Chapter 1222: Strange Device
Floating in the air at the break of dawn, Shiro sent out her senses to see if there were any more puppets coming their way. But from the look of things, they were going to have an uneventful journey.
'Right now my magic is being limited so I can't rely too much on my nanobots.' Shiro thought to herself as she summoned Vinri and adjusted her form to be that of a necklace.
Using Vinri as a medium, Shiro started to gather creation mana between her palms before clasping her hands together. When she separated her hands, four tiny birds could be seen on her palm.
Each of the birds were created from a luminescent blue energy that flickered like a fire.
{Is that spirit summon?} Nimue asked curiously.
'Similar but not quite. You know how I'm able to call upon the surrounding spirits to enhance my attacks or spells in general? Since that uses destruction mana, it's probably going to be limited so I figured I'd try with creation mana. And the result is these Creation Spirits. They harness the ambient creation mana and send me information. I've also mixed them with the essence of wind so they should be invisible to most detection spells with the added benefit of increased speed.' Shiro replied as her range of detection had increased by around 20% just by having these birds around her right now.
Raising her hand, the four birds flapped their wings and started to fly in different directions. Shiro was going to use them as a scouting party of sorts so she could get a better idea of the world of creation. How big it was, what's the current state of the people, are there any gods, queens or large factions nearby and so on. Plus, it could provide her with a map along with planting teleport markers.
Landing back on the ground, she started to lead the group to the city of Hazen with the help of the man with the scars on his arm. His name was Gazir and he was a small hunter in the village.
"Before all the puppets took over, the city of Hazen was known for its arcane studies even for a small village like ours. There's some rumours I heard of the city but most of it was exaggerated so I'm not sure if it's true or not." Gazir apologised as Shiro shook her head.
"It's fine, don't worry. Any kind of information is beneficial. I'd rather have somewhat of an idea of what the city is like."
'After all, it could've turned to shit with the puppets roaming around the world like this.' Shiro thought to herself.
{If Hazen is really a city famous for their magical prowess, how likely is it for them to survive this world?} Nimue asked as she wasn't sure how they would fair against the puppets. She had no clue how the magic was in this world.
'Hmm… that's a good question. So far, the scouts that I've sent out haven't detected anything yet. Most of the landscape is littered with puppets that seem to be doing nothing. They're not even turning their heads.'
{Do you think they're under orders?}
Shrugging her shoulders, Shiro didn't know what to think of the behaviour of the puppets. But if they were doing nothing at the moment, she'd let them be. Of course, there's always the option of rescuing them as well but she didn't want to make any more large movements. If she attracts too much attention to herself before she achieves her goal, this would be a wasted trip to the side of creation.
After a day and a half of constant travelling with no puppets trying to attack them at all, Shiro finally discovered a city in the distance with her scouts. However, it was different when compared to what Gazir explained since it was completely destroyed. Any skyscrapers that would've stood tall are now collapsed with debris littering the streets. Nothing like the glory of the magic city that he described.
"That can't be…" Gazir muttered in disbelief.
"But it shouldn't have been that long?! Why is the city gone?" He shouted as Shiro realised something that she should've asked much earlier.
"Gazir, answer one question for me." Shiro called out as Gazir looked back at her.
"How long were all of you stuck in those puppets for?"
Upon hearing her question, every single civilian that followed her froze up. Some of them had a suspicion considering how much the greenery had grown compared to what they remember but they dismissed it as someone's magic.
But now that they had a moment to pause and reflect on the question, they realised that tens of years, maybe even hundreds of years could've passed by now.
While everyone started to discuss amongst themselves, Shiro had a better idea.
Taking a deep breath, the world around Shiro started to lose its colour once more as details blurred into lines of code.
Focusing on Gazir's code, Shiro narrowed her eyes and started to look at his 'records'. Similar to how she can see the composition of objects and modify them, she can also see the history of a person. Currently, the information she can access is a rough summary since if she were to look at the entire history, it would overload her with the information of his entire life leading up to the current moment.
'Hmm… It's a bit blurred since his time as a puppet was when multiple souls were melded together into a being. But I should be able to get a rough estimate.' Shiro thought to herself.
"78."
"Pardon?" Gazir blinked.
"78 years. That's how long everyone has spent within the puppets. It's no wonder that the city has been reduced to ruins." Shiro sighed as she could hear many of them mutter in disbelief.
She couldn't blame them since 78 years was a long time. The loved ones that they were looking forward to meeting might've died already or been reduced into puppets themselves.
Instructing everyone to take a break for now, Shiro placed some sentries around the place while she explored the city herself. She doesn't know if there are any hidden dangers so traveling alone would be safer.
As she entered the city, she could imagine the majesty of this place before it was destroyed. A quick glance at the codes told her everything she needed to know since she could recreate the layout of this city in her mind.
{What a shame.} Nimue muttered as Shiro agreed.
'Indeed. Honestly, I'm tempted to integrate some of the structures into Asharia since they'll fit quite nicely.'
Flying around the city, Shiro noticed a strange yet faint energy signal within the buried ruins. Furrowing her brows, she jumped down to the location where she felt the signal.
Waving her hand, she gathered energy into her palms and created a path downwards with a single blast.
*Cough cough!
Pushing away the smoke, Shiro could see a single device at the bottom that was unfamiliar to her. It seemed too advanced for the technology she could see from the city yet not as advanced as her nanobots. Her curiosity was piqued as she grabbed the device and searched for a button or anything that could turn it on.
{What do you think it is?} Nimue asked curiously as Shiro fiddled around the device.
'Dunno. I'm scanning it with my nanobots right now and it seems to function like a tracker? But the composition is unlike anything I've seen before.'
Understanding that the device was low on power, Shiro gathered some of her mana and powered it up.
With a flash of light, a holographic map appeared around her with a red dot, showing where they are.
Blinking her eyes in surprise, Shiro didn't expect to see a whole map of the world along with zones being highlighted as deadly, dangerous, mild danger and survivable.
"Well this is certainly something…" Shiro muttered.
'Do you think the people who used to live here moved to one of these safe houses?' Shiro asked while interacting with the map.
On the map, safe houses, safe water supplies and several bases were marked down while there were 'clusters' marked in the danger zones. Not much information was written on the map so Shiro wasn't sure what they meant but she could guess that it was a large gathering of the strange puppets.
{Seems like it's split into 2 tiers. Clusters and colonies. Do you think the puppets are basically glorified worker ants?} Nimue asked as Shiro shrugged. She didn't have much information to work from right now so she couldn't make an accurate guess.
Just as she was about to close the map, Shiro noticed a string of words on the map.
[Developed by Lyrica Valenstaine.]