Chapter 458 - 446: Smart Office and Data Security
Chapter 458: Chapter 446: Smart Office and Data Security
After several hours, the feverish simulations finally came to an end. The light in Allen’s eyes slowly faded, giving way to a profound, bottomless coldness and calm.
The technical roadmap for an artificial soul was now clearly imprinted upon his Sea of Spirit.
Rune Neurons, an evolvable neural network, a self-referential feedback mechanism, a reward-punishment learning model... and finally, waiting for "emergence."
The theory was flawless.
But bridging the gap from theory to reality required crossing a chasm called "sample size."
"Jarvis, create a new project: Artificial Soul Computation. Import Rhine’s combat data," Allen ordered.
[Data import complete. Commencing large-scale simulations...]
[Warning: Current model parameters are severely lacking. To achieve ’self-referential emergence,’ the data sample from a single soul is insufficient for the algorithm to converge.]
’This was to be expected. In my previous life, training even a basic large language model required hundreds of billions of text data points.’
’Now that I’m trying to build a soul from scratch, the amount of data required will be even more massive.’
"Calculate the minimum data requirement."
[For the ’Rune Grand Model’ to exhibit preliminary self-reference, it is necessary to construct a network of at least ten thousand ’Rune Neurons.’ To complete this network’s initial learning and evolution, real reaction data must be collected from living souls experiencing extreme emotional fluctuations, life-or-death crises, and high-pressure confrontations. The preliminary estimate for the minimum sample size is 1.3 million complete interactions.]
One million, three hundred thousand interactions.
Allen’s fingers tapped on the armrest of his chair.
’Where could I find 1.3 million souls under high pressure, on the brink of life and death?’
’Data collection in a peaceful environment would be meaningless. It has to be war, disaster, desperation... Only under the extreme pressure of a life-or-death struggle would a soul produce the most authentic and valuable reaction data.’
Allen muttered to himself, "The Aiselan Kingdom..."
’That land, repeatedly ravaged by the flames of war... might just be the best data collection site.’
’As for how to collect it, how to make those people unknowingly provide the computing power and data for the artificial soul project...’
"That’s it! I’ll use that!"
An efficient plan began to form in Allen’s mind. Once he sorted out matters here in Hub City, he would return to Aiselan.
Just then, a soft chime interrupted his thoughts.
It was a message from Colin.
Allen casually swiped open a light screen. A hefty quarter-end preliminary financial review sat in the file list, and at the end of the report was a private message.
[Boss, report sent. P.S. If the company doesn’t add another core executive to share the COO and CEO workload, I might have to consider submitting a request for a ’personal career re-evaluation.’]
The wording was formal and polite, but the exhaustion and "threat" between the lines practically leaped off the screen.
A rare smile touched the corners of Allen’s lips.
"The fragility of an employee..."
he muttered, closing his file on the artificial soul and turning his attention back to reality.
’This madly expanding war machine that is Weisren Heavy Industry seems about to crush its pilots.’
Allen didn’t reply. Instead, he initiated a three-way call.
The light screen lit up, and holographic projections of Colin and Vera appeared before him.
Colin’s eyes were sunken, and the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose seemed to weigh a bit more than usual. Vera, meanwhile, held a revitalizing potion with a blank expression, but she couldn’t hide the weariness in her brow.
’To wear out two Official Wizards to this extent... the workload must be truly immense.’
"Looks like the company’s growth has hit a bit of a snag," Allen said, cutting straight to the point.
Colin gave a bitter smile. "Boss, this is more than a ’bit of a snag.’ The Tutoring, Environmental, and Golem divisions are all running at full capacity. Vera and I are down to two hours of sleep a day. If this continues, we won’t be advancing to Level 2—we’ll work ourselves to death until our Seas of Spirit run dry."
"Lina asked me to pass on a message. She’s processing emotional feedback from hundreds of clients every day, on top of screening new hires. She said if this keeps up, her Emotion Spectrum Vision is going to burn her eyes out."
Weisren Heavy Industry had expanded too quickly. Traditional wizard management models simply couldn’t keep up with the operational speed of a modern, multi-planar, multi-division enterprise. And yet, they couldn’t find any reliable people on short notice.
"It’s my fault. You don’t have to go retire on a farm just yet. I’m already working on a solution!"
"That’s what you said last time!" Vera snapped.
"This time, it’s for real."
Allen quickly cut her off. "I’m planning to install a ’Central Intelligent Secretary’ for the company."
Colin and Vera froze, stunned.
"What’s that?" Vera frowned.
"You can think of it as... a ’Tower Spirit’ dedicated to serving Weisren Heavy Industry."
"A Tower Spirit?!" Colin’s voice shot up. "The kind the academies use? Aren’t those incredibly expensive? Besides, you can’t just buy them on the open market."
"It’s not that complicated."
Allen explained, "My workshop’s Jarvis is similar to a Tower Spirit. Its core function isn’t combat, but administration. It can handle 90% of your paperwork, optimize all scheduling, monitor inventory and logistics in real-time, and even generate financial reports automatically."
’Could it be... we can finally slack off?’
The expressions on Colin and Vera’s faces shifted from shock to unconcealable anticipation.
"Boss..." Colin adjusted his glasses, a sharp glint flashing behind the lenses. "When can we... get it installed?"
"That’s the problem."
The smile vanished from Allen’s face. "I can’t just copy Jarvis. Its core is deeply bound to the Cybertron Half-Plane. Forcibly severing that connection would have catastrophic consequences."
"So, I need to build a new system for it from the ground up. And the foundation of this system is a completely private, physically isolated, cross-planar communication network."
Vera immediately grasped the key point. "We can’t use commercial Communication Arrays?"
"No," Allen said, shaking his head. "All commercial communication devices have to connect to the public information relays of the major powers. Every time our data passes through a third-party node, it’s at risk of being intercepted and analyzed."
He paused before mentioning the most critical point.
"More importantly, once a stable, high-frequency communication link is established between the company’s headquarters and Cybertron, it’s theoretically possible for top-tier Wizards from the School of Divination or School of Information to trace it back. I cannot expose the Half-Plane’s coordinates to any risk whatsoever."
A chill went down Colin and Vera’s spines.
Only then did they realize what a massive security risk lurked behind this seemingly convenient "smart office" solution.
The Cybertron Half-Plane was the foundation of all of Weisren Heavy Industry’s technology and production capacity. It absolutely could not be compromised.
"So, I need to master this technology myself."
Allen concluded, "From the underlying Rune protocols to the hardware’s construction logic, every single component must be under our own control."
"Give me half a month. As soon as I’ve finished the R&D, I’ll get you both set up immediately."
The call ended, and Allen slowly stood up.
Building a private, untraceable, cross-planar communication network required cutting-edge knowledge involving multiple Laws, such as those of space, information, and encryption.
Out in the world, such knowledge was a top-level secret.
But in one particular place, it was merely a tome on a shelf, waiting to be acquired.
The Great Library Plane.