After Elena went to the priest's hall, Xiao Chen suggested going out for a walk, so Di Ning accompanied him around the capital.
The Elf King's Capital is undoubtedly a very suitable city for sightseeing, and Di Ning is a more suitable tour guide than Elaina. He will give Xiao Chen some explanations.
"… This place is where the elves set out to retake the territory from the Black Dragon Empire during the last war. Later, it gradually became a market. Because the market has only been around for more than 200 years, it is called the New Market, opposite to the Old Market on the other side of the capital." Di Ning pointed to a market and introduced it to Xiao Chen. There were many elves setting up stalls in the market. They sold some handicrafts they made, published books, made clothes, etc. Of course, there were also weapons they made and enchanted magic items, but they were a minority.
"For the elves, something that's been around for more than two hundred years is still new, right?" Xiao Chen asked.
“That’s why elves need to change. Otherwise they won’t be able to keep up with the trends of the world.” Di Ning pointed to his hair.
"Your red hair?"
"Dyed!" Di Ning said proudly.
It turns out to be a non-mainstream one, Xiao Chen thought to himself.
The goods sold by the elves in the market were not particularly valuable. The elves would not sell the real good things in the open-air market. From the perspective of the elves, the magic items here were mostly flashy and just fun things. However, Xiao Chen still exchanged some magic crystal coins with Di Ning and bought a lot of things, such as bracelets that could sing and accompany music, armor that could display images on the surface, and cooking gloves that could prevent burns.
"You have a unique taste." Di Ning couldn't help but comment as he watched Xiao Chen stuff these things into the Traveler's Heart.
"These are fun things. I can give them to my friends. The chance to enter the Elf Kingdom is too rare." Xiao Chen said with a smile, but in fact he felt that he had made a profit. These seemingly useless things of the elves, if the magic array inside can be reversed and studied, the school can refer to them to make magic speakers, magic camouflage uniforms and smelting protective clothing. Once a small invention is properly added to the industrial system, the power that will burst out is beyond the imagination of the idyllic elves.
"Well, is that so? If you like this kind of thing, I'll take you to an interesting place." Di Ning led him through the alley, walked along the plank road, and came to an inconspicuous tree house. Most of the tree houses of other people were still standing on tall and lush trees, but the tree under this tree house had withered. The shabby house hung on the dead branches, giving people the feeling that it might fall down at any time.
Di Ning pushed open the creaking door and led Xiao Chen into the room.
Xiao Chen could smell a mixture of metal and motor oil as soon as he entered the room. This room gave Xiao Chen the feeling of a messy second-hand store, with many old and strange things placed in the store. Various accessories, clocks, dolls, weapons, armor, stone slabs and iron plates with magic circles engraved on them, and props that he couldn't name. Xiao Chen even saw a lot of mechanical parts such as gears, bolts, bearings, and screws. If this was a dwarf mechanic's shop, Xiao Chen could understand it, but if it was an elf's shop, the picture style was too strange.
Xiao Chen took two steps inside, and a one-foot-tall golem came over and said, "Hello, guest! Welcome to Maya's magic shop." The words spoken by the golem sounded like Di Ning's voice.
"That voice is mine. Do you expect Maya to say welcome?" Di Ning shrugged. "She just likes playing with these things. I asked her to open a store with the things she made, but the business is not good."
Xiao Chen looked around again and found that there were quite a few things in the store that could move. A mechanical spider was crawling everywhere, wiping dust as it crawled, but its movements were very rough, kicking over a lot of odds and ends along the way. Behind it was a mechanical octopus floating in the air, constantly picking up things and putting them away. In addition, a mechanical lizard with red eyes crawled out from behind the pile of debris, glanced at the two people, and when it saw Di Ning, its eyes turned green and it retreated back to the corner.
"How is it? Interesting, isn't it?"
Xiao Chen nodded and said, "It's more than interesting. I saw a very genius design."
"Maya is a genius. If her energy hadn't been so scattered, she would have achieved more than me. She is a high-level magician, a high-level alchemist, a mid-level warrior, and a first-class craftsman. Maya, like me and Elena, was born in the same spring. The World Tree gave her a power, which she called 'structural intuition'. So she is very good at making these little things, and also good at giving these little things commands to do and when. I don't know what to call it, but it's not a soul anyway."
"Hey, is it a program?" Xiao Chen said.
"Program? What is that?" A clear female voice came from upstairs. Then a female elf was seen sliding down the stair railing.
The female elf was similar in stature to Elaina, but if Elaina was always a goddess, this one could only be described as sloppy. She was wearing short-sleeved work clothes, a work bib, gloves, and her hair and pointed ears were tied up with a piece of cloth. She looked dusty all over, and her face was covered with grease. When she came down, she was holding a wrench in her hand, and her image reminded Xiao Chen of an apprentice in a machine repair shop.
When I was around Elena, I could always smell a refreshing floral scent, but as soon as this person appeared, the smell of motor oil in the room became stronger.
However, Xiao Chen's dark vision allowed him to see clearly. The elf's facial features were very beautiful, not inferior to Elena's. However, in her current appearance, she could not be associated with a beauty in any way.
Maya rushed to Xiao Chen and asked directly: "Tell me quickly, what is the program? How does it work?"
Xiao Chen said: "In our place, a program is a collection of instructions that allows the machine to understand what we want it to do, and then it executes according to these instructions."
"Well, this word summarizes what I do very well. I used to want to call it the acquired soul, or the command sequence, but your statement seems more concise." Maya thought for a moment and said.
Xiao Chen's mind moved and he asked, "Then can these 'acquired souls' you designed learn on their own? Can they grow?"
"Some smart ones can, but stupid ones can't." She pointed at the mechanical lizard, "Little Black is smarter, and Little Spider is a fool. Little Black can recognize many people now, and he learned it all by himself."