The collaboration between Musk and Chen Chen was quickly announced on the official sites of the two partic.i.p.ants.

The subsequent were laid bare as well, all detailed in the respective announcements — Blacklight Biotechnology was ready to invest in s.p.a.ceX to deploy five geosynchronous...o...b..t communication satellites. This was to develop the independent global communication technology of Blacklight Biotechnology to protect their technology from being breached.

Also, Blacklight Biotechnology would construct a s.p.a.ceport in an area south of Eco Science City. The investment was expected to total up to tens of billions of U.S. dollars while the s.p.a.ce aviation technology would be purchased from s.p.a.ceX as well.

Due to the proximity of the s.p.a.ceport to the equator, it was the most ideal location for deploying geosynchronous...o...b..t satellites.

This announcement sent the entire science and technology community into an uproar. For some time after the announcement, many such topics had circulated online forums all over the world:

“What? Blacklight Biotechnology is getting involved in the military industry and aeros.p.a.ce? They're even collaborating with s.p.a.ceX to deploy satellites? This is a dream collaboration…”

“Deploying satellites to develop their independent communication systems, is the Earth Federal s.p.a.ce Regulatory Agency okay with this?”

“If they can approve something as ridiculous as the Starlink Project, what's five geosynchronous...o...b..t satellites to them? The only factor to consider is money and Blacklight Biotechnology has never been a company that's short on money.”

“Is Namibia getting ripped off? Both their military industry and aeros.p.a.ce industry endeavors are given to a foreign company, isn't this government a puppet by now?”

“The commenter above is right. I'm a Namibian and I can't tell you how much I hate this company. They stripped our government of its autonomy and independence and bought out the entire Congress. They are even secretly buying maximum security felons, this is just…”

“Hm? Why was the comment above deleted suddenly?”

The ongoing discussions of the forums could be discussed later. At the present, two vast construction sites had just been sectioned out on an empty plot of area south of Eco Science City. Hundreds of trucks and excavators arrived and began the vast construction project.

The majority of the construction workers were the construction team dispatched by Blacklight Biotechnology themselves. Only a small portion of them were the local workers.

This was a newly established construction force composed of people of all skin colors. They were the members of the construction company newly registered by Blacklight Biotechnology in Namibia at the end of the previous year — Tara Infrastructure, a subsidiary company of Tara Strategic Resources.

With the supreme efficiency displayed by this workforce, the construction of the s.p.a.ceport was making tremendous progress with every pa.s.sing day.

Each time Blacklight Biotechnology embarked on one of their ambitious endeavors, the international deepwater port and the airport of Walvis Bay would become swarmed with incessant activity. At this time, countless construction materials and all sorts of machinery were being s.h.i.+pped in.

For the sake of convenience, two stretches of four-lane asphalt roads more than 50 kilometers long were paved overnight just a few nights ago.

All this was to say that Blacklight Biotechnology's terrific efficiency had awed the Namibian government. Such construction efficiency was something they could only ever dream of.

Under the guise of the busy construction project, tons of germanium metal were also secretly imported into the industrial park of Eco Science City.

Deep inside the industrial park, the second Gantz server machine was finally constructed as well.

This Gantz server machine was far larger than the first Gantz server machine. It weighed more than a hundred tons, which was easily ten times more than its predecessor. Its diameter spanned up to three meters and stood above thirty meters. It was like a giant metal tower.

At this time, deep inside the industrial park, Chen Chen silently gazed at the giant monument and the Black Knights coming and going around the scaffolding next to the monument. His expression was heavy.

This monument was erected by the Black Knight engineers bit by bit.

“According to the data calculations, the signal coverage of the Gantz server machine has increased exponentially.”

Then came Little X's voice. “The signal breadth of the previous 10-ton Gantz server is only 200 kilometers in diameter, which means that it can only cover the entirety of a country like Switzerland at most.

“And now, the new Gantz server machine boasts signal range exceeding 2,000 kilometers, enough to cover half of the African Continent. This means that two black spheres can conduct point-to-point transfer as long as both of them are in the signal coverage range of the new Gantz server machine.”

“It's still not enough.”

Chen Chen shook his head. “The diameter of Earth is 12,743 kilometers. This means that if we want to gain global control of the black sphere, we'll need at least two Gantz server machines with a signal range exceeding 10,000 kilometers. That makes two 500 tons Gantz server machines.”

“Yes.”

Little X answered, “After the Gantz server machine signal coverage covers the globe, we can start equally distributing the black sphere across several hundred locations. That way, we can go to wherever we want instantaneously with the distributed black spheres. If the Gantz satellites have been deployed by then, it will be another boost to our maneuverability.”

“I look forward to that day.”

Chen Chen nodded.

Just as Little X described, the black sphere could be used to conduct point-to-point transfer as long as they were both under the signal coverage of the Gantz server machine. With the Gantz satellites acting as relay stations, this process could even be performed with just a singular black sphere.

This was the story of the original Gantz — even if there were no black sphere nearby, the Gantz satellite could still gather the dead inside the city and forcefully pull them into the black sphere room. After they had accepted the mission, they could be brought back onto the streets of the city. The technology was absolutely fascinating and marvelous.

If Chen Chen could advance to this stage one day, the entire human civilization combined would not be able to stop him.

Of course, this was nothing more than a daydream before it was properly executed. As he took in the sight of the brand new gigantic Gantz server machine, Chen Chen suddenly spoke, “X. Did X-112 experience any changes back when it entered the first server machine?”

“None, i didn't detect any changes in its loyalty meter nor did I find any changes in the initial exploitable loophole we left behind in its sequence.”

Little X answered, “I routinely send a query to X-112 every day which consists of the back-end programming sequence which I configured myself. A pa.s.sing mark is only awarded by answering all questions correctly. If its source code was altered, there's no way it can answer all the questions correctly.”

Chen Chen nodded. “Then can X-112 unleash the full potential of the Gantz server machine?”

“At the end of the day, X-112 is just a copy of myself. Therefore, its qualities such as intelligence or any humanoid creativity and resilience are less than half of mine.”

Little X began to explain, “Also, the processing power of the Gantz server machine increases along with its size. The processing power of the original smallest Gantz server machine isn't that significant even though its computational capabilities are already several hundred times that of the Tianhe supercomputer. This might sound astronomical but it pales in comparison to the latest Gantz server machine. I can say that X-112 will not be able to fully unleash the potential of the larger Gantz server machine.”

“In that case, X, get ready to convert your source code into E Language and inject it into the new Gantz server machine.”

As if he had made up his mind, Chen Chen suddenly announced, “From now on, whenever we create larger Gantz server machines, I want you to inject your source code into the new server machines.”

“Noted!”

There was a hint of excitement when Little X answered. As Little X continued to grow and develop more sophisticated artificial intelligence, the computing array in Eco Science City could no longer satisfy her.

She was in urgent need of a new home and the Gantz server machine was the perfect location.

Shortly after that, the Black Knights in the industrial park began to gather following Little X's orders. When they arrived, they brought all kinds of devices and equipment. The most notable one being the array processor where the source code of Little X was hosted in.

This array processor came with 30 side-by-side slots. Each composed of 10,000 nodes and each one of these nodes contained three Intel Xeon E52692 processors, which made for a total of 30,000 computing cores. It was equipped with a liquid nitrogen cooling system and could conduct up to a quadrillion calculations per second.

This was the array processor Chen Chen had ordered at IBM that cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Although it was not as good as some international grade supercomputers, it was more than enough to serve as Little X's body.

Just like programming sequences, the array of processors in this system was what made up Little X. At the moment, Little X was continuously converting herself into E Language so that she could integrate herself into the Gantz server machine program.

The Black Knights were not slacking off either as they began connecting the array processor with another more sophisticated-looking device. From a distance, it looked like a heavy machine gun. It was roughly two meters tall and reached an astonis.h.i.+ng length of four meters.

It looked like a laser cannon with a large number of cables and parts exposed on its exterior. The simple yet intricate machine continuously produced a mechanical roar as it operated.

Most ordinary people would have difficulty recognizing what this device was, but Chen Chen knew that this was a photonic quantum switch.

Since the Gantz server machine itself did not have any built-in slots, a photonic quantum switch was needed to transmit data.

While this was going on, Chen Chen was silently watching. Since he had conducted experiments on X-112 in the past, he was very experienced and familiar with this process and was not particularly worried.

After Little X had finished converting her 1EB code, it was time for the data transmission…

Columns of red patterns on the Gantz server machine began to glow and fade consecutively like deep red neon signs on the street. The mysterious and alien E Language began to light up one after another, bleeding an occult red.

“Initializing program…”

The signals in the Gantz server machine were translated into regular verbal messages through the photonic quantum switch as they were played through the speakers.

They kept at it for the entire night while Chen Chen monitored over them as well. When the sun rose the next morning, Chen Chen took a deep breath and stretched his sore back.

This was because he saw that the endless operating photonics quantum switch had finally stopped data transmission. The columns of red light atop the gigantic Gantz server machine had faded out as well.

This meant that the conversion was complete.

Within a second, the Gantz server machine emitted a radiant red glow again. The light was transmitted through the photonic quantum switch to the previous array processor. At the same time, Little X's voice came from the speaker system. “Sir G.o.dfather, I've successfully entered the Gantz server machine.”

“How does it feel?”

“It feels great.”

Little X answered, her voice full of excitement, “My computing power is more than hundreds of millions of times of what it was. Many calculations that were once too daunting to even approach can now be compiled within moments. Previously, due to the sheer volume of the Internet, I was unable to take into account the ma.s.s amount of undetectable information but now, I can easily obtain and a.n.a.lyze them. I can obtain whatever answers I need within a millionth of a second!

“By the looks of it, whatever enemies we have will no longer be able to hide in any corner of the Internet. They won't be able to camouflage themselves like the White Embers did previously!”

This sparked an idea in Chen Chen. He considered for a moment before asking, “In that case, do you think you can examine the speculation that I once had back then?”

“The speculation that you had?”

Little X quickly responded, “You mean the speculation you had about the Earth Federation?”

“Yes.”

Chen Chen nodded. The speculation he had concerned the fact that both times the Earth Federation was met with a devastating crisis enough to topple the balance of human civilization, they had taken the initiative both times to subvert and counter the crisis in time. This included the Blacklight virus ordeal as well as the “Three Wise Monkeys” that saw no evil, heard no evil, and spoke no evil.

This meant that the Earth Federation seemed to be equipped with some form of prevention mechanism to help predict crises in advance. However, despite Little X's best efforts to investigate it previously, her strength was limited and the search ultimately yielded little results.

“I can give it a shot.”

Little X fell silent for a moment as if trying to estimate how much energy would be needed to investigate this subject. “But I'll need all the power generated by the Blacklight nuclear power plant and the two nuclear fusion reactors at the Spire Experimental Base!”

“That much?”

Chen Chen was immediately taken aback. “What are you planning to do?”

“I plan to write a new program by utilizing the prowess of the E language and conduct 'prediction' exercises. I can use it to predict what sort of trump card the Earth Federation is hiding.”

Little X answered.

“Will you be able to predict something like that too?” Chen Chen questioned.

“It's just like a wild guess, but in essence, it'd be like some sort of prediction!”

Little X chuckled before explaining, “In essence, it's just a prediction of future events. However, there's a distinct difference from the regular predictions seen in fortune-telling. It's done by digitizing every single possible instance in the world which is then brought into a real-world model for calculations to be tabulated and obtain a definitive answer.

“The reason this would be possible is that all human thoughts, every single event along with every human decision are already predetermined. Humans always have this idea that they govern their own thoughts but the truth is that human thoughts are all the result of a series of electrochemical reactions. In essence, it's completely identical to programs. Different sets of circ.u.mstances will influence the way humans think and different memories will also affect their decisions…

“If it's possible to calculate the likely future of an individual, then the same can be done for a large demographic as well. By collecting the information, personality, habits, life experience, and other details of every individual in the world and also factoring the interactions between the weather, environment, and surroundings, the possible development and changes of a social group over a period of time can be calculated…

“With my current computational abilities, I can convert all of this information to data and simulate them based on an established model of reality. The product of this operation will be what is known as the future!

“I name this program as… The Prophet System!”