He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 107 Singularity

"Singularity Technology" is indispensable to this world. If the eleven principles and their corresponding deities support the present world above this red pool, then the singularity is another great aspect that supports "civilization".

The area outside of Lolanda Hallownest remains a mystery to Ai, but at least under this dome, almost all of humanity's current production activities are supported by a singularity creation called "Heart," which is the source of energy, the eternally burning First Flame, and the industrial heart that forever resides at the pinnacle.

During a casual conversation with Ronan, Ai learned that the "hearth" was not very old, dating back only to the last century.

Initially, its patent holder was the "Heart Council"—or rather, the council officially became independent and gained the power to overturn the table after developing this singularity technology—to the point that it was able to end the early official "association system" and gradually establish its own independent entity until it developed into a true "mysterious regime".

That century was known as the "Century of Illumination," and the singularity creation called "Heart" was built during that period. It was from then on that Hallownest possessed an almost inexhaustible supply of constant energy, and its technology tree began to climb wildly until it became what it is today.

However, everything has multiple sides. Before the hearth was lit, the status of the "bottom hive" was not as awkward as it is now. After all, people at the beginning needed the bottom hive as an input of "raw materials" to supply energy to the whole hive. So at that time, the bottom hive even had trade channels and currency exchange systems with the upper and lower cities.

With the shared issue of energy loss, coupled with the fact that Hallownest had achieved a leap in productivity and replaced its original raw material supply chain at a very low cost, the bottom hive almost lost its value and became a waste dump that could be discarded at any time.

—To move forward while abandoning what is lost—that is the cruelty of civilization.

Later, the Core Council disintegrated, and the Hive entered the post-Foundation era. Due to the immense size of the Core, the incredibly difficult maintenance tasks, the fact that its construction utilized almost the entire power of the Hive, and its extreme significance to humanity—the Foundation could no longer fully possess the rights to use this singularity creation as it had during the Council era.

Therefore, the current furnace core is allocated through a utilization rate system based on "permissions". The Foundation, as the actual owner of the technology and the authority of the mystical world, is the largest "shareholder" of the furnace core, and its actual control is definitely more than 50%, the exact amount is unknown - the rest is divided among other factions.

The "Singularity Technology" that constitutes the main body of the "furnace core" is called: "Type I Arcane Perpetual Motion Mechanism - Final Combustion Engine".

The following are records from the think tank regarding the construction of the "hearth".

—Using the posture of that supreme fire deity as a benchmark, the Nest possesses the power to touch eternity. If possible, the survival of humanity will become a predetermined answer, as long as they remain forever within their shells.

And a sentence upon completion:

-nailed it.

From then on, the fire in the furnace burned forever.

In short, singularity technology is a great thing that allows an entire race, or even a civilization, to use it as a "fulcrum".

Besides the core, the Foundation's other two singularity creations also constantly demonstrate their majesty.

"Think Tank": The corresponding Singularity Technology is "Animal Intelligence Cluster Terminal Management System".

"Hume Tree": The corresponding singularity technology is "Tree Structure Topology All-in-One Protocol Platform".

"Besides me, who else is actually working on the singularity?"

The answer to this question is easy to find with a little thought. Apart from the "Gray" faction that has been trying to wrest influence and power from the foundation, the only other option is the group of "giant corporations".

At the same time, Ai also remembered the significance of the name "Cardinal Industries": a super giant in the physical industrial field that was famous even in the Lower City, one of the five core members of the Upper City Giant Enterprise Alliance, and in terms of overall size—excluding the Foundation, it was one of the top factions in the entire Hive.

Initially, Ai had considered saving up money to buy Dodo a leg prosthetic that would bear their logo. They monopolized almost all practical prosthetic manufacturing, autonomous machine production lines, and even all heavy processing industries in Upper and Lower City.

Even the foundation's "cleaners" wear mostly power armor ordered from them.

"But why Cardinal Industries?"

Ai frowned—it was unexpected that a seemingly powerful figure in the physical industry, instead of focusing on his primary and secondary businesses, was also trying to create a singularity.

—If you're going to rub it in secret, why don't you make a sound? —And why did you even reach all the way down?

Where is he touching?

Your little hands aren't clean.

The fox, who had already considered the bottom nest as its own, snorted twice as if its tail had been stepped on, and fiercely sharpened its tiger teeth, thinking that it would write down this ungrateful giant in its little notebook when it got back.

but----

Thinking of this, Ai chuckled again—regardless of how these bottom-nest people appeared in her home, one thing was certain: no matter what Cardinal Heavy Industries wanted to do, the party they were "connecting" with was definitely not this group of neurotic life-swapping beings.

As for what went wrong in the middle of the process, Ai had some idea. Anyway, as long as it was related to the Mothmans, she would boldly guess as far-fetched as possible. Reality might have logic, but the Mothmans' actions were absolutely illogical.

All we need to know now is the outcome: that guy who was secretly working on the singularity has most likely stumbled, so the opportunity they were seeking for the birth of the "singularity" may not be recovered in time.

Turning her head to glance at these swapped beings, Ai thought for a moment and decided to make one last attempt—to lift the silencing spell on one of the guys who had previously spoken with some logic. The fox held him up in the air with one hand, making eye contact with the prosthetic eye that was glowing red, and then used a spell to connect directly to his soul.

An unbearable dizziness rose from the red liquid, as if forcibly inserted into a chaotic consciousness from a human perspective. Thus, Ai Yi's gray personality, though still unable to resonate with the replaced spirit, at least no longer felt agitated.

The process of searching for a different kind of soul is nothing short of torture.

Even with Xiaobai's assistance, this project was far too abstract—the soul size of the swapped beings was at least two orders of magnitude larger than that of humans, and the part about "memory" was mostly occupied by illogical ramblings and trivial thoughts, making it extremely difficult to extract any useful information from it.

However, there are always ways to cheat – when Ai discovers that the memories of the swapped beings are constantly changing in a state of chaos and disorder, he also uses the "drag the finished ones into the recycle bin" method to combat this "changeability".

The data in the brain is running around everywhere, so first lock the partition, then format each disk after checking it, seal it into a solid using "Light Forging Technique", and then evaporate the useless cranial fluid.

In this way, nothing will be missed—

"Got it—"

Slowly releasing the swapped creature from his hand, he watched as thick smoke billowed from the heat sink at the back of the body's head, accompanied by the stench of burning protein—his intracranial central chip had been burned. The still-functioning physiological structure of this bottom-nest man, along with the alien soul inside him, dissolved and died, before being casually tossed aside by Ai.

"As expected, Cardinal Heavy Industries wasn't waiting for these guys at all—"

He summoned the gray mist and rode it back to the observation platform above. "The real contact was actually a mysterious apprentice—possessing a soul more powerful than that of mortals. He did put up some resistance when he encountered the parasite."

But it didn't work.

"His body and soul have been torn apart by the replaced beings—and the secrets about the singularity have not even reached Cardinal Heavy Industries' ears."

—Oh, this is troublesome.

But it's not my problem.

Ai had a guess: Cardinal Heavy Industries' establishment of influence in the Underhive, and even its collaboration with the Underhive people to develop the Singularity, might be a secret within their own alliance. After all, for a giant corporation, sometimes it is more worthy of vigilance than its own colleagues.

Compared to foundations with relatively stable internal structures, the consortium of giant corporations is an excessively bloated organization. They unite to achieve a similar scale to their rivals, but their deep cooperation is mostly limited to the "surface." Who knows what they are really up to behind the scenes?

The chain of interests is the strongest chain, but at times it is also the weakest link.

Rather than simply collaborating and using joint research into the singularity as leverage to gain a foothold with the foundation, the giant corporations actually have far more complex considerations. Within the same faction, there may be different factions, opposing voices, and diametrically opposed viewpoints.

This kind of confrontation and checks and balances based on "people's hearts" is not uncommon even in foundations, but foundations can still maintain a general direction of unity and preserve their bottom line by "the scale of survival".

For large corporations, their power structures amplify human flaws—especially at critical junctures like "singularity research and development," where internal decision-making conflicts often arise first, leading to further confrontations.

A group of traditional board members, clinging to their self-proclaimed superiority, refuse to budge, viewing aligning themselves with the underdog as a stain. If these old guard still hold a significant amount of shares and resources, then a conflict arises.

—Bottom Nest? You want to talk about technology with a bunch of inferior descendants? Let's not even talk about whether they know about the secret mass oscillation spectrum and the Histon secret constant. Bottom Nest people—can they even calculate 0.50.8?

Why should the funds we allocate be first sent to your lab?

—Damn it, your crappy project has almost used up next year's budget! And what about the results?

—If you can do it, do it; if you can't, get out!

—I want to change jobs—

Insufficient cohesion can lead to all sorts of situations like the one described above. Cardinal Heavy Industries, in particular, likely sought peace and quiet and avoided the eyes of its colleagues by carving out a separate research area in the Underhive. It's also possible that they wanted to use the chaotic thinking within the Underhive to seek breakthroughs in technological bottlenecks.

It seems they actually managed to achieve some results for them.

And right now, they are probably in a state of utter chaos.

Ai Yi revealed a mischievous smile—

Because the outer suburbs are the only "unofficial passage" connecting to the "bottom nest," most of the time it is used to "exile people down" rather than "bring people up" — other passages all require verification and approval from the Foundation. Therefore, "smuggling" only has room to operate in the outer suburbs. Cardinal Heavy Industries probably saw this and wanted to secretly transport the results up without telling anyone, so as to make a fortune in silence.

As a result, the people who failed to connect with the group turned into a group of alien creatures and encountered a "magnificent disaster" that was rare in decades. The outskirts of the city suddenly became a forbidden territory.

—Is it because I'm so unlucky, buddy?

Ai tilted her head and suddenly felt happy, even the way she looked at the group of creatures below seemed much more pleasing to the eye.

.

"Boss?" Ronan looked at the fox with a hint of evasion. He sensed that the guy in front of him was obviously up to no good. The malice around him suddenly became heavy, and even his breathing felt cold.

"Ronan—"

Ai's eyes lit up, and her tail was held high. "It looks like we can extort a big sum of money."

—A maverick giant has an inescapable weakness in their hands—and what they hold is precisely the infrastructure and means of production that Ai currently lacks most, as well as the right to pass through that wall.

There is even a "enclave" located at the bottom of the nest, which may have been well-developed.

"We can't be too aggressive, nor can we be too weak—Cardinal Heavy Industries—the leverage we've given them isn't a fatal flaw that will bring them to ruin. Their research is still in the bottom nest; after all, technology itself is very difficult to steal, it's just that we can't reconnect with it temporarily due to an accident—"

Ai narrowed her eyes in thought, "Take advantage of their turbulent and hesitant mindset, give them hope for a peaceful resolution, and obtain what we want within a balanced framework—"

—That potential singularity is not our bargaining chip. If negotiations break down, they can easily pay a price to forcibly reclaim what is located in the bottom nest, which is not what we want to see —at least until our goal is achieved, we need to make them pay a price that "doesn't seem so painful".

"But it is also something that is especially important to us right now."

Ai took a deep breath, smiled and glanced around, her gaze finally settling on Ankasha.

"————" Ankasha visibly flinched, shrinking her shoulders slightly, but Ai still spotted her. "The organization needs you now!"

He said in a resounding voice, "Director Ankasha, as one of the few remaining high-level talents in the Grey Court, I will be sending you to negotiate with a giant corporation in the far suburbs. Your words will fully represent the will of the Unmerciful King, and also the will of the Father of Light. Do you understand?"

Under Ai's burning gaze, Ankasha had no choice but to nod, forced to comply.

"very good----"

After explaining the basic situation to him, the fox smiled with satisfaction. "I'll give you three objectives for the negotiations. Remember, what we need is: an outpost and access routes at the bottom of the hive, free passage through the Antarn Wall, and infrastructure and supplies. You can control the quantity yourself."

"The most important thing here is the right of way through the wall, which is also the bottom line. As long as we can get the key to freely enter and exit the bottom nest, it will belong to us sooner or later —"

"I—" Ankasha was interrupted before she could finish speaking.

"besides."

The fox continued, "Without crossing any red lines, demonstrate the power of the Grey Court to them—the form of which—I will personally present it. Afterward, appropriately propose deeper cooperation regarding the 'Bottom Nest'—and if we could even have a tour of that 'potentially born singularity,' that would be even better."

He patted Ankasha on the shoulder, a cute, cat-like expression on his face, and said softly with a smile, "Remember, Pure White is right behind you."

Ankasha thought for a long time but couldn't say anything, so she just nodded silently.

"And what about you?" Ronan asked quietly from the side. "Such an important matter, concerning the future development of the organization, shouldn't it be safer for the boss to handle it personally?"

"I?"

Ai stretched and said, "I'm going back to catch up on my sleep now."

Seeing Ronan's contorted expression, he grinned wickedly and then looked at his think tank.

"Beihe District Weather Forecast: At 2:00 AM three days from now, wastewater will be discharged into an uninhabited area on the outskirts of the city. Moderate to heavy rainfall is possible. The pH value of the wastewater will be between 2.0 and 3.5. The specific discharge location will be specially marked by the think tank. The public is advised to avoid the discharge area unless absolutely necessary."

—Three days left.

The fox waved his hand; there was something he hadn't told Ronan.

—The time is almost up, it's time to prepare and show those fools who are still making useless struggles the coldness of the ruthless king.

Let me tell them about those ungrateful dogs.

What is authoritarianism?

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