While a great number of rumors about the powers that be in the Occident had reached the Orient, more fringe theories were largely kept out of the reports that Shou had been granted. Thus it was of his own deduction that he came to the conclusion that Frau Konigsmahne had quite the mechanical personality. Her expression may have been awfully blank, but her intentions were quite clear as she studied him. The question was not a rejection, so he imposed himself on her further and placed his plate and several glasses of refreshments on the table across from her.
"Mainly socialization," he broke the silence before it could drag on long enough to be considered awkward. He chuckled a bit at her rather courteous manner of speaking, and swapped out the chair for something more suited for an Egoist like himself. "Shou Zheng," he introduced himself as he dropped himself into the rather plush seat.
"Business though? In a strict sense I suppose, but it would be more akin to training for the both of us. It was quite hard not to notice that student shielding you earlier after all. Speaking of which, where is he? I don't believe the cut he suffered was that serious.""Socialization..." An interesting answer, yet unsurprising as Lucy was aware that her peers loved to do this... activity, apparently it was important and
she was the weird one for not wanting to waste her time with pointless small talks and fruitless discussions. Why should she socialize when she could be furthering her studies and working on her projects? No one could live forever, no? Thus, every person had a limited time on Earth and wasting said time with this 'socialization' was unwise. Regardless, just as only a minority of the populace were polymaths, it seemed the same could be true for wisdom. Nevertheless, perhaps the slightly-older student had a specific purpose in mind, just like Mr. Gharbi, she shouldn't rule out that possibility.
The silver-haired girl watched Shou swapped the standard dining chair for one that could accommodate his self-modified body better, judging from the fins on his ears and piscine tail, his Egoist Formulization must be themed around aquatic creatures.
"An excellent swimmer, likely could breathe underwater, among other abilities commonly shared by Egoists..." She self-mused about him, only stopping when he took a seat and started 'socializing'. Oh, how unexpected, it seemed he was curious about Mr. Gharbi instead, but why he did he approach her instead of Kalil himself? Indeed it's because he also didn't know of his whereabouts, so this confirmed that she didn't miss him, the Mughal Polymath really was not present in the Hall of the Greats.
"An excellent question, Mr. Zheng, for I am searching for the same answer. We are supposed to rendezvous here for a dance, but it seemed he is late, or I am too early." She explained matter-of-factly in Latin,
"Fortunately, it wasn't and after the nurse treated it with disinfectant and clean bandages, he will recover in a matter of days." She continued her meal for a few more cuts before her green eyes blinked once.
Hmmm... Egoists... the defector that Franz mentioned was an Egoist... so, perhaps? But, what were the odds? There were hundreds of Egoists here, it could be any of them, hell, they could be not even physically here in Bermuda. Thus, while it was a tempting proposition to address the topic, Lucy deduced that the chance was far too slim without further information from either her family or employer.
With that said, what could she say to Mr. Zheng? She didn't plan for this encounter, she had nothing to say to him, which was why this socialization activity is so pointless... it achieves nothing.
"...do you need me for something else, Mr. Zheng?" “Good, good. It’d be a shame if it was anything too serious.” He nodded a few times before he took a moment and dug into the plate of food before him. He also took the time to consider the younger girl he sat across. She was far too expressionless to come across as rude or haughty. From the rumors he had heard of her, disinterest seemed to be the most apt word to describe her. There was only so much that Shou could come up with after a few moments of interaction though.
An eyebrow of his climbed just slightly as her attention seemed to be drawn to his more inhuman features. The apparent curiosity seemed to last only a moment though, and it wasn’t addressed either as she sought a close to their conversation instead.
“I was wondering if you’d entertain the idea of further training though. Given that earlier mishap, it seems that a quicker reaction time might serve you well,” he explained himself as he nodded towards the folded up form of Schwarzritter next to her.
“Personally, I am curious to see how well I can fare against your famous creation as there aren’t many things comparable to it.”"It'd be a shame if it couldn't perform to its utmost, no?" Shou asked with a small grin and a most earnest tone. Heavens knew that it seemed unlikely he'd be able to bait a reaction from her, so why bother trying?
"Training..." Oh, he meant training her own body to perform better in the face of danger, ah of course, he was an Egoist and all, it'd make perfect sense for him to suggest that. However, Lucy saw the matter in a different light, it wasn't her who needed to improve, it's Schwarzritter that was currently limited in its functions, but should she even waste Shou's time with matters that he likely not understand? Her answer came when he addressed Schwarzritter directly, at that very moment, Shou could see that unmistakable glint of passionate interest in the young girl's green eyes. He better be prepared for a rant, he asked for this after all.
"Oh, indeed, that's a good point, Mr. Zheng. Schwarzritter is currently unable to act by himself, he needs my commands to do so, either via voice or direct contact," Lucretia put her fork and knife down as she seemed to entirely abandon the notion of eating, at least for the moment,
"You see, the reason for his inaction when those glass shards fell upon me was because I, myself didn't realize such an accident had transpired, and thus I was unable to command Schwarzritter to shield me. I am the weakest link in his functions." At this point in the technologist prodigy's rant, perhaps Shou could get an inkling that the hypothesis he told Jeanne regarding Lucy's business with Franz wasn't inaccurate,
"It is for this reason that the next major breakthrough I need to make him truly perfect is self-automation, a machine capable of independent actions though a pre-defined set of logic parameters, emulating the mind of a person." She nodded satisfyingly to herself a few times in succession,
"Tis' will also mean unlocking the secrets of the automaton concept, and I believe it can be done, just as Paracelsus once discovered Polymathy, so will I discover automatons."Her rant ended, she didn't even realize that she might have put off people, ordinary people her age mostly, but fortunately, Shou was also a genius and despite his major being different, the fact remained that he was among the world's brightest youths.
"Of course, I will welcome chances to gather more data for Schwarzritter's functions through practical experiments, however... She paused for a moment, studying Shou's aquatic features again.
"I didn't engineer him to be operated in a hydrosphere... would it be fair to you to engage him on dry land?" Lucy inquired, all of her attention were now focused on Shou, for better or worse.
In the background, the orchestra somehow shifted to a particularly pro-Britain song, instigated by a particularly 'drunk' student, but since it's not "Deutschland über alles", she paid no particular attention to it, what she
did pay particular attention toward was the symphony's requester himself, the person she had promised a dance for. So... Kalil was finally here, hmmm... between a dance and talking about Schwarzritter, it was abundantly clear where her priorities lied. Besides, it seemed Kalil was busy with someone else anyway, an older British boy with dark hair and golden eyes, wearing that distinctive top hat, one of his friends perhaps? They seemed quite jolly together.
"So, Mr. Zheng, what do you think?" She pressed him for an answer, her eyes opened wider than the usual blank stare, and one of her hands petting the backpack-shaped metal contraption as if it's a beloved canine companion.
If anything, the glint in Lucretia’s eyes only made Shou lean forward with a continued grin. It was always nice to see some genuine passion and enthusiasm from subject matter experts, and he rarely disliked listening to them speak. While the information might not be personally applicable, who knew when some tidbit of knowledge might prove to be useful.
He continued to eat while Lucretia spoke, but at a slightly slower pace so that he’d be free to respond if an opportunity presented itself. Sometimes it was best to just let them talk without interrupting their train of thought. For all that the conversation may have gotten off to a slow start, it didn’t seem like interacting with Lucretia was all too difficult. Just be straightforward with her and have something that wasn’t a waste of her time~ Though he wasn’t sure how well that would work out as friend material... He put those thoughts aside as she made her declaration though and nodded along with her.
“Mhmm, I imagined it was something along those lines if you sought out Herr Steiner so quickly.”“There’s not many with similar adaptations to mine, so most of my experience is on land to begin with,” he explained.
“I’ve only heard rumors regarding your creation, but unless it overshadows the Leopards and their controllers currently in service, I believe we should all be able to learn from these tests.” He had no doubt that Lucretia’s masterpiece boasted some impressive performance, but she had said so herself. All that performance was directed by her in the end, and he had no idea what sort of training she had received.
Before he could ask though, a rather loud and boisterous shout caused him to glance over his shoulder. Had someone gotten that drunk already? After recognizing the student responsible and seeing the pipe in his hands? Apparently they had just gotten high instead.
“I’d say he looks rather recovered already,” Shou remarked with a chuckle as he turned his attention back towards Lucretia.
“While we can always figure out where we need to start after our first tests, I am curious as to how Schwarzritter might differ from other panzermensch in function. When commanded by voice the Leopards are… somewhat simple in their attack patterns,” he allowed with a shrug.
“They’re much more skilled when controlled directly, but of course that varies from one controller to the next.""Ah, Herr Franz Steiner, ja." The silver-haired girl nodded gingerly, approving of Shou's knowledge of the Austrian Mesmerologist,
"Indeed, while many simply dismiss mesmerology as a faux major, I think otherwise. I've hypothesized that Mesmerology may be the key to construct an artificial mind. After all, plenty of technological innovations are based off what already exists in nature, and the brain is part of nature." Lucy continued explaining, it wouldn't take a genius to see that Shou had found the key to her heart, the type of geniuses who has limitless passion toward their interests and little for everything else.
In return, whether out of genuine interest or as a form of feedback to keep Shou's attention on her, Lucy listened to his explanations regarding his own major. Although since he's a fellow polymath, perhaps it was indeed genuine interest as Lucy rarely did something just for the sake of politeness.
"So aquatic egoists are rare? I see..." Then her eyes practically perked up when he mentioned the Leopards, one of Germany's most compact, reliable, and thus mass-produced Panzermensch.
"Ah, the Leopards, well, they are Panzermenschs, while my creation is a drone, not meant to house a pilot, although I understand how they can be confused." With both of them being hulking metal constructs and all,
"As of right now, in a straight up combat encounter, a Leopard defeats Schwarzritter in pure combat prowess, She paused for a moment to let her words sink in before continuing with a confident emphasis,
"However, Schwarzritter possesses many advantages over a Leopard." Judging from the small smirk curled at the corner of her lips, she was definitely going to chew Shou's fin-ears out with another rant.
"First, Schwarzritter is capable of aerial traversal, counteracting gravity via the Peizogravitas Formula, making it far more versatile. Second, he's capable of folding into a compact size when not needed as you can see right now. Third, indeed his capacity of receiving and reacting to commands are notably more efficient than a Leopard as Schwarzritter was designed as a drone, not a bipedal vehicle, a Leopard best functions when manually-controlled as it should be, being a Panzermensch. And last but not least, fourth, he's far from finished, I fully intend to keep working on his design and once I've unlocked the secrets to full automation, he'll be able to take on even the most skilled pilot without a single command from me aside from "Engage!"." Lucretia huffed with her eyes closed, very satisfied at her ambitions and her means to achieve them. At this point, her plan to dance with Kalil was nothing but forgotten.
"So, of course, Mr. Zheng, we can arrange for a test once we've received our academic schedules." She finished before deciding to continue with her meal, now with more emotions in her gesture.
“Well, I hope he can produce some worthy results then. I haven’t heard much about his work,” Shou admitted with a shrug.
“Most of the news I have heard involves him being on the bad side of his country’s nobility.” Then again there must have been something about Franz that had granted him entry to Bermuda. Whether the man was a snake and charlatan, or the real deal was something Shou had yet to determine, but he hoped it wouldn’t end up too troublesome for anyone who got involved with the other student.
“Slightly more uncommon, ja. Most people don’t make their livings upon the seas after all.” He replied and nodded before he leaned back into his seat to listen.
“Ah. I did recall an explanation for why the Leopards take so much time to shift between use and transport forms.” Something about how they wanted to make sure the pilots weren’t inadvertently crushed to death if the Leopard was compromised and forced to compact on itself. Chuckling softly as she finally looked a bit more like someone her age, Shou raised an eyebrow as he waited for her to no doubt espouse the greatness of her own masterpiece.
“Flying does grant it a lot more options and mobility,” Shou agreed with a nod as he looked at the box floating next to Lucretia. He had seen it hover next to the girl earlier when its full bulk was on display, but it had been a first for him. The Leopards were great, hulking constructs after all, and each step that had taken shook the ground. Utterly incomparable to the way Schwarzritter glided through the air smoothly at its creator’s side. Now if the slight hum that came from all the power flowing through it, the blue glowing lines that ran over its frame, and the cre- Well, maybe there was still quite a bit of things to be done before Schwarzritter could be considered stealthy by any means.
“I suppose his bulk doesn’t quite lend an air of femininity.” With how much time and effort she had poured into Schwarzritter’s creation, it wasn’t too odd that she treated it like an actual companion. If her ambitions were made real, that might not just be a quirk either~
“Indeed. Let’s see if we can’t make it so you can do that together first,” he agreed with a smile.
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