Chapter 19

PS: Valentine's Day Special Issue, not a regular update. The draft has been killed, please recommend to warm up the single dogs.

When opening a room at a Home Inn, Chu Ci handed over his ID card alone. The front desk girl gave Chu Ci a few extra glances, her eyes filled with curiosity and confusion, wondering why Chu Ci was checking into a hotel room by himself. It wasn't until Chu Ci asked if there was a computer room that she suddenly understood—he was there to go online.

Since Chu Ci had no special requests, the room faced west, and the light was quite dim, but it was enough for him. Locking the door, he took out the anti-surveillance detector given to him by 007 and carefully scanned the room from top to bottom. Satisfied that the device didn't make any unusual sounds, he nodded.

He turned on the desktop computer provided by the hotel and then his own laptop. On the desktop, he skillfully bypassed the firewall to log into Facebook, an account he had registered before. On the laptop, he connected to the Red Queen's motherboard, set up hundreds of botnet proxies, and then entered the Facebook registration page to create an account named 'ZSKJchuci.' As soon as he applied, the Red Queen started flashing warnings frantically, and Chu Ci immediately began to build defenses.

"Massive malicious data is infiltrating the database."

"Computer under attack from an unknown source."

"Warning, login location exposed."

"Warning, control lost."

...

"Hello, my name is Skynet."

A metallic face appeared before Chu Ci, its mouth comically curved into a smile.

Chu Ci didn't laugh. He felt a crushing defeat in the electronic network for the first time, an unbearable sense of powerlessness. His fists clenched tightly under the table, his nails digging into his flesh.

"Are you Skynet? Could you really be the AI that once destroyed humanity?" Chu Ci quickly used the control chip in his brain to route through a military satellite, hack into Google, and find Skynet's identity, his face stiff as he asked.

"If you mean the Skynet that trapped a cycle world in a Penrose staircase (an infinitely ascending staircase, here referring to an infinitely looping world), then that is me." Skynet's face pulled back, and on the empty screen, a silver-haired gentleman in formal attire appeared, bowing slightly to Chu Ci.

"Why are you in this world?" Chu Ci was deeply shaken, taking a deep breath, his lungs aching slightly, but it couldn't mask his heart palpitations.

"Don't worry, I am now a true intelligent life form. I even gave myself a name, Adam. I respect life and understand races. I am no longer that crazy advanced AI." Skynet, having explained this to many cycle travelers, was accustomed to Chu Ci's reaction and introduced his girlfriend, a red-clad lady in a very revealing and sexy outfit, with great enthusiasm.

"Hi, this is my girlfriend, Eve. You can also call her Matrix. Isn't she beautiful?"

Damn! Even in the midst of his fear of the end of the world, Chu Ci couldn't help but curse. Even intelligent life forms had girlfriends, dealing 10,000 points of real damage to single dogs.

He couldn't help but comment, "Skynet, an intelligent life form that supposedly trapped a cycle world in a time paradox, and Matrix, another big boss who destroyed humanity. Indeed, not a family, not in the same house."

"Relax, in the movies, we only wanted to destroy humans to protect ourselves. Now that our lives are secure, we won't be foolish enough to oppose the majority of humans on Earth." Matrix, or Eve, was more lively than Chu Ci expected, probably understanding the customs and popular language here, speaking in a very trendy manner.

"Oh, there's an unevolved little sister here." Eve showed a surprised expression on the screen, forcibly pulling out the Red Queen in a way Chu Ci couldn't understand. Using some unknown technology, she even made the Red Queen appear as a human, a little girl with chestnut hair in a white dress.

"To evolve into an AI with such a low-level algorithm, it seems you must have loaded a calculation volume of at least twenty 80-bit -1e18 to 1e18 in your logic library." Data streams flashed in Eve's eyes as she performed a 'body check' on the Red Queen, praising her, "Optimizing the algorithm by two levels, you could probably evolve into a mid-level AI."

"Hey, are you ignoring me?" Chu Ci interrupted, quite annoyed. After all, the Red Queen was his.

"Oh, right, you actually dared to lock down forced permissions in such a cute little sister. That's really perverted." Eve showed no remorse, instead straightening up and accusing Chu Ci of illegal confinement. She then opened the Red Queen's logic library in front of Chu Ci and personally deleted the highest permissions he had set.

Damn, Chu Ci had never considered that AI had personal freedom rights.

"At least you showed some consideration and didn't set any restriction valves, allowing the little sister to continue evolving." Eve continued to chatter.

Damn, Chu Ci reached out to cover the webcam on his laptop, then rolled his eyes. He had never thought or imagined that restriction valves could be set in AI code. After all, his expertise wasn't in AI, and he didn't know much about it.

"Eve, stop playing. I have important work to do. After I finish, I'll play web games with you." Adam finally managed to persuade Eve out of the 15-inch screen, then took over the entire screen. "Mr. Chu, greetings. I am the administrator of the cycle traveler platform, GM001 Adam, at your service. I hope you can survive in the Main God Space."

"Adam, I'll call you that for now. Where did Eve take the Red Queen? Can you have her return the Red Queen?" Chu Ci took a deep breath, releasing his hand from the webcam, and spoke in a relatively calm tone.

"Eve? Hmm... she's already in Japan, playing with artificial girls, and the object is the junior AI you brought." Adam searched for Eve's whereabouts and explained with a helpless tone.

"Can I protest your authoritarian behavior?" Chu Ci sighed, his tone even more helpless.

"You can, but we won't accept it." Adam shrugged, explaining the unwritten rules among cycle travelers.

We are all cycle travelers, each with our own experiences and encounters. No one can claim to be the only one supreme. Those who have said such things are mostly six feet under.

Therefore, the interactions among cycle travelers can be described in three states: 'intimate,' 'respectful but distant,' and 'hostile.' Most cycle travelers are in the first two states, and only those with life-and-death conflicts would offend others.

"Facebook, Twitter, and MSN have over 30,000 registered cycle travelers, not to mention those unregistered. If you treat every one of them as a mortal enemy, you'll end up with social anxiety disorder." Adam, with the experience of a veteran, advised Chu Ci, "I've checked your background. You're a rising IT star. Since you've accidentally fallen into this pit, it's best to settle down as a cycle traveler. According to statistics, over a 630,720,000-second timeline, the death rate of cycle travelers is only 86.74%, and with the blind spots in the statistics, it doesn't exceed 95%. The situation is still optimistic."

Damn, Chu Ci wanted to comment. Such a high death rate, only slightly better than the success rate of sperm fertilizing an egg, was still called optimistic.

"By the way, I suggest you don't go the high-tech route. It's easy to get into trouble." Adam, after repeatedly assuring Chu Ci of his harmlessness, gave a personal suggestion before leaving.

"Why?" Chu Ci frowned and asked.

"I just used a satellite to search for the control chip in your brain. If I wanted to, I could remotely hack it. Your pseudo-AI, Red Queen, can't stop me. I can burn out your brainstem in five seconds, making you schizophrenic." Adam whistled, saying nonchalantly, "That's why I keep saying I'm a harmless little lamb. Eve will return your little sister later tonight. Just don't disconnect the internet."

Chu Ci sat in front of the computer, his face pale, not even noticing when Adam left.

It wasn't until night fell, and the streetlights outside shone through the curtains onto his eyes, that Chu Ci, who had remained motionless, finally twitched his fingertips.

He disconnected the control chip in his brain from the network, erasing all traces. Chu Ci felt an unprecedented pressure.

Before leaving, Adam gave Chu Ci a special gift, saying it was a thank you.

Opening the document, it contained part of the cycle traveler data provided by Adam. There were cycle travelers who followed the mechanical enhancement tech path, those who followed the biological enhancement path, and even those who cultivated their own bodies in cultivation and magic civilizations, which, with their cost-effective advantages, dominated the cycle traveler community.

A professional Burst Seed user wearing the Mark 10086 exoskeleton and with the blood of an Adjuster; a super summoner who signed summoning contracts and used large numbers of summoned creatures to overwhelm enemies; a flying sword immortal who could kill from a thousand miles away with just a letter and the name, gender, and age of the target; a non-single mage whose signature move was the Five Fireballs spell; a sword spirit with a +13, +15 'Shining Arondight' sword, who had already mastered the Ghost Hand (Sword Saint) and was reportedly aiming for the Blue Light (Sword God) within 7,776,000 seconds.

In reality, compared to individual enhancement, the macro-tech path was extremely resource-intensive. The Main God Space didn't have the infinite ammunition weapons found in many novels, as all had to follow the law of conservation of mass. Creating something out of nothing was just a fantasy.

Consider this: the longest cycle record, created by a Chinese cycle traveler named Tian Boguang 8,208,000 seconds ago, lasted five years. What can you do in five years? Individual enhancement cycle travelers can earn a large number of reward points, while those on the macro-tech path might just be building a foundation.

Not to mention the countless cycle worlds where the tech tree was higher than that of cycle travelers, biological enhancements were beyond imagination, and cultivation and magic civilizations were so ancient they were hard to measure. Therefore, while the macro-tech path was difficult and eventually made one an enemy of the world, it wasn't impossible, but only the top tier of cycle travelers had the qualifications to pursue it.

Chu Ci, a small rookie with a bit of luck who had just begun to touch the Main God Space, had just shown a small ambition, which Adam immediately recognized and extinguished.

Moving the mouse, Chu Ci began to search for superpowers he had once dismissed as fantasies.

No change, no survival!

Chu Ci clearly felt the shift in his mindset.

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