Chapter 936 — The Clue Beyila Discovered

"A square—a square formed once the dots are joined into lines. Very... regular. Every side has exactly the same number of dots," Beyila said, and as she spoke, the dark green marks seared upon the leaf continued to extend.

The striking dots had already linked into the shape of a square, but clearly that was not all—new dots were still emerging in the blank areas beside the square, plainly arranging themselves into lines, combining into a pattern!

Margarita and her several companions all stared wide-eyed at the sight, guessing at what it would finally become—but a few seconds later, everything suddenly stopped.

The subsequent dots formed only a short, brief segment of line, and then broke off.

"What comes after?" Margarita could not help raising her head to ask. "Why did it stop?"

"The signal broke off after that," Beyila said, spreading her hands. "This is all I recorded. You should know that using these tremors to record images is extraordinarily inefficient; we might have to record a continuous, uninterrupted signal for a very long time to trace the whole thing out—but the signal I received lasted only a dozen minutes or so.

"...Damn it..." Margarita could not help muttering a rather unladylike word, then wore a thoughtful expression. "So the essential nature of these signals is..."

"In any case, we can now be fairly certain this thing cannot be some 'natural phenomenon,'" Margarita said, drawing a deep breath. "Whoever is doing this, some entity has been ceaselessly sending us a picture—or perhaps not sending it to us specifically, but broadcasting indiscriminately, and our crystal array simply happened to catch it. Either way, this must be reported to the imperial capital at once."

"Of course," Beyila nodded. "This is highly unusual. And when you think of that nexus howling incident from not long ago... there are more and more unsettling things in this world."

"Hm... speaking of which, when did you discover these patterns?" Margarita suddenly glanced at Beyila, curiosity on her face.

"Only a few hours ago," Beyila said, the corner of her mouth twitching in what might have been the trace of a smile. "Luck accounted for most of it—the approach I hit upon doesn't conform to the normal rules of codebreaking. I can only say I stumbled onto it by good fortune."

"Even so, it's still a remarkable achievement," Margarita praised her sincerely, then could not help turning her head, her gaze falling upon the sac-like thing at the center of the ellipsoidal space. "Actually, I've wanted to ask since a moment ago—what exactly is this thing for?"

There were many strange-looking things in this ellipsoidal space, but the vast majority of them at least bore some resemblance to familiar things—vines, flowers, grasses, branches and leaves. Only that sac suspended at the center of the space was so bizarre and mysterious that it was impossible to overlook. Margarita had been drawn to it from the moment she entered, but had refrained from asking out of deference to official business. Now that the business was concluded, she finally could not hold back.

What exactly was this former Grand Pontiff of the Fellowship of the Final End... researching in her "private study"?

At Margarita's question, Beyila's face showed no particular change (though in truth her plant-like features made expressions rather difficult), but a note of pride crept into her tone: "That is an optimization and supplement I made to myself. My success this time in cracking the clue within the signals owes a great deal to its assistance. If you'd like to see, I can open the outer sac—but what's inside may be something of a visual shock to ordinary people... You should prepare yourselves."

Margarita immediately smiled and said with considerable confidence: "Of course—we're all specially trained. Nothing we encounter will make us turn pale. You can open it, and satisfy our curiosity."

Beyila gave a slight nod and casually waved her hand. The sac at the center of the "room" suddenly gave a squirming shudder and a rustling sound, and then many neatly arranged slits appeared across the surface of its russet-red husk. The entire enclosing structure bloomed open in every direction like a flower petal, revealing the transparent egg-shaped inner shell within, the translucent nutrient fluid inside it, and the vast, astonishing biological tissue steeped in that fluid.

It was a brain! A "synthetic brain" nearly the height of a person, steeped in nutrient fluid!

Margarita—this specially trained imperial officer—stared wide-eyed the instant she saw the thing, and then felt the fine hairs all over her body prickle upright: "What... what is this!?"

"I built myself a brain—modeled as closely as I could on a human one, though there were some issues with the size... I didn't intend to make it this big at first." Beiyila spoke without the slightest change of expression, as though this were a matter of no consequence at all.

Margarita, meanwhile, felt her own thoughts could no longer keep pace with the vegetable before her; when she posed her next question, her head was swimming. "What made you think of building yourself a brain?"

This time Beiyila actually gave the matter serious thought, and explained to her with patience: "After I became a plant, I found that my way of thinking was drifting closer to a plant's with each passing day. Recently I have even stood here like a true tree, wanting to do nothing in my consciousness but bask in the sun, bear fruit, and let my leaves shiver in the wind... That worried me, so I built myself a brain to help steady my sense of being a 'person.' As for the improved logical reasoning and associative power this brain has brought me... those were in fact an unexpected gain."

Margarita's wide-stretched eyes finally drifted back to their normal size. She gave the former High Priest of the Myriad Shades a strange look, and suddenly felt that communicating with a plant really was far too exhausting...