Chapter 297 - Artificial
Aftering adding on another layer of freezing ice around the Overseer's body to make sure that he would die before mustering enough strength to get out of the full body freeze in limbless style, I directed my attention back at the sprout human…
"So, where is the 'Enlightenment Core' of this base situated at…?"
It was a pain for me back then to find the exact location of the corruption core as I had to use Long's help with that last time, while also needing several days to be more familiar with the workings of the place…
So, since I didn't know the positions of the 'Sacred Room of Enlightenments' in this base, it was better to ask the former denizen of this base instead of wasting my time searching in this fairly vast base…
"The core…?" the sprout human pondered a bit as he scratched his chin…
"Yes?"
"If I remember correctly, it should be in open display in the center of the main settlement there…" the sprout human answered with a wondering expression covering his face as he pointed towards the direction that the vanished army came from less than four days ago…
'Hmmm… Open display?'
Remembering how the last base's corruption core was hidden underground, I found it hard to believe that such an important item which could count as the heart of the base was put above ground in open display, after all, it was literally the key to opening a path out of this prison and also the main corruption supplier…
"Are you sure about this…?" I asked to confirm, since it wouldn't be strange if this sprout human was just spouting nonsense as usual…
"I thought you were already familiar with demon bases from your reactions and answers so far, especially how you dealt with us on the start… so why is it that you don't know something so basic…?" the sprout human only wondered about it more in reply…
'Eh?'
Is this supposed to be the new style of demon bases these days or could it be that every domain has its own base model…?
"I mean how does that even make sense, and how are you, a former 'Enlightenment Processor' not worried about the safety of the core, you would have died along with it if you didn't manage to return to being human thanks to the strange sequence of events…" the reaction of the sprout human was so strange that I couldn't help to ask…
"Eh? You must have met a true 'Processor' then… Wow, I thought these went extinct already… I was just an artificial processor who had little authority and is usually used for little tasks…" the sprout human replied in surprise.
"So artificial processors' life isn't linked with the core? Is that the perk that comes along with the deficit that you can't control the core as well?"
I had already heard a bit about it from the time when I crashed in while they were quarreling and deducing the rest wasn't hard, but did that really mean that they would still leave the core in the open like that just for that reason…?
"It's kind of complicated, but yes our lives aren't completely linked… However, the most important part is that we basically carry a small part of the cores's origin source as 'Enlightenment Processors', which means that even if that core was destroyed, as long as the 'Processor' was alive then the base wouldn't be in much danger…" the sprout human explained…
"But that seems completely stupid… why even let it be in danger in the first place… and why use artificial processors if their powers are so limited…?"
"Well, it's supposed to be the nature of the base's core to be out like this… if you really did encounter a different structure then that one must have been an exceptional one and not the opposite… As for the true natural 'Processors', they are somewhat extinct at this point, so artificial 'Processors' are used… though not every artificial one's control is so limited like mine…"
'Extinct…?'
It certainly didn't seem like Sand was treated as if he was some sort of an anomaly or something like that, maybe it really just differed from one domain to the other…
To this point, the differences between domains were already too apparent, it really seemed as if every domain was a world on its own, as domains only seemed to share the main ability laws but nothing else…
"Is that also related to blood or something…?"
"Exactly, making higher quality artificial 'Processors' that possess a similar level of ability when compared to the ones that naturally have the special bloodline of true 'Processors' requires higher level of blood purity, which is simply why I was such a lousy 'Processor' as a demonified human…" the sprout human finally closed his mouth as he finished his long explanation session…
'Well, let's just get done with the base first…'
The amount of vague, unconfirmed information that the sprout human had provided was simply too much, he did add some detailed ones, but it felt like he did more harm by leaving me with more questions as he just introduced the beginnings on several topics…
"You stay here then, I will go check it out." I said as I froze the sprout human's feet to the ground…
"Argggghhhh… was that really necessary?!" the sprout human complained as he exclaimed in pain…
Though I only applied the lowest level of freezing ice to pin him to the ground, it was natural for it to be painful for him who only had normal human skin to endure this ice, but nothing else could be done since he was simply my hostage at the moment, which made him untrustable as I didn't plan to let him roam freely and possibly harm the trio, free the Overseer, or perform any possible harmful scenario…
Thud!
Simply dashing off, I headed directly towards the settlement with the 'Corruption Core' as my target!