The next day, Mercer was harshly reprimanded by Dr. Ota.
Overlearning does not promote neural development, and he personally proved this point.
But Mercer wasn't planning to stop, for a very simple reason.
First, his learning efficiency was frighteningly high.
It's not just a photographic memory—in fact, this doesn't even require talent.
The professional learning Mewtwo equipped by Arasaka is specifically developed for learning, able to forcibly implant knowledge into the brain.
In a world where even consciousness can be stripped or altered, force-fed education isn't difficult at all.
Perhaps for students before the crossing who had to painfully memorize texts, this was a very fortunate thing.
But in a world where every student can have knowledge instilled by machines, students have to endure things far more painful than those before the crossing.
First, they must digest and understand this knowledge; second, this knowledge injection is exceedingly crude and overwhelming.
The amount of content to be learned and memorized in one hour is terrifying, matching the knowledge of a month for ordinary students before the crossing.
Every elementary course is twenty-eight sessions long, with extremely complex and comprehensive content.
Advanced courses are even more daunting; take hacking tutorials for example, when you reach this course, it's not just simple memory tasks, but practical questions.
You need to complete countless hacks and defenses in the tutorials, design and run countless programs, and deal with unpleasant tasks like fixing spaghetti code.
Additionally, there's constructing corporate ICE with large servers, completing stealth and assassinations using hacking knowledge, Single Molecule Line application techniques...
Damn, you even have to learn to design intelligent systems for weapons, vehicles, and other items.
To design systems, you have to learn related knowledge about weapons and vehicles.
If you want to learn this knowledge, you have no choice but to add a few more introductory courses in vehicle design and weapons design to yourself...
Even Mercer, who now considers himself to have AI-level intelligence, feels like he's going through a rapid "pig brain overload" hack.
After finishing the scheduled course learning, he almost forgot to report to the infirmary in one fell swoop.
When a pale-faced Mercer appeared in the cafeteria, everyone showed concern, except for Lucy and others who had a strange expression.
But when the somewhat carefree Kyoko, with a cheerful smile, came over to ask why by pressing his head, Lucy and the others showed a slightly embarrassed expression.
Even Kyoko looked stressed, making Mercer involuntarily smile and ruffle her hair. Frankly, that little red-haired girl was quite smooth.
"Don't worry, this was part of my plan from the start. There aren't many institutions in this world stronger than Arasaka's education.
I'm just going all out to cash in—there won't be a systematic chance to learn these things once outside."
The two stray hackers who hadn't joined the small group listened indifferently, one of them gave Mercer a strange look, while the other seemed lost in thought.
Study?
Might as well think about how to survive mining afterward.
Kyoko pursed her lips and nodded: "I understand, I'll work hard to study too!"
"Don't put too much pressure on yourself, you're already an outstanding hacker. Out there, you're undoubtedly a genius hacker."
Mercer consoled.
"But I'm still way behind you... and compared to Lucy and Daichi as well..."
Kyoko sighed, sitting beside him and started eating ramen. The taste of synthetic ramen aside, the nutrition was definitely maxed out.
The soup was packed with essentials. A bowl of it and, regardless of taste, you'd definitely be full of energy.
Mercer could only say, "You're younger than us, when you reach our age, you'll surely do better, of course, excluding me, I might indeed be a genius."
"Pff... got it! Gen~ius~se~nior." Kyoko elongated her words with a cheerful smile.
The old anime otaku Mercer couldn't help but laugh at her authentic Japanese loli voice: "Ha."
With laughter, lunchtime passed, and Mercer dove back into his room to study intensely.
Armed with yesterday's experience, this time he scheduled adequate breaks between each course, and the discomfort significantly decreased.
Nonetheless, Mercer extended his study time, increasing the total time of rest and learning to a daily standard of seventeen hours.
This way, he could finish at least 13-14 sessions of courses per day, and the intermittent breaks naturally reduced sleep time.
Dr. Ota advised him twice before saying nothing more, only making sure his neural health wasn't worsening, accepting that if study doesn't kill him, he'd study relentlessly.
As two days blurred by, the server reconstruction or more accurately, expansion was completed.
Meanwhile, Lucy sent a nerve-wracking bad news through an encrypted communication software, which made her uneasy again.
The number of security personnel and staff had increased.
Because the original project director was replaced, the original research staff left, and following them were three special project groups, totaling over twenty Arasaka employees specializing in network technology.
Perhaps due to the project's raised importance, the count of Agent Arasaka responsible for security monitoring increased significantly as well.