Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste
Chapter 85 Jade Record

Chapter 85: Chapter 85 Jade Record

Perfikot felt her consciousness continually sinking, as if she were falling into a bottomless lake, descending toward the depths.

But soon she realized it was just an illusion, because she "floated" to the surface of the lake.

Opening her eyes, what she saw was a tranquil water surface with indescribable colors, reflecting the chaotic scenes above.

"Where is this?" Perfikot was puzzled, her memory still stuck at the moment she fainted from overexertion while using alchemy to shape the entire dock, not understanding how she got here.

She remembered that Foster was by her side. Even if she really fainted from exhaustion, Foster should have taken good care of her. How could she suddenly be floating on some lake?

Though perplexed, Perfikot tried to escape from this situation. She attempted to control her body, only to find she could easily "float" on the water, so after a brief adjustment, she "stood" on the lake’s surface.

"So what is this place? It doesn’t seem to be the real world!" Perfikot looked around and quickly made a judgment while muttering to herself.

After all, the real world does not feature miraculous sights that allow one to stand on water, even if she were an alchemist, unless using alchemy to manipulate the water.

But Perfikot soon was no longer confused because she discovered something not far away was emitting light, catching her attention.

Seeing no new clues around, she walked toward the direction of the light.

Quickly, she arrived in front of the glowing object, seeing something similar to a book floating on the lake’s surface.

The reason for saying it was similar to a book is because the object before Perfikot was entirely made of green jade, with its cover outlined with golden patterns and text, crystal clear and more like a delicate work of art rather than a book containing knowledge.

"So it’s you, meaning this must be my inner spiritual world?" Perfikot looked at the jade book, suddenly understanding what all she saw meant.

After realizing what was happening, she placed her hand on the jade book.

"Finally, you came in. Communicating with you hasn’t been easy!" A voice emerged from the jade book, containing a tone of impatient relief: "If it weren’t for you exhausting your spiritual power and fainting this time, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull your consciousness in."

"Why bring me in? Can’t you communicate with me?" Perfikot was a bit confused.

She remembered that the book could communicate with her, but over the years, it only ever commented a line or two when she used the Eye of Omniscience, instead of directly communicating with her.

Indeed, the jade book in front of her was Perfikot’s golden finger gained after transmigrating, the Jade Record.

However, in the real world, it had turned into the form of the Eye of Omniscience, residing in Perfikot’s eye socket as her right eye.

"At the beginning, it was possible, but your body’s spiritual power is very strong, and someone has set up powerful mental shields for you, making it almost impossible for me to communicate with you under normal circumstances." The Jade Record explained to Perfikot, also reminding her: "Your physical body is very unusual, with strong signs of alchemical modification. I have reason to believe your body is an alchemical creation."

"I know, human transmutation, the specialty of my parents, who modified their daughter into a perfect being, hence my name, Perfikot, the perfect one." Perfikot was not surprised by this and merely shook her head slightly before asking, "Was pulling me in just to say this?"

"Not at all, I’m merely telling you that you can now use my second function, to analyze what you recognize and gain related alchemical knowledge and formulas." The Jade Record conveyed new information and indicated for Perfikot to open it: "The identification you acquired is my first ability, and analysis is the second function. Currently, you’ve only unlocked these two."

At this point, the Jade Record paused and threw out a new incentive: "If you wish to unlock more of my functions, you need to flip open new pages. Each page records a powerful ability, but to turn a new page, you must continually advance in alchemy."

Hearing this, Perfikot frowned and asked, "What is the standard of this so-called advancement? If by this world’s standard, I’m already an alchemy master!"

"Each page contains corresponding alchemical knowledge, and to turn a new page, you need to master this knowledge completely, producing an item of excellent quality using it." The Jade Record provided the evaluation standard and specifically pointed out: "The knowledge recorded on the first page you turned is mechanical logic, and using this knowledge, you created a miniature difference engine, giving your Alchemy Puppet intelligence, allowing you to now turn to the second page."

At this, Perfikot revealed a slight look of realization, finally understanding that being able to create a miniature difference engine applied to an Alchemy Puppet wasn’t solely because of her understanding of difference engines before transmigrating.

After all, making such a purely mechanical puppet wasn’t hard at all for alchemists of this era.

The real barrier to creating such puppets was how to write an effective set of behavioral instructions, simply put, a program to control the puppet.

In the pre-electronic era, this was still a major challenge, and even more so in the steam age.

Perfikot originally thought she was divinely aided, that her transmigration gave her a genius brain, achieving such accomplishments. Still, it now seemed that while she was indeed a genius, without the knowledge gleaned from the Jade Record, she likely wouldn’t have been able to create an alchemy puppet like Beifa, indistinguishable from a real person.

Thinking of this, she flipped the Jade Record with some anticipation, wanting to know what knowledge was recorded on this second page.

However, before that, Perfikot still asked the Jade Record: "Then what should I do next time I want to communicate with you? I can’t exhaust my spiritual power and faint every time, right?"

"There’s no need, because you’ve already turned to the second page, and our connection has deepened. To communicate, you just need to fall asleep in a relaxed state," the Jade Record answered Perfikot’s inquiry.