Carefully passing through the first line of defense, Feng Xue still felt a wave of suffocation at the sight of the factory interior, despite having prepared himself mentally.
This was not a place where humans worked. None of the conditions required for human labor existed here: no workstations for people to stand at, no temperature suitable for human movement, not even roads for people to enter and exit.
All that existed here were mechanical arms hanging one after another from the ceiling, metal conveyor tracks running day and night without cease, and security robots patrolling back and forth along predetermined routes…
Transport platforms glided soundlessly along magnetic rails laid into the floor. Mechanical arms precisely seized containers from the shelves and placed them onto carriers. The faint hum of motors and the rhythmic sounds of hydraulic devices cast a chilling, suffocating air over the environment.
In the distance, the factory’s main structure extended into the darkness. Feng Xue could see multiple production lines winding through the building like giant serpents. Mechanical arms carried out assembly, welding, and testing at dazzling speed. Cyberware components—alloy skeletons, polymer muscle bundles, neural interface arrays—flowed along the production lines, gradually being assembled into complete products. At the end of the line, finished products were packed into shockproof cases, labeled, and sent via conveyor belt to the next area.
The air smelled of ozone, coolant, and fresh metal, yet there was almost no lighting. In the field of view of his AR glasses, however, it was filled with signals representing mechanical interactions.
Compared to the entrance, the detection sensitivity of the defense robots here was somewhat lower. This was not to reduce consumption, but to avoid identifying finished cyberware moving along the conveyor belts as intruders.
“Mm, the old man’s files seemed to have something on this kind of technology…”
Feng Xue controlled the Demon Sword to maintain silence, while his main body had already dug out the documents Old Man Jiang had left behind from his brain disk.
“When it comes to AI judgment, I remember…”
Feng Xue connected to the brain-computer interface and had the system perform a keyword search. Very soon, he found the relevant content—
According to Old Man Jiang, pure AI recognition could roughly be divided into “affirmative” and “negative” types, somewhat like “presumption of innocence” and “presumption of guilt.” The affirmative type first assumed you were fine, then searched for points where you might be problematic; the negative type treated everything as problematic first, then proved that you were fine. In plain terms, it was the difference between “anything that isn’t XX is acceptable” and “only XX is acceptable.”
It was hard to say which of the two was superior, and even their strictness depended on the judgment criteria.
However, the affirmative type had a flaw that could not quite be called fatal: “if no loophole is discovered, it will not trigger.” In other words, it needed the act of “discovery” to make a judgment. Conversely, it could not question something that “did not exist.”
And in the area before him, in order to avoid damaging products by mistake, they had undoubtedly adopted an affirmative strategy.
And so…
The Demon Sword reached into the backpack and pulled out a cloak. It was none other than the anti-detection cloak obtained upon entering the black market!
Completely covering his body, Feng Xue walked out from his hiding place and strode openly along the narrow “passage” beside the conveyor belt, moving at a speed slightly slower than the belt.
In truth, if it were a high-level AI, there definitely would not be this issue. But this place was physically disconnected from the network and jammed wireless signals. With the local AI computing power those robots could deploy, it was nowhere near enough to support that kind of high-level AI.
Of course, if this damn place was extravagant enough to stuff a few soul-source energy users into the security system, then Feng Xue would accept his fate!
Even in the dimly lit factory, Feng Xue, dressed all in black, still seemed somewhat eye-catching. Yet in the detection systems of those trash-can-like robots, there was no trace of him at all. Or rather, they did in fact see that patch of blackness, as if a piece had been gouged out of a canvas. But first, “it” was not moving faster than the conveyor belt; second, it did not cause any goods to leave the conveyor; third, no complete human silhouette or life signs were detected. Thus, they ignored it completely.
After passing this hurdle, the next step was where a decision had to be made—
Should he first find a route to the rooftop, then snatch a few pieces of cyberware and evacuate with lightning speed? Or should he stroll all the way to the warehouse area, scout out the terrain, then pull the switch and hold out for a few minutes, taking away every bit of material he could carry?
Or perhaps…
Feng Xue glanced at the map, and in the end, he finally made up his mind—
Having come this far, his thinking had actually already opened up. If he merely intended to grab something and leave, he could completely knife-run his way in afterward. Although it would cost him an extra black-market cloak, as long as he could take away a single four-star cyberware piece, it would not be a loss!
As for the warehouse area, Feng Xue had no doubt it was a trap. At least with his current strength, it was definitely a trap. If it were only one or two goods, the robots and the company might still hesitate for fear of damaging valuables. But if news of the warehouse being invaded were set off, Feng Xue had no doubt he would be facing a MaxTac-style encirclement—of course, in this world, it probably was not called that.
Option one could be achieved later through knife runs. Option two would most likely leave him unable to take anything away.
So, maintain the original plan!
Feng Xue glanced at the location of the main control room on the map. He had to pass through the assembly area of the main factory floor—there, the cyberware components were completely unformed, and it was highly likely that, unlike here, criteria such as “human limbs” had not been removed from the alert conditions.
He made his way to the end of the loading area. From afar, he looked at the main control room blocked off by several conveyor belts. His main body picked up a notebook and quickly sketched a simple rough map, trying, as before, to create a few blind spots where he could set foot.
Too extreme!
The designer of this factory was clearly no fool. It was impossible for them to leave behind an obvious loophole that even a rookie like him could exploit.
The protection around the core area had almost no blind spots. The patrol routes of those robots intersected and overlapped, and even without coordinated error correction, it would still be very difficult to create an opening.
“I’ll gamble on it.” The Demon Sword opened his eyes once more, a trace of determination flashing through his pupils.
In any case, it was only an avatar. The loss from failure could be earned back by having Kong Wu fight a single boxing match, and it would also accumulate experience for the next operation. And if he succeeded…
Feng Xue finally cast aside all hesitation. The Demon Sword carefully put away the AR glasses—he did not want to be exposed because this object, which was not covered by the cloak, might emit a signal.
Slightly adjusting his breathing, the Demon Sword slowly moved along the narrow area at the edge of the conveyor belt. His steps achieved a subtle synchronization with the mechanical arms overhead. Using the movements and sounds of those enormous mechanical devices, he constantly switched between the perspectives of his main body and the Demon Sword, searching for those fleeting blind spots.
This was a dangerous dance. Every movement required precise calculation. A single instant of hesitation would be enough to draw a storm of bullets.
“Then let’s see just how far my current technique and strength can take me!”
Can we please stop force-fitting real-life conditions onto this? In reality, you need to call up libraries because your brain isn’t good enough to remember everything, and keyboard output efficiency is limited. In the book, there’s mental source energy—not saying he’s using a supernatural ability, but the existence of this thing indicates high mental attributes—and he has a brain disk built into his head, inputting through thought. Why would he need to call up a library? I know what kind of code is needed here; the moment it passes through my mind, the code goes up. Only newbies who don’t know what code they need open files and copy code!
After writing books for so many years, I’ve also come to understand something: the people who argue for the sake of arguing aren’t just the ones who know nothing. There are also those who think they understand everything, who have completely trapped themselves within their own cognition. They think they’re well-informed, that they’re professionals, so they believe they already understand everything and cannot tolerate the slightest bit of imagination. When they can’t argue anymore, they start changing the subject, rolling around in circles, picking every nit they can find. Once they realize they still can’t win, all they can do is point at colloquial phrasing and say it isn’t rigorous, demanding that you write in thesis format, while claiming, “You’re tilted.”
I’m already using mental power to rewrite reality, and you’re telling me a master can only write code one character at a time? Why can’t it be that my brain is the library, and the code is written the moment a thought moves?
In reality, you have to type code by hand, but in the book, it’s thought-based input.
Even in reality, brain-computer interfaces are already covered by medical insurance, you old fossils! How is it that in a cyberpunk world, “even experts have to type one character at a time”?
P.S. Also, if you can’t win the argument, don’t delete comments. I argued through a dozen-plus layers not just for you! I’m still counting on it to provide entertainment value for later readers! Mods, don’t delete them either! (If Qidian deletes them, then there’s nothing I can do.)