Before the laboratory workbench, a woman repeatedly checked the program on the computer, trying to find even the slightest room for improvement.
She looked to be in her twenties, yet her face was haggard. Her nest of messy hair had several red highlights mixed in, and she wore a wrinkled, filthy white lab coat. There was no way to tell that she was the genius scholar of the Third Scientific Department. Instead, she looked more like some mad scientist from an entertainment production.
Opposite her was perhaps the only clean and orderly place in the entire laboratory—a large equipment platform. On top of it stood a humanoid robot designed to imitate humans, one that appeared to be only eighty centimeters tall.
She had long golden hair, with two triangular devices resembling ears on her head. Armor covered her torso and limbs, making her look as though she had been designed for battle.
However, her tiny stature and head, which looked almost as large as her torso, made her resemble an exquisite toy doll. Rather than heading onto the battlefield, she seemed more suited to being held in a child's arms.
This was the "Armed Doll," an autonomous war machine used to help humanity resist the Honkai and reduce human casualties.
As the person in charge of the Armed Doll project, even though her own assistant had gone to attend the highly anticipated technology exchange conference, Einstein had remained at her post and continued experimenting with the project.
The Armed Doll was now close to success. Its AI's autonomous logic still had some problems, though, and until she solved them, Einstein had no mind to pay attention to any technology exchange conference.
Though, though she had heard that even the legendary Doctor Ai Yue would be attending... Damn it, she really wanted to go!
Einstein pushed up her red-framed glasses, a trace of struggle showing in her eyes.
Doctor Ai Yue was a super genius who had suddenly appeared more than half a year ago. He had then torn through the night sky like a shooting star, leaving everyone shaken.
As an internal member of Moth to Fire, Einstein was a hundred and eight thousand miles away from its headquarters, but news about Doctor Ai Yue had still reached her through the internal network.
Apparently, he had not only invented the Honkai Energy Absorber, but had also optimized the Fused Warrior Formula, greatly increasing its success rate. He had even solved the problem of artificially synthesizing the Honkai Sickness Serum. Most outrageously, it was said that he had personally dealt with the Eighth Herrscher. Even Fused Warriors such as Kevin had merely played supporting roles in that war.
Of course, even without hearing the news, Einstein could understand just how incredible Doctor Ai Yue was. After all, the prototype Armed Doll before her could truly achieve the results they wanted only because of the first-generation Soulium he had invented.
To be able to meet such a dazzling genius in person and exchange a few words with him... No, even saying just two sentences would probably be immensely beneficial, right?
But in the end, that trace of hesitation turned into resolve.
The Armed Doll project had reached its most critical stage. Naturally, she had to hurry and complete it so it could enter mass production as soon as possible. Humanity's conflict with the Honkai was growing increasingly fierce, with Honkai disasters emerging every day. The sooner Armed Dolls entered the battlefield, the fewer sacrifices humanity would have to make.
After Einstein finished checking the program and pressed the start button, the Armed Doll finally slowly opened her eyes after receiving the command. "Armed Doll system activated. Initializing—"
Soon, the Armed Doll's eyes lit up, and she slowly turned them toward Einstein, who was standing some distance away. "Target locked. Identity confirmed as... human, friendly unit."
Under Einstein's nervous gaze, the doll slowly floated up and flew in front of her. "Human, what do you require?"
Einstein glanced at the computer screen before saying, "Armed Doll, state your 'Behavioral Law.'"
The Behavioral Law was the fundamental logic the Armed Doll's AI had to follow. It was also the set of restrictions and requirements Einstein had imposed on the Armed Doll.
"First, regard the Honkai as an enemy. Second, do not harm humans." The Armed Doll repeated the words mechanically. "Third, survive."
The success rate... At least, that was how things looked for now.
"Good. Next..." Einstein tapped away at the keyboard. "Connect to the Data Space and conduct a simulated battle."
The Data Space was a special local network Einstein had designed for battle simulations. It contained extensive data on Honkai Beasts, as well as humanity's past experience fighting the Honkai. It was where she tested whether an Armed Doll could fulfill its battlefield duties.
The Armed Doll quickly returned to the equipment platform and connected her AI to the Data Space through a wired connection. Soon, her figure appeared on Einstein's display.
The next second, a squad consisting of five Chariot-class Honkai Beasts and ten Charge-class Honkai Beasts appeared opposite the Armed Doll.
"Target locked. Identity confirmed as... Honkai Beasts, hostile units." The Armed Doll's voice rang out. "Equipment activated. Preparing to engage."
Einstein watched everything happening in the Data Space nervously. The Honkai Beasts facing the Armed Doll were slightly stronger than her overall, making them enemies she could not defeat through conventional tactics.
To defeat them, she either had to choose sacrifice or use targeted tactics.
In all the previous experiments, the Armed Doll had always charged straight ahead. After exhausting all her ammunition, she would self-destruct her core and perish together with the remaining Honkai Beasts. Such a method obviously could not be used in actual combat. After all, an Armed Doll was not a disposable tool that could be wasted at will.
That was why Einstein had added "survive" to the Armed Doll's Behavioral Law at the end, hoping to make her capable of fighting while preserving her own life.
This time, the Armed Doll finally did not disappoint her. After comparing the difference in combat strength between the two sides, she conducted a quick search, then decisively opened the distance. She separated the agile and swift Charge-class Honkai Beasts from the Chariot-class Honkai Beasts. Taking advantage of her superior mobility, she destroyed all the Charge-class Honkai Beasts in close combat while the Chariot-class Honkai Beasts were unable to interfere, saving a large amount of unnecessary ammunition.
With the Charge-class Honkai Beasts no longer providing cover, the Chariot-class Honkai Beasts' clumsy weakness was exposed completely. The Armed Doll eliminated them under a barrage of firepower. Until the very end, not a single Chariot-class Honkai Beast had even touched the Armed Doll's clothes.
She had succeeded!
Seeing the Armed Doll use tactics she had never employed before, Einstein excitedly covered her mouth. She had previously tried using pre-input tactics to prevent the Armed Doll from choosing to self-destruct, but pre-programmed methods were ultimately too inflexible to fully simulate the chaos of battle. Whenever the situation exceeded the response range of the pre-input tactics, the Armed Doll would still end the battle by self-destructing.
This time, without using pre-input tactics to interfere with the Armed Doll's decisions, she had been able to choose tactics on her own according to the database. That meant her autonomous combat logic had been optimized by the "survive" law.
All that remained now was to fine-tune some details!
"Not bad. What is this little one's name?"
Just as Einstein was preparing to begin debugging, an unfamiliar voice came from the side.
"Her name is Elf." Einstein answered instinctively, then suddenly realized something was wrong. "Who are you?"
Someone had entered her laboratory without making a sound. Just who was...
She turned around and saw a familiar-looking green-haired figure standing behind her with an unfamiliar man.
"Hello. Nice to meet you." The man extended his hand, a friendly smile on his face. "My name is Ai Yue."
A-Ai Yue?
Chapter Thirty-Nine: I'm Professionally Trained
Had staying up all night caused her to hallucinate?
That was Einstein's first reaction.
She had seen Ai Yue's photographs on the internal network. Most were secretly taken side profiles and the like, but she could still tell that the person before her was definitely not a fake. Moreover, Doctor Mobius beside him could also prove his identity.
But why would the real Ai Yue appear here? Weren't they supposed to be attending the technology exchange conference?
Einstein, who had been awake for two days, clearly had no idea that the situation had changed. Even if she had known, she probably would never have expected someone like Ai Yue to appear here.
"Hello?" Seeing Einstein's expression constantly shift without her reacting, Ai Yue spoke again.
"Oh, hello, hello." Einstein finally came back to her senses. She immediately clasped Ai Yue's hand in both of hers and shook it repeatedly, as though trying to confirm that what she was seeing was real. "My name is Nikola Einstein. You can just call me Einstein!"
Noticing Mobius's gaze sweeping over from the side, Einstein realized that she had been holding his hand for too long. She hurriedly let go and began looking around the room. "Doctor Mobius, hello to you too. Um, just sit wherever you like!"
The moment she said that, she felt awkward. The laboratory was a complete mess. Where was there anywhere to sit?
"Don't worry about such trivial matters." Ai Yue did not seem to mind. "Let's get straight to the point. I'm very interested in your project. May I take a look?"
"You're interested in Armed Dolls?" Light immediately shone in Einstein's eyes. She quickly exited the Data Space and displayed the Armed Doll's detailed data for Ai Yue. "Please, look all you want!"
She showed no intention of guarding against him at all. What kind of joke was that? Did Doctor Ai Yue really covet a project of this level? Don't underestimate people!
After giving her place to Ai Yue, she obediently stood to the side like a student who had handed an assignment to a teacher for correction. If someone unfamiliar happened to pass by, they would probably think that Ai Yue was the master of the laboratory and Einstein was his assistant.
Faced with Einstein's enthusiastic hospitality, Ai Yue did not hold back. He immediately began browsing. From the basic design concepts to the structural blueprints and finally the control program, Einstein revealed everything related to the Armed Doll to him.
"Um, Doctor Ai Yue?" Seeing that Ai Yue's expression had not changed in the slightest, Einstein finally could not help asking, "Is there... something wrong with my project?"
"Have some confidence. It's not like you're defending your thesis." Mobius sighed from the side. "I remember you, Einstein. You weren't like this when you faced me back then, were you?"
"It's different, Doctor Mobius." Einstein spoke very seriously. "Do you really think that you and Doctor Ai Yue are equal?"
Mobius could not help rolling her eyes. "That's going a little too far."
She naturally knew that what Einstein said was true, but having it stated to her face was still hard to bear.
Thinking about it carefully, when she had casually judged other people in the past, they probably felt the same way. But the Mobius of that time had certainly never imagined that one day, a genius beyond human comprehension would suddenly descend like a shooting star and smash her pride to pieces.
"It's like this, Einstein." Ai Yue quickly finished reading everything. He had been so fast that Einstein felt he was merely humoring her. "I'm going to tell you something now. Don't be afraid, all right?"
"Don't worry. I'm a scholar. I won't be afraid." Einstein nodded, already prepared to be criticized.
"Good. Then..." Ai Yue connected Prometheus's sub-unit to Einstein's computer. The shape-shifting body composed of nanomachines immediately drew Einstein's attention. "I'll show you a video."
Under Prometheus's operation, a new image soon appeared on the screen. It showed countless Honkai Beasts wandering through the ruins of a city.
"This is... Australia?" Einstein quickly deduced the location from the various details in the footage. She looked at Ai Yue doubtfully, clearly unable to understand why he wanted to show her this.
Could he be telling her that, against such a massive number of enemies, Armed Dolls would have little use?
Soon, accompanied by the low rumble coming from the video, Einstein understood its true meaning.
As the camera gradually pulled away, a huge shadow completely enveloped the horde of beasts.
The Honkai Beasts were not the protagonists of the video. The master of that shadow was.
At first, Einstein thought the shadow was merely one cast by clouds blocking the sun. But she soon realized she was wrong, because the rumbling had grown increasingly clear, and she could distinctly make out the sounds of engines and propellers.
That was no cloud. It was a dark cloud composed of countless drones!
By the time Einstein realized this, the drone swarm in the video had already dived toward the horde. The originally dense formation rapidly spread apart during the dive. The entire process flowed as smoothly as water, as though it had been designed in advance through programming.
But Einstein was an expert in this field as well. She quickly noticed that every drone could perfectly avoid all obstacles along its path, and the drones did not collide with one another. This was absolutely impossible through pre-input commands alone. If no enormous control team was directing the drones from behind, then only Artificial Intelligence could achieve such real-time performance.
Yet there were at least several thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands, of drones in the video. Human control could essentially be ruled out. Even with Artificial Intelligence, it was difficult to control so many drones simultaneously with such ease.
Einstein did not dare imagine what level of computational power was required to satisfy such complex demands.
However, the shock the video brought her was not over. As the drones dove, the upper and lower halves of many drones that appeared somewhat bulky actually separated. The upper halves continued flying, while the lower halves dropped to the ground. In a few seconds, they transformed into drones capable of walking on the ground!
Although the lower halves of these drones could not fly, they possessed two movement modes: tracks and spider-like articulated limbs. Even in an extremely complex environment such as urban ruins, they could move rapidly, and their speed was not much slower than that of the flying drones.
In this way, in only a few dozen seconds, the drone swarm completed a full encirclement of the Honkai Beasts. Whether in the air or on the ground, everywhere she looked was filled with drones.
Once all the drone units had entered their designated positions, the war—or rather, a one-sided massacre—began.
Compared to the drone swarm's smooth and flawless deployment of the encirclement, the actual battle was the easiest part for Einstein to accept.
With such a precise and meticulous encirclement, the remaining operation was extremely simple. All the drones merely had to open fire together, and the Honkai Beasts would immediately be left dead or wounded across the ground.
Einstein even suspected that the drone swarm could precisely assign each individual Honkai Beast its own small encirclement, ensuring that more than ninety percent of the Honkai Beasts would be eliminated after the first barrage.
And in fact, that was exactly what happened. The entire battle lasted only a few minutes longer than the drone swarm's preliminary deployment. After the first barrage ended, only a dozen or so Honkai Beasts were still capable of moving.
By comparison, the drones had suffered some damage as well, but compared to the horde of Honkai Beasts, it was negligible.
Naturally, the firepower displayed by these drones still surprised Einstein somewhat. Seeing their size, she had assumed that their firepower would not be particularly impressive. She had not expected them to use energy weapons rather than conventional ammunition.
As weapons that used energy as ammunition, energy weapons did not need to consider ammunition reserves in the same way as conventional weapons. This greatly reduced the drones' requirements for weight and volume. Though they were less effective in certain special environments, in ordinary conditions they were indeed superior to conventional weapons.
However, Einstein did not recall that all of Moth to Fire's current research into energy weapons had progressed beyond the experimental stage. As for putting them into actual combat, mass-producing them, and miniaturizing them, that was still a distant prospect.
But considering that these drones had presumably been made by Ai Yue, it was not surprising.
Einstein had thought the video would end there, but there was another segment afterward. The drones, having finished exterminating the Honkai Beasts, regrouped and began new work.
Some collected the wreckage of destroyed drones. Some dealt with the Honkai Beast corpses. Some extended strange devices from within their bodies and wandered through the air. Others crawled in and out of the ruins, occasionally pulling aside collapsed rubble as though simulating rescue operations for trapped survivors.
Compared with every stage before it, the cleanup phase took the longest. It lasted a full half hour before the drones finally gathered into a dark cloud, just as they had when they arrived, and left the area.
Only the traces of battle amid the ruins remained to prove that a special battle had taken place there.
The video ended.
When the screen dimmed, Einstein finally saw her own expression. Fatigue caused by prolonged overwork covered her still-refined face, yet aside from that, there was little emotion visible on it.
"Multi-functional War Drone Swarm. It can independently exterminate Honkai Beasts, conduct disaster relief, and clean up the environment. It's truly impressive." Einstein spoke softly. "Is this your project?"
Ai Yue nodded. "Yes."
"Then how long until it can enter mass production?"
"It has already entered mass production. The video you just watched was filmed this morning."
"Is that so?" Einstein removed her glasses and rubbed her dry eyes. "That's good, then. This way, many people will be spared from sacrifice, right?"
The Armed Doll project was meaningless now.
That was what Einstein thought at that moment.
The Armed Doll project had originally been designed to reduce the sacrifices of soldiers and ordinary people. It was a special autonomous machine capable of assisting humanity in resisting the Honkai. But before the drones Ai Yue had shown her, the Armed Doll had no advantage whatsoever apart from being cute.
Whether in cost, technological maturity, AI intelligence, or the difficulty of mass production, it had been completely outclassed. A project like this clearly no longer had any value in continuing. The only consolation was that Einstein had at least created a prototype, which could prove that this technology had once existed.
At least, losing to Doctor Ai Yue was not embarrassing, right?
Einstein glanced at Elf, who was in sleep mode, and rubbed her eyes again.
In less than two hours, the Armed Doll project had plummeted from being on the verge of success to being on the verge of termination. Elf, who had been created as a result, could not even understand what was happening.
She really couldn't bear to let it go.
Mobius observed every one of Einstein's expressions. She turned to Ai Yue and could not help elbowing him. "Can't you just say what you have to say? Is it really that interesting to watch someone make that face?"
Spending a long time with Ai Yue had not brought Mobius any qualitative leap in scientific research. Instead, because she had played the role of an ordinary person for so long, her ability to empathize had grown tremendously.
Einstein's expression was probably much like Mobius's own when she had discovered that someone had effortlessly optimized the Fused Warrior Formula.
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