AZI Volume 1 Epilogue and Afterword
Epilogue – Tian Cheng
Within the garage of the Mirrored Moon Café—
"Please register a name."
A cold voice devoid of any emotions spoke.
"…"
Looking at the 18-year-old girl dressed in a sleeveless black maid uniform, Long Hua frowns.
The straight white hair of this girl reaches pass her hip—even with it tied into a tail using a black ribbon. Should it be untied, it could very well drag against the floor.
The skirt of the girl's attire reaches to her ankles and layered over the uniform is a white apron that is just a bit shorter.
Detachable sleeves are cuffed around the girl's arms a few inches down the shoulders, while a pair of tall black boots wrap around her legs.
Overall, this maid uniform basically attempts to cover as much skin as possible.
(Foolish disciple, what have you brought back this time? If you truly intend to take this weak creature in, are you prepared to care for it for life? Shizun can only protect you temporarily, there will eventually come a day in which you would have to fend for yourself. While fending for yourself, do you think you'd have the leisure to care for someone else?)
It is unknown as to when these words were spoken to him; but with them appearing in his head, Long Hua recalls the time in which he had asked his shizun if he may keep a pet of some kind.
(Ai, even though it's not a living creature, I still feel as if I'm taking a pet in… A name hmm.)
Staring into the girl's magenta-colored eyes, Long Hua answers—
"Tiān Chéng."
"Tian Cheng, are you sure?"
"Yes."
With confirmation received, the pupils of the android's eyes shrunk, and gradually expanded back to normal.
"…"
"…"
Staring at the other in silence, a full minute passes and with that, the android shuts her eyes completely.
"Are your eyes being shut a default feature?"
"The eyelids serve as a filter. Keeping them open at all times would use more processing power. Even with my eyes closed, I can still see perfectly. And the color of my eyes tends to draw unwanted attention in human society."
This is the same android that was stolen from the military transport, but after undergoing Tai Xuan's modifications—its outward appearance is no different from an ordinary human girl.
(A person walking around with their eyes shut would draw just as much attention though…)
Shrugging his shoulders, Long Hua moves onto the next topic.
"You know what your job is, correct?"
"To obey your orders at all times."
"I do not trust living people to work together with me on a job. As for machines of your nature… You getting hacked and backstabbing me would be my main concern."
"In the current world, there is not a single virus capable of infecting me."
Towards these words, Long Hua isn't entirely convinced, but only time will tell.
"You know how to use a sword?"
Pulling Kun out of the storage pouch and holding it beneath its taotie patterned handguard, Long Hua directs it to Tian Cheng.
It wouldn't be very long until he reaches the ninth stage of Qi Condensation, and once he does, he intends to head out into the wastelands for his tribulation.
Attempting to perform his breakthrough within the city would be suicidal, for he would instantly set off the alarms of the detection system.
During the breakthrough process, a guard would be needed to maintain watch over the surroundings—since, on the off-chance that anyone sees him performing an Immortal feat, it would spell trouble for the future.
For this specific reason, Long Hua had decided to use Tai Xuan to modify this doll that he had acquired by chance.
As for attempting to use this doll on missions assigned to him by NPI or bureau related work, that is also something that only time will tell.
"The necessary knowledge for sword use has been downloaded. If it does not meet your expectations, I may learn through detailed instructions and observation."
Receiving the sword, Tian Cheng pulls a portion of it out of its scabbard.
"Foundation Establishment realm magic treasure."
Hearing this term, Long Hua constricts his eyes.
"How do you know that term?"
"Shared memories from…- How shall I address you?"
"Whatever is fine."
Towards this uncaring reply, Tian Cheng tilts her head.
"Just pick something that won't create any sort of misunderstandings in public."
"This outfit dictates that "master" would be a suitable form of address, is that acceptable?"
Imagining all the misunderstandings that would occur, should that form of address be taken, Long Hua is just about to shake his head and reject it, but—
"Prolonged silence shall be taken as a confirmation. Please to meet you, master."
"To hell with that, change it right now."
"Error. Do you wish to restart?"
"You… I was thinking you probably don't have a sense of humor, but it seems like I was wrong. Alright, quit joking around, hurry up and change your form of address."
"Error. Do you wish to restart?"
Afterword
File for this story was created on April 13th, 2021. Took me until the 28th of the same month to write up to 200 pages while staying up till 4 AM, goes without saying that I woke up late in the afternoon while attending classes in between.
I wanted to do something different compared to the ordinary xianxia story since I wanted a break from classic eastern settings. In the end I decided to add some xuanhuan elements to it all and came out with this mess.
The original concept of this story was made 5 years ago with the idea of wanting to pit Chinese immortals against advanced scientific weaponry and superhumans.
A year or 2 after that I tried to write the first volume of it, but I would always stop at around 20-40 pages since it just didn't feel right. I tried doing that maybe 4 or 5 times until this draft?
I wouldn't call this draft perfect either, but I felt like I needed to start the story somewhere.
First main reason that led to me wanting to write this story is to really just take my mind off my mother's death that occurred back in January of this year. Cancer is relentless.
While writing I felt like this entire volume is basically just a colossal info dump to setup the story's world, which isn't far from the truth with how much detail is being given about GC012 in the beginning.
I personally don't like info dumps, but you can't really avoid them if you want to setup a world where the characters live in.
I'm not able to say where this story will go since my style of writing is just to make up the plot as I go along. There's a really rough outline in my head but it's very fragmented.
Second reason-
The original concept of this story started out with a single scene and to write this scene, or to give this scene the substance and the impact that will make it have meaning I decided to write this story.
That scene doesn't happen until way later into this story so there's still a long way to go before I can write it.