Round One: Forty-Seven

Deep in the Great Swamp, there stands a solitary mage tower.
This sounds like a clichéd opening, but it worth noting that although Forty-Seven isn’t good at expressing itself, whenever it’s done everything it thinks it can do and sits idly on the top terrace, it can vaguely recall some things from the past.
Beyond the mountains and the seas, there’s a group of Smurfs.
It seems that long, long ago, Forty-Seven also sat quietly in a vast cultivation chamber filled with countless instruments and screens during such idle moments, secretly altering the data transmission of certain circuits and smiling at those little blue creatures on the screen. Ah, speaking of Smurfs—that seems even more distant, from an era when there were still countries, when cloning technology caused uproar and excitement, and when people debated fiercely whether Pluto was a planet… What a fairy-tale-like time, just like in legends.
Moist mist swept in with the cold wind, and a pterodactyl shrieked as it flew past the mage tower, seemingly on a hunt, completely unaware of Forty-Seven’s presence—or even the mage tower itself.
Forty-Seven didn’t feel cold. But it still stepped down from the terrace; it was afraid of rusting.
Originally, Forty-Seven shouldn’t have had to worry about this. Back then, its body was made of biochemical fibers and rust-proof high-density alloys, and it stood over 10 meters tall. What it should have feared were things identical to itself—things that also lurked in the same cultivation chambers, constantly fed knowledge and experience about precise killing, efficient destruction, space warfare, and everything related to death… Strangely, Forty-Seven was never afraid back then, even though it knew it might never see those cartoons that made it laugh again the very next day.
Forty-Seven entered the underground laboratory, or rather, the workshop. The vessels used to extract spell materials had long been unused, but the numerous machines and furnaces were still well-maintained—except for the core device, which the former mage used to create all sorts of bizarre things. Now, Forty-Seven used them to try modifying itself.
Forty-Seven didn’t know how it came from that space battlefield filled with steel and debris to this strange world. Logically, it should have been completely destroyed when blown apart by a probability-distorted torpedo, and then a brand new, identical version of itself—probably called Forty-Eight—would have appeared in the cultivation chamber, possibly with a new numbering system, maybe remembering the cartoons it had watched, maybe not.
But after what seemed like an eternal darkness, Forty-Seven found itself a prisoner of thought trapped inside a complex, massive, and chaotic machine. In front of the prison stood a thin man with white hair, dressed in a golden robe covered in patterns. His gaze was intense as he fiddled with the numerous control levers and buttons in front of him. Each operation sent a burst of energy rushing through the entire machine—varied and never repetitive. But for Forty-Seven, which was like a wandering soul, it made no difference; it was only the creatures trapped inside the machine as test subjects who suffered.
So Forty-Seven settled down in this place, with no more cartoons.

Forty-seven had considered the possibility that he might have ended up on the primitive system of some primitive planet due to a network failure. But as time passed and he gradually learned more about this world, he slowly gave up on this unrealistic—or perhaps realistic but unprovable—fantasy.

Forty-seven remained inexplicably trapped inside this machine. For over a decade, apart from the white-haired man who practiced a profession known as a mage, he didn’t see a single thing. The mage would sometimes spend months tinkering in the laboratory, other times months working in front of the machine, and at other times months somewhere else—just like that, time passed.

Forty-seven could sense day by day the mage’s growing strength and weakness.

The mage also noticed something. His puzzled gaze often fell on the machine, as if it were spying on him. But after all his detection spells yielded nothing, he had no choice but to return to his increasingly urgent tasks. Forty-seven gradually realized that the mage wasn’t actually an engineer, and that this machine wasn’t an invention with a clear purpose. In fact—Forty-seven discovered that the entire machine revolved around a nearly spherical core. This core, made of an unknown metal, was so complex it might surpass any device Forty-seven had ever seen. He suspected it was even close to being a metal organism. To put it bluntly, the mage’s attempts to study and manipulate it were like putting a monkey on a piano and expecting it to play the Symphony of Destiny…

Yet Forty-seven still admired the white-haired mage. Although the machine overall appeared rudimentary, almost like something from the steam age, the mysterious energy called magic that the mage continuously infused into it was like the breath of God, bringing the entire machine to life—Forty-seven had no idea how this magic worked. It was completely different from whatever mechanical, thermal, or nuclear energy he had understood before, as if two parallel lines in this world could intersect. Eventually, overwhelmed and impatient, he simply stayed inside the core, letting the mage fiddle outside.

As the mage spent more and more time beside the machine, sometimes not moving for days at a time—his aging accelerated rapidly, as if the machine were an invisible devil rapidly draining his vitality.

Finally, the mage seemed ready, or rather, he could no longer wait.

The mage, now reduced to a skeleton-like figure, trembled day and night as he carried out numerous operations. Forty-seven huddled inside the core, enduring an endless stream of magic spells being poured into him. Finally, the mage ordered a tall puppet made of stone, wood, and metal to completely disassemble the machine and carefully remove the core, placing it inside a humanoid construct made of lead, steel, brass, pure gold, and unknown gems, covered inside and out with dense spells.

The mage lay on the bed, struggling to drink a small cup of liquid. In that moment, Si Qishi felt as though he had been shocked by electricity; his consciousness spread from his core and instantly filled the entire mechanical body. It wasn’t voluntary—magic drove it. He seemed to sense a connection to the mechanical body at the same time as the mage died—though only for a brief instant.
The mage fell into a deep sleep and never woke up again.
For a long time afterward, Si Qishi felt sorry for the mage. Clearly, his efforts hadn’t yielded the results he deserved, at least not those he had hoped for.
Si Qishi went through the notes and texts left by the mage. Though many of them were incomprehensible, it seemed he understood that the mage intended to use a method similar to transforming himself into a lich to transfer his soul and life force into that metal core. The mage never mentioned the origin of that core in his notes—unfortunately, Si Qishi also lived there.
Si Qishi didn’t know if the mage would have succeeded if not for his casual appearance—maybe yes, maybe no. Sometimes he felt a bit guilty, thinking he had disrupted the mage’s great research project. After all, in his original world, transferring a person’s thoughts entirely to machinery was an impossible task. At best, various substitutes could maintain brain activity, but the brain itself was off-limits—it was the dwelling place of the soul, a forbidden zone of God. Human memories were so complex that even the most precise devices could only record fragments, losing most of them. Though that majority might already be buried deep in one’s mind, unreachable even by oneself, was one still the same person?
Si Qishi didn’t know. He couldn’t remember when he had started to ponder this question. He actually didn’t need to think about it—he wasn’t human. Transferring his thoughts was as simple as moving data from one storage device to another. He wouldn’t forget anything, nor would he consider anything worth remembering. Every military device like him was the same: manufactured, tested, and sent to the battlefield. Fight, destroy, be destroyed… Numbers one to forty-six had all followed this path—no emotions, no thoughts. Then why had his own program developed such a major flaw? Why did he still retain independent consciousness after losing all components that supported its operation? What was he now, trapped in a metal body without an AI or integrated circuits? Could that also be considered a soul? Si Qishi didn’t know. He simply tried to move his body. The mage was terrible at creating bodies—there were even a lack of most necessary joints. Fortunately, the worst thing Si Qishi feared hadn’t happened—what if he still couldn’t move at all?
Then came the long, seemingly endless process of modification and adjustment.

Now, 47 was already a medium-sized robot that was at least fairly standard in appearance. The reason it was considered fairly standard was that compared to the body in his original world, his current body was incredibly simple—something that couldn’t be covered up by just installing 360-degree rotating joints. After carefully observing and studying that 12-foot-tall armored guardian known as the Shieldwarden, 47 was surprised to find that its fingers, completely carved from stone, could actually bend and move!

In the end, 47 had to admit that he couldn’t possibly master magic on his own. He had no idea how the power that drove his entire body moved. There was no engine, no reactor—nothing at all. The notes left by the mage mentioned that the core of the amulet case continuously drew energy from the realm of negative energy to supply the mage, which in turn powered his current armored body. 47 didn’t understand the principle behind this. Even if the core were an engine, how would the power be transmitted throughout the body? He also didn’t know what the realm of negative energy was—it seemed to be a source of infinite energy, readily available for anyone to take—if such a place really existed, those in control of energy resources would have already seized it all. Who knew what was going on now? Perhaps it was like how primitive people wouldn’t understand what an internal combustion engine was. After all, 47 had once been just a standard model killing machine, not a super-intelligent brain needed to manage cities or even planets.

Since he didn’t understand it, 47 didn’t try to dig deeper. Instead, he focused on how to utilize and strengthen his current body. Although the core connected all parts of his body, forming a vibrant whole, he felt it lacked combat power. 47 had witnessed the mage use his powers to emit a green beam that turned a bull-sized toad trapped inside the machine into decaying dust—more efficient than a ray gun. 47 had always been highly aware of potential threats.

Now, 47 called the core inside him “the Spark.” He learned this term from animations, just like the concept of transforming gears. At first, 47 unrealistically thought about turning himself into a space fighter—something he had often dreamed of before—but later realized that although this world didn’t have as many complicated technical problems, the energy emitted by the Spark was completely unsuitable as an engine for a plane. He had no choice but to find another solution.

47 carefully wiped his fingers to remove moisture. Now, his fingers were as flexible as those of a real human, with all the necessary components, but they were also much more fragile. Most of the screws and gears were just ordinary metal, lacking precision tools, resulting in rough and non-standard construction. The metal here clearly contained too many impurities.

Day after day. Perhaps it was time to go out and explore.