A mountain pile of tech greeted Anna the moment she stepped into the barracks.

There was an office dedicated only to her where the routine checks took place. And covering every inch of the floor were detectors and strange gadgets that Anna remembered from the original memories.

"What?" She whispered, her eyes boggled as she scanned the space. The room was large, with six floor-to-ceiling windows that let in tons of sunlight and fresh air.

"I’m supposed to check all of them?" Anna asked, turning to glance at her companion.

Tristan nodded, his cheery smile plastered on his face as usual. "If you require any assistance, I’m more than happy to assign help to you."

"How did so many get damaged in the first place?" She whispered to herself.

Princess Orchid never needed help. But again, she never had this much work to do from the memories. Somehow, she was always on top of every single duty on her to do list. And even though Anna had all her memories, she still couldn’t understand how the Princess got everything done in one day.

"Don’t worry about it." Anna said, turning to face Tristan fully. Standing beside him was Bella, who was doing her best to avoid looking at him. An idea lit up in Anna’s head and she grinned. "General, why don’t you give my servant Bella a tour of the grounds? You don’t have anything scheduled for today right?"

Bella’s gaze lifted up and she shook her head in a silent "no". Anna pretended not to see that, pinning her attention on Tristan.

"Of course, if it pleases you, your highness." He bowed, his silky hair catching the soft morning light.

Bella rushed up to Anna. "Your highness please," she gasped, her palms clasped together as her eyes pleaded with Anna. "I won’t be able to function properly around him!" She whispered.

Anna wiggled her brows. "So you do have a crush on him," she whispered back. "Just relax, okay. If he tries anything funny, let me know and I’ll cut his hands off. Am I clear?"

Bella froze, before nodding violently. She bowed, walked over to Tristan and bowed.

"Have fun, and please, Tristan, take your time okay?"

Anna waved them off, and once they were out, her smile dropped and she walked over to the desk.

"Now, let’s figure this out."

She glanced at the mountain of tech and a fake sob came out of her. "Why are they so many?"

The Tech Princess Orchid built was generally simplified. Each piece had what it was used for.

More complex designs would most likely require circuits and then attract the attention of AI beasts. But just because they were simple didn’t mean they were toys.

Everything that had a circuit in this world was a red flag, electricity included. But somehow, there was power.

There were light bulbs and cameras and cars and music.

Even as Anna drew the information from the memories—modified crystal energy, hydraulic systems, manual generation of power, even biochemical reactions—even though she knew how it all worked, she was still mindblown.

From the original memories, the Southern Empire was the hub of technological and scientific advancement. They had the largest concentration of intellects who studied the old world and adapted things to suit the new world. Princess Orchid was a frequent guest. She spoke at the national universities, she was in a lot of societies and clubs. As the head of the Science and Innovation Bureau, she championed the technological advancement of the East from what she learned in the South.

The One In A Thousand Year Genius. The blessing of the gods to the Eastern Empire. And also their biggest curse.

Stone energy powered the cars and detectors and a lot of other gadgets.

Anna picked up a Detector and held it up to her face.

"Stone energy doesn’t run out easily. It can last decades. That means these detectors should be good for at least a hundred years more."

She turned it on and it wouldn’t come up.

"Why are they all dead?"

The stones used for stone energy wasn’t something Princess Orchid invented as Anna had thought. They were a natural resource, like fossil fuel. The problem was programming them to do certain task, which was extremely difficult, dangerous, and took years. Princess Orchid found a way to do it in weeks rather than years. That was the breakthrough.

From then on, this world learned to use stone energy thanks to Princess Orchid’s teachings.

The stones were only found in the East by some stroke of luck. The Empire, by Princess Orchid’s command, held total control over the export of the stones.

However, Princess Orchid didn’t teach everything she knew. Some of her journals contained forbidden knowledge about the stones which Anna refused to acknowledge she had read and knew how to use.

She took out her tools, opened it up and stared inside.

The tiny stone that was the source of energy was missing. Gone. As if someone had opened the detector and taken it out.

Anna frowned. "That’s suspicious. And this happens right after the general games?" She looked around the pile of work again. From the size, it had to be every detector the army owned. Maybe even the ones from the garrisons stationed all across the empire that had to be recalled.

How can every detector in the Empire fail at the same time?

"Maybe this one is just a fluke."

She picked another one and opened it. The stone was missing. And another. And another.

She wasn’t able to open them all, but each one she opened, the stone was missing.

She stood in the center of the room, surrounded by broken detectors and shields and crystal lures, and all of them were missing the one component they needed to work.

Anna regretted sending Tristan on a long walk.

Someone needed to answer to this.

"In my world, this will be a terrorist attack." She muttered, fighting the chill that overtook her.

A terrorist attack?

Could it be the same here? Did a smart AI beast do this?

Anna catalogued all she knew about AI beasts. There were four main category, Dream Weavers that spun vivid illusions and killed their prey with that, Mirrors, Whisperers that talked and talked till their prey ran mad, and Empaths.

"Empaths..."

An Empath was the most humanoid of AI beasts. They could speak and true to their name, they felt emotions.

Anna looked around. What if an empath snuck into the army and...

"That’s ridiculous." She laughed out loud. An empath got past the walls of security outside the palace and got into the army? Even if that was possible, how about the detectors from other parts of the Empire?

Anna shook the crazy thought away. "This is an inside job." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

A knock on the door pulled her from her spiraling thoughts. "Come in."

She instantly regretted that.

The door opened and Leon walked in. He was dressed in simple clothes, all black, his hair tied in a high ponytail.

Anna’s expression turned sour and she folded her arms. "Yes? What do you want?"

He took his time, looking around the place before his eyes settled on her. "Just because I’m not the active general doesn’t mean I don’t belong here."

"That wasn’t what I asked." She shot back.

His jaw worked slowly. Then he smiled. "Where’s your crown?"

Her stomach dropped. The previous day came rushing back to her mind. "Don’t need it."

His brows shot up. "Ah, I see. I was worried for nothing. At the end of the day, you’re incapable of romance. Where’s Kai now?"

"If I didn’t know better I’d say you’re jealous."

His eyes sparked and he smirked. "Oh, so you do know better."

"Yes. I do. And I know you’re not doing this because you’re jealous or whatever. You genuinely hate to see me doing my job without making it about you."

His smile froze and slowly fell. Like ice cream on a summer day. "Now you’re making up delusions."

"Look, Leon, I’ve got a shit ton of work to do. What do you want?"

He tilted his chin up in a show of superiority. And as much as Anna hated it, even though he was dressed so simply, he still gave off a powerful and intimidating aura.

"Your bottled spores aren’t efficient. At this rate we’ll spend forever on this simple task."

Anna blinked.

Never did she expect those words to come out of his mouth.

"Don’t tell me you’ve used all of them?!"

"Yes, I have."

"You! Those could have lasted a month! Do you think it’s easy to bottle them and ship over to you?! What the fuck is your problem?!"

"I’m saying they’re inefficient. The time you used to bottle them can be used to heal me in person."

"Heal you in person?!" Anna waddled through the broken detectors till she stood up in Leon’s face. "So what? You’ll try and kill me again?"

"No."

"As if I’d believe a word out of your mouth."

His eyes moved to her mouth, and something flashed in them.