I Am The Swarm

After the initial panic, nothing happened. The two of them emerged from their fear, and their intelligence came back online. Their minds calmed down, and they re-examined the sequence of events, realizing that they had likely scared themselves for no reason.

Lumina was a creation left behind by the original Ji Race, and the New Ji Race was merely its inheritor. During the initial transition period, aside from its core principles, Lumina’s system still contained a large number of instructions from the original Ji Race.

However, after hundreds of thousands of years in the New Ji Race era, the traces of the original Ji Race in Lumina’s instructions, aside from the core principles, had been reset.

As modern individuals, Elder Humes and Elder Cecil had not experienced the period when the New Ji Race Council of Elders constantly tested Lumina’s limits and voted to modify its instructions. Given the passage of time, the two had grown accustomed to the current systems.

But what was their initial speculation? Although they had strayed from the main point later, their original hypothesis was that the Swarm, the unknown creature, and the life-extension plant might all be creations of the original Ji Race.

So, was Lumina’s decision to ignore anomalies in that region and erase related traces due to residual instructions from the original Ji Race? After all, the original Ji Race members who wanted to establish the biological laboratory had moved far from their territory to seek peace and quiet.

Experiments inevitably caused disturbances. If the monitoring devices detected anomalies and reported them, or if foreign researchers discovered them, they would have had to relocate again.

Therefore, it was understandable that they would add some related instructions to Lumina.

“I need to review past records to see how our predecessors handled such hidden instructions,” Elder Cecil said, beginning to operate her console again. Since the information she needed to retrieve was so ancient and the time frame so vague, it took a considerable amount of time.

“Found it…” Elder Cecil’s voice suddenly came through, waking the drowsy Elder Humes.

“What did you find?”

“Given the unique circumstances here, the instruction set has a very high permission level. Using various methods, I can only detect that there is indeed an anomaly in the command set here, but I can’t determine the specific content of the instructions,” Elder Cecil said with some regret, shaking her head.

“Is there a way to figure it out?” Elder Humes asked.

“No. The original Ji Race member who set up this command set held a very high position. With my current Elder privileges, I can’t override his instructions.”

“What if you add my authority?”

Elder Cecil glanced at Elder Humes and shook her head again. “No. Our authority levels in Lumina are already lower than those of the original Ji Race members. The original Ji Race member who set up this command set was likely an Elder at the time. Based on previous records, the permission level of this command set clearly exceeds what’s documented. It’s possible that it wasn’t the work of just one Elder. In this case, even if we combined our authority, squared it, or cubed it, we still wouldn’t be able to unlock it.”

“So, there’s no way to open this command set?”

“There must be a way. Convene the Council of Elders, with at least 60% attendance and a majority vote, and we should be able to unlock it.”

“Ha, although that’s much easier than directly unlocking the biological laboratory’s materials and all its data and records, for us, there’s no difference. We still can’t unlock it,” Elder Humes said with a look of frustration, his long neck swaying side to side in clear irritation.

“There’s no need. Actually, we’ve already made significant progress. With this, we can confirm a lot of information. First, the star region where the Swarm is located is indeed connected to the original Ji Race’s biological laboratory. Even if it’s not the main laboratory, it’s at least an important branch or experimental site. This means the Swarm, which appeared out of nowhere, and the creature that started all this, are likely creations of the original Ji Race. As for the life-extension plant, I’m not sure…”

“Why not?”

“The original Ji Race’s decline was caused by directly modifying genes to extend their lifespans. Therefore, it’s likely they were searching for another method of life extension without side effects. The life-extension plant you mentioned fits the bill. But the strange thing is, according to you, the life-extension plant is almost a finished product. With simple extraction, it has significant effects. If the life-extension plant was the work of the original Ji Race, why didn’t they use it? Unless the plant has some flaw or wasn’t created by the original Ji Race.”

After hearing Elder Cecil’s speculation, Elder Humes shared his own information: “The life-extension plant does have some flaws. Its broad-spectrum applicability is limited. Tests show that its extracts currently only affect about 30% of the Confederation’s races.”

“That makes sense. This range is too small. The original Ji Race might have been among the 70% for whom it didn’t work,” Elder Cecil nodded, agreeing.

However, Elder Humes didn’t entirely agree with her conclusion. He unconsciously shook his head, and Elder Cecil immediately noticed. “Elder Humes, do you have a different opinion?”

Elder Humes thought for a moment and finally said, “Elder Cecil, you might not know this, but our progress in developing the life-extension plant has been incredibly fast—faster than you can imagine. In fact, increasing its broad-spectrum applicability isn’t difficult. When we first encountered it, its broad-spectrum applicability was just over 20%.”

Elder Cecil did some quick mental calculations. Elder Humes had only been working with the life-extension plant for a few years, yet he had already increased its broad-spectrum applicability by several percentage points. This progress was indeed astonishingly fast.

But perhaps because she had been agreeing with Elder Humes so far, being contradicted on one point made her somewhat unwilling to concede. She continued to argue, “Perhaps it’s because our technological level has far surpassed that of the original Ji Race. After all, hundreds of thousands of years have passed since then.”

However, her tone was filled with uncertainty and a lack of confidence. Clearly, even she didn’t fully believe her own argument.

Elder Humes shook his head and said earnestly, “Elder Cecil, I’ve lived a few more years than you, so allow me to offer you some advice: never underestimate the original Ji Race. They were the pioneers, and we are merely their inheritors. Lumina alone is an insurmountable mountain for us. We have no right to be arrogant.”

Although Elder Cecil felt somewhat dissatisfied about being advised by her peer, upon reflection, she realized that his words were indeed true.