The spacecraft returned to the resource collection station and descended onto a landing pad. A worker stood nearby, holding a tab in one hand, tapping it with growing impatience. He was bored with his job and wished that others would hurry up and leave.
The door hissed open.
Solus stepped out first, helping Gaia walk. She could barely stand on her own. Their suits were stained with blood, and the stench permeated the air, drawing the attention of others. Workers' deaths were not uncommon, but that team had been working for a long time without incident and had a good reputation. So a small crowd had gathered near the landing pad.
"Is that Gaia? What the hell happened to her?"
"Her eyes... did she lose them?"
"Wait—isn't that the new guy?"
The news spread quickly, and when the manager who introduced Solus to them heard about it, he rushed over.
"Move! Move aside! Let me through!"
The workers parted.
The manager froze at the sight. Solus was supporting Gaia like dead weight. Her face was vacant. Dried blood trailed down from her eyes. Her mouth hung open like she had forgotten how to close it.
"What happened? Where are the rest of them?"
"They're dead," Solus replied.
"What?! How is that even possible? That planet was in no danger, and the safe zone was vast. How did they die?!"
"Monsters attacked us out of nowhere. Others were killed while fighting. We barely managed to survive."
The manager's gaze shifted to Gaia.
"What happened to her?"
"I believe she is traumatized by the loss of others. We should give her some time to recover."
"...Right." The manager exhaled and waved for help. "Take her to the infirmary."
A pair of medics jogged forward. They carefully took Gaia from Solus. Her body was limp and she didn't react.
As they carried her away, the manager turned back to Solus. His voice dropped to a quieter tone.
"I put you with them because they were supposed to be the safest. This... wasn't supposed to happen."
He expected Solus to panic, maybe shed tears. But Solus stood still.
The manager sighed. "You don't have to keep working after this. It's normal to back out after something like this."
Solus just nodded faintly. "I am fine."
Others nearby looked skeptical. One of them whispered, "He should be in the infirmary too. His arm is torn up."
"Should we stop him?" another asked.
The manager shook his head. "Let him go. He had already seen enough. Get his bank details for the compensation."
Solus exited the station and boarded a train before getting to the elevator station. He then ascended to the living surface and returned to his house, keeping a poker face throughout. He did not want any signs of suspicion or other indicators that could lead to his capture.
When he arrived home, he went straight to his lab and began working on the new parts he had acquired. The new cybernetic eye he recently received had a stock system that needed to be replaced. If he installed his own, he would only see black and white lines.
So he opened his system and began adding new functionalities. Fortunately, color detection open-source programs were freely available online, and he installed one on his system. Otherwise, he would have had to write several million additional lines of code for it.
After polishing and refining his system, he linked both cybernetic eyes and installed the new system. He then removed his biological eye and replaced it with a new cybernetic eye.
Both were working flawlessly with the new system, allowing him to see everything as if he had human eyes, and they displayed a wealth of information on the subject he focused on. The vision was perfect. High resolution, accurate color, depth detection, and full HUD overlay.
Wherever he looked, data followed. Temperature., distance, structural weaknesses, heart rate if someone stood close enough and many more.
With all of that, he had reached Type 0.9. It was faster than he expected, but the pace would slow dramatically from there. The path to Type 2 was ten times more difficult than Type 1. Every decimal increase now meant exponential complexity, more calculations and more systems to manage.
Solus' cybernetic arms and legs were functional, but he needed to use them to their full potential. They now relied on his brain's reaction time and did as he said. But that created a bottleneck. The human brain, no matter how fast it was, suffered from latency when compared to raw code.
To take it a step further, he would require a microchip implanted in his brain specifically for those arms and legs, much like a separate brain.
First, he needed to create a functioning operating system for the chip. One that wouldn't just interpret signals, but predict them. Translate intention into action before the brain finishes the thought. He sat back down in his chair and used his cybernetic fingers to write as quickly as possible. Unlike the previous time, he was more concentrated and could write hundreds of thousands of words per minute.
Lines and lines of code were typed on the screen as he stared at it with no breaks, no pauses and no bugs. Memory optimization, interrupt handling, muscle group response queues—every possible sublayer of code came together like he had written it a thousand times before.
After almost eight hours of continuous typing, he stopped. Smoke rose from his fingers as the heat regulators struggled to cool the joints. His fingertips were blackened and warped from friction, but didn't care.
The operating system was done. Over ten million lines of code, compiled into a lightweight but fully reactive neural system, now sat inside the chip that he was about to implant in his brain.
He could not perform brain surgery on himself, so he had to rely on his fragile robotic frame, which was stored in one corner. When he booted his pre-stored consciousness from his computer, he connected to the robot and began moving.
Solus, in the main body, lay on a table after injecting himself with an anesthetic syringe. Even though he did not usually care about pain, he could not ignore it this time because the brain was a vital organ. Even a minor accidental movement could result in serious injury.
When he lost consciousness, the robot picked up the tools with calculated hands and cut open the back of his head with a surgical laser, retracting bone plates and exposing the neural cavity. The chip slid into place smoothly, with no resistance.
Eventually, the surgery finished without failure. The tools were returned to their sterilization chamber. Solus watched his own body through the cameras as it lay on the table.
After a few minutes, he awoke in his main body, while his consciousness in the computer shut down.
The chip he inserted worked exactly as he expected. He could still move his arms and legs as he pleased because his brain prioritized first, but it was unnecessary. The chip was also linked to his mind. It could read the signals, interpret impulse patterns, and control the limbs before a complete thought formed.
The chip was a minor upgrade that elevated him to Type 1, but his custom-built system was far more useful than any other high-grade cybernetic components. In reality, he had quickly progressed to Type 1.1.
"They say winning a competition is not about the prize, but about the fame. They are wrong. It is only about the prize. What is the point of fame? Will it feed me if I am hungry? Will you stand by me if I fail? No. The crowd will forget about you the day after you win. They will not remember your face, let alone your name.
"They preach that fame is everything because they cannot afford a real prize. And when confronted, they will say, 'Money is not the issue!' So, why was the reward worthless before? When their mask slips, money no longer matters. They will spend fortunes cleaning up their image, but if you threaten them first, they will refuse until their death."
He stared blankly at the computer screen, looking at his reflection. Then, he noticed the notification from the resource collection station. It was from the manager.
[Gaiya has taken her own life in the infirmary. I was not sure how to tell you this, but I felt you needed to know. Take care of yourself and do not rush. You do not need to force yourself to work.]
Solus noticed another notification below it. It was from a bank. The company paid him 10,000 Lins as compensation. He smirked faintly.
"Why win when you can make others lose? It is more fun to watch them fail than to win yourself."