Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 781 - 648: Collection

Chapter 781: Chapter 648: Collection

Lady Farosa was patient, she planned to corner her prey bit by bit, which is why she chose not to pursue immediately, instead allowing Nestor Corporation personnel to enter The Lost City.

A miniature white drone passed through the diamond-shaped entrance, flew over the city, and came to Farosa’s side, playing Lila’s voice.

"I’ve decided to name this newly contacted city ’Hill A,’" Lila announced her decision through the drone.

"This is an underground city where tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people once lived. It’s the last remnant of a lost civilization, and you’re just going to call it ’Hill A’?" Farosa mocked.

"It’s quite appropriate, since its name in Secret Script is ’Ahqur’."

"You don’t understand the Secret Script at all."

"I don’t. However, its engineering structure is very interesting, connecting to all surrounding water systems. For example, the underground waterways of Lake Akan are connected to Hill A," Lila’s drone hovered over Farosa’s head.

"You’re like a mosquito."

"I’ll be sticking by your side, Farosa. Don’t think of shaking me off."

"Until your ’master’ comes back?"

"You know it very well." The white drone bore the Nestor Corporation logo on its front.

It turned around and emitted a green light from its front, scanning the ruins of the city of Hill A.

Farosa repeatedly stroked the back of her hand.

Although Lila was an annoying and clingy individual, she at least had the intelligence and the ability to strategically plan. Farosa was fed up with dealing with children and animal friends.

Overlooking from above, Farosa saw new Witches crossing the stone roads to enter Hill A, making way for the regular troops that followed.

More and more Witches were joining Nestor Corporation, but they were still precious, small in scale, numbering less than 2000. Even Farosa did not wish to use them as cannon fodder; physical wounds could heal, but spiritual wounds would last forever.

The Witches under the Nestor System had dual paths of promotion. On one hand, they had to complete their assigned jobs within the corporation, and on the other, remain loyal to the Witch Council and offer their loyalty to the Witch Goddess.

Farosa marked their lower abdomens with her own signatures. With each ritual they performed and offering they presented, more and more blessed marks appeared on them, each one accelerating the speed of their Magic Power growth, making them grow at a rate far surpassing other Witches.

Thus, she could nurture batches of High-Ranking Witches in just a few years. With time, new Dominator Witches would be born, enough to fill the middle ranks of Farosa’s forces, holding territories.

Currently, Farosa had multiple avatars, not just in Hill A, but also appearing in many places around the world. In each branch of the Council’s chapels, there were shadows split from Farosa, specifically listening to prayers.

By the authority of the starry sky, she could also create projections bathed in her starlight in different regions of the world, engaging them in secret infiltration and intelligence gathering.

However, with the forces of Mystics and counter-intelligence agents so strong everywhere, Farosa could only use this power to passively gather some information for now and could not deploy any grand plans in the short term.

If Farosa’s starry shadows were to be killed for no reason, it would be quite embarrassing.

While she was infiltrating other regions, the mystical forces and corporations in other areas were naturally also counter-infiltrating the Northern Archipelago; Farosa could only think of this. Therefore, she preferred to guard her own threshold, unwilling to let her foundation be damaged.

Even if the enemy casually threw monsters of White Salamander and Book Page Peacock caliber in the Northern Archipelago, it could severely devastate a city or region, paralyzing it for months. Therefore, Farosa had to stay and crush all potential crises.

"You have to arm the civilians and expand recruitment," Farosa urged Lila.

"Our financial chain is barely supporting us. Right now, we still need the cheap and efficient services of Lady Farosa to earn us extra returns, so that Nestor Corporation can continue to operate," replied Lila.

"Your words are really harsh."

"That’s the reality. Commanding a deity doesn’t cost hundreds of millions of funds; just keeping her in a happy mood is enough. What cheaper weapon could there be than this?" Lila teased Farosa at the edge of danger.

"Enough," Farosa pressed her forehead.

Playing with children was better after all. Aside from her enthusiasm for Xu Yang, Lila was very cold to everyone else.

Lila’s drone summoned more projection machines, which hovered in the air, forming a matrix that exactingly cast different wavelengths of light downwards, covering The Lost City of Hill A in tri-colored beams.

The red area was designated as a cultural heritage protection zone, off-limits, awaiting professional scholars to inspect; the green area was a resource recovery zone, where soldiers were commanded to quickly recover ancient strategic resources and record precious texts; the grey area was an exploration zone, where specific reconnaissance units needed to be swiftly in position, gathering data and uploading it to the information unit, uncovering secrets.

Under Lila’s partitioning arrangements, the soldiers who entered subsequent to her handled Hill A systematically, disassembling it like a giant prey, with everything proceeding in an orderly fashion.

Farosa overlooked them, feeling they worked like ants following pheromone trails, moving swiftly along ancient roads to explore and retrieve valuable artifacts within these ruins, their tasks executed seamlessly and meticulously.

She turned and walked toward the large building at the heart of the city’s layout. It was approximately six stories tall but, due to subterranean height restrictions, most buildings were quite low. This one, however, stood out conspicuously, erected on a hewn rock foundation and intricately designed like a mechanical block.

"This must be the Old Ones’ temple. It’s surprising that the Old Ones also worshipped deities," Farosa leaped toward the towering structure.

"I guess it’s a science and technology museum," Lila’s drone followed closely behind Farosa, buzzing faintly as it went.

To anyone standing more than a meter away, the sound was barely audible, but to the keen-eared Farosa, it was a persistent disturbance.

As they entered the glass corridor, they noticed the walls on both sides where water had accumulated, which should have been a kind of water wall, but due to the sub-zero temperatures, it was completely frozen, with only a trickle of water dripping.

"They used water for insulation, but never anticipated it would get this cold," said Lila.

Frowing, Farosa moved forward.

Inside the main hall, a statue stood at the center, with a distinctly different exterior that featured a black rock core encircled by a strange ring structure model, wrapped in gold orbits of various sizes.

"A planetary system?" Farosa murmured.

"Yes, and also the shape of an atomic structure. They overlapped the shapes of atomic structures and planetary systems. The eight planets around the sun resemble eight electrons," Lila analyzed everything with the high-definition camera of her drone. Her physical body was still back at headquarters, casually consulting data.

"There are secret scripts carved on its base... ’Ollp ik,’" Farosa noticed the text beneath the large statue.

"What does it mean?"

"’Look up.’"

Frowing, Farosa raised her head, as Lila’s drone adjusted its angle upward.

Above them, on the dome of the building’s great hall, was an extensive star map. Taking the sun of their star system as the origin, nearby circled that ringed galaxy, while farther away were other galaxies depicted. Each galaxy’s center had a gemstone embedded, representing different types of stars, emitting faint glows of orange, pale, crimson, and sapphire, varying in brightness according to their respective magnitudes. Silvery threads connected the other galaxies to the sun, indicating the distances between them, the nearest just 4 light-years away. From this scale, the full spiral arm of the galactic disc wasn’t visible, but Farosa could imagine it.

Farosa gazed at the star map in contemplation.

"Traveling at the speed of light, one could reach the nearest galaxy in 4 years," Farosa murmured to herself.

"What were the Old Ones doing, drawing such elaborate star maps underground? Did they wish to return to the surface? Then why build such an extensive city underground?" Lila couldn’t unravel the mystery.

"You don’t understand, you circuit of code functions, you wouldn’t comprehend," Farosa raised her voice.

"Do you then?"

"You, a witch who clings to life solely through science and technology, lack even a shred of sentiment for the starry sky and the future," Farosa accused.

"And you, a witch who unleashes powers through sheer idealism, speak of technology now."

"Perhaps both can be reconciled. Remember our debate before entering the building, questioning whether this place was a temple or a science museum? The answer is... both. The temples of the Old Ones were their science museums," Farosa shook her head.

She walked to the left side of the hall, where a huge mural carved on the stone wall appeared to depict the great technological achievements of the Old Ones, as the first scene pictured a nuclear bomb exploding into a mushroom cloud.

Farosa’s finger traced the lines, war, war, and war again; the Old Ones’ technology matured through repeated warfare. Despite constant internal strife, they sent a disc into the sky, embodying their longing for the stars. It seemed that the same disc had drawn the gaze from beyond the heavens.

After the greatest civil war determined the victor, they initiated a history of outer expansion and conquest. The secret scripts and images discussed wormholes, Star Gates, and warp travel, marking the Old Ones’ golden age of technology, with their exploration and encounters with extrastellar worlds reaching a pinnacle. Farosa observed with a furrowed brow, as many technologies were beyond her understanding since humans had not yet invented them.

"They had satellites, habitation stations, artificial celestial bodies orbiting the sun — where have they all gone?" Lila pondered.

"All we can find are these caves, crypts, and this small tech museum," as Farosa moved forward, she noticed the murals abruptly ended.

The last image depicted an Old One holding a newborn baby girl, crying. The other murals were complex and intricately styled, but this last one was particularly haunting, showing simply an Old One cradling an infant girl amidst a vast emptiness, as if all the previous wars, celestial bodies, machinery, and inventions had been erased to nothingness.

Thus, the extensive mural series chronicling the technological history of the Old Ones came to an abrupt and unheralded end, concluding with an Old One, weeping with his newborn baby girl in his arms.

Farosa felt a chilling sensation and left with a sweep of her sleeve.