Chapter 396 - 385: Boss, Thank You for Making Me Work Even After I’m Dead
Chapter 396: Chapter 385: Boss, Thank You for Making Me Work Even After I’m Dead
Ryan opened his eyes.
Rows of green characters flickered into his vision, displaying the relevant parameters of his surroundings.
Although this was the first time he’d seen them, he understood their meaning instantly, as if by instinct.
[Prosthetic Body Function Self-Test... 100%]
The characters flickered and vanished from his sight. The colors before him rapidly reassembled, finally focusing on Allen’s placid face.
[Energy Level: Second-level Wizard]
He opened his mouth.
"BZZT—"
A faint electric hum emanated from his throat. Half a second later, the vocalization module finished its automatic calibration.
"Boss." Ryan’s voice was a little hoarse, but its tone and inflection were identical to when he was alive.
Ryan subconsciously thought about moving. The moment the thought arose, his body responded, automatically standing up.
The movement was perfectly smooth, without the slightest lag.
He looked down and saw a pair of clean hands. The skin was fine, the knuckles distinct, and they radiated a sense of power.
But they weren’t his hands.
He raised a hand before his eyes, opening and closing his fingers. Thought became action, just as it had been when he was alive.
He got off the operating table, his feet landing firmly on the floor. He tried taking a few steps, then broke into a light jog, and finally gave a small leap on the spot.
He landed without a sound.
Every "muscle" in his body was filled with explosive power, and every joint was like the most precise bearing, flawlessly responding to his every command.
"Welcome back. How do you feel?" Allen’s calm voice sounded.
Ryan stopped moving and turned to him. "Good... even better than before. It’s just..."
He frowned, and the faint scar replicated at the corner of his eyebrow twitched along with the movement.
"I... seem to have forgotten some things."
Ryan tried hard to remember, but some fragments in his mind were blurry, like an old newspaper soaked in water, its print bleeding and illegible.
"Some... unimportant things. Like where I kept the key to my last apartment, or what color the last gift I bought for Ella was..."
’Was it a red dress? Or a blue Magic Staff?’
The harder he tried to remember, the more his fingers pressed into the biomimetic skin, leaving indentations.
"Stop thinking about it," Allen interrupted him.
Ryan looked up.
"It’s normal."
Allen stood up, his tone flat. "Your physical body has perished. It’s already the limit for a soul to retain its core memories and personality. The dissipation of some memories is inevitable."
Ryan fell silent and lowered his hand.
He had lost his body, and with it, a part of the trivial details that made up the life of "Ryan Hart."
This, too, was one of the costs of resurrection.
Allen pulled up Ryan’s soul monitoring log.
"The data indicates you’ve lost approximately twelve percent of your memories. This is irreversible."
"Remembering Ella’s name and who you are is enough," Ryan said, straightening up, his voice regaining its composure.
Allen looked at the creation before him. "Since you’re awake, let’s talk about the future."
"Being reborn isn’t easy, but one must go on living."
Allen took out a contract. "First, let’s talk about work."
Ryan stepped forward, his steps slightly heavy. The true weight of his alloy skeleton caused a faint vibration on the floor with each stride.
He picked up the contract, his eyes scanning it quickly.
"First, your salary, benefits, and the education fund previously promised to your sister, Ella, will all remain unchanged."
Allen explained, "If you’re willing, you can continue your job as the head of the New West branch."
Ryan sighed in relief. ’This is the best possible outcome,’ he thought, ’since I have nowhere else to go.’
"Second," Allen’s voice was devoid of any inflection, "I need to define your current identity with you."
Ryan looked up, a little puzzled.
"This body is designated ’Puppet Zero.’ Its skeleton is made of a Secret Silver Tungsten Steel alloy, its power source is a high-density Magic Power storage module, and its core is a micro-chanting hub."
Allen looked directly into Ryan’s eyes, his tone earnest.
"It was extremely expensive to build. The technology, energy, and subsequent maintenance and upgrades required to keep it running are all under my control."
"Therefore, whether from a legal standpoint according to the Mystic Code Council, or on a purely material level—"
Allen paused for a second.
"You are considered an asset of Weisren Heavy Industry."
The laboratory was silent.
Ryan looked at the contract in his hands. The dense clauses all boiled down to one thing:
He was no longer a natural person, but a registered "item."
’Brought back to life just to keep working, and my body isn’t even my own.’
Ryan tugged at the corner of his mouth, a self-deprecating smile forming.
He remembered the countless contracts he had signed, the days he had scrambled for Magic Stones and resources.
He had thought things would be different after dying once.
Apparently not.
"Of course," Allen added, seemingly having read his thoughts,
"I have my principles. I will guarantee your personal independence and freedom in the form of a contract. After work hours, I will not interfere with any of your personal decisions, wherever you want to go or whatever you want to do."
"If the body is damaged or its energy is depleted, the company will provide repairs and recharging free of charge. In the future, if there are technological breakthroughs, I will upgrade you."
"Upgrade?" Ryan latched onto the word.
"Yes." Allen nodded. "This body is my first Puppet model. It currently possesses the combat power of a standard First-level Wizard."
"As technology advances in the future, I can replace your body with a higher-performance one. The upper limit of your power will be determined only by the upper limit of my technology."
Ryan’s lips moved, but all that came out was a bitter laugh.
"I understand, Boss."
He took a deep breath—this body could even perfectly simulate the rise and fall of a chest inhaling—"I accept."
’Did he have any other choice?’
No.
"Very good." Allen gave a slight nod. "Go and familiarize yourself with your new body, then find Vera in Hub City. She will arrange new work for you."
"What about Glacier Academy?" Ryan asked.
"It’s nothing but a ruin now." Allen walked over to the main console. "Our branch is gone too. You’ll need to open up new markets."
Ryan nodded. He walked to the laboratory door and stopped.
"Boss."
Allen looked at him.
"Thank you."
After saying this, Ryan turned and walked out of the laboratory.
His back was straight, his gait steady. The distance of each step was as if measured with a ruler.
Only after his figure disappeared through the doorway did Allen slowly retract his gaze.
"Jarvis."
[Here, Commander.]
"Calculate the total cost of the ’Puppet Zero’ project."
A screen of light unfolded before Allen, rows of data scrolling rapidly.
[Raw Material Procurement: Secret Silver Tungsten Steel alloy, Biomimetic Polymer Materials, various crystal lenses... Total: 630,000 Low-Level Magic Stones.]
[Technical R&D Costs (Knowledge Licensing): *Advanced Puppet Design Compendium*, *Detailed Explanation of Miniaturized Parallel Rune Inscription Technology*... Equivalent Cost: 3,760,000 Low-Level Magic Stones.]
[Comprehensive Cost: 4,390,000 Low-Level Magic Stones.]
A Puppet with the power of a First-level Wizard cost 630,000 just to build. A single Freedom Gundam was only 720,000. The body was smaller, but the price hadn’t shrunk by much.
Allen didn’t make Ryan bear this cost; he would even shoulder all subsequent repairs and upgrades himself.
If Vera knew, she would probably think he was insane.
But he wasn’t insane. What he had obtained was something far more valuable than four million Magic Stones.
A complete, intelligent soul that had experienced life and death, perfectly integrated with a purely artificial shell.
From the moment Ryan awoke, his every thought, every emotional fluctuation, every memory recalled, and every adaptation to and application of his new body would generate a massive stream of data.
This data, via the low-level monitoring Runes in the chanting hub, would be transmitted back to Jarvis’s database during maintenance.
Like a specimen placed under a microscope.
Every corner of his soul would be laid bare, recorded, and analyzed.
All his joys and sorrows, his suppressed unwillingness, his longing for his sister, his hopes for the future... all of it would become cold lines of data presented in Allen’s experiment reports.
This data was priceless. He had no personal privacy to speak of. After all, in the Wizarding World, there was little kindness without a reason.
For certain reasons, Allen did not inform Ryan of this matter.
He felt no guilt for his actions, because he would not use this data for anything other than his experiments.
This precious data would become the critical foundation for Allen to conquer "artificial soul" technology and perfect subsequent models in the "Puppet" series.
Allen walked over to the empty soul-preservation container and put it away.
The first phase of the experiment was a success.
From now on, it would be a long period of data collection.