Chapter 79

The God in the Hard Drive (2)

Raoul smiled wryly and continued, “Try not to lose that intuition. The ability to see the essence is something that can never be given by mere effort or practice. It’s so simple, yet like the back of a piece of paper, it’s something you can never know until you see it.”

“...Let's continue the story.”

He had already heard enough about talent to the point of exhaustion.

Wasn’t he pushing himself so hard to avoid being just a handle for wielding a blade?

“Right. The story I want to tell is much more secular than what you said. It’s about how the Pact faction black mages came to collaborate with the Palmers AI Research Institute.”

Raoul said this and immediately began his explanation.

The key employees who contributed significantly to the rise of the Palmers Corporation to its current position.

The black mages entered the research institute due to the very strong will of one person. They integrated the principles of pact magic into the process of installing AI in models, making modularization easier and devising a way to dramatically increase storage capacity.

“Surprisingly, the research was very successful and had already entered the commercialization stage just before the inspection. If that hadn’t happened, AI that was a generation more advanced than what we have now might have been on the market.”

The delighted Pact faction black mages shared information among themselves, and it wasn’t strange that this information also reached the Practical faction.

However, everything changed when the city government’s inspection forced the black mages out of District 44.

“Craig is likely after something using that improved AI. From what I heard from my friends back then, the allowed algorithm capacity of the AI was dramatically increased, so he must want to contain something within that expanded capacity.”

“...A ‘something’ summoned by a conjuration ritual?”

Renock muttered.

“To be honest, before you told me this story, I thought the massacre at the AI research institute was just a venting of anger. But if Craig’s goal was not us but really the AI research institute...”

“From the beginning, his target was not us.”

Renock had thought Craig was only after the black mages working at the AI research institute, but the real target was the AI itself. It made sense that they couldn’t find any significant clues from the bodies of the black mages who died there.

What they were after was not just venting their anger on the Pact faction black mages, but the AI being developed there. The AI data stored in the research institute’s independent network.

“The black mage you killed, who handled the conjuration ritual. Given the current situation, he didn’t move the data himself but transmitted it using some means after the massacre.”

“......”

Now that he thought about it, the black mage Renock killed was standing on the roof of the research institute, gazing at the sky after the massacre. At the time, he thought the mage was just lost in thought, but what if that was part of their plan?

“...I should have examined the research institute’s network. I should have thoroughly searched everything there.”

He was so focused on the intense theme of black mages killing each other that he never thought they would involve the field of AI.

“It’s not your fault.”

Raoul said gently.

“Even I, who knew the details beforehand, only guessed the connection after hearing the information you brought. How could you, who had no connection to black magic, have figured it out?”

To be precise, not paying proper attention to fields outside of magic was a mistake in itself.

‘I need to think about this...’

Even though he didn’t have high expectations from Raoul, the information he gained was significant. The insights he just realized were in a realm he could never have guessed on his own without knowing the background of recent events.

“Containing the ‘entity’ summoned by a conjuration ritual within the framework of AI......”

“If it can be done, it would be possible to extract the full power of the ritual while minimizing the risks associated with conjuration.”

Raoul nodded as he murmured.

“Talking with you has made me realize. Controlling a being that surpasses the practitioner’s capabilities, making it serve at will through the algorithms of AI. Craig’s final goal is probably that.”