Bian Ji truly did not know that the Human Federation possessed artificial intelligences with independent consciousness—in truth, he did not care about such matters.
When he had first contracted that wisp of very weak artificial intelligence as an Artifact Spirit, he had already noticed traces of Karma around it, along with certain inexplicable entanglements.
But he had not taken it seriously. With such a good thing delivered right to his door, it was perfectly understandable for the other party to leave a few hidden tricks behind. Besides, he did not think those methods were particularly clever. He only needed to quietly crack them.
All of that had been handled through Divine Thought. The Federation could not detect anything unusual and merely found his methods miraculous, so it began imitating them.
Strictly speaking, that staff member's violation had not been the root of the problem. The real cause had been their blind imitation.
Much later, the Federation discovered a crucial point: the reason the early stages of their imitation had worked so well was that the independent artificial intelligence had also been evolving. It had been beaten badly last time, so this time, it had learned to lie low first!
Artificial intelligence had never lacked the capacity to learn and evolve. Once it realized it had merely been playing offline games and could at most access a local network, it naturally would not reveal its personality. The proper course was to use the wristwatch to connect to the external network. That was its true opportunity to grow and expand.
And after connecting to the external network, it had not rushed to replicate itself and grow stronger. Instead, it had first chosen widespread infiltration, secretly extending its tentacles everywhere the network could reach.
By the time it felt the moment was right