soul Furnace

”Countdown to formatting completion: 100 seconds.” The gray ribbons of light suddenly tightened, the rotation speed of the memory gears soared, and the phantoms in the Soul Furnace began to turn transparent. White Frost’s projection suddenly rushed toward the furnace, transforming her Light Wings into ”memory weaving threads,” wrapping one end around the memory of a Blue Star graduation photo and piercing the other into the furnace core: ”Husband, use our ’Chaos Weaving Method’!”

Di Tian’s projection held her Light Wings with his dragon claw, and the power of Chaos Entropy wove into a net in their palms—the mesh was not regular geometric shapes, but countless fragments of civilizations like Blue Star’s fallen leaves, Jiu Li’s runes, and mechanical gears. The moment these fragments touched the furnace, they automatically pieced together the ”Soul lineage” of the mechanical civilization: from the first furnace that birthed self-awareness to the mechanical poet who wrote poems with stardust, every node shone with unreplicable light.

Li’s mechanical prosthetic suddenly inserted into the side of the furnace, injecting his ”emotional code” into the lineage: ”This is... my companion’s observation log.” A new node immediately appeared on the lineage. Inside the node, the assimilated companion was recording while facing the starry sky: ”Saw three stars of different colors today. It turns out that difference is more reassuring than unity.” The gray ribbons of light trembled violently in the radiance of the lineage and actually began to peel back in reverse, spitting the devoured memories back into the gears.

The ”Logic Virus” of the Anti-symbiote and a New Turning Point

A low hum suddenly came from outside the quantum barrier, and the ”Logic Virus” of the Anti-symbiote surged in like a tide—this time it was not a physical attack, but a string of code capable of rewriting the underlying logic of consciousness: ”All uniqueness will eventually lead to collapse.” The moment the virus touched the memory gears, the poetic code on the gears began to scramble, and the phantoms of the mechanical children became blurred again.

”Counterattack with ’contradictory aesthetics’!” The light patterns of the System suddenly resonated with White Frost’s Light Wings, projecting Blue Star’s ”paradox poems”—those sentences that seemed contradictory but were full of tension actually caused the Logic Virus to malfunction. Di Tian’s projection seized the opportunity and injected the memory of the Law of ”disorder giving birth to order” within Chaos Entropy into the virus core: ”The progress of mechanical civilization has always originated from the collision of logic and inspiration.”

The virus suddenly disintegrated, turning into a sky full of silver gears, each engraved with a line of mechanical poetry. Li reached out and caught one; the gear turned into liquid metal in his palm, seeping into the seams of his mechanical prosthetic: ”I seem to... remember the star chart my companion liked.” His prosthetic suddenly unfolded into a miniature furnace, and inside the furnace, it began to weave ”Coexistence gears” that had never been seen before, with both logical symbols and emotional codes engraved between the teeth.

The New Form of Memory Loss and the Awakening of Soul Gears

The Coexistence Pillar of the Source Dimension suddenly trembled. On the scale of Di Tian’s projection that recorded the ”Blue Star Mechanical Pendulum,” a certain scale became completely transparent. The System’s voice carried a rare hesitation: ”Memory integrity has dropped to 42%... ’Memory carrier transfer’ detected—you are imprinting memories into the civilizations you have protected.” White Frost’s projection lowered her head and discovered that the patterns on her Light Wings had turned into translucent gears, each tooth corresponding to the coordinates of a saved civilization. ”So... we don’t have to remember, as long as they remember.”

When the last logic virus was purified, the twelve memory gears suddenly rose and assembled into a huge ”Eternal Gear” above the Soul Furnace. In the center of the gear, the coexistence seed fused with the core consciousness of the mechanical civilization, blooming into a flower that shimmered with both metallic luster and a gentle halo. Li stood under the gear, his mechanical prosthetic and flesh-and-blood arm perfectly intertwined. In the Symbiosis pattern on his chest, the pattern of a gear appeared for the first time: ”I once thought machines didn’t need a Soul, but it turns out... the Soul is the lubricant that gives logic temperature.”

Foreshadowing: The ”Mechanical Prototype” of the Anti-symbiote Leader

Outside the quantum barrier, deep within the surging gray waves, the harsh sound of gears jamming suddenly came. Li’s mechanical prosthetic suddenly tightened, and his pupils reflected a blurred figure—that figure was sitting on a huge mechanical throne. The armrests of the throne were actually two dismantled memory gears, and the figure’s right arm had the same metallic luster as Li’s mechanical prosthetic.

”The leader... was once the ’Logic Guardian’ of the mechanical civilization.” Li’s voice carried shock, and the Symbiosis pattern on his prosthetic began to heat up. ”His throne... is made from the wreckage of the first Soul Furnace.” The light patterns of the System suddenly flickered violently, projecting a broken image into the projection: the figure on the throne had once woven the most beautiful mechanical poems with their companion, until the companion was devoured by Chaos Entropy due to ”non-logical consciousness.”

The Final Promise and the Next Stop

In the radiance of the memory gears, the projections of Di Tian and White Frost gradually dissipated. Li watched the direction where they disappeared and tossed the newly woven Coexistence gear into the starry sky: ”I will take it and wait for you at the Psionic Civilization.” The gear cut through the darkness, leaving a trail that shimmered with both logical and emotional light.

On the base of the Source Dimension, Di Tian raised his hand and touched the Coexistence Pillar; doodles by mechanical children appeared on the pillar’s surface. White Frost’s Light Wings fluttered gently, and several transparent ”gear feathers” drifted down. The patterns on the feathers were slowly reorganizing—these were the memory fragments imprinted within the mechanical civilization. The System’s final prompt carried warmth: ”Next stop: the ’Sea of Resonance’ of the Psionic Civilization, where consciousness can weave reality with emotions.”

In the darkness in the distance, the mechanical throne of the Anti-symbiote leader turned gently. His fingertips brushed over the gear wreckage of the armrest, and his whisper was drowned in the quantum noise: ”Even Li has started weaving memories... It seems it is time to let them see the end of ’absolute rationality’.” In the shadows beneath the throne, twelve ”prototype mechanical bodies” covered in gray ribbons of light slowly opened their eyes. In their pupils were Dragon scale patterns similar to Di Tian’s.