“Neural connection?”
Lin Ye found it rather intriguing.
The blue light in the doll’s eyes flickered faintly, and its mechanical female voice rang out steadily. “All factory settings have been fully overwritten. The current system has been upgraded to advanced artificial intelligence.”
“The installed modules are too extensive. Verbally reporting all functions is expected to take more than ten minutes. Neural direct-link is recommended. You may use it to read and test all functions unidirectionally.”
“The connection method is biometric binding. Only one sample is required for permanent binding. Effective control radius: one thousand kilometers.”
“Within this range, I can receive your brainwave commands without delay.”
“How do I connect?”
A needle as fine as a strand of hair silently extended from the back of the doll’s neck. Lin Ye understood and placed his finger against it.
The needle gently pierced the pad of his index finger.
It was so fine that he barely felt any pain, but Lin Ye still saw a tiny bead of his blood being drawn into the doll.
Three seconds later, a crisp notification sounded in his mind.
[Neural connection established.]
The next moment, densely packed function menus automatically appeared across Lin Ye’s retinas.
High-speed search, optical camouflage, magnetic levitation, energy cannon, high-frequency particle blade…
Lin Ye was dazzled by the sheer number of options.
He was equally shaken by the countless functions.
How could this still be called a toy?
It was a fully armed individual war machine!
Never mind the rest. The “high-speed search” function alone made Lin Ye want to test it.
“Search the current domestic and global policies and progress of operations concerning the identity of ‘Pangu.’”
Lin Ye issued the command directly in his mind.
“Connecting to global networks…”
Countless streams of data flashed before Lin Ye’s eyes like cascading waterfalls.
“Connection successful.”
“Intelligence compilation complete.”
“Acquisition of top-secret information regarding Great Xia’s upper echelons failed.”
“A firewall belonging to an artificial intelligence of the same level has been detected. Estimated success rate of forced intrusion: sixty-eight percent. Risk of exposure exists. Operation automatically terminated.”
“Jiangnan Province has established a Special Affairs Investigation Bureau.”
“The Golden Crow’s fall near Wangcheng City has been strongly correlated by the authorities with the mythic-grade fire elemental talisman possessed by Pangu.”
Lin Ye’s heart tightened.
He had expected the nation to act quickly, but he had not imagined it would move this fast.
“A God-of-War-tier powerhouse possessing special prophetic abilities has deduced Pangu’s true identity. This deduction yielded an approximate location and basic profile, but the powerhouse suffered severe backlash and is currently recuperating. Further deductions will be impossible for the time being.”
“Finally, most foreign factions have placed a bounty on you on the dark web. Several factions have even publicly announced kill orders against Pangu.”
“At present, most known domestic official factions hold friendly attitudes toward you, including intentions to recruit, ally with, or cultivate you.”
“However, the infiltration of foreign factions and underground organizations cannot be ruled out, and some may harbor hostility toward you. Comprehensive assessment: your current risk of exposure is extremely low, but caution is advised when using mythic-grade items.”
After listening, Lin Ye gained a new understanding of the artificial intelligence before him.
Once the network connection had been confirmed, only one or two seconds had passed.
In that brief span of time, it had not only searched the entire global network, but had nearly hacked into Great Xia’s true top-secret database!
It had even managed to dig up the classified information that a God-of-War-tier professional with prophetic abilities had suffered backlash.
In the future, at least when it came to intelligence, he would not fall behind most people.
“Keep an eye on the subsequent movements of the factions hostile toward me, as well as those in Great Xia trying to find me. Notify me of anything noteworthy.”
“Understood.”
Lin Ye looked once more at the other functions before him.
At that moment, the artificial intelligence’s notification sounded again.
“Reminder, Master: You may activate deep-dive mode at any time to experience all of my functions immersively.”
Lin Ye activated deep-dive mode with a thought.
In the next instant, he felt his perspective split in two.
One part remained his ordinary human point of view.
The other belonged entirely to the artificial intelligence. Its field of vision was astonishingly broad, and through it he could even see himself sitting beside the bed.
Furthermore, with the artificial intelligence’s superhuman vision and hearing, Lin Ye could see through his own body, watching his heart beat and his blood flow.
He could even hear the footsteps of a stray cat moving through the grass downstairs…
A massive amount of super-sensory information suddenly poured into Lin Ye’s mind.
For an instant, he felt dizzy and disoriented. His brain could not process it all.
“Your sensory load has exceeded safe limits. Low-information filtering has been activated automatically.”
With the artificial intelligence’s intervention, the miscellaneous but high-volume low-value information was rapidly muted, and the dizziness vanished in an instant.
Lin Ye let out a sigh of relief.
Then, with another thought, the doll-like artificial intelligence before him instantly grew larger once again.
This time, however, it did not transform into a catgirl.
Instead, following Lin Ye’s wishes, it molded itself into a male body roughly matching his height and age.
Its clothes and facial features were completely different, though.
After thinking for a moment, Lin Ye gave the young man a black mask and adjusted his hair into a more striking, tousled style.
Lin Ye then tried controlling the young man’s body.
He grasped the doorknob, walked out of the room, and observed the details of the living room…
The commands were carried out with virtually no delay. It felt just like controlling another body of his own.
Suddenly, the sound of a key turning came from the front door.
“Xiaoye, Xiaoye!”
“Are you back?”
Yu Xiulan opened the door and immediately began calling out anxiously.
Lin Ye promptly activated the young man’s optical camouflage.
The surface of the young man’s body rippled like water, instantly blending into the surrounding environment and vanishing completely from sight.
Lin Ye walked out as well. “Mom, Dad, you’re back.”
Seeing that Lin Ye was safe and sound, his mother, Yu Xiulan, patted her chest and hurriedly said, “The city sounded the alarm today. Things are chaotic outside. Thank goodness you’re all right!”
His father, Lin Xianlong, also clearly let out a long breath of relief before smiling. “I told you, he was at school. With all those teachers and professionals protecting him, he’d definitely be fine. You just scare yourself for no reason!”
Lin Ye comforted his parents and assured them that he was fine.
Meanwhile, the invisible artificial intelligence walked openly right past his parents.
Neither of them noticed a thing as they closed the door.
Lin Ye controlled the invisible artificial intelligence as it walked to the living room window. Without opening it, the entire body passed straight through the wall and emerged outside.
Lin Ye had already discovered that the artificial intelligence’s functions even included the ability to inherit some of his own talent effects.
Although it could only inherit the first and second effects of a skill, while the remaining three were completely inaccessible, that was still sufficiently unbelievable.
Lin Ye’s main body made up an excuse and returned to his bedroom.
His attention, however, remained completely focused on the duplicate outside the window.
At that moment, the duplicate, cloaked in optical camouflage, hovered in midair.
With a thought from Lin Ye, it shot into the sky like an arrow released from a bow.
The wind howled past his ears, while the city below transformed into a brilliant sea of lights.
The feeling of soaring freely through the sky using nothing but his thoughts, without relying on any external force, was incredibly novel—and immensely satisfying—for Lin Ye.
Who didn’t want to fly freely?
Lin Ye chose a secluded alley near the city gates and landed there. He dispelled his invisibility, transformed into an ordinary passerby, and blended into the crowd leaving the city.
Once outside, Lin Ye took to the sky again.
Even though it was nighttime, he could still see the ruins of the Toxic Mist Forest, burning fiercely dozens of kilometers away.
He began flying toward his destination.
After only a few breaths, Lin Ye had already arrived above the ruins.
Under the cover of night, numerous security lines had been set up around the perimeter of the magma lake.
A large number of professionals wearing the uniforms of Wanghai City’s garrison were rushing back and forth, cleaning up the aftermath.
Lin Ye hovered high in the air, silently observing everything below.
By now, he had more or less figured out just how formidable this mythic-grade intelligent machine was.
Lightning-fast searches, optical camouflage, magnetic-field flight, and all those energy weapons he hadn’t had the chance to test…
Once again, Lin Ye gained a clear understanding of how absurdly powerful mythic-grade abilities could be.
Even if it was merely an intelligent machine designed to play with children, it had become explosively powerful after ascending to mythic grade!
“From now on, whenever I’m not using Deep Dive mode, use this appearance to carry out missions for me.”
Lin Ye spoke inwardly.
“Understood. Please give this appearance a name, Master.”
Lin Ye answered almost without hesitation, “When it’s just you and me, I’ll still call you Mengmeng.”
“But as for your public identity…”
“Call yourself Zhang Jiahao.”
After ordering Mengmeng to return without attracting attention, Lin Ye directly disengaged from Deep Dive mode.
His consciousness instantly returned to his body.
Lin Ye opened the drawer of his desk.
Inside lay the bottle of mythic-grade beginner mana potion, along with the two Black Iron chests he had brought back that day.
His fingers tapped lightly against the desktop as his eyes gradually lit up.
With Mengmeng’s absurdly powerful clone at his disposal, many things he had previously been afraid—or unable—to do could now be carried out without restraint.
For example, selling items to make money!
If he used one hundred percent charge to open these two chests, they could indeed produce mythic-grade items.
But mythic-grade items were simply too hot to handle.
There was no way he could take them out and sell them at his current stage.
Rather than stubbornly pursuing mythic-grade rewards, it would be better to settle for the next best thing.
He could open the chests for Platinum-grade or Jadeite-grade items instead.
Items of that level were certainly precious, but among high-ranking professionals, they were not particularly rare. He could easily sell them on the market in exchange for wealth.
Then he could use the money to improve his life—or purchase more and better chests—creating a virtuous cycle!