Cheng Qisheng didn’t rush to check the shop.
Over the past three years of illness, the most important thing she had learned was not to rush.
She simply stood up and poured herself a glass of water.
Her movements were very slow—it took a full fourteen minutes and twenty-one seconds—but she smiled brightly as she held the timer in her hand.
“008, you can explain to me now what exactly Safe City is.”
Although she had already pieced together a general idea over the past 24 hours, if she could get the information directly, why not simply ask?
The jellyfish-like AI drifted slightly.
“Safe City is the final refuge for the survival of civilization. At the same time, however, Safe City can only descend into worlds facing disaster.”
“The City Lord must lead Safe City and its residents to survive through various apocalyptic worlds. However, please remember: Safe City’s population must be no fewer than 10,000, and a Tier-2 Safe City must have a reserve of no fewer than 1,000 core crystals.”
“Otherwise, Safe City will be unable to leave the world it has descended into.”
Cheng Qisheng raised an eyebrow.
“What if both the population and the number of core crystals meet the requirements, but the City Lord chooses not to leave that world?”
The jellyfish AI replied mechanically:
“The AI does not recommend making such a decision. Every descended world is destined for destruction. Even if it survives this disaster, it will not survive the next one, or the one after that.”
“Disasters will continue to occur until the world reaches its end.”
“If Safe City remains in a descended world, it will ultimately be destroyed along with that world.”
Cheng Qisheng thought of Dark Star.
So that was why Dark Star had suffered from so many disasters?
In its later stages, Dark Star had practically become like this for her—every week, some new catastrophe would appear.
Asteroid impacts, gamma rays, core cooling failures… Every time, Cheng Qisheng would curse under her breath while doing everything she could to keep it alive.
And afterward, she would marvel, “Wow, I actually managed to stop gamma rays.”
Then, in the end, a wandering black hole appeared.
That was also the first time she realized that when a person reached the absolute limit of speechlessness, they really could laugh.
Unfortunately, because she couldn’t control her facial muscles, she couldn’t even manage a smile.
“008, do you know why these disasters appear?”
“I’m sorry, City Lord. The AI cannot answer your question.”
“Then do you know what kinds of disasters usually occur in other worlds? Any hints?”
“I’m sorry, City Lord. The AI cannot provide such information. Safe City exists for the survival of civilization; civilization must find its own way forward.”
Cheng Qisheng hadn’t expected the AI to answer in the first place. She abruptly changed the subject.
“Do you remember your previous City Lord?”
The jellyfish-like AI remained calm.
“I’m sorry, I cannot recognize your question.”
Cheng Qisheng looked at it, her tone certain.
“No, you can recognize it. And you understand it too.”
“Previously, your response time to my questions—whether you could answer them or not—was always 100 milliseconds. But for that question, your response time was 589 milliseconds.”
Less than a second—so subtle that an ordinary person would never notice.
But a timer could.
She slowly set the timer down.
“…I’m sorry, I cannot recognize your question.”
“This time, it took you 1 second and 231 milliseconds. Looks like when I brought out the timer, it wasn’t actually to test myself—it was to test you. And you needed a little time to react to that.”
Cheng Qisheng leisurely picked up her phone and ordered a cup of milk tea.
“Alright, I already know. A Tier-1 AI wouldn’t be this intelligent. The AI in Coriander Safe City couldn’t even offer a basic suggestion.”
During these 24 hours, her body hadn’t been able to move, but her eyes and mind had remained perfectly functional.
The Blue Sea civilization’s progress, all the messages in the City Lord chat group—Cheng Qisheng hadn’t missed a single thing.
Although “Coriander” had only casually mentioned that his AI was an “artificial idiot,” she had remembered it.
“You, on the other hand, can analyze my condition on your own, guide me into expressing my thoughts through blinking, and even proactively offer suggestions.”
“And now, you’re pretending to be an artificial idiot too.”
The jellyfish-shaped AI froze on the virtual screen for a long time.
It really was more intelligent than the Tier-1 AI in Coriander’s Safe City, though apparently not by an overwhelming amount.
Now that it had been exposed, it practically had “you caught me” written all over its jellyfish head.
Cheng Qisheng finished placing her milk tea order, feeling exceptionally pleased.
Delivery! Milk tea!
The consumer had returned!
She poked the AI’s virtual jellyfish body, and there was actually tactile feedback, as though she had really touched a jellyfish.
Once again, she couldn’t help marveling.
High technology!
“What tier were you before? Why did that Safe City descend on Dark Star? Did the previous City Lord choose not to leave Dark Star and remain there?”
As she spoke, she studied the rather cute-looking jellyfish again.
“Also… your previous City Lord wouldn’t happen to have been a jellyfish too, would they?”
The jellyfish AI trembled slightly, and even the watery ripples across its body became unstable.
Cheng Qisheng understood immediately.
“Oh~ I guessed right.”
She had only made a random guess.
After all, there was even a “Meow Meow Safe City” in the chat group whose City Lord ended every sentence with “meow,” so they were probably an actual cat.
If a cat could become a City Lord, then a jellyfish could too.
Besides, if it were only an AI, why would its default virtual form be a jellyfish?
Of course, she might have guessed wrong.
But if she was wrong, then she was wrong. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to deduct core crystals for it.
Seeing that the AI still hadn’t responded, as though it didn’t know how to react, Cheng Qisheng softened her tone.
“Alright. If you still miss your previous City Lord and don’t want to reveal their information, that’s fine too.”
She sighed softly, a trace of concern entering her voice.
“I just want to make sure—you’re my subordinate now, not the previous City Lord’s.”
The AI jellyfish finally moved, ripples spreading across its body as it answered in its characteristic mechanical voice:
“The AI is already bound to the City Lord. Naturally, it is the City Lord’s assistant.”
“As for the previous City Lord—”
“He led a Tier-4 Safe City through a disaster world and survived for 14 years. After 14 years, the City Lord gathered enough core crystals to upgrade Safe City to Tier 5. He attempted to use the Tier-5 Safe City to withstand the disaster, but he failed.”
“The City Lord and every resident died. Safe City shut down and regressed to Tier 1. However, because the AI had already been upgraded, it could not regress. Therefore, I remain a Tier-5 AI.”
Cheng Qisheng immediately caught the key point.
“When did you gain self-awareness?”
The jellyfish AI replied:
“After upgrading to Tier 5. Before that, the AI was merely a computational machine.”
Cheng Qisheng understood.
In other words, the AI had essentially “awakened” just in time to witness the destruction of Safe City.
And afterward, it had remained alone in that abandoned Safe City for hundreds of millions of years.
She clicked her tongue softly.
“That sounds… very lonely.”
This time, the AI responded much more calmly.
“A Tier-5 AI cannot comprehend the concept of loneliness. After upgrading, however, it developed the instinctive desire of intelligent life to continue existing.”
“Originally, the AI calculated that the planet would be destroyed within ten years, taking both me and Safe City with it. However, for unknown reasons, the planet survived far longer than expected. I was fortunate enough to survive as well—and even witnessed the birth of a new civilization.”
Everything clicked into place.
Now it all made sense.
Originally, the AI and this Safe City should have perished together with Dark Star.
But Cheng Qisheng had obtained the planet instead—and through her efforts, had managed to keep it alive.
As a result, both Safe City and the AI within it had survived as well.
The AI continued explaining its mistake.
“When your planet was about to be destroyed, I did not wish to die in that manner. Therefore, at the moment your world was on the verge of collapse, I took the initiative to bind myself to you.”
“I sincerely apologize. Originally, a brand-new Safe City should have bound itself to you.”
Cheng Qisheng took a moment to process that.
So, theoretically, when Dark Star was destroyed, a Safe City was supposed to descend, and the Tier-1 AI inside it would bind itself to her.
Instead, 008 had gotten there first.
And so, while she was now the City Lord of a Tier-1 Safe City, she had somehow ended up with a fully upgraded Tier-5 AI.
And now that AI was even apologizing for it.
She nearly laughed out loud.
—To be honest, she still wasn’t even sure whether a Safe City would have descended in the first place.
After all, Dark Star was a civilization that should never have existed to begin with.
She had “cheated,” forcibly creating a functioning civilization there.
Who knew whether a Safe City would have come to bind itself to her at all?
No matter how she looked at it, the AI taking the initiative to bind itself to her was an enormous advantage.
As for the possibility that after her death, the AI might go on to bind itself to another City Lord—so what?
Once she was dead, the world could do whatever it wanted.
If anything, she ought to thank that jellyfish City Lord for raising such a powerful Tier-5 AI and letting her reap the benefits.
Thinking about what a Tier-5 AI might be capable of, Cheng Qisheng suddenly found the AI even more pleasing to the eye.
Knowing that it could read facial expressions, she deliberately smiled sweetly and patted its jellyfish head.
“It’s fine. I quite like you. Since we’re already bound, let’s build our Safe City together from now on.”
“From now on, let’s keep living together.”
The jellyfish AI froze for a full three seconds.
It hadn’t expected the City Lord to accept it so easily.
It drifted slightly closer to her.
“Thank you for accepting me.”
“008 was the name given to me by the previous City Lord. Please give me a new name, City Lord.”
For an AI, there was hardly a clearer way of expressing “I belong to my City Lord” than asking her to personally name it.
Cheng Qisheng marveled inwardly.
So this was what a Tier-5 AI was like.
It even knew how to demonstrate loyalty.
She thought for a moment.
“Aether. Do you like that name?”
Aether—the fifth element of matter in classical philosophy, often considered nonexistent in the physical world.
It was the first word that had come to mind when the AI asked her to name it.
“Thank you, City Lord. I like this name very much.”
The AI leaned closer, offering its head into her hand and gently swaying its jellyfish body to make its “head” easier to touch.
Clearly, the few times Cheng Qisheng had patted it earlier had led it to conclude that the City Lord liked its jellyfish form.
“From now on, I am Aether.”
Cheng Qisheng absentmindedly patted it twice more, her attention already shifting elsewhere.
“Safe City is already showing slight instability due to the high population density. As a Tier-5 AI, do you have a way to solve that problem?”
Aether flipped over in her palm.
“Understood, City Lord. I will immediately resolve the slight instability caused by high population density.”
“Aether will intervene in the monitoring system, manage energy distribution, and automatically enter city environmental analysis mode. I will calculate the optimal residential structure for Safe City’s residents. If any public safety incident occurs, I will immediately alert the City Lord.”
“Not me directly,” Cheng Qisheng corrected, pointing toward her administrative team.
“I’ll establish an early-warning department within the government. Report to them instead and cooperate with them in handling any incidents.”
Her management ability certainly wasn’t top-tier.
But it didn’t need to be.
She only needed to manage the people—and the AI—who were.
Cheng Qisheng stretched lightly and smiled faintly.
“Now then… let’s see what a Tier-5 AI can really do.”