Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

Now, she's not only creative, but she's even unconsciously starting to imitate the optimized details in the AI ​​works that imitate her when she's painting.

This is what she finds most humiliating—her proud skills were stolen and copied, and then the other party surpassed her. How could she not feel suffocating frustration and humiliation when she saw products that could create the skills she had painstakingly honed over the years simply by tapping a keyboard and clicking a button to 'cast a spell'?

She did try to compete, directly confronting these copy-and-paste 'painters' online, but it only led to worse results—seemingly in response to the provocation, the website recently produced a massive number of perfectly replicated illustrations of Eri Kashiwagi.

Perhaps her painstakingly crafted works can surpass these 'soulless' creations, but when you can only produce one or two pieces a month, while someone else can produce hundreds of similar-quality works in an hour, you've already lost.

A wave of indescribable emotions accumulated in her chest like a blockage in her airway; the slight rise and fall of her chest reflected the frustration and discomfort of wanting to cry but being unable to.

"Eri, are you alright? I heard something smash."

"It's nothing! It's just... it's just not drawn well!" She shouted towards the door, her voice trembling and choked with sobs.

She didn't want her family to see her in this disheveled state, especially her supportive parents. She was the genius illustrator Kashiwagi Eri, the teacher adored at Comiket—how could she…how could she lose to a cold, impersonal program?

Just as she was feeling frustrated and helpless, her phone on the table vibrated at an inopportune moment. The screen displayed a familiar name. Eriri took a deep breath, tried to calm herself down, and then swiped to answer the call.

"Eri-ri—! Huge good news! Our game development has progressed! No, it has evolved! It has been elevated! I've found a secret weapon that can make 'Cherry Blessing' a timeless masterpiece!" On the other end of the phone, Aki Tomoya's voice was as high-pitched as if he had been injected with chicken blood.

Eriri's temples throbbed, and she said impatiently, "What's wrong with you, you good-for-nothing Tomoya, what's gotten into you now?"

"Stop talking nonsense, you and your senior need to get there right now! Let me tell you, this is absolutely revolutionary! With this, we'll never have to worry about your senior's deadlines again, or your drawing problems! This is a boon for all creators! It's the future of the industry!"

Aki Tomoya's voice was filled with blind optimism and fanaticism, but it instilled a strange sense of panic in Eriri.

"Wait, you wouldn't be...?"

Before Eriri could finish speaking, the phone was hung up. She had a very bad feeling. Could it be that the "secret weapon" that idiot Tomoya was talking about was the very thing she least wanted to hear about?

She grabbed her coat from the chair, flung open the door, and rushed out, her twin ponytails drawing two angry golden arcs in the air.

Inside the doujin game club at Toyonosaki Private School, Aki Tomoya sat upright with a missionary-like, solemn expression on his face.

As soon as Eriri reached the door, she heard Aki Tomoya's almost fanatical voice coming from inside.

"I never expected VOX Technology to suddenly announce the open-sourcing of their AI software, senior! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

"Our club's game will be ready soon!"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

P.S.: This Friday is a test update; once it passes, regular updates will resume—however, updates may slow down before Friday, so sorry, there might only be one update before Friday.

Having transmigrated, my only purpose is to kill, kill, kill! : 13. Relationships that break down easily without even needing to appear on screen.

"Is this the reason you summoned us, Rinri-kun?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha gracefully sat down opposite Tomoya, arms crossed, her long, shapely legs crossed, black pantyhose outlining her perfect curves. Although she spoke with a smile, her expression towards Aki Tomoya was quite ominous.

Eriri Sawamura slammed her bag on the table with a "bang," sat down angrily, and glared at the person in front of her with her bright green eyes, as if she wanted to burn two holes in him.

This time, Aki Tomoya didn't give a long speech; instead, he excitedly turned his laptop towards them.

"Look! VOX-Genesis AI! VOX Technology's free and open-source creative assistance AI! This is simply a gift from the gods to us creators!"

On the screen was the interface that Shiwa and Eriri were both extremely familiar with. The VOX logo was flashing at the top, and below were several functional modules: "Novel Generation", "Illustration Generation", "Music Generation", and "Voice Actor Synthesis".

But just as Aki Tomoya said—

This AI software, which was originally used internally, was suddenly open-sourced this morning without any warning!

Prior to this, VOX-Genesis AI opted for closed development and had no intention of open-sourcing it.

Although the Western scientific community has been dissatisfied with this and has been putting pressure on the country through its government, the Japanese government has remained strangely steadfast in its stance on this matter, determined to protect VOX Technology.

Open-sourcing AI is actually a very beneficial practice for training AI big data models. Open-sourcing AI software is not only a way to recoup cash and subsidize development costs, but also a way to use the big data input by netizens for free to train AI.

While a closed environment can ensure the confidentiality of AI data and the stability of the model itself, it is inherently much weaker in terms of training and upgrading large datasets. Therefore, most AI companies that develop AI choose to open-source their secondary AI technologies for internet users.

Previously, VOX-Genesis AI was in a completely closed environment. Not only was it not open source, but it also closed the channel for paying for private deployment. Only after passing the group's review and signing a large number of contracts would the creators signed by the website be allowed to download, deploy and use it.

Even in such a closed environment, VOX-Genesis AI still showed an almost abnormal speed of evolution. Both its level of innovation and the stability of its data models have remained excellent. Furthermore, VOX Technology has never shown any signs of cash shortage, and has not issued any new shares since its IPO.

Besides causing an uproar on Wall Street, it also makes people wonder how many large financial groups are behind it to provide such a stable cash flow.

Traditional creators like Kasumigaoka Utaha and Sawamura Eriri should be grateful for this situation.

VOX Technology's mere opening of its data model to some of the contracted creators on its multimedia platforms has already had such a huge impact on them. If it were completely open source, traditional creators like them would probably be like workers during the Industrial Revolution, symbolically launching one or two Luddite movements—futile and powerless resistances—before being easily crushed.

And now, the nightmare has come true.

Before Vox-Genesis AI, the artificial intelligence that humans saw was nothing more than an exhaustive search machine, but it has already won the admiration and amazement of countless people with its software itself.

This artificial intelligence software is already a star in the capital market and the center of world opinion. Countless people, countless eyes, and countless news stories have been focused on it!

For several months, only relevant internal personnel could use the software, but even so, the explosive reaction brought about by the videos and the massive amount of content generated kept companies around the world eager to try it.

However, the smear campaign and doubts have never stopped, especially since VOX Technology has consistently refused to open-source its software, leading many online voices to believe that it is just a scam commonly used in the capital market.

At that very moment, all the problems suddenly disappeared.

VOX Technology suddenly announced the fully open-source policy of VOX-Genesis AI at 6:06:06 this morning.

Completely open source, the latest model is released directly to the market, and users only need to pay 6,000 yen to obtain 66 days of unlimited use.

This news almost instantly exploded in global public opinion, causing strong turmoil and reactions in stock markets around the world. Wall Street lost tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in just one morning. Countless companies saw their stocks plummet or even went bankrupt and were liquidated. At the same time, countless project teams within large companies were on the verge of collapse as they watched their hard-won development results fall apart.

The world was already abuzz with this news, with everyone discussing VOX Technology, their products, and the mysterious president of VOX Technology—Tsugumi.

Of course, these grand narratives have little to do with Kasumigaoka Utaha and Eriri. All they need to know is that their future in the creative industry will likely be even more difficult—either they join or they are eliminated.

The fact that they only found out about such important news now explains why they were eliminated...

And what about Tomoya Aki?

As an ordinary man, from the perspective of the general public, all he felt was joy and excitement.

He's an otaku with a fairly popular blog, but he's not exactly a literary creator. His dream job is to be a game developer, which isn't exactly a typical content production field either.

Is VOX-Genesis AI, a near-perfect AI software, a bad thing for him? No, it's amazing, absolutely amazing!

He wanted to create a game, even if it was just a visual novel with little production difficulty, but for him alone, it was an almost impossible goal.

Text, illustrations, voice-over, music, and programming—it would take him a considerable amount of time to handle all of these by himself. Moreover, he would have to learn everything from scratch; otherwise, he couldn't possibly create something he wouldn't approve of using publicly available materials.

The creation of indie games is a fertile ground for creativity and ideas. Many indie games that have achieved great success despite their limited budgets, surpassing AAA titles, have succeeded through gameplay and innovation. However, in other aspects, whether it's art or programming, these are the biggest hurdles that indie creators need to overcome.

That's why Aki Tomoya shamelessly dragged two girls into his 'club' to make games. He was a complete novice who knew almost nothing about it. Even though he claimed to be the planner, producer, director, scriptwriter, and plot creator, he was actually dispensable most of the time.

Now, he doesn't have to worry about that problem anymore!

Script? Text? Aki Tomoya always felt that neither his senior nor he himself could write down the 'genius ideas' in his head, but the AI ​​produced hundreds of texts in a short time, allowing him to sift out the one he was most satisfied with!

Illustrations? Drawings? That's no problem for AI! Just input the art style you like, add keywords, and AI can generate enough illustrations to support an entire visual novel in a single day!

And voice acting is no problem at all. This problem, which he used to find the most troublesome, is no problem at all with AI!

Want the voice of a famous voice actor? Just input their voice and they'll provide you with a voice exactly like the original. If you're worried about copyright issues, just combine several voice sources with similar vocal qualities, and the AI ​​will create a voice source that's perfectly satisfactory and won't violate any laws!

The final programming issue was even more laughable. Even if it couldn't compare to the top programmers, the program framework of a text adventure game was something that AI could do without thinking.

Therefore, when all the above conditions are combined—

Aki Tomoya suddenly realized that he could create the galgame he envisioned all by himself.

So he immediately and excitedly shared his discovery with his two friends.

But as he was talking non-stop, he completely failed to notice the increasingly cold looks in the eyes of the two girls in front of him.

Listening to Aki Tomoya's story, Kasumigaoka Utaha's eyes dimmed, and the smile on her lips vanished. Eriri, on the other hand, nearly jumped up from her seat like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, pointing at him and yelling at him.

"Idiot! Fool! You called us here just to see this? What big data model? This is nothing but a piece of software that steals other people's work!"

Aki Tomoya was taken aback for a moment, but even he, slow to realize, understood the reason for the person in front of him's anger. Then, he displayed his extraordinary wisdom and spoke...

"Thief is such a nasty word, Eriri. AI generates entirely new content by learning from massive amounts of data! And to be honest, Eriri, you don't draw entirely on your own, do you?"

"You'll always have ideas about referencing other people's paintings, but if you really want to authenticate them, how many completely original works are there in the world?"

Eriri's face turned very ugly. She was about to speak when Kasumigaoka Utaha stopped her.

"Rinri-kun." Her voice was soft, still gentle, yet carrying a calm chill.

"So you mean we're no longer needed?"

"Uh, no, senior, that's not what I meant," Aki Tomoya stammered.

"What I mean is, there's no need for you to be so resistant to using AI. With your abilities, seniors, plus AI assistance, you'll definitely be able to create even greater works..."

"What exactly makes it such a great work?" Kasumigaoka Utaha's beautiful eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a dangerous glint.

"Rinri-kun, what kind of work did you create? Can you show it to us?"

"Of course!" As if encouraged, Lun immediately clicked on the "Novel Generation" results display.

"Look, senior! I input the world view, character settings, and several key plot points we discussed before into it, and then I used your novel as a template for reference... Ta-da! In just ten minutes, it generated a full 50,000 words of main plot for me! The writing is delicate and the emotions are rich, it's practically exactly the same as what you wrote yourself!"

He enthusiastically pushed the screen in front of Shiho. Shiho's gaze swept over the text; the familiar sentence structure and word choice, the descriptions of inner thoughts, even some of her previous, less mature, and somewhat flawed word choices... it was indeed as if she had written it herself.

But she only felt intense nausea—the words she had poured so much effort into had been turned into something like this.

Her fingers tightened subtly under the table, her nails digging deeply into her palms. But her face remained calm, even bearing a faint smile—a smile devoid of warmth.

"Really? Then what do you need me to do, Mr. Renri? Correct the errors and rhetoric of the texts you generated? Why don't you just hire someone to do it!"

"None of them are as suitable as you, senior!" Aki Tomoya said without hesitation.

"And Eriri too, there are indeed some minor issues with the generated images that you could help me fix..."

"An... Yi... Lun... Ye!"

Eriri's voice trembled, not from excitement, but from anger. Her face was flushed red, her chest heaved violently, and her emerald green eyes even welled up with tears.

She jumped up, slamming her hands heavily on the table, making the cups and plates rattle. Then she forcefully wiped away her tears and glared fiercely at Aki Tomoya.

"I don't want to see you again! You can make your own crappy game using that lousy AI! We're finished! This club is disbanding today!"

After saying that, she rushed out of the restaurant without looking back, while Kasumigaoka Utaha looked at him with disappointment, turned around and left without saying a word.

Aki Tomoya sat there blankly, staring at the "perfect" drawings and text on his laptop, his face filled with confusion and bewilderment. He had no idea how things had turned out this way.

Back in her apartment, Kasumigaoka Utaha collapsed heavily onto her bed. She buried her face in the soft pillows, not wanting to think about anything. Today's events had drained all her energy, leaving only a deep-seated weariness and emptiness.

This man, whom she once found both silly and interesting, has today completely exposed his true nature as a consumer. Like most people, he doesn't respect creators at all; he only wants to see products that satisfy his own needs.

No, at this point he didn't even love the works themselves; he only loved the fantasy in his mind that was pieced together from countless fragments of the works.