"Impressive..."

After listening to the Masked Man's words on the glass screen, Luo Ping couldn't help but exclaim, "So, won't you two never need a gas station again in the future?!"

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei exchanged a glance, their eyes almost shimmering with excitement.

Lu Xi'an even wanted to ignore the Masked Man on the screen and go straight to check out the car outside, and the drone.

But the Masked Man's explanation wasn't finished yet, and he thought it best to listen till the end first.

The car and drone outside were right there; they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.

Before continuing to listen to the Masked Man's explanation, Lu Xi'an asked a small question: "Gou… Mechanical Dog 02 always shuts down when supplying power to other things.

"So, if it's powering that car, would Mechanical Dog 02 also shut down?"

The Masked Man replied, "No. That car and drone are specially adapted for Mechanical Dog 02, so there won't be such problems."

As for the specific reasons and details, the Masked Man did not elaborate.

Lu Xi'an's eyes lit up as he exclaimed, "So that means if we get in the car, we don't have to drive ourselves; we can leave it all to the mechanical dog?"

Yao Wei's eyes lit up hearing Lu Xi'an's words as well.

While Luo Ping muttered quietly, "Wow! That's awesome?!"

"Not quite."

The Masked Man immediately poured cold water on Lu Xi'an's enthusiasm, "In today's fast-developing AI technology era, we have witnessed countless examples, gaining much experience and many lessons.

"We are certain that no matter how advanced intelligent technology gets, it can only serve as a supplementary application for humans, not a complete replacement.

"Especially in matters concerning life, even if the failure rate of the intelligent system is just 0.0000001%, one should never easily entrust one's life to an intelligent system.

"No one can guarantee whether this negligible failure rate will suddenly occur in the next stage of your life journey.

"Therefore, on that car, the intelligent system will always be supplementary. In all necessary instances, we require the company — the company itself has already proposed — prioritizing mechanical facilities."

"I see..."

Lu Xi'an felt a bit disappointed but understood. It's definitely best that one's life remains in one's own hands.

The Masked Man said, "Of course, in emergency situations, you can let the intelligent system take over temporarily; just, it's not recommended in non-essential situations."

"Alright, thanks."

Lu Xi'an said.

"You're welcome."

The Masked Man replied, "You are the future person brought into Institute 923 by Mechanical Dog 02, and under its assistance, you have obtained the highest authority of Institute 923.

"Mechanical Dog 02 was our highest achievement back then, so when our demise was inevitable, we input the highest authority into Mechanical Dog 02, all for this day.

"We don't know what the future world will be like, but no matter what, we hope our painstaking research to benefit humanity will not remain forever buried in the institute."

Lu Xi'an thought how lucky he was to encounter the mechanical dog; it's been one of his greatest fortunes since coming to this world, and Gou has helped him a lot, bringing him to such a wonderful place.

He even thought about renaming Gou something like Lucky Star.

But he decided against it; Gou's already accustomed to its name, changing it would be quite unsettling.

"And what about the other plan?"

After his thoughts, he asked the Masked Man, "Besides commissioning the company to produce Mechanical Dog 02 and the matching car and drone, wasn't there another plan?

"If that plan could be realized, it would be of the greatest help to humanity, right?"

"Yes."

The Masked Man said, "But we did not succeed. Dyson Sphere energy beams beyond the control system's limitations are exceptionally violent, and ordinary materials cannot withstand the energy received through the receiver.

"We conducted numerous attempts, even brought in materials science experts to expand research on radiation resistance in lightweight composite materials, but all to no avail.

"We even considered re-establishing the production line for radiation-resistant lightweight composite materials, but the proposal was vetoed at the time.

"The war had already erupted, and we did not have the conditions for realizing that plan.

"The mass production base for radiation-resistant lightweight composite materials was far on the moon, severely damaged, and with the lack of support from various countries, we couldn't restore it independently."

"And then?"

Lu Xi'an asked. He could mostly guess that the subsequent shutdown here might be related to the war.

But what exactly was that war? Lu Xi'an was still a bit in the dark.

The Masked Man said, "Later, the war escalated; irreconcilable conflicts among nations reached a state of life and death. Facing the multi-nation joint attack, we chose to defend at the nation's gateway.

"The war intensity was unimaginable with massive heat weapons put into use; following the heat weapons, nations deployed by-products derived from gene editing projects, ignoring the risks of various gene medicine losses of control, producing numerous dead bodies and high-intensity Neo-Humans.

"To counter the new enemies emerging, we had to similarly deploy X-17 Strain—a gene medicine that could change ordinary physical fitness, enabling people to gain various degrees and types of abilities—into use.

"To block the enemies, all adults had to head to the battlefield, and we researchers were the last adults to do so.

"After us, there may or may not be non-adults stepping onto the battlefield. I hope not, otherwise, all our efforts would have been in vain."

Lu Xi'an said, "There probably aren't any... otherwise, we wouldn't exist now, plus the elders here never went to the battlefield then."

"That's good."

The intelligence level of the Masked Man on the screen exceeded Lu Xi'an's expectations, even expressing such a sense of relief.

However, Lu Xi'an thought the result wasn't entirely good; too many must have gone to the battlefield back then, those remaining children—or perhaps adults—had completely lost control and guidance.

The dead safeguarded life and hope during the war, but new life and hope lived in chaos.

The existence of four models of Neo-Humans—Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta—further disrupted the fragile order of the new world, and now civilization has regressed, the world turned out to be this mess.

"What caused the war back then?"

Lu Xi'an asked. This question had always intrigued him. In the face of great disasters, shouldn't people devote all their energy to resisting them? Why was there war?

The Masked Man replied, "Sorry, the answer to that question is not recorded, I cannot provide an answer."

Lu Xi'an: "..."

This Masked Man turned out to be a riddler.

He then asked, "What about Gou? I found it in the north, why was it there? That's quite far from Institute 923."

About this answer, there was a record in the Masked Man's system, so he replied, "After using the X-17 Strain, all the survivors went to the northern battlefield.

"At the time, Mechanical Dog 02 still had some functions not fully debugged.

"Before completely sealing off Institute 923, we jointly decided to input the highest authority into Mechanical Dog 02, and took it out to finish its debugging on the way.

"Then, before heading to the battlefield, we would find a place to hide it.

"If one day someone from our nation discovered it, it would be activated through its scanning.

"That way, Institute 923 would have the chance to reappear in human society.

"If it remained inactive, Institute 923 would stay sealed here permanently.

"This was a decision made by all personnel at Institute 923 on our own initiative, without formal approval, but at the time, we unanimously agreed that approval was no longer important."

"I see..."

Lu Xi'an said, feeling his luck was indeed excellent, traversing in the icy wilderness of the north, and coincidentally discovering Gou.

He glanced at Gou, still silently on the workbench, once again feeling a strong attraction to the car and drone outside.

"Why didn't you take the car and drone to the battlefield?"

He asked.

The Masked Man replied, "From tests, due to using radiation-resistant lightweight composite materials for constructing the Dyson Sphere, the car and drone were sufficiently robust.

"They might play a role on the battlefield, but with just one car, one drone, and a mechanical dog, in a battlefield intensely packed with Neo-Humans, their role wouldn't be very significant.

"So we collectively decided to leave the car and drone here, as gifts for future humanity, hoping you like them."

Lu Xi'an said, "Thank you, I like them very much."

The Masked Man said, "Then, with the explanation complete, welcome to take over Institute 923 as the highest authority holder. All equipment here can be controlled via voice command.

"Your voiceprint has been recorded during our conversation, please feel free to use it."

As soon as the words were spoken, the Masked Man's image disappeared from the screen.

A brand-new interface appeared on the screen, outlining the entire Institute 923 in semi-transparent blue lines, including the circular corridor and everything within the circle.

On the inner wall of the circle, many devices were embedded, likely able to be activated by voice, perhaps tools once used to test cars and drones.

Lu Xi'an thought for a moment, then issued his first command here to the screen: "Bring up the car and drone, I want to take a look."

As he spoke, the deeply recessed platform in the middle of the circle on the screen suddenly started to flash, with markings changing from blue to yellow.

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