Chapter 1070 Information Dispersal

Having broken contact with Saramand, Hao Ren returned to the little sprite—this little fellow with a tuft of hair on her head was already chatting enthusiastically with the others. Or rather, it was a one-sided enthusiastic babble, and the only ones who could keep up with her speed and train of thought were Lily and Vivian, who already knew a little about sprites.

At this time, the little thing had already learned about the "Fairy Queen" from Vivian. This fact amazed the little fellow, and she scurried excitedly around Vivian's head, chattering like a thousand ducks: "Queen, Queen?! You're saying you're the queen of the fairies? You even activated the Nakdal Crystal? The fairies on Nakdal have acknowledged you? Did you go to the Nexus? Did you go to the Throne of the End? The Throne of the End acknowledged you too? Ah? You said the Throne of the End had a Blue Screen of Death? How could that happen! That's what the Goddess designed... Eh? You said that even though it was a Blue Screen, the main system still verified it? Wow! That's amazing! Sprite wants to see!"

The little sprite was so excited that Vivian was dizzy from her movements. In the end, Hao Ren reached out and stopped the little sprite in mid-air: "Wait, wait, calm down. We have something to ask you."

The little sprite was still unable to suppress her excitement, muttering things like "The Queen has finally appeared" and "We must quickly tell everyone this news," to the point that Hao Ren had to shout in her ear several times before she suddenly reacted: "Ah? Were you talking to me?"

"I'll keep it short. Our original mission was to take away the Amantir Crystal from this planet," Hao Ren knew that you must not stray from the topic when talking to sprites. Once you strayed, you never knew when you could bring it back, so he went straight to the point. "The existence of you surviving sprites is an accident for us—in our original plan, we would take the crystal and then blow up the entire Amantir."

The little sprite paused for a moment and let out a high-pitched scream: "Ya—"

"Quiet, quiet!" Nangong Wuyue next to her was startled and quickly summoned a water ball to wrap the little sprite inside. The sprite's scream stopped abruptly, replaced by the sound of gurgling from inside the water ball.

After confirming that the little thing would not shout anymore, Wuyue removed the water ball. Hao Ren looked at the little sprite in mid-air with a headache: "Keep it down! Are you not afraid of attracting those monsters?"

"This place is not on their patrol route!" the little sprite said with a confident look, then her expression changed instantly to nervousness. "You're going to blow up the whole planet?! What will happen to the sprites? And do you really have the ability to do that? The Guardian Giants have spent so many years and haven't been able to take back Amantir—they haven't even made it here!"

"Of course, we have the ability. The only problem now is the sprites. We need to find a way to take you away," Hao Ren frowned. "You said all the sprites are now fused with the core of Amantir? Can you break away from the core?"

"It's no problem to break away, but the problem is that after breaking away, we need to fuse with a new carrier, and it must be a resonance crystal—whether it's an original crystal or a crystal processed by the Goddess," the little sprite looked a little troubled as she grabbed her long hair. "Do you have crystals? Lots and lots of crystals!"

Sprites cannot exist independently of crystals. Hao Ren had learned this long ago when he met those noisy little fellows on Nakdal. Although these little fellows seemed to fly around freely, in reality, what they flew outside was at most an "interactive interface," and their main body was still those crystals. And currently, the only crystal on Amantir that can provide a home for sprites is the planet's core.

The power of the Lord of Madness has corrupted the crystals in other places.

Vivian frowned and thought for a while, then asked, "Can the Amantir Crystal be used?"

"No, the Amantir Crystal is special," the little sprite shook her head immediately. "The Goddess has already filled the inside of that crystal, and there's no storage space for sprites to reside in..."

"Wait, storage space?" Hao Ren felt like he had caught a key word. "Are you saying that sprites are actually 'stored' in crystals? What exactly is the process of your symbiotic relationship with crystals?"

The little sprite thought for a while and described with gestures: "It's like drilling in, then lying down, sometimes lying on your stomach..."

"Okay, okay, you don't need to explain..." As soon as Hao Ren heard the first half of the little sprite's words, he knew that he could never get any valuable information from the other party's confused description, so he simply patted the data terminal. "You, detect her... 'information structure.'"

The data terminal immediately flew to the little sprite's side and projected a beam of light that could be used to analyze the information cluster of the information layer onto her. The latter immediately giggled and rolled in mid-air: "Hee hee hee... itchy, so itchy!"

Hao Ren's eyes lit up when he saw this scene. For ordinary life forms, being scanned by the analysis beam would not cause any sensation, even for energy-based creatures. But this little sprite actually said "itchy," which proved that his guess was correct.

Sure enough, the data terminal quickly completed the analysis, and even its voice had a hint of surprise: "Incredible, partner—this machine never thought that these sprites are actually life in a state of information dispersal! From a material point of view, they don't exist at all!"

Everyone was stunned. Even Lily, the scholarly dog, couldn't help but tug on Hao Ren's sleeve: "Landlord, what does that mean in Chinese?"

Hao Ren thought for a while and briefly explained: "This is a branch of knowledge in the theory of information unification. In short, it describes an individual that does not exist in the real world or the material realm, but has all the physical attributes and can therefore be observed.

"Let me give you an example. If there is something in front of you, and you can observe it and feel it, then you are actually coming into contact with the information it emits. For example, you can smell its scent, feel its hardness and temperature, and feel its weight when you pick it up—these are material-attached information, and this information allows you to confirm the existence of a substance.

"But what if there is nothing actually there, and it just keeps sending you corresponding information? For example, making you feel like you see an entity, labeling the entity's weight and temperature, and making you think your fingers are touching a certain hardness surface—does the target thing exist?"

Several people who didn't study well began to see mosquito coils in their eyes: Wuyue looked up in a daze, Sanba lowered her head and picked her nails, and Gun began to chase his tail, but Lily could still keep up with the thinking, and asked a pretty good question: "If all the information is true and self-consistent, then doesn't the target thing equal to exist?"

"That's right, this is the upper form of expression of the theory of information unification: if all the information is true and self-consistent, then the target thing exists. This state is also called the information condensed state. But the information dispersal state is different. It describes the situation where 'all the information is true and self-consistent, but the target thing does not exist.' That is to say, the attribute of 'non-existence' itself is a feature code of the target thing, just like a hidden comment. You can't feel it, and it won't take effect in the expression, but it determines the properties of the entire system..."

Lily thought for a while and said very sincerely: "I can't keep up anymore."

"The things in the theory of unification are so troublesome to explain, but I have an easier way to make you understand what these sprites are all about—" Hao Ren shrugged and turned to look at the data terminal. "Open the information observation filter."

"This is a top-level detection function. This thing consumes a lot of energy," the data terminal grumbled, but still cooperated and turned on a function that was not often used.

As a layer of light curtain spread out from the data terminal, the world in front of everyone changed.

Things still existed, but everything seemed to be covered with a thin "membrane." Countless tiny, transparent things that were almost impossible to observe seemed to be walking on that membrane, and when you looked closely, those tiny things would immediately flow into your mind: Hardness xx, temperature xx, color xx, name xx, distance xx, density xx...

Countless pieces of information made people dizzy.

"Where's the sprite?!" Lily exclaimed. Others also immediately woke up from this wonderful perception. They found that the sprite was gone.

Hao Ren smiled and pointed to a certain direction in mid-air: "She's actually still there."

Lily immediately looked in the direction Hao Ren was pointing. Many texts appeared in her vision:

A sprite is floating in front of you, 0.732435 Pan away from you

The morphological characteristics of the sprite are #reference part-ignore

The sprite is curiously looking at you

The sprite seems a little confused by your exclamation just now. She waved her hand in front of you, but you didn't see it

The sprite is shouting, she said-

[Where are you looking, Sprite is right here!]

The sprite is getting angry

The sprite ends her anger, taking 0.15 seconds

Lily blinked, and there was still nothing in front of her—except for those texts.

"Wow ah ah ah!!" Elizabeth exclaimed excitedly. "So amazing!"

"Terminal, turn off the filter."

The blue light that filled the surface of the data terminal immediately dissipated, and the world in front of everyone returned to normal. The texts and symbols describing information disappeared, and the sprite—she was floating in front of everyone, looking real and unmistakable.

"Such a chattering little thing..." Vivian couldn't help but reach out, and the little sprite curiously came over and hugged her finger. "Is actually non-existent?"

"Actually, there's no need to care. She just doesn't have an actual mapping from a material point of view. But from an information point of view, her existence is absolutely certain," Hao Ren smiled. "And for the theory of information unification, existence at the information level is existence."

Lily shook her head hard. This pile of things made her think of the first time she entered Peking University: "So what is the significance of the sprite's attribute?"

"Of course, it's meaningful—it's difficult to transport things in the information condensed state, but if it's in the information dispersal state..." Hao Ren said as he looked at the data terminal. "It can be directly stored in the virtual memory. Terminal, how big is your hard drive?"

The data terminal suddenly shuddered: "Partner! You're not planning to store all the sprites of Amantir in this machine's hard drive, are you!"

"Sprites are just the basic AI of node crystals. Their amount of information won't be too large. How much space does a bunch of drivers take up on you," Hao Ren waved his hand. "Don't you usually brag about how high your performance and how large your memory are? Why are you being cowardly now?"

"It also depends on what's being stored!" the data terminal went crazy. "This machine would rather store ** than store a bunch of chattering sprites! At least ** doesn't make any noise when it's playing! Can you find a pause button for these sprites for this machine?"

The corner of Hao Ren's mouth twitched: "I'm thinking that the days when you'll be sent back to the factory for major repairs aren't far away, are they? Or do you miss Doudou?"

Data Terminal: "..."