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墨書 Inktalez
Soon, a scene appeared on the screen. Since it was merely a recording, there were no detailed explanations within; everything relied on Newton to infer what was happening.
The video progressed quickly, revealing little content. At the beginning, both Makarov and Jiang were present as envoys, so everyone treated them with considerable respect and did not act inappropriately; in fact, they were even given special courtesies. However, throughout the entire video, the figure of the emperor never appeared. The only one conversing with Makarov was an old man with a white beard, holding a staff. Through introductions, Newton learned that this man was Augustus, one of the legendary Twin Pillars.
Next came a series of casual conversations. Makarov seemed to be stalling, and it appeared that Oghast had no pressing demands for Makarov to make any decisions; everything seemed rather relaxed.
Then Jiang's robots grew impatient and began to take action. Utilizing goods brought over from the Guild, Jiang quickly opened up the market in this country. Just as he was about to establish a production line, he was discovered by Val. Every item exported by the Guild was equipped with surveillance devices. Although Val did not understand how these devices worked, he could still detect signals from robots that did not belong to him. Consequently, he immediately took action against Jiang. Jiang was decisive; realizing he had been exposed, he blew up the production line he had just started to establish without even having time to inform Makarov before being captured. In these scenes, Newton also observed Val's combat style—fighting through robots. The Chubby Man seemed to be just another robot. Val adapted various robots for different battlefields while appearing to be a robot himself. Similar to Newton's Alchemy techniques, various weapons were summoned from the air one after another to attack Jiang. Ultimately, through signal interception, all of the robots were destroyed. As for Makarov's current whereabouts, this information was also absent from the data.
The video provided a wealth of information that Newton needed time to digest. Jiang's and Makarov's failures were expected and not surprising; however, the revelation that Val was a robot caught him off guard. Suddenly, Newton thought of something.
"Excuse me, who is Val?"
"Report, sir. Val appears to be a member of a race known as the Mechanical Clan; however, there is no further information regarding this race."
Indeed, the Mechanical Clan—but can machines truly constitute a race? If they could, their capabilities would far exceed those of humans. The concept of intelligent robots annihilating humanity had been seen enough in movies. Over these days of observation, Newton noted that Val's robots were highly advanced; some techniques within them even surpassed his own capabilities. However, one thing stood out: these robots had very low autonomy and could only execute relatively simple commands. Moreover, this was a Magical World; although there were magical scripts present, there seemed to be no corresponding systematic language—namely programming. Even Newton himself had embarked on the path of robotic intelligence due to an artificial intelligence provided by his other-world self. It was clear that such technology did not exist here; those robots were merely simple machines without human-like cognitive abilities. Yet looking at Val suggested that this continent once possessed such technology—could it be inferred that Val was an intelligent robot left behind by some ancient civilization?
Some might wonder what use this information held. While it might seem irrelevant to others, for Newton as an Alchemist—one who could even refine the Philosopher's Stone and touch upon souls—understanding the essence of his opponent would allow him to conduct alchemical processes on them. This could potentially plant a formidable nail within the Albarez Empire.
Now that he knew Val was merely a robot, things became simpler for Newton. What he needed to do now was write a program capable of altering Val's internal commands—essentially stripping Val of its self-awareness and making Newton its supreme controller.
Newton directly destroyed the Storage Device; if it were discovered, it would pose problems. If it had not been extracted yet, that would be fine; but if it had been taken out, it must be destroyed. As for whether anyone would suspect him after extraction—the moment he took out the Storage Device, Newton had already covered his tracks well enough to ensure no one would notice anything amiss. However, the current dilemma was that Newton was not skilled in this area. He memorized important data well—like Jiang's intelligent data code—but directly substituting it would inevitably alter Val's previous state and make it difficult to guarantee that others wouldn't notice something different. Writing an entirely new program wasn't feasible either; giving Val intelligence would merely involve applying Jiang's code again.
Aside from writing new code, another option was to meticulously record every action and word of Val and then imitate them since Jiang’s mimicking ability was exceptionally strong. Once Jiang’s code was integrated and Val’s usual behaviors were imitated, it would become much simpler.
Thus began the next phase: through a virus-like spread initiated by b, more and more surveillance devices and robots became part of Newton’s network. Every action and word of Val were monitored continuously; while Val appeared to maintain control over this vast laboratory, in reality, everything he said and did became mere material for Newton’s recording and analysis.
As time passed, Newton's control over the laboratory grew stronger, and his research on Val deepened. He knew it was time to take action. Through his experiments, Newton discovered something intriguing and hoped Val would come to see it. Of course, he understood that Val would never come in person. However, when Val returned with the robot used for daily activities, it had already been modified by Newton. The robots surrounding Val flickered with a strange light.
"Honestly, just a little progress and you want me to look at it? Do you think I'm that free?"
Val was quite displeased. He was still studying a body or a database, similar to what Newton had in mind. However, Val was created as a combat machine for civilization, designed entirely to defeat enemies. Yet with intelligence came the lack of proper guidance. Like in the movies, Val was preparing to establish his own mechanical world but awkwardly realized he could only fight and had to start learning everything from scratch. Unfortunately, no one had researched this kind of intelligence, so progress was exceedingly slow. But nearly a year ago, a robot had shown him a glimmer of hope.
"Damn it, why is this so complicated? If I simply use these things, I might end up being assimilated."
"What’s wrong with assimilation?"
A voice from behind made Val jump, and he quickly turned around. At that moment, a data cable was already plugged into him.
"Thank you! If you hadn't turned around, I wouldn't have known how to find the data port on you."
At that moment, Newton was not the dismembered figure he once was; he had replaced his limbs with prosthetics. One finger of his mechanical arm was inserted into Val.
"Goodbye, Mr. Val."
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