Sakiko Toyokawa's life had indeed gotten better, but the people around her were getting more and more abstract and strange.
As various companies proliferated within Academy City, a strange trend of adding limbs emerged, with a focus on more tentacles and more limbs. This trend was driven by people's desire to have their bodies better assist them in their work. However, adding too many limbs quickly led to a loss of balance, which in turn necessitated enhancing one's perceptual abilities.
At the same time, more people were inclined to internalize their Stigma Battlesuits. In contrast, Mr. Welt's attempt to create a Stigma Battlesuit that used quantum storage to maintain an external human form was considered aesthetically conservative.
Those who supported adding limbs did so because the modification cost was cheap and didn't require much maintenance; if a limb broke, you could just replace it with a new one. Those who supported Stigma Battlesuit storage had a simpler reason: one of the biggest reasons was that it looked good. Another reason was that by controlling the Stigma, one could form a wondrous ability similar to using Honkai Energy to control objects.
However, this method was costly and slow to take effect, not even as good as directly using Honkai Energy to control tools like mecha equipment. So, most people preferred to carry autonomous robots to handle their work.
This was thanks to Dr. Einstein's promotion, which allowed for better use of portable Honkai Energy to assist people in their daily lives.
Sakiko Toyokawa really wanted one of these little things. They looked round and quite cute, and they were a great help at work.
The young girl was now very grateful that these little things hadn't replaced her job yet, mainly because some of the questions customers asked were too private to be acquired by them.
But Sakiko Toyokawa felt that this privacy protection was meaningless, because the boss would centralize and record everyone's purchase history based on tax returns and other issues. In the end, it was still as if there was no privacy.
Difficulties were difficulties, and troubles were troubles.
But Sakiko Toyokawa's life had to go on. She really envied those who could use Stigma Battlesuits normally. However, even so, latecomers who wanted to learn to use Stigma Battlesuits had to follow the path of the seniors step by step.
Social entertainment activities like music were completely crushed by the new era.
Saki-chan didn't even know what the point of what she had learned over the years was. It turned out that others could just modify their bodies a bit, then go to the Stigma Space for some deep learning, and it would be all sorted out.
The idol industry died an even more thorough death. Those idols were crushed by the androids in one fell swoop.
What was crushed wasn't actually the industry, but their fans. The idols who provided emotional value were completely wiped out by the androids. If music groups and the like still had some technical requirements, then the idol thing was a complete failure, not even as attractive as the AI robots created by Anti-Entropy.
Along with them disappeared the adult entertainment industry and others.
Even moe-type 2D anime faced the tragic fate of a major decline and death.
Saki, of course, didn't understand any of this. She was just a waitress, and her daily routine was occasionally playing with these small autonomous robots.
Happiness was that simple.
---||---
Chen Tianwu had also returned to the shop. He had received a rather large order from Shenzhou. The purpose was to import a batch of suitable androids, though the people from Shenzhou didn't specify what for.
He heard it was to prepare a batch specifically for work like teaching and engineering, for example, for those who were not suitable to go, or even found it difficult to live in, the remote mountains.
Chen Tianwu felt this was a bit troublesome. Why not just directly use consciousness infusion and modification? It would save the extra work in education.
But the android orders earned more, so as a middleman, he naturally chose the android orders.
"Saki, call a batch of autonomous robots, and by the way, check our recent orders. Many countries are now boycotting organ replacement technology, and many believe these technologies will become tools to control the people. How ridiculous! As if I don't know this is a tool to control the common people!"
"If their local people weren't more vicious, how could our Academy City infiltrate? How could Academy City's ideas spread? There must be local people to serve as a foil so that we can penetrate deeper into their hearts!"
Chen Tianwu sneered and said to Saki, "The more we earn, the harder our punches will hit them later. Every penny spent by a local official will sooner or later turn into a Honkai bomb hitting them!"
Sakiko Toyokawa's expression was very subtle. She hadn't expected the outside world to be in such dire straits. She wondered if the resisting common people would be re-ignited with a wave of nationalism and patriotism if they heard the cheers of the people from Academy City.
But it was probably impossible. Even the people of the Far East couldn't love the Far East anymore. A single-ethnic nation with such high purity couldn't withstand the infiltration of Academy City, let alone the world outside.
'There are advantages to getting in early. At least I don't have to know if I'll have my consciousness infused one day.'
Sakiko Toyokawa became more and more determined. She didn't want to become one of those people in the backwoods. Even when discussing education, they were considering directly infusing consciousness into those people.
Chen Tianwu also seemed to have been completely unable to tolerate the traditional educational methods of changing people's actions after working in Academy City for a long time.
Since education reform had failed, labor reform had failed, and social reform had failed, she wondered if one day they would welcome the failure of consciousness infusion reform.
As for whether others would have such a day, she didn't know, but Chen Tianwu definitely didn't want to have such a day himself.
So he especially cherished the opportunity to advance within Academy City.
The current Chen Tianwu had already joined the biomechanical modification experiment, contributing his precious yet cheap human body for the progress of humanity.
Young people were just more receptive to new things. Now he didn't even think that modifying the body needed to consider whether one was still human. He only knew that after modifying his body, he was almost crushing people from the outside in terms of strength. No one could refuse a body with stronger and more lasting combat power.
"The autonomous robots are ready."
Saki had no intention of chatting with the boss. Whatever Chen Tianwu instructed her to do with the shop, she would just do it.
"My sister will be coming over to adapt for a while. If she asks anything, just tell her. I've also told her not to interfere with the work before she comes. After she adapts at school for a while, I'll arrange for her to work in the shop."
After giving his instructions, Chen Tianwu quickly left. Before he left, he gave Saki an extra sum of points for taking care of his sister.
Saki looked at the extra points in her account. After a quick calculation, she found that she had enough money to buy a new type of Stigma Battlesuit. She just didn't know what kind of change this Stigma Battlesuit would bring her.
Should she choose the Welt style? Or the Kaslana style?