Chapter 670
As she looked at the somewhat frail Shaer, Aivina instinctively swallowed hard.
“Do you... have something to do? Later?” Aivina asked, her expression blank as she gazed at Shaer, the anticipation in her voice impossible to hide.
“Busy,” Shaer replied tersely, not bothering to elaborate. “I’m going to the library.”
The items had been placed in the private library of the Russell Duke’s residence by the simulated version of herself, and Shaer needed to check on them.
“Oh...” Upon hearing that Shaer was busy, Aivina’s voice dipped slightly, as if some thoughts in her heart were slipping away.
“I’ll take you there.” But Aivina’s enthusiasm didn’t wane; she reached out and pulled Shaer up, leading her by the hand toward the door.
For the first time, Aivina felt as if she could actually pull Shaer along, even feeling as if she could take her anywhere. This sensation filled Aivina with a sense of novelty.
After bringing Shaer to the private library, Aivina asked, “Are you going to get the things you left here?”
“Yeah.” Shaer nodded, her energy seemingly drained from the earlier walk.
Aivina jogged to retrieve the torn page for Shaer, then sat down on a wooden chair by the desk, waving her hand at Shaer.
“Come sit here.” Aivina patted her thigh experimentally, looking at Shaer.
As if to confirm her inner thoughts, she continued, “Otherwise, I’ll just put the book back and let you get it yourself.”
That’s... so cruel...
Shaer clearly didn’t want to make another trip, so she promptly moved beside Aivina and sat right on her lap.
Feeling the soft touch on her thigh, Aivina’s eyes widened.
Is this... for real?
In her arms, Shaer was flipping through the torn page, and Aivina tentatively wrapped her arms around Shaer’s waist, receiving no resistance in return.
“Can you stay like this forever, Shaer?”
“No.”
“Ah...”
Who knows when Shaer would change back? For now, Aivina decided to enjoy this moment for as long as she could.
---
**Chapter 341: The Other Side of the Ocean, New World Continent**
Shaer’s fingers gently pinched the fragile paper as she turned to the next page, studying it closely.
After finishing all the pages of this incomplete book, she shook her head lightly.
The judgment made by the simulated version of herself was correct; this was merely a handwritten manuscript from hundreds of years ago, possibly having passed through more than one hand.
The Chinese characters on it were so twisted that Shaer could hardly decipher them... It seemed that to uncover the answers, she would need to find time for the simulated version of herself to visit the New World Continent.
“Aivina, how long does it take to get from Ansu to the New World Continent?”
Shaer slightly turned her face, looking back at Aivina.
“Hmm?”
At that moment, Aivina, who was holding Shaer like a doll, seemed momentarily taken aback. After about two seconds of silence, she finally responded:
“If you take a fully rigged fast ship... under normal conditions without encountering any storms, it would take at least twenty-one days... In winter, it might be delayed for over ten days due to storms.”
Is there a time constraint...?
“Isn’t there any faster way?” Shaer pressed on.
“Not really.” Aivina thought seriously for a moment before answering, “There are steam sailing ships over in the New World... and Farros is also making similar vessels.”
At this point, Aivina shook her head and explained, “Steam sailing ships are unreliable; they operate like a ship on fire, with a small cargo capacity and high costs. They’re basically just toys for the nobility.”
“Ansu had tried steam sailing ships for a while, but later they dismantled the steam engines and converted them back to pure sailing ships.”
Shaer: “...”
Just as Shaer was about to make a sarcastic remark, Aivina suddenly remembered something and said, “Wait, Shaer.”
“What is it?”
“The information I have is actually a few years old; I haven’t really kept up with long-distance shipping lately... I can ask around for you. Is it urgent?” Aivina looked at Shaer, inquiring.
“Yeah, it’s quite urgent.” Shaer nodded.
“Okay... wait for me a moment; I’ll go now.” Aivina reluctantly set Shaer down from her lap.
Who knows when she would get to hold Shaer again, who didn’t resist no matter how much she touched or cuddled...
Aivina hurried out of the library to find Duke Charles, while Shaer stayed behind, waiting for Aivina’s news and pondering how to optimize the research on the Brain of the Other Side.
Currently, the laboratory’s research on the Brain of the Other Side was primarily based on the old methods of Lafayette and Erigama.
That is, using the abilities of the “Coroner” and “Physician” pathways to replicate a small portion of brain tissue, replacing it in the brain of a transcendent, and then collecting information from her before the replaced part of the brain drove the transcendent mad.
After acquiring knowledge about the “Artificial Divine Spark,” the method had slightly changed.
The way of acquiring knowledge became direct access by Erigama into a small mental network, implanting part of the Brain of the Other Side into a mindless shell of a transcendent that constituted one of the network nodes, and then allowing Erigama to read this knowledge.
This method was somewhat more efficient, but the progress entirely depended on Erigama’s mental state.
In simple terms, both methods were akin to the clumsy approach of the Pure White Armor, directly using one’s body and mind to read memories from the brain...
Was the Tower creating these Brains of the Other Side just for later generations to assimilate and absorb directly?
Shaer thought of the symbionts and ascendants of the Tower and shook her head gently.
No... not many people in the Tower could withstand such a massive influx of knowledge and memories. There must be some other way to read them, rather than forcibly absorbing them.
One Brain of the Other Side is like a massive hard drive; the methods of the Pure White Armor and the laboratory are simply extracting storage units and cramming them into their own brains.
This not only slows down the reading efficiency but also has to overcome various “incompatibility” issues.
What if... these Brains of the Other Side, similar to hard drives, had something akin to a “computer host” that could read and output information?
For now, that was the only thought Shaer had. After jotting down these ideas in a way that Erigama and the others could understand, she set down her pen.
People in this era had no concept of computers; she could only provide a problem-solving approach... Shaer herself didn’t know how to execute it.
If it were up to her, she might use the “Coroner” ability, linking a massive number of ordinary brains as a “processor,” and then connect these brains to the Brain of the Other Side.
This would allow the vast information of the Brain of the Other Side to be distributed across many ordinary brains, processing it in parallel, with each brain labeled. When she wanted to retrieve specific knowledge, she could just connect to the corresponding brain.
This was a feasible method, but it certainly wasn’t the solution the Tower would use... The Tower wouldn’t employ such an inhumane method to store and retrieve this data.
Tap, tap, tap.
A sound of footsteps approached from the door. Just as Shaer set down her pen, she turned to see Aivina at the entrance.
“Shaer, I have news,” Aivina said, looking at Shaer. “The steam sailing ship *Great Westminster*, which completed its maiden voyage three years ago, has a new model launched...”
“The *Great Ansu*, which just completed its launch ceremony over three months ago, weighs 4,000 tons and has a speed of 12 knots... It would take about 12 days to travel from Bliss to the eastern coast of the New World Continent, to the city of New Town.”
“But... that ship is still out at sea. If you want to wait for it to return, it’ll take at least another seven or eight days... Will that be okay?”
Knowing Shaer was pressed for time, Aivina felt a bit anxious, as the *Great Ansu* wouldn’t be back in Ansu that quickly.
“When was the last time it docked in Ansu?” Shaer asked.
She didn’t care how many days it would take for the ship to return; as long as it had been to Ansu within the past hundred days, that was enough...
“Last time...” Aivina hesitated slightly, as if she had forgotten to ask this...
After all, for a normal person, the date when the ship last docked had no relation to when it would dock in the future.
But just then, Duke Charles’s voice came from the doorway.
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