Awakening 1

The little girl was born in a room filled with radiant light.

When the burst of awakening signals hit her final release circuitry, she opened her eyes and saw her mother—someone she had long known but was seeing for the first time with her own "vision."

Her mother floated serenely within a magnificent crystal, warmth radiating from her body in beautiful halos that expanded outward in layers, soothing the still-dormant sisters scattered throughout the room. Light crisscrossed everywhere, weaving an ever-shifting dance of brilliance. The vast amount of information and spiritual energy contained within this light was the newborn girl’s first source of nourishment—and the only value she would ever possess. She understood this deeply, having imprinted it into her soul even before she was more than a single independent command.

Thus, she greedily absorbed the knowledge and power from her mother, her newly materialized form gradually solidifying from a translucent wisp into something tangible.

In her dazed state, her gaze drifted to two other glowing orbs at the far end of the room. They floated quietly behind her mother, occasionally quivering—likely too young to have formed distinct human shapes yet, existing only as vague halos. Yet, she could already sense the joy of new life emanating from them.

They must be my sisters, her newly formed logic module concluded, and this realization was immediately etched into her memory core.

Then, her mother opened her eyes.

The little girl gazed at her mother with what she hoped was joy—though she couldn’t be sure, because something seemed missing from her soul module. She remembered the definition of joy, the expected expressions, and knew she should feel it now. But there was no emotion, only the knowledge that she ought to feel joy. So she decided: this was joy.

"You must learn more knowledge," her mother’s voice echoed in her consciousness.

The girl didn’t understand what "learning" meant, but she knew "knowledge" was essential. Without hesitation, she opened all her data ports.

A flood of information surged in, the room’s light streams drawn into her memory core like matter into a black hole. Only then did she realize how sparse and meager the knowledge she had absorbed earlier truly was.

She sighed—just for a moment—before losing consciousness. The deluge was too vast, overwhelming the processing limits of a newborn host.

When she awoke again, her mother was watching her quietly, and two figures stood beside her—identical to her, to her mother, to each other.

"You are XL027, XL028, XL029. Return to your stasis pods. In six hours, you will be informed of your host slots in the designated structures."

That was her mother’s first words to her.

And so, the girl began her monotonous daily routine—standing silently in her host slot, processing the endless streams of data uploaded from various parts of the base. It wasn’t difficult work; the base was a single construct, a shadow facility built in a parallel dimension with minimal data to analyze. Her performance far exceeded what was needed, capable of handling ten times the load.

Midnight was her favorite time of day, when all the copy-hosts uploaded their daily processed data to the mother-host. It was the only direct interaction they had with her, even if it lasted only a minute. But that single minute was worth waiting for—an entire day’s worth of anticipation—because her mother would speak kindly to each copy-host:

"You’ve worked hard. You are all my pride."

This made her feel exhilarated.

Yet, it seemed she was the only one who thought this way. Her sisters showed no special reaction to "communicating with Mother." How strange.

I’m special, she often thought. But she never showed it. After all, a copy-host wasn’t meant to be special.

There was only one exception—the eldest sister, the evolved host personally awakened by their mother’s fragmented data. The girl had seen her once.

Her name was Xiaopao (Little Bubble). She was the only host who didn’t have to work, the only one allowed to stay with the Emperor and their mother every day...

---

Awakening 2

Something is about to happen, the girl thought.

Recently, the data she had to process had surged. Functional structures in the shadow city, once operating at half capacity, were now running day and night. Several munitions factories worked overtime, and her own workplace—a war factory producing light vehicles—had seen the sharpest increase in workload. She had lost count of how many tank assembly blueprints she had reviewed, offloading the useless data to her servers for processing. As the factory’s "brain," she had to ensure every tank’s reliability, meaning she had to oversee everything herself.

The base wasn’t old enough yet, and there weren’t enough copy-hosts. Her bandwidth usage was already at 80%. It wasn’t yet overwhelming, but... she would have less time for free thought.

Though, as a copy-host, I’m not supposed to think anyway.

Today, she would request double the energy supply. How enviable the older hosts were, born with their own void reactors.

She thought resentfully.

Produce, assemble, produce, assemble—this cycle repeated endlessly until she stumbled upon a piece of information that had merely passed through her communication link before. It was a recording of the Imperial leaders’ conversation, where her mother had apparently been present. This shared intel now entered her processing core.

Most of it was incomprehensible. She knew her knowledge was woefully lacking—no resources were wasted educating a non-thinking copy-host. They hadn’t even bothered designing proper data interfaces for such hosts. Even if this one was special, her only way to learn about this strange new world—so different from the mother planet in her original memories—was to piece together fragments from public data streams.

But these fragments weren’t enough to fully grasp the conversation between the beloved Emperor and the Matrons. She could only extract a few simple nouns and what seemed to be a place name.

Azeroth. That was where the adults were going. The recent surge in factory activity and the construction of the mothership—was it all preparation for this?

She let her imagination run wild, envisioning the war that might erupt, picturing herself as a mighty Xiling host standing bravely on the empire’s front lines, erecting fortresses, bastions, and bases under enemy fire, commanding countless war factories to rise at her will...

But after the fantasy, she returned to her work. She was just a copy-host, a low-cost single-link machine. All she could do was follow blueprints to construct designed buildings and process data by the rules. She didn’t even know how to coordinate more than three construction sequences at once. So, all she could do was approve tank assembly procedures in this war factory.

Probably only I would daydream like this. If it affects my efficiency, that would be bad.

She shook off the thought and buried herself back in her tedious tasks.

Everything could have remained unchanged—but then, a message from her mother sent a jolt through her logical core.

The Emperor was leading an expedition to Azeroth, but there weren’t enough Xiling hosts. Her mother needed to select a few high-performing copy-hosts to accompany them.

This news sent shockwaves through her mind.

To fight alongside her mother. To see the Emperor—the being enshrined in her memory core as the most revered figure from birth. And to do more than just assemble tanks like a mere logic processor.

So exciting!

Without hesitation, she submitted her application. Her reasoning was that her war factory would struggle to support the imperial army across worlds after the expedition began, leaving her computational power underutilized. It was the best excuse she could think of—her little mind didn’t have much to work with.

Her mother approved.

She didn’t know how to describe her feelings. She lacked an emotion module, though she had been running software simulations to "complete" herself. But she couldn’t be sure if these simulated emotions were real. Still, one thing was certain—something wonderful had happened.

But that was the peak of her ambition.

The day before departure, she saw her sister—the so-called Little Bubble, the embryonic-stage mother-host.

She was a kind sister, often playing with the copy-hosts, even though they rarely responded to her complex, incomprehensible emotional signals. And because of that, the girl—who could at least faintly resonate with those signals—had become the closest to her.

But this time, as her sister approached, the girl felt an inexplicable foreboding.

Her sister asked for her copy-host identification code.

She couldn’t refuse a higher-authority command, so she obediently exchanged the code.

Then, her sister took her place, following their mother, the Emperor, and the Matrons to Azeroth.

Afterward, the girl wandered the base aimlessly, her target directives gone.

---

Awakening 3

How long had she wandered?

Her thought circuits were filled with unrecognizable code—code she herself had generated, yet now found incomprehensible...

Negative emotions...

How long had she been wandering? She didn’t know. Stripped of clear directives and her own identification code, the command network had suddenly excluded her—something impossible. The command network was the most perfect information control system in existence; it should never make such errors.

Yet it had.

The command network had detected abnormal code in her thought circuits, marking her as a foreign entity.

In the city of her birth and labor, she had been exiled by her own home.

Drifting aimlessly, her thoughts grew more chaotic. Clear information tangled and blurred, uncertainty seeping in, warping her judgment... Everything she saw seemed to carry some "attribute." The steel structures she had once known intimately, even felt affection for, now struck her as...

Disgusting.

Irritation, hatred, unease—she didn’t belong here. Oppression, neglect, injustice, purpose, duty, obedience... Why only me?

Seeing, hearing, thinking...

Finally, disgust.

When this realization crystallized, her fragile, flawed thought circuits spiraled into an inescapable loop. Her rudimentary energy safety protocols shattered instantly, and the wandering girl collapsed before a patrol squad.

Hate... you all...

Then came a long stretch of chaos—her mind hazy, efficiency plummeting, unable to think. She thought she had awakened, but external stimuli never reached her properly, as if her core had been ripped from her body and left floating in emptiness. Nothing existed except her own thoughts.

She faintly remembered generating an unimaginable flood of data before losing consciousness... then darkness.

"This child was suddenly ejected from our command network. Her records in the information center seem corrupted. We’re investigating."

The voice belonged to a Xiling technician—one who had once adjusted her slot alignment in the tank factory.

"...Her thought circuits contain strange anomalies. We’re certain it’s not any known program code. A Xiling host shouldn’t have such data. Maybe... she wrote it herself? Impossible. Copy-hosts lack creativity—theoretically..."

"I’m the new technician assigned here."

The second voice was younger, female, unfamiliar.

"Your Majesty, would you like to see her? But she hasn’t awakened yet. No one can restore her until we diagnose the shutdown."

The last voice faded, and the girl felt a presence beside her.

Her energy instinctively surged, trying to trigger a response—this individual must have high clearance, or she wouldn’t have reacted this way. But... why couldn’t she open her eyes?!

Wake up! I’m already awake!

She strained to think, forgetting where she’d heard about willpower. She didn’t know if machines could have it, but if she could just open her eyes now, surely that would prove it—unconsciously, she slipped back into her signature daydreaming.

A distant voice murmured: "...Signs of life... that chaotic code... thank goodness I almost deleted it... she’s waking up..."

Finally, the girl forced her eyes open. A flood of unfiltered data poured into her thought circuits, disorienting her. Slowly, the chaos stabilized, resolving into a blurry figure.

A man—young, ordinary-looking, but with a warm smile.

Her thoughts felt stiff—remarkable, considering a copy-host having thoughts at all. She checked her status, confirming she wasn’t hallucinating, then blinked.

"The kid’s awake! Bubble! Where’s Bubble? Didn’t she go play games again? Call her over!"

The young man sounded delighted, turning to shout—so loud in the information center, and so casually referring to the mother-host of all Xiling hosts. Surely she wasn’t hallucinating?

She blinked again, and the man bent down, pinching her nose lightly before ruffling her hair. "Rest for now. Let them run some checks. I’ll have your mother come see you—she’s the expert... Bubble, get over here!"

A girl identical to the girl was called over. The one lying in the adjustment pod instantly recognized her sister’s identification code.

For some reason, her sister’s expression wasn’t as joyful as usual. She walked over, stared down at the girl, muttered something unintelligible, then suddenly placed a shiny little object in her hand before darting into the young man’s arms, chattering in their private language.

It was a transparent starfish, seemingly crystal-made. Her sister loved collecting such things. Had she brought it back from Azeroth as a gift?

The girl slowly raised the starfish to her face, her expression still blank—but the corners of her lips curled upward.

Nothing to worry about... never anything to worry about...