Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 825: Ava’s Drones I

CH825 Ava’s Drones I

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Alex’s gaze turned towards one of the many tunnels leading into the core rim—or ‘throne room’.

Through the Hive Network, Ava had transmitted the instruction packet to whatever lay beyond this particular passage.

Moments later, figures unlike the insectoids Alex and Zora had previously encountered emerged from the tunnel.

“A bat, a crow, a pigeon, a wolf, and a human?” Zora muttered. “That’s a weird combination.”

“It isn’t,” Alex replied, shaking his head. “Pigeons, crows, and bats are among the most ubiquitous flying creatures across most worlds and planes. Depending on the location, people would rarely bat an eyelid if they saw one.”

“…Making them excellent spies or intelligence agents, right?” Zora immediately caught on to his reasoning.

“Yes.” Alex nodded. “The same logic applies to the wolf. Wolves exist in many wilderness regions. Having one suddenly appear in such places is unlikely to attract much attention.”

“As for the human drone, I simply wanted to see whether Ava could create one. I didn’t expect it to succeed so easily,” he added.

For a proof of concept, Alex found the drones standing before him to be quite satisfactory.

It had to be said that these were not simple drone copies of existing bats, crows, pigeons, wolves, and humans. After all, Ava was capable of far more than merely replicating existing lifeforms.

While the primary function of the Autonomous Vivoform Assembler, as an organic factory, was to produce drone lifeforms for Alex’s use, its true capabilities extended far beyond simple reproduction.

As its name suggested, Ava was an assembler of genetic information, combining genetic traits to form a genetic core that could then be gestated into a drone.

She could not create genetic code from scratch—nor could Alex or Orion. Instead, through the Detection Rune program woven into her runic foundation, Ava and the Hive could scan the genetic code—or genome—of any organism they consumed and permanently archive that information within the Hive’s collective memory.

In effect, it functioned as a biological database that Orion could access, analyse, and process into meaningful information for Alex’s design work.

This synergy between Orion and Ava allowed Alex to selectively combine desirable traits from countless organisms into a single custom-designed drone.

Take the pigeon drone, for example.

As a potential spy platform, beginning with a pigeon as the base template offered numerous advantages. Pigeons were among the most adaptable birds in existence, capable of thriving in a wide variety of environments.

They also possessed exceptional homing and navigational abilities, remarkable spatial memory, impressive endurance that allowed them to remain airborne over long distances, and rapid reaction speeds that greatly improved their chances of survival.

As the foundation for a reconnaissance drone, the pigeon was an excellent choice.

However, Alex still identified several shortcomings that could be improved.

For instance, the pigeon drones had been designed with denser bones and larger, more powerful muscles, selectively incorporated from the genomes of several larger avian species. These modifications significantly increased both their survivability and carrying capacity.

He had also enhanced their eyesight by incorporating genetic traits derived from eagles, while granting them superior night vision through genetic material obtained from owls.

Under natural conditions, modifications of this magnitude would almost certainly have resulted in a dramatic increase in the pigeon’s energy consumption—at the very least.

For these drones, however, this posed little difficulty.

Alex simply had Orion optimise both their energy storage capacity and the efficiency with which that energy was consumed.

Furthermore, the energy-dense drone carrion honey that served as their primary food source ensured a far more stable and abundant energy supply than any natural pigeon could ever hope to obtain.

Essentially, with the sole exception of the humanoid drone, none of these drones were anywhere near as ordinary beneath the surface as their outward appearances suggested.

Alex and Zora walked over to the newly created drone types and examined them closely.

“Their eyes are hollow. It’s especially noticeable on the human drone,” Zora commented.

“Well, the eyes are the windows to the soul. Naturally, theirs are hollow since they don’t possess souls. They’re just self-moving puppets, after all.” Alex shrugged.

After a moment’s thought, he added, “Actually, I think it’s a good thing that there’s a noticeable sense of discordance. It would be rather unsettling if they could pass themselves off as real humans without flaw.”

Alex shuddered involuntarily as the deeply ingrained biases left behind by countless robot and artificial intelligence films and literature from his previous life resurfaced in his mind.

Although he intended to make use of humanoid drones, he had no intention of disguising them as actual humans. They were primarily intended to serve as an inexhaustible labour force for the development of his domain.

Speaking of labour…

‘Ava can’t produce too many complex humanoid drones,’ Alex mused.

‘Although there are countless drones within the Hive, it’s unlikely that the world recognises them as separate individuals. Judging by their connection through the Hive Network, it feels less like observing multiple living beings and more like looking at different parts of a single organism.’

‘There is only one entity here—the Hive.’

Case in point, since awakening after the tribulation, Alex had felt a much stronger connection to his domain—a clear sign that his claim over the Heavenly Mandate was steadily increasing, albeit still insignificant for the time being.

He could also sense a greater connection to the people contributing towards the domain’s fortune.

While it was impossible for him to identify every individual contributor precisely, he could generally sense where those contributions were coming from and roughly gauge the strength of the contribution originating from each location.

Thanks to this, Alex could tell that only a minimal amount of the domain’s fortune was coming from this area.

Despite the hundreds of drones already moving throughout the subterranean Hive, Alex hadn’t noticed any meaningful increase in the domain’s fortune.

Never mind hundreds of contributors—there wasn’t even a dozen.

There was only one.

Ava.

Or perhaps more accurately, the Hive itself, with Ava serving as its singular consciousness.

‘There goes the idea of mass-producing contributors to the domain’s fortune by getting Ava to endlessly spam drone production,’ Alex chuckled dryly to himself.

Since the Hive was recognised as only a single entity, there could likewise be only a single consciousness—or source of spirit—driving the entire Hive.

The consciousness that belonged to Ava.

However, what made Ava’s consciousness and spirit fundamentally different from those of other living beings was that they were not hers alone. Instead, they were distributed throughout and shared across the entire Hive.

Because of this, there was a limit to the number of drones Ava—and, by extension, Alex—could simultaneously control at each stage of her development.

Consequently, this also acted as a natural limiter on the total number of drones Ava could field.

***