Chapter 1138: Chapter 371: I’m Here for the Discs
The beauty of Legos is that you can build anything as you think of it. In Cyberspace, if you accumulate enough computing power and points, you can get as many Lego bricks as you want.
Like a whirlwind, dozens of people and AIs quickly disassembled a five-kilometer-long exhibition space into fragments and reassembled it into a giant land vehicle with tracks—almost like a moving city.
Johnny, who was observing from the side, thought he must be crazy.
"Damn, I must still be high and not fully awake."
So he looked for a spot on the snowfield to lie down and relax for a while.
He had no clue about this cyber world; he just felt like he was brought into a fantasy land for fun and amusement.
"Goo goo ga ga—"
A black-backed, white-bellied, sharp-beaked creature waddled over to Johnny’s side, obliviously sliding on its belly across the snowfield until it plunged into the sea at the edge of the ice sheet.
"Interesting little thing."
This was not only Johnny’s first time in Antarctica but also the first time he had ever seen a penguin.
Even though there’s no cold or warmth in the data world, as long as you don’t receive environmental data you won’t feel temperature, the sheer sight of this ghostly place looking like it’s minus dozens of degrees was stunning, yet life thrives here, and in such numbers.
As if hearing Johnny’s inner question, a voice suddenly came by his ear.
"Life... isn’t it amazing?"
The voice seemed to come from the howling icy wind, disappearing just as quickly in the breeze.
Johnny looked warily in the direction the voice came from, but there was nothing there.
"What on earth is speaking?"
The voice made no attempt to hide its presence and continued,
"Johnny Silverhand... I recognize you. There’s a concert poster and vinyl records of yours in the American research station."
"Ha, it seems I’m quite famous, even in such godforsaken places someone knows me. So, do you want me to sing ’Eighteen Moans’ for you, a song I just learned?"
Johnny showed no trace of fear towards the unknown presence; he was already a fearless man, and after surviving once, he didn’t care anymore. Every extra second of life was a gain.
"Did you raise these little creatures? They look quite amusing. If this was before, I might have bought two to keep, since they look so silly, hahaha."
Talking to the air, Johnny felt his hysteria was growing increasingly serious.
"They’re not raised by me... These are data left by former researchers who sampled from Antarctica. It’s decades-old data, and now there aren’t many penguins left in Antarctica..."
The voice, which didn’t seem human, spoke calmly and indifferently, as if these matters were of little concern, but Johnny could hear traces of disappointment within the words.
A strong wind mixed with frost blew, and in the blink of an eye, the Endless that Johnny came with was buried in snowflakes, and the last scene he saw was Ecstasy and others still piecing together the exhibition space, oblivious.
When the snowstorm subsided, the place where the battleship was had transformed into a crowd of pudgy penguins huddled together.
"Every year, emperor penguins migrate in groups to the sturdy and flat frozen plains for mating and laying eggs. The weakened female penguins go out for food; the male penguins remain to incubate..."
Johnny saw a large penguin trying to be an interloper, squeezing the female penguin with its chubby body. The fighting was ridiculously silly, using its short flippers to slap and jostle, with hilarious, clumsy motions.
"Humph, how can such stupid things survive in this godforsaken place?"
"They can. Life’s resilience exceeds your imagination."
As the voice spoke, a blizzard arose on the snowfield. Facing the raging snowstorm and suddenly plummeting temperatures below minus dozens of degrees, the penguins huddled together, warming each other with body heat.
Every now and then, they shuffled to ensure each penguin could get into the central warmest spot.
With no shelters or barriers, they stood like a cluster of black rocks against the white storm. Some penguins were even covered with a thick layer of frost but remained unmoved, enduring until the storm passed, when they shook off the ice from their bodies.
Their eggs also hatched after the blizzard, gray-furred and fluffy baby penguins crawling out of the shells.
The male penguins who first hatched the babies boasted about their offspring to others and regurgitated the last of their food to feed their young.
They continue to guard their young, abstaining from eating or drinking for two months, until the foraging female penguins return to take over.
The miracle of life was vividly displayed at this moment, bursting forth with vibrant vitality. Even Johnny, with his cynical nature, couldn’t help but fall silent.
It’s just a pity he’s not one of those academics; otherwise, he’d definitely spout a few lines of grandeur.
When the offspring are about four to five months old, the returning penguins will abandon them and leave, leaving the young, now nearly as tall as themselves, bewildered in place.
"They just leave their kids like that? What kind of parents are they? Just like those irresponsible people in Night City."
"Later, another penguin clan, the Adélie penguins, will protect the emperor penguin chicks during migration and coax them into the sea to hunt..."
Without much interaction or upbringing, these snowland spirits seem inherently born for this, even including chasing off the giant skuas that hunt young emperor penguins.
