Nick took a while to come to terms with what he had just seen.
This was a Specter, but the Containment Unit that was supposed to suppress it didn't do anything to it.
Even more, Nick had believed that he was safe, but he actually wasn't.
There were Specters that broke out of their Containment Units, but Nick wasn't sure if he had ever seen one that was just allowed to leave.
"My authority outranks the Emperor's authority," the Pure One said. "I can overrule any of your decisions if I choose to."
Nick furrowed his brows. "Why?"
Naturally, his question wasn't "how" but "why".
Why would the Empire allow this Specter to outrank the Emperor?
"I am the last resort," the Pure One said. "If the new Emperor doesn't value humanity, it is my duty to get rid of them."
"In the Empire, while I could also outrank the Emperor, his advisors could outrank me, while he could outrank the advisors."
'Balance of power,' Nick thought. 'If the Emperor goes out of control and does something the advisors don't agree with, the Pure One can revoke the status of an Emperor. However, the advisors can also stop the Pure One.'
'Like this, the Emperor can't become a dictator.'
'However…' Nick thought as he looked at the Pure One. 'The fact that they trusted a Specter with this feels unreal.'
"You will understand," the Pure One said. "I can imagine that you believe this to be a risky choice by the Empire, but when you truly understand the creation of Specters, you will realize that there was never any risk."
"Specters are just like humans."
"They are just very complex machines."
"A human's thoughts and decisions are created by electronic waves inside their brains. A Specter's thoughts and decisions are created by Zephyx in their Specter Core."
"A human's electronic waves move in a predictable pattern, which has been shaped by their biology and experiences. If you know both things,you can predict what a human would do years in advance."
"Free will is an illusion. Even your doubts are preprogrammed. Having doubts is part of your process as a biological machine."
The Pure One gestured for Nick to follow him out of the Containment Unit, and Nick did just that.
"Specters are not any different. In fact, they are much simpler."
"Specters are not natural creations. They did not evolve like other animals or humans. All Specters are artificial."
"I am simply a Specter that was created by the Empire."
The two of them entered one of the rooms with several machines.
"The natural Specters you know are programmed to cause suffering to humanity. I do not believe that I have to tell you why."
Nick nodded.
"Meanwhile, I have a different programming."
The Pure One looked at Nick.
"I am programmed to be human."
"I have feelings like rage, doubt, fear, and love."
The next moment, the Pure One just chuckled bitterly.
"It's just that feeling these things is difficult nowadays."
"I've been alone in an enclosed room for tens of thousands of years."
"I've mostly spent my time meditating, but tens of thousands of years is a long time."
"I'm supposed to feel things, but after such a long time, I'm not sure if I can anymore."
'Tens of thousands of years in isolation,' Nick thought. 'I can barely imagine.'
'I'm not sure if I would be sane after such a long time.'
'Since the Containment Unit didn't have any Star Energy or Pure Energy, he also couldn't leave.'
'He was stuck inside until someone activated the Containment Unit from the outside.'
The Pure One could tell what Nick was thinking just by looking at him.
"Do not pity me," the Pure One said. "I chose this. I volunteered."
"As a Specter, I do not age. Machines die, and energy vanishes, but as long as there is Prephyx in the atmosphere, I won't die."
The Pure One opened a panel in one of the machines.
"Can you refill the Pure and Star Energy in this machine?" he asked.
Nick nodded and walked over.
He held his two rings to the machine, and its energy storage rapidly refilled.
The next moment, the Pure One gave Nick several commands.
The Pure One didn't have a Seed, and he couldn't command the machines without one.
Because of that, Nick had to do everything.
Nick knew what this machine was.
It was a biological analyzer.
It could scan biological matter and break it down into data.
However, its database was empty.
"All knowledge in all the machines has been deleted," the Pure One said. "The enemy deletes human knowledge and electronic knowledge when a new era dawns."
"We are not entirely sure how they sense it, but if they had sensed that any information was contained here, they would have found Deep Core Base already."
"These machines operate on instinct, which is not easy to understand since that doesn't make any sense at first glance. However, you said you already learned about the Empire's engineering."
Nick just nodded, showing that he understood.
The part about instinctual machines was extremely weird.
It dealt a lot with the concepts of space, time, and reality.
Nick didn't have the tools to create instinctual machines yet since they were so hard to make.
Instinctual machines were difficult to create, and they were not better in any way than normal machines.
The only benefit they had was that their "function" was not in time and space.
An operator would send a command to an instinctual machine.
Then, the command would be transformed into many tiny particles, which would vanish a moment later.
After that, new particles would appear, and they would transmit the result back to the operator.
In a way, it was like having a computer in a separate dimension, but that was oversimplifying it tremendously.
Luckily, since the instinctual machines operated outside of Earth's reality, the information it processed couldn't be sensed.
Sadly,while it was possible to process information this way, it was impossible to store it.
Instinctual machines worked on instinct.
They did something, but they couldn't remember something.
"We are going to refill the database," the Pure One said. "And we are going to use your disguise ability."
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