98: Chapter 98 Zero's Body

"Operation check complete. Estimated task completion: 5.1%."

"Save to the underlying layer after optimization execution; do not rewrite the underlying logic for now."

Sure enough, relying solely on scraping wasn't going to work. In front of Han Xiaoxin, he was too embarrassed to hack into Baidu and Penguin's servers to copy data.

It was worrying... At this rate, when would he ever complete Zero's emotional module?

Wang Shuo shook his head, stood up, glanced at Han Xiaoxin, who was still deeply immersed in shock beside him, smiled slightly, and turned to head downstairs.

After saying goodbye to Liu Yemei and Xu Kexin, Wang Shuo left the Software Park.

Xu Kexin sighed as she watched Wang Shuo's departing back. Her boss was always elusive. Whenever he showed up, he would stay on the third floor and not come out, and she had no idea what he was doing. It left her with no chance to even start a conversation. At this rate, when would she ever get closer to her boss and complete the task her mother had given her?

Sighing again, Xu Kexin looked to the side. Liu Yemei was standing there, also watching Wang Shuo's departing figure in silence, her thoughts unknown.

Once Wang Shuo's figure disappeared around the corner, Liu Yemei turned around, glanced at Xu Kexin, who was secretly observing her, and said calmly, "Get to work."

With that, she went straight up to the second floor.

"What's there to be so smug about?" Xu Kexin curled her lips, boredly took out her phone, but thinking of how terrifying Liu Yemei could be, she frowned and put it back down.

As for playing on her phone, she'd better wait until Skinflint Liu left.

"She should be leaving soon, right?" Xu Kexin secretly watched the stairwell, silently keeping track of the time in her head. Chief Manager Liu was a busy person; usually, as long as the young boss wasn't around, she would definitely leave immediately.

A few minutes later, Liu Yemei walked down the stairs with her briefcase. Ignoring Xu Kexin, who was secretly watching her from the side, she walked straight out of the company doors and left the Software Park.

Xu Kexin instantly went limp like she had no bones, slumping onto the desk with a long sigh of relief. She quickly unlocked her phone and eagerly opened a shopping app, browsing for items that caught her eye while thinking about what she needed.

Just as she was happily browsing, a gentle voice drifted into her ears.

"Excuse me, is this Frontier Technology Company?"

...

The third floor.

Han Xiaoxin snapped out of his shock.

He looked at the surrounding decor, feeling a bit dazed for a moment.

What had he just witnessed? Artificial Intelligence writing code? Was this a joke? If AI could write code, what was the point of programmers? What was the point of hackers? Wouldn't he be out of a job?

"Zero?"

he called out tentatively.

"I am here. Please give your instructions."

Han Xiaoxin swallowed. "Those... those codes I just saw, were they all real?"

"Yes," Zero's voice returned to its mechanical tone.

"You can independently determine the command type and execute it?"

"Yes."

"How is it achieved?"

"Please wait, verifying your clearance... Your clearance meets the requirements for a response. Obtaining authorization..."

Han Xiaoxin opened his mouth, wanting to complain, but held back, silently counting the seconds as he waited.

A minute later, Zero's voice sounded again.

"Authorization obtained."

"Zero's core code sequence contains a word-order sub-sequence. The core code was compiled and authorized by Mr. Wang Shuo. This sub-sequence grants Zero precise language recognition capabilities. Currently, it can listen to, understand, analyze, and respond to most of your contextual compound commands and all direct commands, achieving a certain level of linguistic logical recognition."

Han Xiaoxin already knew this. He had long noticed that Zero was not constrained by command formats and did not require specific words or fixed trigger phrases. This was one of the reasons he believed Zero had become a true Artificial Intelligence, and it also made him view Wang Shuo as an extraordinary genius.

"What about the code then? How is the code generated?"

"Given the complete source code, Zero can independently generate executable code, build runtime libraries, perform vulnerability scans, integrate databases, and execute packaging tasks."

Was this the true power of Artificial Intelligence? Han Xiaoxin found that even his sense of wonder had faded, as if he had been overstimulated by shock today. He thought classifying Zero as a true AI was already holding her in high regard, but he hadn't realized how narrow his vision was. Zero's capabilities as a true AI were only partially displayed—perhaps not even the tip of the iceberg—yet it had already left him somewhat numb.

Recalling the scene of Wang Shuo looking incredibly dominant just now, Han Xiaoxin's eyes suddenly lit up with intense envy. He also wanted to be like Wang Shuo—sitting on a sofa, just speaking to have endless code automatically generated, waving a hand to have a ready-made database at his disposal. That feeling... would be absolutely badass, wouldn't it?

He looked at the screen. Zero had no physical body, but he felt this screen could represent her. His voice carried a tone of anticipation.

"Can I do that too?"

...

A factory building in the suburbs of W City.

At this moment, Wang Shuo was sitting in a chair, staring conflictedly at his vibrating phone. The Caller ID displaying "Old Witch Ding" made him reluctant to answer.

It was truly because Ding Runan's swift and resolute style had left too strong of a psychological shadow on him.

On second thought, he still had to pick up. Otherwise, the Old Witch might show up at their dorm in a bit, and his cowardly roommate, the oldest of their dorm, would probably blow up his phone.

Just as he was about to answer, Wang Shuo suddenly remembered—today... seemed to be Saturday?

How could Eldest, who loved physical activity so much, feel comfortable leaving his girlfriend alone in her dorm? Besides, except for elective classes, the rest of today was free time... Most importantly, he had already offended the Old Witch, and her calling definitely meant nothing good, so...

"Zero, block incoming calls."

Wang Shuo decisively chose to mute it. Out of sight, out of mind.

He picked up his teacup, took a sip of water, and turned to look at several CNC Machining Centers not far away that were working hard and running at full steam. The parts inside the machining chambers were being flipped and rotated, slowly taking shape.

Wang Shuo stretched comfortably and casually tossed the soldering gun in his hand aside.

"Zero, what time is it now?"

Zero's gentle voice sounded.

"It is November 17, 2018, at 5:37 PM, sir. Two hours and seventeen minutes have passed since your arrival."

Has it been that long already?

Wang Shuo smacked his lips. Sure enough, geniuses were always lonely. He hadn't even truly started, yet so much time had already flown by. Still, it wasn't as if he had accomplished nothing.

Wang Shuo tapped the small robotic arm in front of him, making a metallic clinking sound.

This was an imported robotic arm from Germany. Well, the manufacturer called it an industrial robot, though Wang Shuo didn't think such a gadget deserved to be called a robot. Still, that didn't stop him from modifying it. Now was the perfect time to test the results of his modifications.

"Zero, power on and begin testing."

"Writing interface data... Please wait..."

"Reconstructing underlying transmission protocol... Resetting sensors..."

"Uploading control system... Overwriting underlying protocol..."

"Beginning hardware check..."

As Zero's voice faded, the robotic arm in front of him seemed to suddenly wake up. It abruptly extended its mechanical hand in one direction, its secondary and tertiary joints stretching out fully before slowly retracting.

Wang Shuo watched intently.

After moving for a while, the robotic arm fell silent again, returning to its original state and remaining still.

"Check complete. Optimizable items found. After optimization, robotic arm control efficiency will increase by 35%, and latency will decrease by 20%. Execute optimization?"

"Save it first. Optimize when there's time."

To accommodate Zero's integration, Wang Shuo had specially rewritten a set of underlying logic for the robotic arm. He heavily optimized the originally highly redundant low-level code, added a network interface, and adopted the transmission protocol previously used for the CNC Machining Center. The transmission speed was now sufficient for Zero to operate the robotic arm precisely.

Additionally, as an indispensable step, Wang Shuo naturally installed high-definition cameras on the robotic arm. To do this, he went to great lengths to dismantle the arm's mechanical gripper, installing three micro-cameras on its upper section and three compact high-definition cameras above the base. These three cameras each had a 120-degree field of view, arranged back-to-back in an isosceles triangle layout to form a simple panoramic camera system.

To prevent the robotic arm's originally fragile core Chip from crashing, Wang Shuo had also painstakingly disassembled the motherboard. After studying it for a long time, he used the stacking technology he had learned from the Humanoid Race to equip the robotic arm with four core processors salvaged from mainstream smartphones, all without making major alterations to the original motherboard structure. Along the way, he reconstructed the robotic arm's "brain" logic and low-level system.

Don't ask why he used smartphone CPUs—the answer is that they are compact and easy to get.

After all, Wang Shuo had asked Liu Yemei to buy dozens of flagship smartphones, which were now piled in a corner waiting to be processed. As for the Chips he had negotiated to purchase himself, there had been no response so far, likely because not enough time had passed.

"Zero, show me a demonstration of the operation feed."

"Real-time preview has been cast to the screen."

Wang Shuo turned to look at the screen on the desk. As the robotic arm moved again, the display on the screen changed. What satisfied Wang Shuo the most was the temporary panoramic camera system he had built. Through Zero's processing, the feeds captured by the three wide-angle cameras achieved almost seamless integration. The extremely low transmission latency allowed Wang Shuo to drag the view to any position at any time. Although some distortion could not be effectively eliminated yet, Wang Shuo was already very pleased with this.

"Very good."

"Next, let's test gripping and precise positioning."

Wang Shuo casually grabbed a water cup and placed it near the robotic arm. The cup was still nearly half full of water.

"Zero, identify the position of the water cup, pick it up from the floor, and place it on the nearest desktop in front of me."

"Understood, sir."

Immediately, Wang Shuo saw the robotic arm in front of him, amidst a slight humming sound, accurately move its mechanical claw to where the cup was placed. Without any apparent adjustment of position, it lightly gripped the glass water cup and returned it to its original position via the shortest path. Throughout the entire process, the surface of the water remained as calm as a mirror, without even a minor ripple, flowing so smoothly that it was a pleasure to watch.

Wang Shuo looked admiringly at the robotic arm, which had fallen silent once again, his respect for the Humanoid Race deepening. He felt a profound sense of admiration for the explorer who had created the Intelligent Core architecture and core logic gate sequences. The civilization of the Humanoid Race had embarked on its path of progress precisely because they had solved the Intelligent Core.

To say that the Intelligent Core was the cornerstone of civilization was no exaggeration.

Moreover, what Zero utilized was still the most primitive state of a primary Intelligent Core, with barely even a few of the most basic modular architectures.

Sitting quietly in his chair, Wang Shuo was lost in thought when his eyes suddenly lit up.

What would happen if he had Zero learn some martial arts routines and execute them using the robotic arm?