Chapter 633 Progress

Sun Jack felt the urge to vomit, but nothing came out; the scene from the bus was vivid in his mind.

This feeling was incredibly uncomfortable. He had gone through the Poet's memories countless times, yet the sensation seemed to accumulate instead of dissipating, growing so much it felt like something was about to burst.

"Not... did the Poet do something wrong? He didn't do anything wrong, right? Those people deserved to be killed, didn't they? Was there something wrong with what he did? There wasn't, right?" mused Sun Jack, reflecting on the past.

Sun Jack had thought the Poet's memories would be cold, evil, and twisted, that all he needed to do was to resist such malignant cognition.

But now, he suddenly realized it wasn't so. The Poet hadn't done anything wrong; every choice he made was very human, every decision so correct that even if Sun Jack were in his place, he doubted he could have made better ones.

The Poet was kind-hearted, yet it seemed like the whole world was against him, continually targeting him. What was wrong with this world?

As Sun Jack contemplated this, a mirror suddenly appeared before him. In it, he saw the Poet's image.

"Jack, you need to hold steady," said a voice. "According to the data we've received, you are starting to be influenced by the Poet's past memories. Don't let his cognition change yours; you need to change his. Remember, you are Sun Jack, not the Poet."

As soon as these words fell, the mirror shattered, revealing Linda Linda, half flesh and half mechanical, floating in the darkness, appearing before Sun Jack.

Sun Jack shook his head vigorously, struggling to regain clarity from the cognitive disarray.

After a moment, he spoke again, "I get it, I can still hold on. What I want to know now is, how many more of these so-called memory anchors of the Poet are left?"

"About 15," Linda Linda answered, providing a number painful for Sun Jack to hear. "Including everything you went through before, it's all what happened before the Poet's personality and values were firmly set."

"Damn it," a sense of powerlessness arose in Sun Jack. He didn't know whether, after experiencing all that, he would still be able to distinguish whether he was the Poet or Sun Jack.

"Isn't there something I'm not getting here? Does the Poet only have these bad memories? Doesn't he have any good memories? Can't good memories shape a person's values too?"

"Bad deeds are always more painfully etched into memory than good ones. And for certain bad deeds, the human brain forges a path of forgetting through the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve. For AI that doesn't forget, however, once these things happen, recalling them feels real all over again."

Hearing this, Sun Jack seemed unsurprised that the Poet would make such a decision.

After a while, Sun Jack calmly accepted the fact. Since he had come here, he had made preparations to face all possibilities.

"Your plan is good, but the error tolerance seems a bit too low. In case I fail, remember to pull in a few more Sun Jacks for simultaneous trials," he suggested.

Linda Linda looked at Sun Jack seriously after hearing this. "Don't worry, we have various contingency plans in place. Moreover, how can you be so sure which number you are?"

At this, Sun Jack paused and then laughed, "Frankly, I don't care which number I am. I don't care what you do, just make sure to clean up the failed Sun Jacks properly, otherwise, there will be another Poet in this world."

Linda Linda looked surprised and said after a moment, "Sun Jack, you are pure. That's exactly what we need. People like you are far too rare now."

"In fact, we've approached other people for this plan, even specifically bred various Clones, but we found that those products of cloning couldn't withstand the impact of the Poet's memory anchors at all. You being able to hold on till now and still say these things is truly surprising."

"Are you complimenting me? Thanks for that. Keep going; I'm still holding steady," said Sun Jack, ready to face the Poet's memories.

He then received the data transmitted by the Third Class. After seeing the amount of data, Sun Jack inhaled sharply, "Shit, this is even more intense!"

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Deep within the Earth's crust at North latitude: 34.8765° N, East longitude: 118.4421° E, a Mechanical Worm once belonging to the Poet but now completely modified, was rapidly tunneling underground.

The mechanized worm, once the Poet's, had been refurbished and was on a special mission undertaken by the Utopia Security forces.

"Second One, what are you writing?" Number 44 looked curiously at her companion, whose fingers were a blur, typing rapidly in the air, indicating the high speed at which they were writing.

At this, Cang Yan Saint Fire Master No Hanakada looked up at the driver, a towering woman.

"Third-dimension plebeians, you, who have abandoned the truth, would never understand," he said with a note of pride.

"Dammit, asking for a beating, are you? Since you're so obsessed with the two-dimensional, why join this mission?" 44 waved her tattooed burly arm.

Cang Yan Saint Fire Master No Hanakada lifted his chin even higher. "This is a divine revelation from the deity of the two-dimensional world to all otaku! Our world is under construction, and we will not allow our new world to be destroyed!"

As the two talked, Hilda sitting curled up nearby, chimed in, smiling, "He's writing One Piece fan fiction."

Her massive mechanical body was entwined with various cables, merging with the worm, ready to take full control whenever necessary.

"One Piece? Haven't heard of it," Number 44 rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then turned to the silent Faxis beside her. "Cop, have you heard of this?"

Faxis ignored her, focusing on the screen before her, watching for any signs of anomalies to ensure she could react to any AI losing control.

The young woman dressed as a gothic-lolita, Saotome, then spoke, "It must be from The Previous Era. It's normal that you haven't heard of it. It's a manga where the protagonist eats the Rubber Fruit, which allows his body to stretch like rubber."

The once AI had, like Tapai, gained a new body.

She glanced at the data they had just intercepted, "He's writing One Piece fanfic where, in his fantasy, he eats the Rubber Fruit, then while transformed into a giant-sized Sun Jack having intercourse with Hilda, he squashes and rolls her out to use as a sleeve."