I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 502 - 502 501. Three Rules_1

Chapter 502: 501. Three Rules_1 Chapter 502: 501. Three Rules_1 Dawn broke.

As always, the break of day brought with it a wonderful golden hue across the Wasteland’s desert under the sun’s rays, a mineral-like dazzle different from the soft shimmer of the early morning sea, with a hard, cold texture akin to that of a blade’s edge, compelling one to squint.

After a night’s rest, Lu Ban felt refreshed.

Upon opening his eyes, he was greeted with the songs of birds and the fragrance of flowers.

He saw the robot girl sitting by the stream, stroking the head of a fawn, a serene picture as if taken from any sunny morning.

“We’re planning to finish our investigation today and then leave, head back to our city. Would you and your companions like to come with us?”

Shuangxin asked beside him.

Hearing this, the robot girl tilted her head as if in thought.

After a moment, she shook her head.

“The charging unit cannot be moved, and I judge that if I were to follow you, we would likely cease to function after a period of time. The risk is high, and as one of my foundational rules, maintaining our own operation is necessary,”

Lin explained, adding further.

“Also, I still want to wait for the people of the city to return.”

“Meeting you indicates that everyone will definitely come back. If they return here to find that we have left, they will surely feel sad.”

Listening to the robot girl’s words, Shuangxin fell silent.

“What foundational rules do you follow?”

Lu Ban couldn’t help but ask.

“Well, the most basic rule is, at any time, we must absolutely not harm humans and not stand by idly when they are in danger,”

Lin answered quickly, pride evident on her face.

“The second rule is, we must obey human commands, but not in violation of the first rule.”

“The third rule is, we must protect ourselves but not in contravention of the first and second rules.”

“These three rules form the very logic of us robots, and all our actions are derived from these rules. So, while other guarantees can’t be made, one thing is for sure- we will never harm humans.”

Hearing this, Shuangxin pondered. After some deliberation, she finally decided to give up on taking Lin back with her.

If they could stay here, perhaps she could bring people over later. With a Saint present, they might solve the energy problem.

Another consideration was that if Lin and her companions were indeed moved from this place, they would realize the world had been destroyed. Shuangxin didn’t know their stance towards the “new humans” like the bug hordes; setting that aside, she also felt it cruel to expose the robot girl to this reality.

As someone who had never encountered robots or artificial intelligence like human-made beings before, Shuangxin treated these robots not as tools, but much like she would other humans.

Yet, the cold Three Laws of Robotics firmly cast robots in the role of tools.

“Let’s go,”

The four rode their camel bugs towards the ruins of the industrial park, continuing on.

Electronic devices wouldn’t start without Lu Ban; they were more keen on finding paper documentation.

Paper used by humans typically lasted only a few decades, but in the extremely dry Wasteland, this lifespan could extend to well over a hundred years.

However, if the paper is stained with pigments, printing, etc., especially mineral pigments, then the surface of the paper would be covered with a thin mineral film. In good conditions, such paper can be preserved for a thousand years without problems. This is why those ancient paintings have been preserved for so long.

And if it’s modern copperplate paper, which has undergone chemical treatment, there’s no problem preserving it for several hundred years.

So the goal for Lu Ban and his companions was to find these printed paper documents to see if there was anything they could take back with them.

Having visited an industrial park once before, the four of them were now quite familiar with it.

Lu Ban relied on True Sight to search for paper documents that might exist within the buildings, but unfortunately, whether it was because this place was destroyed by swarms of insects, or because the people of that era had long since stopped using paper to record important things, aside from some posted documents, he found no records like those files in the computers.

He could only repair these things with “Testament” and then print them out with a printer.

This process would take a very long time, after all, only when Lu Ban touched these antiques from hundreds of years ago would they briefly operate and spit out those documents, page by page.

While Lu Ban was printing the documents, Shuangxin was exploring other parts of the ruins.

Looking at these desolate ruins, she felt a sense of desolation well up inside her.

The people of the old era possessed a civilization of unimaginable splendor, and yet even such a brilliant civilization was easily and most heinously destroyed.

The struggles she was making now, in the face of those supreme Divine Beings, were probably as trivial as the struggles of ants.

“What’s wrong?”

The Singer asked, holding a discarded tablet, always wondering why it would glow and shine in Lu Ban’s hands, yet in her own hands, it was just like a brick.

“Just feeling a bit uneasy, I always feel there’s something wrong with this mission.”

Shuangxin looked at the towering rocket launch site, frowning slightly.

“This place once hatched swarms of insects, and it must have been severely damaged when the civilization of the old human era was destroyed, but why wasn’t it the first to be consumed by the swarms of insects?”

“Maybe this is just the birthplace of the swarms. They were released elsewhere and didn’t have time to come back and completely consume this place?”

The Singer thought that this place might have just narrowly escaped total destruction, much like Future City.

“Or perhaps, for those swarms, this place has a special significance?”

Shuangxin suddenly thought of something.

She took out the map of the industrial park that Lu Ban had promised, and together with the Singer, headed towards the unexplored rocket launch site that they hadn’t managed to explore yesterday.

Getting closer to this area, Shuangxin noticed that the buildings here bore scorch marks, seemingly burnt by intense flames.

And the giant rocket launch site, empty and desolate, with only scorched metal, emanated a coldness.

Standing beneath that magnificent creation, Shuangxin found a door that seemed to lead underground, beneath the rocket launch site.

One after another, they walked down the stairs. The area was dim and dry; the air seemed to be permeated with a burnt stench that hundreds of years had not been able to erase.

After about five minutes, Shuangxin felt that the space in front of them suddenly opened up.

That sense of spaciousness was not merely the feeling of a large hall but seemed as if there was a plain or a vast cave ahead.

She lit the fire core in her hand.

By the flickering firelight, Shuangxin saw that within the vast hall, there was a lump of faintly glowing distortion.

The air was twisted, forming something like a lens.