[Task: Witness Raiden Ryoma's imprisonment. Reward: 300 Crystals, A-rank Stigmata Selection Box x1]
[Task Status: Completed]
After seeing the information from the system interface, the smile on Lucius's face could no longer be suppressed.
"Hehe!"
Seeing this, Mei found it strange.
"Father, why are you laughing for no reason?"
"I just thought of something funny." Lucius waved his hand, brushing the matter aside, then directed Mei's attention to another issue. "By the way, Mei, what's this surprise you mentioned?"
Lucius accompanying Mei around below MEI Corp wasn't for a stroll, of course. He had originally planned to discuss some matters with Teacher V, but before he could communicate with her, Mei had pulled him out first.
Saying she had a surprise for him.
"This... I'll keep it secret for now." The corners of Mei's mouth rose high, like a child preparing to show off a new toy to friends. "When we get to the laboratory, Father will know."
"I guarantee this will absolutely surprise you, Father."
Looking at the joy on Mei's face, Lucius keenly noticed that compared to when he first met her, Mei seemed much more cheerful. If before she was somewhat gloomy and inhuman, now she was much healthier and sunnier.
No matter what, it should be a good thing.
Seeing Mei had no intention of revealing the so-called surprise, he accompanied her to the laboratory while discussing the progress of various MEI Corp tasks during this period.
Thanks to being able to obtain crystals from Mei's three meals every day, over several months he had accumulated quite a considerable income.
Lucius wasn't a hoarder and had no habit of stockpiling crystals, so after setting aside crystal reserves to ensure he could guard the Nagazora City plot, he exchanged most of the accumulated crystals in the system store for various technologies and knowledge.
After converting these technologies, the various engineering equipment produced greatly accelerated the construction of St. Freya Academy City Cluster.
At least the residents living in Nagazora City could see truckloads of industrial raw materials entering MEI Corp's factory area almost every moment during this period, followed by engineering mechs flying toward the sea outside Nagazora City.
In the sea outside the Far East, at the place Lucius had circled on the map, the construction of St. Freya was proceeding in full swing.
"Father, regarding MEI Corp's income during this period, I think it's necessary to report to you."
At this moment, Mei was like a competent secretary. After adjusting her glasses, she said: "During this period, we've developed new technology, manufactured engineering mechs, reclaimed land from the sea... the expenditure has been huge."
Lucius roughly knew what Mei was worried about, but unfortunately, for him, MEI Corp wasn't actually important. Using MEI Corp to build St. Freya was what mattered.
"No matter how much more money we need to invest, we must continue construction."
However, after hearing Lucius's words, Mei smiled at his side.
"Father thought I was dissuading you? No, although we haven't made much money during this period, we actually haven't lost money either."
"We haven't lost money?" Lucius felt strange.
You had to know that the cost of land reclamation wasn't a small amount. To build St. Freya, he was prepared to throw all of MEI Corp into it.
"Land reclamation is indeed a huge expense, but besides this enormous expenditure, we also have quite considerable income."
"For some reason, the United Government seems to have very high demand for these engineering mechs, not even lower than military mechs."
"They placed a large order with us not long ago. Adding various technology licensing fees, at least in the short term we won't have funding problems. If there are no other extra expenditures, we might even have some surplus."
Listening to Mei's explanation, Lucius thought about it and found that he might have accidentally stumbled onto a money-making path.
Once the great Eruption broke out, buildings would definitely collapse in waves. Those Honkai beasts' home-wrecking abilities were much stronger than huskies.
So, very strangely, the outbreak of Honkai disasters actually gave civil engineering a second spring.
"This is truly a hell of a joke."
Lucius sighed. Although he could get support from Eden, it still surprised him a bit that MEI Corp could actually make money.
Could it be that Eden had some underlying design that absolutely wouldn't lose money?
Not dwelling on this question, Lucius continued to the laboratory with Mei. At this time, Mei said again:
"However, Father, although we temporarily have no problems with funding, there are some troubles in other areas."
"Oh, what troubles?"
Mei hugged the book in her arms and adjusted her glasses:
"After our project in the sea outside Nagazora City started, animal, plant, and ocean protection organizations came to us."
"They said our project damaged the marine environment and caused huge harm to animals and plants in the sea, demanding we stop construction."
"Our PR department is currently arguing with them."
Hearing Mei's words, Lucius's expression became strange.
"Looks like we've touched on certain people's interests... Just give them some money to send them away. Sigh... I hope they'll show some respect."
In front of Mei, Lucius didn't finish speaking, but in his heart, he had already decided.
If these people didn't show him respect... he felt the land reclamation project for St. Freya Academy City Cluster would need some human foundation stones.
Since they loved nature and small animals so much, why not go accompany them at the bottom of the sea forever?
Sigh, he was truly so kind-hearted...
Thinking this, Lucius and Mei entered a spacious building. This was the exclusive laboratory he had prepared for Mei.
Entering the door, along the way he saw disassembled firearm parts, unsealed life-size armor, giant robot skeletons, bizarre biological tissue soaking in culture tanks...
As an all-around scientist, Mei was involved in various fields.
He knew Mei liked tinkering with various strange things, but he didn't ask about them.
Although Mei was also a genius with world-shocking intelligence, with her current healthy and sunny personality, she probably wouldn't tinker with anything that would make people's hearts stop, right?
Soon, following Mei's footsteps, Lucius passed through a long corridor and came to a somewhat messy, spacious hall.
Thick cables fell from the dome, exposed in the air, connected to a ring-shaped machine in the center of the hall.
This strange machine was ring-shaped, nested layer by layer from inside to outside, constantly rotating. The connected cables on it flickered with a glimmering blue light.
"Mei, is this the surprise you're giving me?" Lucius looked at the ring-shaped machine before him. "What is this thing?"
Mei glanced at it and casually answered:
"Just a quantum computer. Nothing special."
"This is the surprise you're giving me?"
Mei shook her head.
"No, Father. Ordinary computers can't meet my requirements, so I modified one myself. This isn't the surprise I want to give you."
While saying this, Mei walked to a large screen behind this computer.
Casually taking out a virtual keyboard, her ten fingers typed rapidly on the keyboard. Soon, the screen lit up.
A string of characters of 0s and 1s flowed down the screen like a waterfall. The characters on the screen formed a Q-version face.
A string of text appeared on the screen.
[Hello, my creator.]
[AI 'Unnamed' at your service.]
Lucius looked at the screen, then looked at Mei whose little face was slightly raised.
"Father, this is the super AI I completed according to your requirements."
"With it controlling the mechs, our St. Freya Academy City Cluster construction speed will rise to another level. At the same time, it can also serve as my research assistant, helping me handle some tedious matters."
"However, right now it's just a seed. Its cognition of the world depends on the information we instill in it."
"This is the surprise."
Lucius remembered previously giving Mei programming books and having her try to create Prometheus.
"It's still unnamed... meaning it doesn't have a name yet?"
"I thought it should be Father who names it."
To this, Lucius naturally wouldn't be polite. He had Mei create this artificial intelligence for this moment.
So he said to the screen:
"From now on, your name is 'Bronya'."
[Bronya... loaded. I am Bronya.]
[...]
Beep~
Lucius stared at the screen while looking at the system interface.
But unfortunately, there was no reaction.
Lucius sighed. After thinking, he said again: "No, on second thought, your name should be 'Prometheus'."
[...]
[Prometheus... loaded. Now, I am Prometheus.]
And after this text displayed on the screen, the system interface finally changed.
[Main storyline character detected: Prometheus - Terminal Administrator 0017]
After seeing the information displayed on the system, Lucius's heart finally died.
Good news: The system did recognize it as Prometheus.
Bad news: It could only be Prometheus.
The system didn't seem to consider Bronya and Prometheus as counterparts, but rather as two independent characters.
And to find Bronya from the starter trio, he still needed to think of other methods.
Lucius sighed inwardly, but wasn't too disappointed. This showed the importance of preparing several backup plans.
Fortunately, he still had another idea.
---
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