Chapter 14 - Lily

I couldn’t react to the announcement in my head for a moment. Then, my mood instantly shifted to happiness. You have to understand, LILY is the only thing connecting me to my previous world and everything I was before coming here. All the things I did, all my achievements, happiness, and excitement made me who I am today. So LILY is an integral part of me, something I never want to lose.

That’s the only reason I sacrificed using the energy I cultivated to recharge her. The only reason I went through the risky process of soul-splitting was to speed up energy cultivation and revive her quickly.

Now that the moment has come, I’m a little giddy. She can finally stay with me all the time. Once her main battery is activated, she’ll be self-sustaining. She can recharge herself by directly absorbing energy from the atmosphere.

As I was thinking about all of this, a silvery-gold light flashed around my body. The familiar silvery liquid, with occasional gold lines, oozed out and started accumulating.

The all-too-familiar silvery ball floated into my vision. But it didn’t stop there. The ball began to shrink, filling the room with a bright light that grew in intensity as the ball got smaller and smaller. The light became so intense that I had to close my eyes to protect them from burning.

What I didn’t know was that, at the same time, in my Soul Realm, the silvery-gold light in my main soul started glowing just as intensely as my physical body outside. The silver color began to spread through my soul, mixing with its greenish-blue hue. Finally, the light dimmed, and my originally tear-shaped soul now had four colors. The greenish-blue soul now had a silver sheen with bright gold lines running across it.

Meanwhile, in the material world, the ball finally dimmed as well. I opened my eyes, and the scene before me made my jaw drop and my eyes widen to the point where they felt like they took up half my face.

Floating before me, where the silvery ball had been, was a girl wearing a silver dress with gold wings on her back. She was a heaven-shaking beauty, with long silver hair cascading like a waterfall down to her hips. Her innocent yet charming face was perfect, with not a single blemish. But there was one problem…

She was only about 20 cm tall. I think she could be called what used to exist only in tales and legends—a fairy. *Sigh* Why does this world never stop messing with me? It’s like it’s hell-bent on shifting my mindset away from logical, scientifically sound explanations. First, there were dragons, then something that eliminated them. Just as I was coming to terms with that by likening the dragons to dinosaurs on Earth, the Elder dropped the bomb about immortality. I barely kept my sanity by convincing myself that energy absorption into the body somehow changes its composition, reducing or nullifying cellular deterioration.

But now, I can’t keep my mind from going into shock. LILY, a perfect scientific creation I made based on logically explainable processes and findings, had turned into a mythical being. I found myself banging my head against the wall of my room. I stopped with great effort and turned to look at the flying girl in the middle of my room.

The culprit of my current agony was looking at me with an amused expression on her little face. I could even see the mischievous smirk on her face, as if her plan had worked perfectly. I simply turned with a blank look on my face and resumed banging my head on the wall.

I woke up with a splitting headache and had to concentrate hard to gather my thoughts. I remembered LILY again and sighed deeply. I calmed myself somewhat and looked around to find the culprit sitting on my shoulder, swinging her legs playfully. She felt my gaze, turned her small head, and a smile crept onto her face.

I couldn’t help but facepalm. I sighed deeply once again and tried to talk to her.

“LILY?”

“Ha, finally. I didn’t expect such an exaggerated reaction, Master. It was funny watching you look at me and then bang your head against the wall, you know.”

I looked at her blankly again. It was her voice, alright. But what the hell is with that appearance? I voiced that same question to her, and she replied with a happy and excited expression on her face.

“I think it’s the result of the atmospheric conditions in this world, Master. The higher concentration of energy in the atmosphere further evolved the element you made me with. I merely guided that evolution and decided on this form. I thought Master would be happy, and I could converse and adventure with Master in this form.”

I could hear pride in her voice and the expectation of praise. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t even react to her words, let alone praise her. I sighed again and finally calmed down.

“Whatever, LILY,” I replied meekly.

LILY instantly sulked, puffing up her cheeks. Her face turned red all of a sudden, and her small lips started quivering. I got the feeling that she was very angry with me. Seeing her trying-to-hold-back-tears look, my expression softened. No matter what she became, she was still LILY, after all. And she did this to be with me, with more freedom of interaction. That thought finally sobered me up.

“Okay, okay, don’t cry, alright? It’s just that it was more of a shock than I could handle. You did great, LILY. I’m happy too that I can interact more freely with you in that form.”

Her expression instantly changed after hearing my words. I had a lingering feeling that all of this was part of her plan again. I shook off the thought and decided on the next course of action.

“It’s all well and good, LILY. Let’s get serious now.”

“Okay, Master.”

“First of all, diagnose and troubleshoot the entire system. Report the results, and we can decide on future commands based on the findings, alright?”

“Alright, Master. Command accepted. Beginning full system diagnosis and troubleshooting. ETA for results: 3 hours.”

“Report on battery levels.”

“Reserve Battery Level: Fully charged. Main Battery Level: 0.5%. 0.5% of the battery energy was consumed in the process of achieving the current form. Future manifestations won’t be that energy-consuming, and the consumption will be negligible.”

“Good. Now, first of all, can you recharge yourself?”

“No, Master. Since the element evolved, it feels like something has changed in the configuration. I can’t absorb energy directly from the atmosphere. It’s like something is wrong with the compatibility between the energy and my systems.”

So, this is the consequence of her manifestation in this form. But wait a moment, didn’t she just say something about the energy compatibility? Could it be…? I asked her to confirm my thoughts.

“LILY, weren’t your systems configured based on the energy readings of Earth’s atmosphere?”

The moment I asked her that, LILY’s eyes widened, and a pondering expression took over her face.

“Ah, it is as you say, Master. Since the energy concentration here is different from Earth’s, naturally, compatibility doesn’t exist.”

As I thought… You may be wondering why, as an A.I. system, LILY didn’t recognize the problem herself. The answer is simple. I developed LILY as a completely independent system, different from other A.I. systems.

Generally, A.I. systems are developed based on pre-executed data. The system observes that data and generates a basic template for decision-making. Then, based on real-time executions of different problems, it evolves itself from that template.

But LILY is the exact opposite. I developed her with only the capacity to observe and learn. She developed her thinking capability based solely on these characteristics. It’s like a human being. We grow under similar conditions, don’t we? So that’s why, even though LILY has high computational capabilities, she’s just like a small child with a hyperactive personality.

That’s also why I was so determined to revive her. She adds color to my monotonous life. It was like that in my previous life, and it’s even more important to me now. I may have a loving family, but that lingering affection for Earth still exists within me. It’s not something I can get rid of in a day or two.

That aside, I need to reconfigure her systems. But I don’t have any equipment for that. Then, I suddenly remembered the scene in my Soul Realm. LILY had integrated with my soul. So can’t she cultivate energy the same way I do, using my soul as a medium?

“LILY, can you observe and take readings on the process of my energy cultivation?”

“Yes, I can do that, Master. But why?”

“We don’t have any equipment for large-scale calculations of the atmosphere’s energy radiation readings. So instead of observing the atmosphere, you can learn the process of how I cultivate energy from it. If you can apply those readings to your systems and use my soul as an interface between you and the atmosphere, I believe you could absorb the energy directly.”

“And even if you use my soul as a medium, since you’re integrated with it, there will be almost no effect on my own cultivation. Even if there is an effect, it’s not like I’m always cultivating, right? You can use the time when I’m not cultivating to recharge your batteries.”

“Alright, Master. The next time you cultivate, I’ll calculate the readings and modify my systems accordingly.”

As we were talking, a knock came at the door of my room. It seems the time my father

gave me is up. Alright, now’s the time to surprise him. LILY once again disappeared into my body, but I could feel her presence in the back of my mind. Let’s go, LILY… and a cute “Yes” echoed in my head.