Sirius’ first instinct wasn’t fear, but exasperation.
‘Another one again..?’
Keyword: again.
In the past eight years, The Blue experienced nothing short of cataclysmic disasters.
There had been no less than three of them.
All of them, without a hitch, were resolved by Madam Herta.
He adeptly dodged the growing cracks onto the ground.
He kept his calm and headed towards the research institution building.
As expected, the intensity of the shaking grew weaker once he was inside.
The earthquake-resistant buildings developed over the recent years effectively counteracted the tremors sent by the tectonic plates’ movements.
It was early in the morning, hence there were only a few people present in the lobby.
The pure white floors and the minimalistic glass-walls swayed along the metal frames that held it.
Sirius had to stabilize his core every now and then.
Once he finished wandering around the entire first floor lobby, he frowned.
‘She should be here by now…’
Most would see Herta as a narcissist; Sirius does not.
She is self-aware.
She knows her current limitations and acknowledges them.
She even turned it into an exclusive “quest” dubbed as “Madam Herta’s Ascension”.
She delved deep into the biological field precisely to answer that need.
Narcissism stems from a lack of self-awareness, and in turn, arrogance.
Herta has the skills to back her words up.
In her case, she is aloofly honest mixed with a ‘bit’ of egotism.
All sorts of possibilities flashed inside his mind before stopping on one of them.
‘Don’t tell me she’s caught up in research or something?!’
Sirius hurriedly sprinted towards the revolving entrance made of glass doors.
“Excuse me, sir!”
The security personnel stationed nearby immediately called out to Sirius, but to no avail.
The latter dashed out as fast as he could, running across the chaotic streets filled with ground ruptures.
Rumble-!
Sirius held onto a nearby wall as he watched trees getting uprooted from ground-up.
The shaking intensified in an instant.
‘Magnitude eight… No, it’s nine at the very least!’
Fortunately, this entire city block was made up of specially-built research institutes.
Sirius could imagine how bad it was in other places.
He maintained full awareness over his surroundings as he headed towards a gated ten-storey building.
Its ambience differed from the minimalistic and modern design from other institutes.
The “building” was a tall ivory tower straight out of a medieval book.
The roof was shaped like a pointed hat, showing off a part of its owner’s personality.
It was a world of its own, much like its builder.
The tall black iron gate swung wide open on its own.
A voice rang out from it, startling Sirius.
“The assistant’s back! Your heart was shaken, did it?”
The androgynous voice greeted him with a ‘smile’.
The cylindrical iron bars bent until it formed a smile, something he would have only envisioned in fairy tales.
“How’s the castle standing?” He asked.
“This is another world cataclysm level threat.”
“No need to worry about it.
Every protective measure was activated when it started.” It said before adding, “Come inside.
If it truly comes to its worst, you will see a surprise!”
Sirius did not doubt the gate’s words.
Its true form was an artificial intelligence assistant.
Herta created it five years ago.
She reasoned out it was time to have someone do the ‘more trivial’ work, hence its creation.
It assisted them in their studies for the past five years.
It also formed a personality of its own, showing signs of becoming sentient.
Sirius doesn’t know the full extent of how Herta trained it…
Just like how he lost track of her true research progress.
The black-iron gate opened on its own.
Sirius stepped inside and was greeted by a long stone pathway.
The vibrations from the ground decreased drastically.
He scanned the place he visited dozens of times before stopping to his feet.
A sense of unfamiliarity swept through his mind.
‘Could it have been separated from the land itself?
I didn’t know about this.’
Sirius didn’t know what to feel.
Though he remained as her assistant, he noticed how he was slowly drifting away.
Not from a physical standpoint, but an ideological one.
The creation of the AI assistant did not reduce his workload.
However, its nature shifted from directly helping in Herta’s research to administration work.
Only during important research would he be present to oversee the AI’s work, making sure it is doing everything correct.
He pushed this thought aside over and over again, but now that facts were presented straight to his face, he could no longer ignore it.
The faint tremors coming from the ground shook the depths of his soul.
Its towering height of forty meters stood stably in the face of the earthquake.
Its ivory walls made of bricks glowed with a faint sheen.
‘It looks like metal but it is not.
Could this be imaginary energy?’
It was another thing he didn’t know that existed until now.
His palm touched its cold and hard surface.
It did not have a disjointed feeling.
It was as if these bricks were a single entity to begin with.
Sirius never saw it like this during normal times.
‘Imaginary Energy… Paths… She was already a Pathstrider.’
The fact he did not know about her current status made him feel disappointed—both in her and himself.
No matter how much he repressed it, Sirius thought that
Sirius’ mind fell silent.
He was still working on the space station’s navigation systems.
It was the easiest to understand out of all.
It required advanced mathematics, geometrical analysis, and in-depth studies on radars, astrology, and information transmission.
That was the ‘big break’ he was preparing for.
His only chance to earn Herta’s precious validation, so to speak.
He needed to race against time.
He had to complete it before she became an Emanator, lest everything he did loses its meaning.
Sirius has no doubts she would be able to come up with what he did once she reached that level.
He felt so hopeless that he thought of giving up.
‘Twenty-three years, will it all be for naught?’
Everything he did was to gain genuine validation from her.
Sirius knew it was bad.
It was plain stupid.
Still, that was the only thing that came close to his original purpose—
Proving his worth to the second chance he got.
He refused to accept that he had been reincarnated to do nothing.
He was at the prime of his life when he had died so suddenly.
There were many things he wanted to prove but could not.
Before he knew it, he projected all of them into this life.
The expectations of two lifetimes was, after all, something that could not be easily accomplished by an average man.
He just so happened to be one.
A deep sigh escaped his lips.
‘Since when did I become this pathetic..?’
His silence did not escape the castle’s eyes.
It silently watched from the shadows as Sirius regained his composure.
‘Sir Sirius’ unique trait…’
Its observation of Sirius started from the moment Herta created it.
The artificial intelligence compiled countless instances of Sirius reacting to various things.
Strangely enough, Herta gave it an instruction to record only.
It wasn’t supposed to analyze nor come to a conclusion on its own.
Hence, it kept a complete observation log of Sirius.
Herta viewed it often, nodding to herself every time she did so.
That was why it treated Sirius as a special person.
If he asked for specific experimental data, it would answer him.
Even the records of Madam Herta’s daily life were stored in its memory.
All of that, yet…
‘Why won’t he ask?’
*****
In Honkai: Star Rail, there existed something known as ‘Paths’.
Its simplest definition is a living concept.
A god-like being exists at the very top known as the Aeons.
They act as the spearhead of the said concept—its ideal form, so as to speak.
Beneath them are the Pathstriders.
They are people who resonate deeply with a said Path, allowing them to harness its power.
There were also a select number of people whom the Aeons pay special attention to—due to merit, talent, and feat—ultimately earning THEIR gaze.
Amongst these Pathstriders, there is a small group given special attention by the Aeons.
They wield greater power over typical Pathstriders.
These groups of people were given special attention by the Aeons.
They were known as—
Emanators.
‘The speed of light remains constant within a three-dimensional model.
It is not far-fetched to believe another constant affecting the fourth dimensional vector.’
Herta looked at the wide and translucent virtual screen.
Its size was comparable to a cinema screen measuring 800 square meters.
She stood at the farthest row on the back.
Her irises moved at an unbelievably fast speed.
Her brain shouldn’t have been able to register such speed, yet it did.
Tick.
Swoosh.
Only the sound of the air conditioning and the operation of machines remained.
It veiled her peerless face, though it cannot completely hide her beauty.
A pair of detached sleeves wrapped on both of her arms.
Her snow-white shoulders were revealed in the naked eyes.
An elegant black and purple dress hugged her waist.
It was separated into two layers—purple and black.
Silver embroideries were present on her chest, with a chained silver key hanging on her neck.
Along with it was a black leather choker holding a small white cloth.
A pair of black stockings wrapped around her legs, adding more to her elegance.
(Source: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts?tags=hanayabaka&z=1)
While she was observing, faint tremors came from the ground.
It wasn’t as severe as the shaking outside.
The entire vicinity of her tower was completely detached from the soil.
The voice of the unnamed artificial intelligence rang within the large, theater-like room.
“Severe electromagnetic field disruptions have been detected on the planet’s outer core.”
Buzz.
A small virtual screen appeared in front of Herta.
It showed a see-through version of The Blue.
The image that represented its outer core was represented with scarlet-red.
It was growing paler as time went by.
A frown appeared on her beautiful face.
“When did this start?”
“Five minutes and twelve seconds ago.” The artificial intelligence responded.
“Initial scans revealed a portion of the Antarctic sinking deep into the soil layer.”
“That shouldn’t be possible.”
Everything about The Blue is an exact parallel to that of Earth.
Its magnetic field was formed by the planetary core, divided into the inner and outer core.
The inner core serves as the energy source of the outer core, which then maintains The Blue’s magnetic field.
The core itself bears a temperature similar to the Sun’s surface—around 8,000 degrees celsius.
No ice should have been able to survive deep into the soil surface, much less penetrate the planetary core.
Herta fell silent before making a decision.
“Run a scan using that probe.”
“Understood.”
The unnamed artificial intelligence ran things in the background.
An inconspicuous spherical probe orbiting The Blue booted up.
Light flickered all over its body, similar to the shape of an eye.
Dozens of palm-sized nuclear fusion reactors were operated at full power.
Its energy production reached its peak, rivaling thousands of energy plants situated on The Blue’s surface.
Its current output could power up the entire planet with a large excess.
At this moment, this power was used to observe one thing:
A Path.
Eight years ago, Herta discovered the existence of ‘imaginary energy’ within a helianthus marianum.
It was a system of energy independent from the three-dimensional plane.
It was very chaotic.
Unusable, even.
Simultaneously, her discovery led to her entry to the Path of Erudition.
Herta did not ‘see’ what “thing” gazed upon her; she just knew it did.
Since then, her already monstrous genius turned her to a literal goddess of wisdom.
Her rate of advancement became detached from the expectations of others.
What took them months, if not years, was a matter of a day or two for her.
Herta became more fascinated with the pursuit of answers, hence she appeared less and less in the public’s eyes.
It was Sirius who settled everything that needed talking to others.
Contrary to his expectations, she did not ‘drift away’.
Her interest towards Sirius grew as she became a Pathstrider.
She saw things in him that she did not see before.
His cooking, for example.
The reason it was ‘special’ wasn’t because of its taste, but its added ‘effects’.
It was an example of a metaphysical turning physical.
In Sirius’ case, he possessed a ‘power’ to create them through cooking.
She called these items “Curios”.
‘Someone that is not a Pathstrider but possesses the power of one…’
The ends of her lips turned into a curve, forming a perfect smile.
To make her interested for the past thirteen years, Sirius was the only one in this world.
Nothing in The Blue could make her as interested as him.
For things she could and she could not understand, Herta maintained a resilient pursuit.
Just then, the tower’s artificial intelligence sent an alert.
It projected a palm-sized virtual screen showing the camera feed on the gate.
Sirius’ slightly disheveled look could be seen at a glance.
“Sir Sirius arrived at the front gate. Shall I lead him to the lounge?”
“No. Bring him over here.”
“Understood.”
Herta’s words marked another round of her ‘experiments’.
Her not seeing him as often as before was something she planned on a whim.
After all…
‘What would your reaction be?’
…she looked forward to his reaction.