Chapter 1162 — A Gift
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
In that contact lasting no more than an instant, Amorn read the fluctuations hidden deep within the normal flow of thought-data — those dim, scarred records of information that mirrored the body in reality.
He might not understand the principles of neural networks, nor how magical power drove those artificial nerve cords and connectors to achieve the interchange of thought and data; but as a former god, he at least possessed a unique authority within the domain he once governed — and that had not changed in the slightest, even after he had left the divine seat and declined for three thousand years.
The God of Nature had grown old — but an old stag still keeps a trick or two in reserve.
Patty stopped. She looked at the old gentleman before her in confusion; the seriousness in his eyes made her faintly nervous. "Mr. Highway Stag... is something wrong?"
"Your physical condition — is it very bad?" Amorn's brows knitted tightly. The instant he touched Patty's finger, he had established a link with the mind of this mortal girl before him; and now, in his sight, the girl in the white dress, smiling so brightly, was overlaid by another "figure" — a figure covered in wounds, frail and sickly, bearing many traces of treatment yet still retaining a great many wounds that could not be healed. "Did you suffer a very grave injury many years ago?"
"Mr. Highway Stag?" Patty finally showed an expression of astonishment. "How could you know..."
"I..." Amorn opened his mouth, then suddenly found he had no way to explain at all. He could not casually reveal his identity — yet how could an ordinary user wandering the neural network possibly "see" Patty's problem at a glance?
Yet Patty did not press the matter. She could tell that the old gentleman before her seemed to have reasons he could not speak of; and as one of the earliest users of the neural network and now one of its guides, this girl who had once been naive and ignorant now knew a great many things. She knew that the people who had once kept her company had in fact been cultists of the Long Dusk, and she knew that many of those who now worked alongside her in the network had in truth long since died in the real world. Having lived through so much that ordinary people could scarcely imagine, she could only smile faintly when facing an old man with secrets he could not tell —
"It's all right, sir. Everyone has secrets they'd rather not make public," she said, shaking her head with a grin. "But you're right — my health really isn't very good, and I still need people to look after me. Still, compared with a few years ago, I'm doing much better now. According to Grandpa Piyun, apart from being unable to move freely, there's nothing left in my body that could endanger my life or keep getting worse..."
Amorn was glad the girl had not pressed him on anything, and he also knew that what she said was true — judging by what he had observed, the lingering injuries on this girl were still severe, yet everywhere bore traces of treatment; by mortal standards of healing, such a recovery was already close to the limit.
It had pulled a girl who might originally never have lived to adulthood back from the fate of death, and had even let her live safely to a very, very old age. From a mortal's standpoint, that was a miracle.
But from a god's standpoint, this matter could still be made better — though doing so would require him to take a step... slightly past a certain dangerous boundary.
"Mr. Highway Stag?" Noticing that the old gentleman had fallen silent again, Patty knitted her thin brows and rose on tiptoe to wave a hand before Amorn's eyes. "Have you thought of something again?"
Amorn started from his musing. He lowered his gaze and fixed the girl before him with a deep, water-like look, gazing at her for a long while — until even Patty began to feel a little awkward — before he suddenly said, "Little Patty, it's been nearly a month since we met, hasn't it?"