The Martial Unity

Chapter 3571: Recounting Defeat

Rui winced at those words. ”Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve, uh, been busy. Really busy.”

”I know, your work is even more important than mine, so I don’t blame you for dedicating all your time towards it,” Julian replied. ”As long as I can spend some time with the children you see playing outside. With Max and Mana, I’m happy enough. That’s all I need.”

”That’s so special.” Amare smiled at him. ”Truly, family is what matters most. I also look forward to meeting Grandma in the Gen Temple.”

She directed a pointed gaze at him, who simply smiled wryly. ”I’ll teleport us there, don’t worry.”

”Good, you shouldn’t neglect your grandmother-in-law.”

”...”

It was Rui’s words that caught Julian’s interest, however. ”I have heard you mastered teleportation technology with your Martial Art. Is that really true?”

Rui nodded. ”I copied elven teleportation technology from a deceased Mother of Nature who used it to ambush me in the light elven territory and converted it into a combat technique.”

”Fascinating.” Julian’s eyes lit up with deep interest. ”Could you transcribe that technique into a form where the sequence of events is clear? I’m confident I can reverse engineer it and recreate that technology and then merge it with our negatron technology. I should be able to create a more efficient and less energy-demanding teleportation alternative than our cumbersome World Bridge technology that causes power shortages in some cities and districts due to how enormous the energy load is.”

”Sure, but to be fair to World Bridge technology, it does create a stable wormhole through which a lot of things can pass. Space-time teleportation involves creating a small momentary wormhole that sucks in the thing that it overlaps and transports it elsewhere. Its transportation capacity is much less than that of a World Bridge that can transport entire armies.”

”That is true,” Julian admitted. ”However, it is also true that elven teleportation technology achieved without negatron matter is bound to help us in the race to the stars. Space-time technology is our only path to the cosmos, and whoever has better space-time technology will win the race to the stars. Anything that can help should be taken up with great eagerness.”

”...Fair enough, I did plan to transcribe it anyway, I’ll have it given to you soon.”

”Are you working on only space-time technology?” Amare raised an eyebrow, asking him with a hint of curiosity.

”No, actually,” Julian replied. ”I’m also working on information technology. Information is power. Your ability to store it, process it, and communicate it is extremely important. And this is one area where we’re miserably inferior to all the other civilizations, except for the giants. They are galaxies beyond us in their ability to process information. Especially the dwarves, elves, and the tekvores. The dwarves have the best general processing information technology, while the elves have integrated information technology with their very continent. The tekvores come next, integrating mind and technology better than most.”

”NOVA has shifted her consciousness to a quantum supercomputer entirely,” Rui remarked as he smiled with a wry expression. ”I probably should have mentioned that to my father, actually.”

Julian heaved an exasperated sigh. ”This is why Martial Artists are expected to write reports on every operation. You are the only one who doesn’t follow that protocol. This is a highly important detail. What do you mean she has transferred her consciousness to a computer. That has not been proven to be possible yet.”

Rui shook his head. ”She has achieved it. I teleported to her location, expecting to find a tekvore. Instead, I found a giant quantum computer that was more than a kilometer in length. She has become a computer herself. I imagine that this is a higher echelon in the Technology Path that no other tekvore has ever reached.”

Julian grew incredulous at that description. ”She transferred her consciousness into a computer? But that’s...”

Rui remained silent as he couldn’t help but think of the Soul Transfer Ritual.

There were some similarities, but he couldn’t help but think that NOVA has surpassed even this shockingly miraculous process. He got the feeling that she wasn’t recreating herself, but had truly transferred an identical copy of her mind to a quantum computer.

There were many, many philosophical dilemmas with what she had done. Whether she was the real NOVA or something else entirely, he didn’t get the sense that she gave a damn about these considerations.

’She’s only interested in power.’

It would explain why she had gone as far as to take this measure in the first place.

”She’s a menace,” Rui added. ”I had a brief little teleportation battle with her and she... outsmarted me.”

Those words shocked both Julian and Amare as they stared at him with expressions of disbelief.

”Are you...” Julian began with a stunned tone. ”Are you serious?”

”She outsmarted you? You???” Amare stared at him with shocked eyes.

”Yes, she was one step ahead of me even when I went all out,” Rui replied with a calm voice. ”It didn’t feel like she was anywhere near her full limit when it comes to processing power. So I suppose I must reckon with the fact that she outsmarted while holding back. This is... a new experience, I must say. I’m not accustomed to this. This is the very first time that I’ve been so categorically inferior in this regard. But I suppose that shows just how immense the world is. Things that you can’t find in the continent are present in the true world.”

”...Even still, at your current echelon of power, your cognitive capacity is already on par, if not even greater than supercomputers. I can’t even fathom how she can overwhelm you this easily.”

”The fundamental quality of her computation is vastly greater than that of my brain,” Rui remarked. ”On top of that, she has invested a lot into the scale of her computation, not just the quality. She has become a supremely intelligent being, probably on par with the superintelligence of the flora network of the dark elves. I can’t compete with that. At least...”

He shrugged. ”Not without going absolutely all out.”