"It seems there’s sothing outside. I’ll go take a look. You all stay safe in the vehicle."
Noticing a mysterious object outside the exploration vehicle calling out to him, Wang Zhifan swiftly made the decision to go and check it out alone.
The few scientists inside the vehicle felt slightly puzzled by his sudden statent, as they couldn’t perceive the orb circling above in the darkness atop the car. However, considering Wang Zhifan had led them through many challenges on this journey, they raised no objections.
A few seconds later, Wang Zhifan opened the car door and stepped into the nearby darkness. As he expected, the mysterious, football-sized orb darted toward him as soon as he erged, evidently seeking him out.
"Are you the one that escaped from that creature earlier? And you dare co looking for ? Aren’t you afraid I’ll cut you down with a single stroke?"
As the mysterious orb hovered before Wang Zhifan, he opened his mouth to interrogate it, despite his doubts about whether it could speak human language.
"Zzzzzz~"
Sure enough, the orb floating in mid-air responded only with aningless static noise, leaving him sowhat speechless; it was foreseeable that this communication attempt would fail.
But just as he was about to return to the vehicle to discuss with the scientists how to resolve this communication barrier, the situation suddenly changed. The chaotic noise from the mysterious orb began to form comprehensible parts.
"Organism... thank you... save ..."
The sounds were not clear, and the electronic synthesized tone was quite peculiar, but Wang Zhifan, with his excellent hearing, quickly understood, filling him with astonishnt.
"Organism? This is the first ti I’ve heard such an address... But since you understand our language, you should know that calling us ’humans’ is more accurate."
Wang Zhifan stared at the mysterious orb with interest, secretly pondering its connection with the humans visiting this planet.
"Apologies... humans... I’ve only just begun to decipher your language... I shall continuously correct data errors in future communications..."
The mysterious orb, after a slight pause, responded, and this ti both its pronunciation accuracy and coherence had improved significantly.
"What exactly are you? The intelligent life of this planet? Or an artificial intelligence?"
The response piqued Wang Zhifan’s interest even further. While others might feel tense or fearful when encountering such an existence, Wang Zhifan was confident in his abilities and sensed no malice from the entity.
"Human, based on my current deductions, I belong to what you refer to as artificial intelligence."
The mysterious orb promptly answered, showing a great deal of candor.
Hovering in the air, the football-sized orb rose to a slightly higher position, then voiced downward to Wang Zhifan:
"My creators originated on this very planet under your feet, but according to my current observations, they have long been extinct, and even the civilization that eradicated them has perished a long ti ago, leaving behind nurous remnants of alien civilizations here..."
Wang Zhifan felt he could detect a sense of regret in the speech of this self-proclaid artificial intelligence, which made him silently marvel at its rapid learning speed and uncharacteristic resemblance to a re chanical life form.
"Hehe... I suspect you’re not just an artificial intelligence but rather an electronic data being that your creators have transford into. Am I correct?"
With suspicions in mind, Wang Zhifan spoke directly, confident that he could easily handle this small entity without worry of offending it.
"No, my creators did not manage to master the life uploading technology you ntioned."
To his surprise, the mysterious orb imdiately refuted his statent.
"They indeed intended to pursue that, creating artificial intelligences like for that purpose, but the arrival of powerful enemies disrupted everything, and they couldn’t win the war..."
The mysterious orb’s words carried a tinge of sadness; by now, its mastery of human language was almost flawless.
"Alright... I’ll tentatively believe what you said."
Wang Zhifan listened without expressing agreent or disagreent, as many things are better left to ponder rather than reach a hasty conclusion on their truth.
"Your explanation clearly has a flaw, which is that your supposedly powerful adversary annihilated your creators, so why didn’t they eliminate you in passing? I even feel that you haven’t been hard at all, maintaining an intact state."
This was why Wang Zhifan felt the entity’s account was sowhat dubious. How could an orb, visibly not too strong, survive a cataclysm that obliterated even its creators? Was it possible that the adversarial civilization spared artificial intelligence?
Yet the mysterious orb did not agree with this so-called loophole at all and responded imdiately:
"Human, the enemy did not overlook ; they rely couldn’t breach the destruction field, nor did they know I was deliberately hidden within it by my creators, which allowed to remain in the destruction field for 238,971 ho star years, until you rescued ."
"Destruction field? Is it that peculiar thing that enveloped you? Its na is quite fitting, indeed."
Upon hearing this, Wang Zhifan recalled the previously baffling, dangerous floating oblate spheroid, which was neither life nor any state of solid, liquid, or gas, and was impervious to any harm. Had it not been for his possession of the Epic Layer’s Ti Blade, he doubt he could have done anything to it.
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