Ash entered the room Eric was in.
But room was the wrong word to be honest. As Ash stepped inside, the space expanded far beyond what he had expected, and it was more like some sort of spaceship control room rather than a simple chamber within the Soul Space.
There were all sorts of monitors placed everywhere, their surfaces glowing with flowing data and constantly shifting symbols. Holograms floated here and there, rotating slowly in mid air, displaying structures, formulas, and incomplete models.
Various theories were written on notes being stuck on the board on one side of the wall, layers upon layers of calculations overlapping each other, with arrows and markings connecting different ideas.
Tons of spare parts, wires, and papers were scattered all around the place as if it had not been cleaned for millennia, and the entire area carried the suffocating intensity of someone who had been working without rest.
At the center of it all was a large cuboid, dominating the room like the heart of the entire setup.
It was filled with all sorts of wires, so densely packed and intertwined that it almost looked as if it was made entirely of wires rather than metal or any solid frame.
The cube was almost as big as that of a large truck.
Furthermore, there were tons of wires connecting it to various large square boxes, which Ash knew were the energy generators. They used mana crystals to power up various sources, and hell, even a single one could power a whole city without breaking a sweat. And right now, more than ten were in use, humming faintly as streams of energy pulsed through the cables and into the central structure.
"What the hell is he doing, I only asked him to create the framework for it, not the whole thing...."
Ash felt like pulling his hair as he calculated in his mind how much resources he would have already lost and how much was left for him to use. The reduction in the Soul Vault suddenly made painful sense.
As Ash looked around, he saw a teenage boy that looked around the age of twenty typing something rapidly on a hologram. He was wearing a monocle that flickered occasionally with streams of information, and he was dressed like a certain character from a novel Ash had read in his previous life, the kind of eccentric genius who locked himself in a lab for years.
He had dark circles below his eyes and looked quite tired, his hair slightly messy and clothes wrinkled, but there was an undeniable gleam and anticipation in those eyes, a feverish excitement that overshadowed his exhaustion.
Without wasting any time, Ash teleported in front of him and asked, "What the hell is all this..?"
Eric jumped back in surprise seeing Ash appear in front of him. He would have almost screamed too, but he was just too tired to even scream, his throat dry and his nerves already stretched thin from years of relentless work.
But seeing it was Ash, Eric’s eyes shone with a sudden spark of relief and excitement. As if all the exhaustion in his body had been temporarily forgotten, he rushed forward and jumped on Ash, grabbing his collars tightly.
"Where the hell were you? If you had not woken up for a few more years, I would have forced you to come out!!!! But leave that, you were right, we can do it, we can create it, it will work."
His words came out in a rush, barely pausing to breathe.
"I tried creating a self evolving Arcane Cognition Matrix with an autonomous Mana Core as its perpetual energy source, then layered it with Spirit Devouring Crystal to make the soul its consciousness. That crystal will serve as the absolute core. Her soul will anchor the system, while the artificial cognition layers will expand around it like a nervous system. Over time, the entity will evolve into something neither fully human nor fully constructed. If this works, it will not just process information, it will feel, decide, and possibly even form its own will without breaking under mana overload or collapsing into spiritual instability..."
His breathing grew heavier as he spoke, hands trembling slightly, eyes almost feverish.
"But that was not enough. Artificial logic collapses under emotional variables. So I constructed a Spiritual Convergence Chamber inside that core cube. The central processing lattice is designed to house a genuine soul, not just data. The soul will act as the primal seed, while the cognition matrix will act as the brain. The mana generators will continuously nourish it, allowing growth instead of degradation.
"Eric."
Ash’s voice was calm, but firm.
Eric kept going as if he had not even heard him.
"This is not just artificial intelligence. It is a Synthetic Sovereign Consciousness Prototype. A being born from stabilized spiritual essence fused with autonomous arcane computation. If synchronization succeeds, she will not be a puppet bound by code. She will think, evolve, and refine herself beyond human limits. Infinite scalability. Infinite growth potential."
He clenched his fists.
"I calculated failure probabilities. If resonance destabilizes, the Spirit Devouring Crystal could rupture and cause a localized spiritual implosion. The backlash might tear apart the entire structure, maybe even damage the surrounding space. But if it works, she will live again. Not as a wandering spirit. Not as a hollow construct. As something greater."
"Eric."
This time Ash grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him lightly, not harshly, but enough to break the frantic rhythm he had fallen into and force his eyes to focus.
"Calm down."
"Huh..!!!?? Oh...right..!!!"
Eric blinked rapidly, as if only now realizing how fast he had been speaking, how tightly his fingers were still gripping Ash’s clothes.
Seeing the state of Eric, the dark circles under his eyes, the trembling fingers, the dry lips that had clearly forgotten what proper rest felt like, Ash just sighed internally and pulled him into a firm embrace.
"It’s okay. You should rest now. We will talk after you have rested enough."
Eric stiffened for a moment, as if the word rest did not exist in his current world.
"But I have to finish stabilizing the resonance layer and recalibrate the mana input before the feedback cycle becomes unstable and if the core fluctuates even slightly the whole—"
"Rest!!!"
Ash’s voice was not loud, but it carried weight, the kind that left no room for argument.
For a second Eric tried to stay upright, as if sheer will alone could keep him standing. Then, as though a dam had finally cracked, all the exhaustion he had been holding back for years came crashing down at once. His grip loosened, his body went limp, and he collapsed against Ash.
The room, filled with humming generators and flickering holograms, suddenly felt too quiet.
Ash adjusted his hold carefully, looking at the chaotic control room, at the massive cube humming with restrained power, at the countless wires and scattered papers that told the story of sleepless centuries.
He exhaled slowly.
What a mess....
After laying Eric down on the bed and making sure his breathing had steadied into a slow, exhausted rhythm, Ash returned to the control room.
The faint hum of generators filled the entire space, steady and heavy, like the heartbeat of some mechanical beast.
Ash hands ran through his non-existent soul hairs as frustration rose within him.
"I should not have told him, damn... he overworked himself.... sigh..."
His gaze drifted toward the massive cuboid at the center, wires pulsing faintly with energy.
Well, he was also at fault. He should have at least checked on Eric once in a while, but he did not. He had buried himself in comprehension and lost track of everything else.
"Anyways, what happened has happened. At least nothing’s too serious..."
Ash knew exactly why Eric was this excited. The topic was about his family, about the sister he had lost, and hope was a dangerous fuel. Once it started burning, it did not care how much it consumed.
Before going into those long years of Rune comprehension, Ash had given Eric a task. He told him to study computer coding and computational theory from the Library, to understand how systems were built from the ground up instead of just using ready-made magical arrays.
Other than books related to cultivation and magic, Ash had memorized technical books, programming structures, artificial intelligence frameworks, neural network theories, and system architecture principles in this world. With his perfect memory, he also carried knowledge from his previous world. He did not just remember stories. He remembered logic, patterns, and the way ML models were designed to think.
This world was far more advanced than Earth in terms of energy sources and materials. Mana crystals, soul alloys, and enchantment circuits had replaced silicon and fossil fuels. Cities ran on pure mana. Weapons and machines were powered by crystal cores. Everything was stronger and cleaner.
But because magic dominated development, most technological growth followed magical logic rather than structured coding logic. Problems were solved by adding more arrays and more energy, not by refining system structure.
It was not that there was no AI in this world. There was. However, it was mostly basic. Most systems were large-scale magical arrays that followed fixed command structures. They could calculate, predict, and automate tasks. They could manage cities, control defenses, and assist researchers. But they lacked adaptability and true self-evolution. They followed instructions. They did not grow beyond them.
They were tools, not minds.
What Ash wanted was fundamentally different.
He wanted Eric to create a framework capable of housing consciousness. Not just an artificial intelligence that simulated emotion through responses, but a real system that could support an actual soul as its core.
The Spirit Devouring Crystal was the key.
That crystal did not simply store a soul. It preserved spiritual remnants without letting them fade away. It kept the soul stable, sealed, and intact.
Inside it rested the soul of the Unicorn King and Queen’s daughter, Eric’s elder sister.
Ash wanted Eric to create a framework, or at least research one, so that they could use the Spirit Devouring Crystal and the soul sealed inside it as the core of a system. Around that core, they would build layers of artificial intelligence, logic circuits, mana pathways, and control structures.
The idea was simple in concept.
The soul would be the heart.
The artificial system would be the body and brain.
From that core, they would attempt to revive her in the form of an Artificial Intelligence with its own Soul. Not a hollow imitation that copied memories. Not a puppet that only responded with stored lines. But a thinking, evolving existence anchored by her true essence.
It was a crazy plan.
Even Ash knew that.
Binding a soul to a constructed intelligence without destroying its identity or damaging its memories was not something written in any book. There was no guide. No teacher. One wrong step could erase her forever.
He was not sure if he would succeed.
But he believed that as long as he used Runes to code and construct the foundational laws of the system, success was possible. Runes were not mere symbols carved for power. They were the language of reality itself. If programming shaped instructions, then Runes shaped existence. If he built the system using Runes, then its foundation would not just be logic, but law.
This idea had come to him when he learned he would eventually lose his Status window.
If a system could be imposed onto him from an external source, then creating a self-originating system was not illogical. It only required enough understanding of both Runes and soul.
If anyone else heard that thought, they would have called him insane without hesitation. But Ash knew artificial intelligence existed. Wasn’t Ray’s system proof of that? That system could think, adapt, and grow. It was not just lines of commands.
If something like that could function, then building a system anchored by a real soul was not impossible. It was only extremely difficult and extremely dangerous.
This way, before he had the power to truly resurrect Eric’s sister in flesh and blood, he could at least bring her back in another form, one that could think, speak, and exist within the world.
It was his own selfish way of repaying the Unicorn King and Queen, even if he never admitted it out loud.
Let’s try to understand all his notes and his research...
Stretching slightly, Ash pulled a chair closer and sat down. Holograms flickered in front of him as he activated a few panels, pages of formulas and mana circuit diagrams overlapping each other.
He had no idea where to start.
But he started anyway.
***
A/N: Status window in the next Chapter. Coming soon. Sorry!!! My mistake!!