Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

"Sister Summer, I know that you have a lot of questions. In fact, I don't know what is going on, either.

Theresa thought for a moment and said, "Let's explain it later. For now, let's check the surroundings and figure out the situation in the central area of the bridge first!"

Although it was said to be a probe, in fact, the surroundings could be seen at a glance. It was a silver-white space of a hundred square meters. Whether it was the floor or the walls, they were as soft as sand or rubber. With a little bit of strength in his hands, he would be able to sink into them. Even if he crashed into them brutally, he would be greatly buffered.

Such soft materials ensured the safety of the crew and the facilities when the starship was hit brutally.

But there were no traps or secret tunnels nearby. Theresa and Princess Summer could not figure out what to do next.

It was unlikely that they would be locked in this place forever.

Theresa recalled the details of the attack just now. Pondering for a moment, she cut her palm with the broken saber, leaving a bloody wound on the ground.

As he expected, the blood in the palm print was soon absorbed by the silver-white sand. Then, the metal sand rose up like a spring, larger and taller until it turned into a silver-white cylinder the height of a human being.

The cylinder looked like steel that had just been taken out of a furnace. The molten iron flowed down and soon revealed the outline of a tall, beautiful woman. Very soon, her facial features, limbs, and toes were separated. A vivid statue made of liquid metal was presented to Theresa and Princess Summer.

"Ah—"

Princess Summer exclaimed.

Not because of the appearance of the liquid metal statue, but because the statue looked exactly like Theresa!

It could not be said that their facial features were completely the same. It could only be said that the air between their eyebrows and their valiant and heroic temperament gave the feeling of blood ties. They were like blood sisters or mother and daughter.

Theresa was surprised, too. She felt that she was looking at herself in a mirror.

She was well aware that the real her did not look like herself right now. Why did the statue of liquid metal look so similar to herself when she was modified by Eric the Shapeshifter?

Under the shocked gazes of the two, the liquid metal statue was completely separated from the floor. The details on its face were even more vivid, and even its eyelashes were completely revealed. It—her silver-white eyelashes slightly trembled. After a moment, she actually opened her eyes.

Her eyeballs were apparently made of silver liquid metal, too, but they were emitting glamorous colors like rainbows. Her eyes, which seemed to have been sealed for thousands of years, glanced over Princess Summer and stopped at Theresa.

"You are finally here, the carrier of the Witch Gene."

The woman, who was made of liquid metal, opened her mouth. Her voice was as calm as an ancient well, devoid of any emotions, like a cold machine.

"Ah!"

Princess Summer covered her mouth in shock. She did not expect that the thing could talk.

Although Theresa was greatly shocked, she was still better than Princess Summer. She took half a step back and took a deep breath. "Who—who are you? Are you… the artificial intelligence in the central control system of Jade?"

The stranger tilted his head and thought for a moment, before he replied, "Yes. I am Jade itself, or to put it in a more ancient language, the central thinking core of the fully-automatic control system of Jade. I am a certain super artificial intelligence. You may call me 'Jade'.

"Then, your appearance…" Theresa touched her cheek subconsciously and hesitated.

"This is the image of Kelly Kanna, the last captain of Jade. After she was killed in the battle, Jade ran out of energy, too, and was so seriously damaged that it had to enter the hibernation state for automatic recovery that lasted ten thousand years.

"At that time, most of the crew members who were adept at the maintenance and operation skills of starships were killed in the escape and civil war. According to the 'Emergency Treatment Ordinance', I took over the post of captain temporarily and waited for the new captain in the darkness.

"So, the so-called 'Witch Kelly' or 'Empress Crimson' is the last human captain of Jade? So, the legacy of the 'Empress Crimson' is the highest authority of Jade, or rather, the captain's seat?"

Theresa was suddenly enlightened, but she was even more confused. "Wait. What did you call me just now? You said that I was… the carrier of the Witch Gene. What is that?"

"Don't you know it yourself?"

"If you were not a carrier of the Witch Gene, you wouldn't have been able to enter the central area of the bridge, you wouldn't have been able to activate the automatic defense system, and you wouldn't have been qualified to talk to me," Jade said. "You would have been crushed into pieces like the tentacles of the alien the moment you invaded the central area of the bridge.

It was not until this moment that Theresa realized that the success of her gamble was not because of the pitiful 'Level 1 Fire Control Authority' but because of the 'Witch Gene' contained in her blood. What the hell was that?

"It is not an easy task to steer a super starship such as Jade and lead an entire fleet of refugees to avoid the scourge of the tides and wander forever in the endless space.

Jade explained, "Therefore, every new captain must read the logbooks left by the previous captains and grasp all their skills in order to be qualified.

"The brains of the intelligent carbon-based creatures cannot digest and absorb such tremendous data in a short period of time after all. Therefore, the Primeval Lord of Heaven invented the super advanced technology of 'genetic learning' and embedded a lot of information about the driving, commanding, and fighting of starships into the gene segments.

"During the thousands of years when he was wandering in the sea of stars, every captain of Jade would breed the super genes that contained infinite wisdom inside their body and pass them on to the next captain before their death. When the next captain received the gene segments of the previous captains, it became his instinct to steer the starship. He would suck and cry like a baby when it fell to the ground.

"When it was Captain Kelly's turn to leave her legacy, the situation became even more serious. At that time, Jade only had 1% of its energy reserves left, and the damage range was above 90%. It was a standard 'big bust'.

"The automatic breeding and breeding system of the crew members has been sabotaged, which means that the new generation of crew members can only rely on natural reproduction and word of mouth. They will never be able to master the complicated operation skills of a starship. It is estimated that nobody will be qualified to lead Jade into space again as the captain in the next thousands of years.

"Therefore, Captain Kelly proposed the genetic essence of hundreds of generations of captains and duplicated and sealed them at the cost of the last bit of their energy. She hoped that, after thousands of years, when the energy reserve and the technical conditions were mature again and Jade was mostly repaired, the descendants of Jade would retrieve the gene codenamed 'Witch' and inject it into their bodies as a candidate for the new captain.

Theresa was stunned.

The genetic essence of hundreds of generations of captains of Jade sounded very impressive.

However, he had just transmigrated to the Jadeite Continent and did not have the opportunity to get in touch with the so-called 'witch genes'. How did he become a carrier without a good reason?

Wait—