Chapter 25: Herta's CPU is Fried
The automatic doors to Herta's office slid open with a soft hiss. Stepping inside, Leon, Stelle, and Caelus were immediately greeted by the sight of yet another ball-jointed Herta puppet. She stood in the center of the room, hands planted firmly on her hips, tapping her foot in a rhythmic display of impatience.
"Yo. You guys finally made it."
"Yeah, we are finally here. Sorry to keep you waiting, Madam Herta," Leon replied, a teasing smile playing on his lips. He casually strolled into the room, looking around at the scattered curios and glowing monitors. "After all, we do not have a personal army of puppets scattered across the station to transfer our consciousness into at a moment's notice."
Herta waved off the remark, clearly uninterested in small talk. "I won't beat around the bush," she declared, getting straight to the point. "I am currently working on a massive project with a few of my colleagues from the Genius Society. If this succeeds, we will finally be able to solve the ultimate mystery that has plagued the universe for thousands of Amber Eras—the secret of the Aeons."
At the mere mention of her research, the puppet's usually flat tone spiked with genuine fervor. "Aeons—just think about it! What miraculous, unfathomable beings! Some of these Aeons were once ordinary humans, just like you and me. Yet somehow, through some unknown catalyst, they obtained power completely beyond mortal imagination."
She paced back and forth, her artificial joints clicking softly. "They are mysterious, powerful, silent, and utterly terrifying! The enigmas surrounding their existence cannot be explained away in just a few simple words. How were they born? Why were they born? What is the ultimate purpose of their birth?" She threw her hands up, her synthetic eyes practically glowing with academic obsession. "I ask you, have you ever actually stopped to think about these questions?"
Xing blinked, her expression deadpan as she processed the sudden lore dump. "But what does any of that have to do with us?" Compared to the grand mysteries of the cosmos, the gray-haired Trailblazer was far more concerned with how this affected her current schedule.
"Well, it really has nothing to do with you," Herta admitted with brutal frankness, not missing a beat. "But we need your help to test it. Just be patient; I won't treat you poorly when it comes to compensation."
She gestured toward the massive, glowing contraption dominating the back of the room. "Four geniuses from the Society teamed up to write a specialized program. Do you see that giant machine over there? Inside its data banks is an entire universe. It is just like the world we live in, but far more simplified, customized, and controllable!"
The puppet's eyes sparkled with unapologetic pride. "I call it—The Metaverse!"
Leon stared at the machine, then back at Herta, his lips twitching. "The Metaverse? That name sounds absolutely terrible. Why not just call it the Simulated Universe?" He walked closer, inspecting the glowing rings and floating holographic interfaces with genuine interest.
'Man, it is been ages,' Leon thought to himself. Back in his past life, it had been a long time since he actually bothered coming to Herta's office to grind the standard Simulated Universe. Ever since the Divergent Universe update dropped, he had spent almost all his time hanging out in Screwllum's upgraded system. Seeing this clunky, original version of the machine right in front of him brought a wave of nostalgic amusement washing over him.
"Is that so?" Herta crossed her arms, looking slightly surprised. "My other partners said the exact same thing... Actually, I quite like the name 'The Metaverse.' It has a nice ring to it. However..." She waved a dismissive hand, instantly changing her tune. "I, Herta, am always open to constructive suggestions. So, let's just call it the Simulated Universe instead!"
When it came to trivial matters like naming conventions, Herta's bottom line was notoriously flexible.
"Go ahead and experience it right now. I will guide you through the Simulated Universe the entire time, ensuring that my participants won't suffer any actual losses. Plus, I will pay you a very generous reward upon completion." Herta tapped her foot again, her impatience bleeding through the puppet's voice.
"Can the three of us go in together?" Leon asked, glancing back at Stelle and Caelus.
"Of course. I will drop you into different starting areas and assign you different virtual identities. After all, with your original, ordinary identities, it would be incredibly hard to attract the attention of the simulated Aeons," Herta explained, already typing away at a holographic console.
"In that case, there is no need to arrange a fake identity for me," Leon stated, a confident smirk spreading across his face. "I am absolutely certain I can attract the attention of the Aeons just as I am."
"So confident?" Herta paused her typing, her synthetic brow furrowing in deep skepticism. Although the Aeons inside the Simulated Universe were purely virtual existences, they were carefully crafted based on mountains of existing data. Their behavior, logic, and speech patterns were virtually indistinguishable from the real cosmic entities.
"Of course," Leon chuckled, stretching his arms lazily. "After all, I am a guy who can casually create a Stellaron with my bare hands. Besides, I already know you are definitely planning to disguise them as Akivili, the Trailblaze."
The Herta puppet froze, genuinely stunned. "You even know about that?"
"Alright, alright, just don't worry about me. Boot it up."
With a flash of digital light, Leon, Stelle, and Caelus synchronized with the machine and entered the Simulated Universe together. True to Herta's word, Leon did not spawn in the same starting zone as the two Trailblazers. Instead, his vision swam with lines of code before solidifying into a breathtakingly brilliant starry sky.
The cosmos stretched out around him like an endless canvas, dotted with millions of glittering stars. The void of space was as dark as spilled ink, while the swirling galaxies painted a picture of incomparable, poetic beauty. It looked exactly like the cosmic expanse he had drifted through when he first transmigrated into this world.
"The Simulated Universe... it really is the Simulated Universe! The sensory feedback is incredibly realistic," Leon murmured, a nostalgic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
He floated in the digital vacuum, taking in the sights. Just then, a massive shadow fell over him. He turned his head and found himself staring directly at a colossal, floating mechanical head that had abruptly materialized right in his field of vision. A single, glowing eye stared back at him with cold, calculating logic.
Leon fell completely silent.
'Oh, come on!'he groaned internally, his smile flatlining.'Good grief, why is it always you who finds me first again, Nous?!'
"Nous?!" Herta's voice echoed from the external comms, her sharp cry of surprise ringing clearly in Leon's ears.
As an Emanator of Erudition, it was absolutely impossible for Herta not to recognize her own patron deity. But it was precisely because she recognized and understood the Aeon of Erudition that she felt so utterly blindsided.
"But how is this even possible? Why would Nous appear here?!" Outside the machine, Herta gripped the edge of her console, her mind falling into a frantic spiral of calculations.
Leon's entry parameters were completely standard. He was using his own baseline identity, and she had not applied a single disguise, buff, or modification to his avatar. So why did Nous manifest? It defied all established logic! According to Herta's extensive research, Nous only ever paid attention to the universe's most brilliant minds. Could Leon actually be a genius?
No, how could that be possible? The guy acted like a shameless clown half the time! There was simply no way Leon possessed the intellect required to draw the Erudition's gaze. Could there be a fatal bug in her Simulated Universe's code?
"Is it Nous again?" Leon murmured aloud. He floated there, looking at the towering mechanical deity with casual interest, completely devoid of the panic he had felt during their very first real-world encounter.
"Quick, talk to Nous! Ask Him why He appeared to you!" Herta ordered urgently through the comms, her voice tight with academic desperation.
Leon completely ignored her frantic instructions. He just crossed his arms and waited.
The simulated Nous remained entirely silent. The giant mechanical eye whirred softly, processing an unknown variable, before His colossal figure slowly dissolved into digital dust, fading back into the starry void.
A second later, the temperature in the vacuum seemed to plummet. Leon felt a sudden chill crawl up his spine and casually turned to look behind him.
Sure enough, a faint, crystalline crack echoed through the space.
The sound of freezing reality was so slight that even Herta's monitoring equipment barely registered it, but Leon heard it loud and clear.
"The Memory Aeon Fuli?!" Herta shrieked through the comms, finally noticing the towering entity composed of prismatic ice manifesting directly behind Leon's avatar. She gripped the edges of her monitor so tightly her puppet's joints creaked, staring intently at the screen, terrified of missing a single frame of data.
The crystalline giant loomed over Leon, its faceless visage reflecting a million fractured realities. A voice that sounded like grinding glaciers echoed directly into Leon's mind.
"I cannot see your memories you are not from this world I am very curious..."
Fuli spoke in His characteristic, unbroken stream of consciousness, the words blending together without a single pause or inflection.
And then, just like before... the simulated Aeon violently shattered into countless shards of digital ice.
"!!!!!" Herta stared at her monitors, completely speechless for a fraction of a second.
"It shattered?!" Herta erupted in a scream of pure, unadulterated disbelief. Outside the machine, her puppet's internal CPU was practically overheating, cooling fans whirring wildly as it tried to process the impossible error.
Leon just stared at the floating ice crystals. "..."
'Sure enough, Fuli still shattered,'Leon thought, shaking his head in amusement. Herta's Simulated Universe was genuinely impressive. It had actually managed to perfectly recreate the exact sequence of events from the day he first arrived in this universe.'If the pattern holds, then next should be...' Leon slowly turned around again, bracing himself.
Right on cue, a manic, echoing laughter tore through the digital cosmos.
"Hahaha! Aha saw it all! Aha saw everything!"
A chaotic blur of shifting masks and vibrant colors materialized out of thin air.
"You shattered Fuli! Aha is so sad!" The entity wailed in a mock-tragic tone, wiping away fake tears. "Waaaaah! Fuli, you died such a miserable, pathetic death!"
Aha, the Aeon of Elation, spun around Leon with a booming, theatrical laugh. The floating masks suddenly stopped, leaning in close to Leon's face. The simulated Aeon's voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper, dripping with meta-awareness.
"Pity. What a terrible pity. Aha is just an equation in a computer right now; otherwise, I would definitely make you an Emanator all over again!"
The masks spun wildly, bursting into a shower of digital confetti.
"This really is so much fun!"
Having delivered His punchline, the simulated Aha did not bother waiting for a response. He simply dissolved into a chaotic swirl of pixels, His manic laughter echoing through the void long after He was gone.
"Aha! Aha! Ahahahaha!"
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