(It feels like this month’s votes aren’t very promising... So let’s ask for some votes again, comrades, if you have any unused votes left, please send them over, after all, keeping them won’t help you invest in real estate, right...)

Angel City is still quite empty, walking on those magnificent cloud bridges and open-air squares feels like touring ruins. Aurelia was walking side by side with me and Sandora, and she mentioned the manpower crisis she was facing.

"Only the standard apostles can undertake complex and delicate tasks, but they are too few in number, and the progress of the projects has been greatly affected. We have already manufactured a large number of elemental craftsmen to assist in the construction, but the mass-produced elemental beings can’t handle the precise and flexible tasks like fine-tuning the magic energy nodes. Now all the commanders skilled in creating magic energy creatures are extracting their souls to create smarter and more useful split lifeforms... Sixteen commanders with severe schizophrenia due to frequent soul splitting have already been sent for maintenance."

Aurelia spoke in a very calm tone about the various problems currently faced. The more I listened, the more I felt a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. The unoptimistic situation in Heavenly Realm City is one thing, but more importantly, it’s the working methods of these mysterious side elites—as Bellavilla said, the apostles of the mysterious side are extremely adept at controlling their own inner selves. They manipulate their souls as easily as eating and drinking water. Before this, I’d never heard of anyone capable of slicing their soul into seventeen or eighteen segments to cultivate individually—are they earthworms?

Ahem, this thought was too disrespectful, stop it, stop it.

Regarding the splitting of the soul, since it’s mentioned here, perhaps a little explanation is needed. The so-called dividing one’s soul into fragments is not really about chopping that invisible and intangible entity as if it’s dough, but rather a process of virtual copying. The soul is formless and unsubstantiated; it’s neither matter nor energy—it’s an aggregation of information. A being with a soul, when stripped of its physical body, consists of two components on the mental level: memory and the "algorithm" that processes these memories, with the soul actually being the latter. If one were to compare a person to a computer, the soul would be the operating system; it’s the "formula" for processing everything you "know." For example, when faced with the word "drunk", some thought processes immediately conclude "speak truth under influence," while others immediately jump to "lose control"; the latter would have a lascivious soul... Okay, that’s a rather clumsy analogy and doesn’t quite fit the requirements, but that’s basically how it works. The soul determines what kind of conclusion will be made in the mental world of different individuals from the same information, thus it’s the soul that ultimately decides an individual’s "reality." As long as the formula is certain, then no matter what values are plugged in (like memory or life experiences), the result (external behavior, worldview, personality, and any other characteristic that can be manifested) will always be the same. Extracting a soul is essentially copying part of this colossal formula group—a copied small segment like this is enough to give an inanimate object its own "worldview." Then, based on this bit of worldview, it can slowly establish a truly complete soul of its own. As for the mother needing to be extracted, performing such an operation repeatedly is absolutely harmful.

Why, you ask? Anyone who’s used a computer knows that C drive’s contents can’t be messed with...

The apostles on the mysterious side are very good at controlling their souls; they know how to copy things from their system drive without causing a blue screen or other malfunctions. But this doesn’t mean they have a more solid system drive. Every time a soul is extracted, a massive operational log is left in the "system drive," and if extraction happens too frequently, these logs can’t be deleted in time. Over time, the person will end up tied up and sent to the old cadet activity center...

"Make sure those overly dedicated commanders pay attention to their bodies, and at least save enough energy to face other emergencies. Moreover, Bellavilla has already organized a group of Ravens to support you. I would bet she might have gathered all the temporarily unassigned Ravens for this. Your pressure here should ease up a lot," I informed Aurelia about Bellavilla’s situation. "Ravens seem to be very adept at delicate work; when they have nothing to do, they even use arcane micro-carving on their fingernails to engrave the Imperial Code. So, repairing the Magic Net should also be right up their alley."

Aurelia paused mid-air, seemingly giving a light sigh: "That would indeed ease things a lot. But using arcane to micro-carve the Imperial Code on fingernails... is not the same as repairing magic energy nodes. Never mind, that’s not important."

Under Aurelia’s guidance, we arrived at a lively place, located on the... backside of the Forgotten Garden.

We all know that the Forgotten Garden is a complex of structures built on a floating land, and I always thought that the Forgotten Garden was just those buildings I could see. But I never expected that it actually consists of two parts—one is the upper city, and the other is the mountain below. The floating land is an inverted cone, so if you flip it, the lower part of the inverted cone land is naturally a peak. Before the Forgotten Garden was torn from the Mother Star, its lower part was an independent inverted cone structure, originally located inside a large underground cavern. Now it has seen the light of day and become the "Reflection Mountain." This strange upside-down mountain was originally an auxiliary factory, and now it has been renovated and is producing Gundam Giant Statues day and night. Given the Mysterious system’s insufficient standard apostle base, which cannot summon large numbers of puppet creatures to supplement the population, the mass-producible Gundam Giant Statues and other magic soldiers are the most stable source of troops that Orelia can find right now.

This inverted mountain has its own gravity. Therefore standing on the mountainside and looking at the Heavenly Realm City gives a strange sense of dissonance: it feels as if the entire world is flipped, whereas in fact, it’s you who is truly upside down.

The production process of the Gundam Giant Statue seemed novel to me. In those hollow mountains, buried deep within the mountain itself, there are enormous and spacious "factories." Rows of neatly arranged azure orbs float in mid-air, with each orb "immersed" with a small piece of the Gundam Giant Statue’s metal limbs, while countless starlike spots of light shuttle through the orb, engraving complex runes on those metal rings. Whenever a segment of metal limb is completed, it flies out of the orb and floats to the rune platform at the end of a row of orbs to automatically assemble with other matching metal segments. At the same time, new raw materials are directly teleported into the orb that has just been emptied. The cycle continues, allowing each Gundam Giant Statue to walk off the rune platform and proceed to the next stage, where it receives an infusion of an Artificial Soul and an initial task setting. The manufacturing speed of the Gundam Giant Statue isn’t fast; at least during my and Sandora’s inspection, not a single Gundam Giant Statue walked off the rune platform. This indicates that this kind of magic giant, whose combat power is several times that of a standard Imperial Soldier, is considered an elite unit—no matter how many Gundam Giant Statues Orelia produces, it can’t fill the shortage of basic soldiers. Ultimately, it’s still the severe scarcity of the Mysterious system’s standard apostles.

This Mysterious "factory" is vastly different from the Technology Side factories I’ve seen. Those marvelous floating light balls are hard to associate with a production line, but despite the dizzying work methods, everything here still upholds the high efficiency principle collectively practiced by the Xyrin Empire. The orderly production scene gives confidence that not a second of time is wasted here.

In the production "workshop" of the Gundam Giant Statues, we also saw the Elemental Craftsmen mentioned by Orelia. These are the most basic worker units on the Mysterious Side. They resemble the Aladdin’s Lamp God, with an upper body barely taking human form, while the lower body is a mass of cloud mist in a pale blue elemental life form. Their intelligence seems to be similar to the autonomous machines around Gaia, and their combat strength... is probably non-existent. Under the command of several Gudel Ice Breakers, these Elemental Craftsmen are responsible for checking the operational status of each orb engraving runes on the giant soldier’s limb parts and continuously repairing those orbs that have stopped functioning or even incinerated their raw materials due to various accidents—just this alone shows that the factory, though operational, isn’t in the best of conditions.

"Fortunately, we have the Gudel Elemental People originally made by Audemus. They can still handle some tasks requiring flexibility, although still not as good as high-level puppet creatures, but at least much smarter than the Elemental Craftsmen," Orelia pointed at a Gudel Ice Breaker that was shedding crumbs as it walked. "The only problem is, after so many years of degeneration, these elemental beings are already struggling to maintain their physical forms. Their working ability, aside from their brains, is almost nonexistent. Moreover, we don’t dare let them direct on-site work in workshops with environment requirements above level three because..."

"Because they shed crumbs." I reluctantly covered my forehead, watching the Ice Breaker grind down its massive hips again—not knowing if this was the same Ice Breaker that took us to meet Audemus, as they all seem to look the same.

"Huh, I don’t know if it’s an illusion," I suddenly discovered something and pointed at Orelia’s face, saying, "Your resolution seems higher than before."

Orelia’s form is known to everyone as just a vague light shadow, her whole being shrouded in a layer of mist-like radiance, hinting at a female form. But now, I’ve suddenly realized that I could seemingly discern her features, as that radiance has become thinner at some unknown point, which prompted my question. Orelia was momentarily stunned, not understanding what "higher resolution" meant, and only realized after Sandora, amused, explained it to her. "Oh, it’s just gradually recovering. You couldn’t possibly think that this hazy figure was my original form, could you?"

My response was honest: "I actually did think so..."

Orelia was usually at a loss for words due to my abrupt questions, and this was no exception. She was speechless for a few seconds before explaining: "The Xyrin Angel’s form is like Lord Alaya’s—that’s the normal state. My current appearance is not intentional; there was a mistake during the awakening process in the Hall of Gathering... In a state of confusion, I mistakenly took the form of a thought body as my original appearance and forgot what I originally looked like. For energy beings, the soul determines the exterior. Our appearance depends on what we believe we should look like. Newly-formed Xyrin Angels all look the same, often needing a few months before having their own unique facial features, so occasionally you can distinguish whether an energy body creature is a newborn by their appearance. I made a mistake with my memories back then, which led to this form, and now recovering the memories, it takes time to gradually eliminate the effect of that mistake. Yes, it’s already quite effective—can you see my features now?"

Orelia spoke, and even her usually calm and indifferent tone couldn’t help but carry a hint of joy, but I suddenly thought of something very saddening, so I nodded with a long face, "Ah, congratulations..."

"... Your Majesty? What’s the matter?"

Sandora patted my shoulder and waved at Orelia, "Don’t ask, being shameless is black history for Ah Jun..."

I sadly thought that my Void Form was still in a faceless state to this day. After so many years of effort, the only progress was putting a nose on top of my head. The changes in the Second Form were quite significant, turning into something like a cone, and someone jokingly called me the Aladdin Lamp God... Hmm, yes, just like a fool, like the Elemental Craftsman over there. Originally, after getting to know Orelia, I thought I had finally found a buddy for psychological balance, but unexpectedly, she improved her resolution so quickly...

Angel Kite Orelia cluelessly responded with an "oh" and continued to lead us on a tour of the remaining part of this arsenal. However, the rest was not much to see, or rather, it was entirely beyond my understanding, so I brought up another matter that concerned me: "I heard from Bellavilla that you found the data on the Radiant Ring?"

Orelia nodded, "Yes, I just haven’t had the chance to report to you. The Heart of the World Ring you retrieved from the Northern Ice Plain, after our inspection, we found that besides being the host of the Heart of the World, it was also a storage device with a large amount of technical data on high-level weaponry integrated inside. Lady Reiji must have foreseen that the Capital Universe would inevitably be torn apart by shockwaves, so she backed up the most important technical data in the Heart of the World. We are hastily organizing that data and have already started constructing the Star Shaping Pool and Magic Tower. However, to produce high-level space battleships like the Radiant Ring, even at the Empire’s highest efficiency, I’m afraid..."

"I know, Bellavilla has already complained to me about this once, this can’t be rushed."

"But we do have some finished products that you can preview—a small-scale project." Orelia seemed to smile slightly—I interpreted her brief pause just now as a smile—and then led us to the latter part of the Magic Energy Puppet production factory, where there was another completely different set of production facilities.

A massive array of runes suspended in mid-air, along with crystal thin plates symmetrically arranged in an octagonal pattern, was placed in a hall with a radius of about fifty meters. At the center of these mysterious facilities, there was a strange, tear-shaped object hovering, more than three meters tall.

"This is the test zone. We are attempting to replicate various industrial infrastructures that are not currently available in the Heavenly Realm City but were widely used during the Old Empire era. What you see now is the Single Soldier Combat Cabin; the setup outside is an assembly unit, and other production facilities are receiving tests in other rooms. This teardrop-shaped object is the result of our work over the past few days."

Orelia pointed out the teardrop-shaped item called the Single Soldier Combat Cabin to us, and then tapped several times on the nearest crystal thin plate. The eight plates quickly sank into the ground, while the "teardrop" floated in front of us.

Curious, I reached out to touch it and found it had a hard, cold, and smooth surface. But surprisingly, even though it had a silvery-white and seemingly reflective smooth shell, it didn’t reflect my shadow at all, not even a blurry reflection. Its surface had an absolutely consistent sheen, which was not an attribute of common materials—it didn’t even quite conform to optics. By now, the things from the Mysterious Side have given me the impression that there’s always something off about each of them—they all have peculiarities that can’t be reconciled with the current worldview, truly fascinating.

"It looks much smaller than a Single Soldier Fighter Jet, with the longest axis only three meters," I tapped the shell of the teardrop, which produced a crisp sound, "Does the soldier fight in outer space from inside it?"

"No, perhaps it’s a bit different from what you imagine..." Orelia reached out to touch the surface of the teardrop, and then a wondrous scene unfolded: The latter began to soften and distort, like melting butter falling to the ground. Then its volume began to shrink abnormally, gradually re-solidifying from a large puddle of liquid state, swelling up, reminiscent of slimes in games that guide warriors through life paths—and then it really turned into a slime.

The previously three-meter-tall hard teardrop had, in just a few seconds, transformed into a "slime"-like creature, only half as tall, wobbly like jelly, and constantly emitting bubbling sounds. It seemed to salute Sandora and me, then continued to morph, first into the form of Audemus, then into my form, and then into a girl we’d never seen before. However, ultimately, this "slime" returned to being a blob of jelly, rocking up and down as if utterly exhausted, like it was trying to catch its breath.

I was dumbfounded by this scene full of comedy.

"The Single Soldier Combat Cabin is a type of transformation process, fundamentally a set of rune devices that can change the material form. The soldier isn’t ’piloting’ inside but merges directly with the rune group inside the combat cabin. The Single Soldier Combat Cabin is only usable by these Elemental Beings, humorously called Arcane Dwarves, because their bodies can decompose and integrate with anything that has a magic energy reaction seamlessly. You could imagine this little ’pilot’ as liquid, flowing within the Single Soldier Combat Cabin’s arcane energy-laden veins. Once the combat state is lifted, the cabin gets absorbed back into its symbiotic soldier’s body, storing the runes just like this." Orelia said, flipping over the "Arcane Dwarf" that was crawling around, revealing a large patch of sparkling runes under its "belly." Upon closer inspection, I realized these runes were inside its transparent body, clearly visible because of the Arcane Dwarf’s transparent belly.

"The Single Soldier Combat Cabin is very small mainly because it doesn’t carry any conventional weapons—Single Soldier Fighter Jets have cannons, missile launchers, and space dark mine deployment devices, but the Single Soldier Combat Cabin has none. It is essentially an amplification device, used to enhance its symbiotic body’s power, thus it is actually..."

Orelia paused, seemingly finding it hard to describe, finally squeezing out a few words, "It’s a combat suit..."

I looked at the "Arcane Dwarf," now morphing into a crystal-clear Chinese village dog, and felt...

The things from the Mysterious Side are truly friggin’ marvelous... (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to vote for recommendation and monthly tickets at Qidian (qidian.com); your support is my greatest motivation.)