Chapter 1365: A False Oracle

Lorrisa’s memory presented two distinct parts. Part of it came from her inheritance as a clone. It was not known how the mage emperors did it, but it was clear that the technique was very different from cell cloning on Earth. They could actually allow the clone to inherit most of the realm, magic, and memories of the actual person. Although the last one was an unpleasant accident for them, it proved to be an advantage for Hao Ren and his friends at the moment. Another part of Lorrisa’s memory came from herself, from the moment she woke up from the incubator until her involvement in that last experiment. In her brief years as the “shadow of the Elven Queen”, she witnessed the prosperous era and integrated many of her own ideas as well as understandings into her memory.

The two parts of memory contrasted sharply in Lorrisa’s brain. The first part of the memory was fragmentary and cold, and it seemed to her like a black and white image, which had been stored in her mind. She could not feel any emotional experience of her own but only looked at things from the first person perspective like a bystander. The second part was a vivid and detailed memory. It was her whole life even though it was only a few years.

She put together the two parts of memory, finally restoring the antecedents as well as consequences of the experiment shrouded in intrigue and mystery.

It all began some years before Lorrisa’s birth. It was also the eve of the deicidal war. In a grand religious ceremony attended by the four mage emperors of Holletta, the will of the goddess of creation presented itself on the remote planet.

The goddess of creation was not one to spread faith or create miracles. She did not often appear on secular planets around her own divine kingdom, let alone in this remote world far from the center of divine power. In the ancient calendar of Holletta recorded in history, only a few times did the goddess appear directly by projection. So one could imagine the impact that her sudden arrival had on the mage emperors of the time. The goddess mentioned that the mortal civilization of Holletta had reached a certain “passing line” and that she would, therefore, reward them. The prize was the secret to the origin of life.

The mage emperors believed in the promise of the goddess, not only because of their faith but also because of the influence of the times. At that time, the Hollettan Civilization was indeed on the rise. They discovered ways to navigate and survive in the universe and stars. They also discovered controlled nuclear fusion technology based on magic and even started to lay the foundation for antimatter technology. They had established a vast colony on the moon and were planning the massive Dyson Sphere project near the sun. These achievements were not very impressive for a truly advanced civilization in the universe, but the remote Holletta did not know it. They were at the most confident stage in history that they thought their presence among the goddess’ many subjects should indeed be transcendent. This arrogance led them to take the “oracle” for granted.

They felt that they were really going to get their reward from the goddess.

Not long after that, a Tablet of Commandments came into the mortal world. Lorrisa was not sure exactly how the slate had come into the world, but she guessed that it had come directly into the realm of the Blood Clan’s mage emperor, Darian, because it was the powerful lord of the Blood Clan who had called for the formation of the first laboratory (which was also consistent with the legends of Holletta to this day). Darian was clearly unable to complete the study of the Tablet of Commandments on his own, and the oracle was witnessed by four mage emperors at that time, he would not dare to defy the divine will of the goddess. Therefore, he handed over the tablet and put forward a plan to study with the mortal countries together.

Then they got the technique of using artificial constraints on the “divine power” from the Tablet of Commandments and injecting it into the lifeblood to create artificial divine cells. The process was incredibly smooth.

The first experimental base was set in the Consecrated Valley, where the elven and Blood Clan empires met. But not long after that, it was moved to the dark mountains for political and economic reasons. It was not called the dark mountains at that time. It had an even more glorious name, “the Eversong Ridge.” At that time, there were no dangerous, mutating beasts in the mountains, only peace.

As Hao Ren has previously speculated, to create artificial divine cells, there had to be a “source of energy” that could be touched and controlled by mortals. Since humans could not condense or carry divine power out of thin air, this source of energy was the Tablet of Commandments given by the goddess. It was not only a series of extraordinary technical document media but also a carefully crafted “divine energy pool”.

The pool once held the power of the goddess of creation—carefully processed, precisely diluted, and carefully sliced into small “clusters”, as Lorrisa put it, as though the goddess had prepared a batch of experimental materials for her clumsy students.

However, even this carefully-managed energy source was too powerful for mere mortals. The mage emperors soon realized this after their initial ambition and enthusiasm. All the creatures they chose to participate in the experiment, including animal samples and human volunteers, simply could not withstand the impact of direct contact with the Tablet of Commandments. The weaker of them would break down even just looking at the words on the tablet, while some devout priests could barely communicate with the tablet.

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The goddess could not have given the tablet without thinking about it, so the mage emperors soon discovered that those who could serve as the “carriers of origin” were actually on the planet, and that was them.

The particularity of the ancient civilization of Holletta determined that the mage emperors were the most powerful individuals among mortals, and the tablet granted by the goddess was obviously designed according to this strongest standard.

After confirming this fact, instead of risking their lives, the mage emperors decided to “build” a standard carrier to replace them.

A clone of Lorrisa was born in this situation and was the only successful individual to survive steadily.

Holletta’s clone technology, which gave clone the same power as the original, had had a very low success rate. Even if several magic empires combined to conduct research on a national level, only one clone succeeded, therefore, they had high hopes for Lorrisa’s clone from the very beginning. Even when the mage emperors later discovered that she had accidentally inherited some of the memory and personality from the real Lorrisa, they weighed in and chose to keep the clone.

As the inherited memories and personality were not complete, and lacked “embedding”, although it would affect the clone’s self-cognition to a certain extent, it was not as stable as its own memory and personality. Through the acquired guidance, the mage emperors believed they could get the clone to cooperate, and Lorrisa did the same. Of course, in order to make the clone more compatible with the experiment, the mage emperors also made a series of promises to her, such as freedom or the strong power that could be retained after “enduring the goddess’ grace”… These things were appealing, but for Lorrisa, they did not really matter.

The reason being, in a way, she was kind of half a mage emperor, having inherited the memory of the real Lorrisa. As for the exploration of the mysterious field, her interest was no lower than that of other people. Since there was no choice, it seemed very interesting to feel the mystery of the Tablet of Commandments by herself.

As the project progressed to its substantive phase, she underwent the lead-in experiment of “oracle power.”

“Here’s their plan: the experiment has two parts. One part is to extract the original material from the lifeblood and synthesize blank ‘divine cells’ artificially. The other part is to channel the power of the Tablet of Commandments into a mage emperor or a clone like me so that this power can be transformed into controllable energy. Eventually, they fused the two and created truly activated divine cells,” Lorrisa explained slowly. “I fell into a state of dizzy and sleepy after the ‘lead in’ experiment and soon lost myself completely. But according to you, it looks like they finally got the rest of the work done while I was unconscious…”

“You can transform those divine powers without being conscious?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

Lorrisa raised her right hand, and suddenly her hand was burning with a holy flame.

Then she waved away the flames and said, “It seems that the transformation of divine power on me has been completed. This process should be guided by the Tablet of Commandments, and has nothing to do with my personal will.”

“Can you describe what you ‘saw’ during your unconscious state?” Vivian suddenly asked. “What did you see in the depths of the oracle?”

“The language of mortals cannot describe it.” Lorrisa shook her head. “It was a super-sensory experience. I was vaguely in contact with a vast, twisted consciousness, or probably I was just passing through it, but I was sure it had a dark, evil nature. This consciousness mimics the power of the goddess. And because it is so powerful, ordinary people can’t spot its disguise. Only people like me can detect the truth with their own eyes. All in all, there’s one thing I know for sure: it was definitely not the true power of the goddess. The whole thing was a lie from start to finish.”