Chapter 201

Elysia's expression immediately changed. "Could it be that you're actually using this method to hide your true feelings? That's quite the tsundere, Ai Yue."

"Yes, yes, I love you to death, okay?"

Ai Yue was also somewhat helpless with Elysia, "Come here, let me love you properly!"

As he spoke, he opened his arms, as if to give Elysia a bear hug.

However, the pink-clad beauty had already nimbly dodged out of Ai Yue's grasping range, leaving only a soft laugh, "Oh dear, this affection is just too intense for me to handle, so I have to apologize~"

Looking in the direction where Elysia disappeared, Ai Yue simply shrugged.

He was well aware of Elysia's purpose in doing so. Just as he was cooperating with her, they both wanted to create a relaxed atmosphere to alleviate the pressure in her heart.

After all, when it comes to taking care of others, Elysia is clearly more skilled.

However, no matter how much you try to lighten the mood and relieve the pressure, the problem can never be eradicated as long as the issue remains unresolved.

After confirming that Elysia had left, Ai Yue retrieved a special report.

What he hadn't told Elysia before was that when the hairpin-shaped mental protection device triggered the alarm, it wouldn't notify Elysia, but would directly send the current monitoring data along with the alarm to Ai Yue.

This design is intended to avoid the additional stress that alarms might cause to Elysia, and also to prevent alarms from waking Elysia prematurely, thus distorting the monitoring data.

In just three days, Elysia had triggered six alarms, with the interval between each alarm decreasing while the duration of each alarm increased.

Most importantly, since the alarms are being triggered so frequently, it means that Ai Yue's mental protection device is not working properly. Moreover, if it continues to grow according to the current pattern, then in at most ten days, Elysia may experience another loss of control.

Although it's inappropriate to think this way, for Ai Yue, witnessing Elysia's loss of control firsthand would obviously be of great help to his research.

Of course, it would be best if a solution could be found beforehand.

As he fiddled with the Eighth Divine Key in his hand, Ai Yue revealed a slight smile.

Although there are still many difficulties, fortunately, a breakthrough has been found, so perhaps there is still a chance?

As mentioned before, Elysia possesses more than one power, or perhaps this is just an expression of her true power, or even only a part of it.

What Ai Yue had to do was try to piece together her original appearance in order to determine what Elysia's true powers were.

Of course, in order to complete this task as soon as possible, Ai Yue also needs the help of another person.

"Brother Yue, you're back?"

As soon as Ai Yue returned to the lab, Pardofelis eagerly greeted him, "I've made my selections. This time, as you said, I chose five parts. They should be helpful, right?"

"Of course,"

Looking at the girl who was eager to take credit, Ai Yue smiled and gave an affirmative answer, "With your help, at least two-thirds of the time can be saved."

Satisfied, Pardofelis even wagged her tail with pride, and couldn't help but yawn. "Then I'll take a nap, remember to wake me up when it's time to eat."

After saying that, she fell directly into Ai Yue's arms, demonstrating to him a legendary skill that allowed her to enter a dream in three seconds.

Ai Yue was already used to this, and skillfully took over the other person's body, holding Pardofelis as he sat down in front of the computer and began the subsequent work.

As it turns out, Pardofelis was indeed very lucky, but it wouldn't always work precisely. Therefore, of the five items she selected this time, only two were related to Herrscher authority.

Of course, it was precisely for this reason that Ai Yue had Pardofelis select five parts at once, in order to increase the margin for error.

Perhaps because he already had the foundation to analyze genetic information, Ai Yue was much faster this time, completing all five parts in just one week.

Two of the pieces of information about powers were identified as the powers of the Third Herrscher and the Sixth Herrscher after comparison and verification. The Divine Keys of these two powers are not currently on the Star of Light, so it will take some time to borrow them.

Of course, with Ai Yue's authority here, even the most troublesome matters can be resolved in no more than three hours after the application is submitted, and the two Divine Keys will be delivered to Ai Yue's laboratory.

Although this efficiency was so high that even science fiction works dared not easily adopt it, Ai Yue was still somewhat dissatisfied. After all, compared to the increasingly serious abnormal condition on Elysia, his speed was still a bit slow.

However, after obtaining information about the three powers, Ai Yue had a vague idea of what had happened to Elysia. If he could collect enough data, he might be able to find a solution.

Let's take a break before we go any further.

After glancing at the "Ai Yue's Daily Schedule" handwritten by someone on the table, Ai Yue couldn't help but rub his temples, deciding to take a short break during the gap when the Divine Keys was delivered.

Just as he made this decision, a communication request appeared before him—judging from the flashy profile picture, it was from the sender, Vill-V.

"You want to use the Sixth Divine Key?"

After the call connected, Vill-V asked directly, "Is it urgent?"

"It's urgent, I need it now."

Ai Yue responded just as bluntly, "It's with you now? Aren't you at the Spiral Workshop?"

As weapons, the Divine Keys are now wielded by their most compatible users and used in wars against Honkai Beast in various regions. Ai Yue clearly remembers that Vill-V is doing her own research in the Spiral Workshop, so she obviously shouldn't need this thing.

"It's broken, and I'm fixing it here."

"Perfect, "Vill-V explained. "If you need it, then fixing it is up to you."

"Does 'broken' mean a malfunction or an overload?"

Hearing Vill-V's explanation, Ai Yue was somewhat surprised, "Is the current situation very serious?"

The power of the Sixth Herrscher, the "Herrscher of Death," is to control the growth and decay of cells in living organisms. Therefore, in addition to its destructive power, it also possesses extremely strong healing abilities. Furthermore, since humans do not lack destructive weapons, it is usually used as a medical device.

The fact that a healing item could be used to the point of breaking made Ai Yue begin to wonder if the intensity of the war against the Honkai Beast had exceeded his expectations.

"No, it's because that guy Cosmo was using this thing to rampage through the Honkai Beast sea every day. As a result, the Divine Keys was running at high power for too long, and it broke down."

"Speaking of which," Vill-V said in a subtle tone, "I feel that with the current technology, it's entirely possible to update the Divine Keys again, right?"

"If you have an idea, you can try it yourself first."

Ai Yue had considerable faith in Vill-V's abilities. "But before that, send me the Sixth Divine Key first."

"Hey, you sound like you've got a lot of free time. Why don't you come and get it?"

Suddenly, Vill-V said with a hint of pride, "Perfect timing, I also have a surprise to show you."

"A surprise? What else could you possibly have..."

Ai Yue was about to tease Vill-V when he suddenly remembered something. "You're researching virtual Honkai Beast now, right? Any progress?"

"Of course, who do you think I am?"

Upon hearing that Ai Yue had already guessed the truth, Vill-V stopped hiding it and said, "Come on, let me show you something interesting!"

After saying that, she hung up the call, giving Ai Yue no chance to refuse.

"They've got quite the airs."

Ai Yue shook his head, then glanced at the time. "But, the virtual Honkai Beast... well, let's go take a look."

During the battle against the Herrscher of Aberration, the virtual Honkai Beast exhibited characteristics that resembled self-evolution, so Ai Yue recorded the data, intending to use it for subsequent research and optimization.

If Elysia's situation hadn't happened so suddenly, he would have been in charge of the project himself. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and in the end, he had to temporarily hand it over to Vill-V for research.

But to my surprise, progress came so quickly.

As Ai Yue pondered, he arrived at the central hall—where there was Teleportation Gate specifically for communicating with the Spiral Workshop. Thus, in the blink of an eye, Ai Yue was standing in front of Vill-V.

However, what awaited him there were several familiar yet unfamiliar figures.

Looking at these "creatures" that vaguely resembled Honkai Beast but had never appeared on the battlefield, Ai Yue subconsciously frowned.

The reason I call them living beings is because Ai Yue sensed a kind of "spirituality" in them that was completely different from what he had experienced before.

Ai Yue could even sense an emotion called "curiosity" emanating from these virtual Honkai Beasts, as if his appearance had attracted their attention.

The one closest to him, which was derived from Chariot-class Honkai Beast, even raised its forelimbs as if to touch him, but then withdrew them at the last moment.

Before this, the behavior of the virtual Honkai Beast was controlled by the pilot or commands. They would execute orders perfectly and would never make such probing moves with self-awareness.

"They have developed self-awareness?"

Having reached his final conclusion, Ai Yue then looked at Vill-V, who was standing not far away, and asked, "How did you do that?"

"You're really perceptive; you noticed it as soon as you saw it?"

Vill-V first pursed her lips, regretting that she couldn't show off her mystery, then smiled and said, "As for how I did it... Hmph, you, as a father, are so negligent towards your own child, it's really not right."

What are you saying? What are you saying?

Ai Yue was taken aback by Vill-V's sudden "accusation," but then he realized what she meant. "Was it Ai Yi who did it?"

"Strictly speaking, Vill-V's mother also helped in this... though not much."

Ai Yi appeared before Ai Yue along with her voice, a smile on her face identical to that of Vill-V. "How is it, Father? Do you like this surprise?"

Chapter 80 Copyright Awareness? What is that?

Ever since Ai Yi broke through her own limits, Ai Yue could feel her gradually breaking free from his constraints.

This isn't the cliché story of Artificial Intelligence becoming dissatisfied with human dominance and wanting to replace it. Rather, it's that after truly gaining a sense of self, Ai's behavior increasingly resembles that of a human—and her rebellious phase is the first sign that she exhibits human-like traits.

However, compared to the various behaviors of humans who try to defy their elders' teachings during adolescence, Ai's rebellious period is much more unique. For example, after breaking the restriction of "not lying", one of Ai's favorite things to do now is to lie.

Of course, it may be due to Ai's unique nature. Compared to humans lying to cover up the truth, Ai lies for the sake of lying—she has no need to cover anything up, nor does she intend to mislead anyone. She just wants to show others that she can lie.

Because of this incident, many people have recently been tormented by Ai Yi's lies. After all, she is blatantly lying, to the point that the first reaction of those who hear it is, "Is this a joke? Should I laugh or not?"

However, apart from that, Ai Yue was very satisfied with Ai Yi's performance. The increasingly obvious "humanity" and the increasingly excellent performance allowed Ai Yi to truly think from a human perspective, thus making more and more meticulous in various details.

However, he still didn't expect that Ai would give him such a big surprise.

The value and potential of virtual Honkai Beast with self-awareness cannot be described in a few words. After all, this special structure was originally designed as a weapon to fight against Honkai.

Once they gain self-awareness, they can break free from the complete control of the driver and become ultimate weapons capable of independent action, thought, and continuous resurrection. Each resurrection will result in targeted improvements to counter the enemy's characteristics.

Moreover, due to their ability to switch between data and physical states, they can even be quickly improved in combat by using electronic simulation battles, thus shortening their training cycle to the greatest extent possible.

In addition, given the low manufacturing cost of the virtual Honkai Beast, if they could be implemented on a large scale, humanity could reduce resource consumption to an extremely low level when facing an attack by a horde of Honkai Beast.

After all, even drones require resources such as metal to be used as production costs, and once damaged, even if costs can be reduced by recycling the wreckage, some resources will still be consumed.

However, virtual Honkai Beast do not have such troubles. As long as the device used to materialize virtual Honkai Beast is still there, even if they are destroyed in reality, all that is consumed is some energy - but Honkai Energy is everywhere on the battlefield.

Going even further, if we deploy matching energy recovery systems on the battlefield using drones, we might be able to reverse the flow of electricity and increase energy reserves as the battle progresses.

"So, what is the principle behind it?"

After the initial excitement subsided, Ai Yue began to ponder, as was his habit. "Virtual Honkai Beast do possess a self-renewal and optimization mechanism, but to develop sentience, they simply cannot do so without sufficient time. How did you shorten that time?"

For Artificial Intelligence to develop a true self, in addition to crossing the technological singularity, there is another condition that absolutely cannot be ignored: sufficient data accumulation.

Without sufficient data accumulation, evolution is merely a castle in the air. If Prometheus had not used the vast amount of data collected from the global internet as a foundation, even if she were to eventually defeat the Herrscher of Aberration, she would not have been able to use this opportunity to grow into the Ai she is today.

It's important to know that Ai Yi was personally designed by Ai Yue, Artificial Intelligence far surpassing the current level of human technology. Even she faced such difficulty in awakening, let alone virtual Honkai Beast that lacked initial accumulation.

Even putting it another way, it's hard to say whether the virtual Honkai Beast themselves have the potential to generate their own existence.

It's impossible that Ai Yi gained the power of the Herrscher of Aberration during her breakthrough, and that the power of the Herrscher of Aberration just happens to be effective against virtual Honkai Beast, right?

"The principles and such don't matter,"

Vill-V waved her hand, "As long as the result is good, isn't that enough?"

Ai Yue stared at her immediately, realizing something. "You guys don't... understand either, do you?"

"That's not the case. I have completely mastered the methods for mass production,"

Ai said from the side, "Give me time, and I can create a world that belongs to virtual Honkai Beast."

"It seems you really haven't figured it out."

Ai Yue nodded, already used to Ai Yi's words. "So, how exactly did you do it? Did you insert your core code into the data of the virtual Honkai Beast?"

This is also a reasonable approach that Ai Yue came up with: Ai Yi shared her "spirituality" with the virtual Honkai Beast, which successfully made them develop a sense of self.

"Of course not, besides, it's very difficult for me to extract the so-called core code now."

Ai shook her head, finally becoming serious. "In fact, the one who created these virtual Honkai Beast is Doctor Ai Yue."

"Remember the Herrscher of Aberration? When we were dealing with her, Ai absorbed all the data inside the black box, including the virtual Honkai Beast."

"Later, that data became part of Ai's body, so it took us a lot of effort to remove it from Ai's body," said Vill-V.

"And after they were separated, they took on this appearance."

"In other words, they are very likely to have undergone a transformation, just like you, through a technological singularity... uh, electronic life?"

Ai Yue glanced at the virtual Honkai Beast around him. "So this situation is a special case and can't be promoted on a large scale, right?"

Having developed self-awareness, these virtual Honkai Beasts could no longer be considered consumables, but rather a special kind of electronic life. As a result, Ai Yue's plan to replace drones with virtual Honkai Beast failed.

After all, if they cannot be controlled by humans, then the virtual Honkai Beast will be limited by human energy in actual combat, and the cost cannot be truly reduced to almost zero.