Chapter 134: New Experimental Progress
Roland slowly got out of bed, stretched lazily, and smiled as he glanced at the figure still lying there.
“I still have corp business to take care of, so I can’t stay with you any longer. If you need anything, just tell Lissandra.”
With that, Roland got dressed, leaned down to gently kiss Kiwi on the cheek, and left the room.
Only after Roland was gone did Kiwi slowly open her eyes. She yawned and soon drifted back to sleep—last night had truly worn her out.
Roland, meanwhile, boarded the waiting AV. After taking one last look at his home, he connected the comms Mudor had sent him.
“Mudor, I heard your research has made some brand-new progress?”
“Yes, boss! After my relentless efforts, by combining the research findings of Bart Campbell, Rosely, Danades, and others, and integrating Bartmoss’s genes, Levitt’s—”
Mudor, dressed in a white lab coat and looking like he’d just crawled out of a chicken coop, lifted his eyes—rimmed with heavy dark circles—and spoke with obvious excitement.
“Stop, stop, stop. You’ve lost me already. Just get to the point.”
Hearing that long string of names made Roland’s head ache. He immediately raised a hand to signal Mudor to stop.
Then, noticing Mudor’s condition—the heavy smoky eye makeup and eyes red as if he had conjunctivitis—Roland couldn’t help asking, “Mudor, how long has it been since you last slept?”
“Sleep? Oh, right! No wonder I felt like I’d forgotten something really important—I still need to sleep!”
Mudor suddenly punched his own palm and said in sudden realization.
Roland’s mouth twitched. He quickly added, “After you finish reporting, go rest. Immediately. Right away.”
“Boss, I never thought you’d care so much about me… I’m really… so touched!”
Mudor felt genuinely moved, staring at Roland with reddened eyes—though, to be fair, his eyes were already red.
Roland turned his head away awkwardly. After all… all this work had been assigned by him. But… there was no helping it.
After all, in the entire PROJECT Corporation, Mudor was the only one who truly understood PROJECT technology.
As for sharing the research workload with others… Roland wasn’t very confident, but he still assigned some simpler tasks to other researchers. The core work, however, was still handled by Mudor.
There was no such thing here as senior researchers exploiting junior ones, because… the corporation simply didn’t allow anyone to slack off.
If Mudor wanted things to be easier, either Roland would have to find two more researchers from the Systems side, or Mudor would have to train them himself.
In fact, Mudor was already doing exactly that—it would just take some time.
“So, how far has your research progressed?”
“Yes, boss. Through cultivating relevant tissues and selecting and fusing genes, I’ve successfully recreated the essence of PROJECT!”
Mudor’s face filled with fanatic excitement as he switched the camera to focus on a cultivation chamber.
Inside, a man lay silently in slumber, his body exposed with visible circuitry intertwined with biological tissue.
Human flesh and mechanical components were perfectly fused together, and his appearance was strikingly similar to Bartmoss.
Roland also showed a look of surprise. He hadn’t expected Mudor to achieve such a high level of design and construction.
“Is he finished?” Roland asked, narrowing his eyes at Mudor.
“Not yet. There are still some areas that need improvement, issues with integration, and most importantly—the soul.”
Mudor shook his head, a troubled expression on his face.
“The soul?”
“Or, more accurately, a digitized consciousness. Soul chip technology isn’t really my specialty.”
Mudor scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed.
Hearing this, Roland suddenly thought of John Wick (not really), who was currently somewhere beneath Arasaka.
“There might be some people who can help you, but it’ll take some time.”
Roland stroked his chin and smiled.
“For now, you can go rest, Mudor. Take good care of yourself—and preferably get Soraka to check you out.”
Yes, Roland had already exchanged for a medical robot prototype from the Source Code series, the kind that could be mass-produced. Among them, the support-type robot Soraka had been developed separately.
Compared to powerhouses like Lissandra, Soraka and the others weren’t particularly strong in combat, and their AI processing power wasn’t especially high either—at least by PROJECT-world standards.
But against ordinary AIs in a cyberpunk setting, they were still overwhelming.
“Understood, boss.”
Mudor nodded and ended the call. He planned to get a good, long sleep.
Roland nodded in satisfaction. His concern about Mudor overworking himself was genuine—employees this dedicated were far too rare. Not to mention… Mudor was someone he had personally exchanged for.
Soon, Roland arrived at Mudor’s experimental base by AV and slowly walked up to the cultivation chamber.
Light’s scanning system indicated that the figure inside had vital signs, but Roland knew very well that it was nothing more than an empty shell without consciousness.
“Lissandra, classify this place as top secret and seal it. Set up a firewall—don’t let any Rogue AIs slip in here.”
Roland turned and gave Lissandra a firm instruction.
After all, the thing in front of him—once completed—would essentially be another existence fitted with a PROJECT template, and a brand-new template at that.
Even if it failed… just looking at it made Roland itch to slap a template onto it. He found it extremely tempting.
Recently, he had been planning to exchange for a new template altogether. This time, he intended to bring out Zed—and he didn’t plan on preserving the original host’s consciousness.
He would let Zed log in directly. As for why… it was simple. Could there be anyone in the PROJECT world more loyal to PROJECT Corporation than Zed?
Probably not. Zed was the very definition of absolute loyalty to PROJECT Corporation.
Roland loved talents like that—no need to worry about loyalty, no need to worry about capability. A perfect assassin.
The only issue was that he’d need to keep some distance when exchanging Zed. After all, he was currently using Light’s template. If Zed came out, scanned him, and attacked without hesitation…
…that would be disastrous. Roland didn’t think he could compare to a genuine PROJECT operative.
Especially since he hadn’t seen much real combat himself—when he did fight, it was usually against low-level opponents. If he crossed tiers in battle… he might very well get cut down like chopping vegetables.
Author's Note
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