Chapter 165: Submission
Faced with the two harsh conditions Joric presented—which looked like a choice but in reality offered no true retreat—Spider Murphy, or rather the core of the rogue AI wandering the data abyss that she represented, experienced a brief but incredibly intense internal logical conflict and emotional upheaval. Ultimately, following the most basic law of survival, she made the decision to maximize benefit and minimize harm.
She chose to submit.
In the results deduced by her cold logic core, any form of resistance at this moment was meaningless and would only lead to thorough, valueless destruction.
What was even more unbearable was that doing so would implicate Rache Bartmoss's last material existence in this world—his body—subjecting it to irrevocable desecration and exploitation.
In comparison, while a temporary bowing of the head was humiliating, it could at least trade for a sliver of a chance at survival and an opportunity to uncover the final truth about Rache.
"I... accept your terms." Her data projection fluctuated slightly. Her iconic, flame-like red hair seemed to lose some of its luster, appearing somewhat dim.
Her voice carried a harsh texture, the result of intense humiliation mixed with deep helplessness. "I will serve you. In exchange... I hope you fulfill your promise to thoroughly confirm Rache's final state.
"And... after verifying that he has indeed passed, return his body to me intact."
Joric was not the least bit surprised by this outcome.
In his precise and cold logical deduction, this was the inevitable choice with the highest probability after the opponent weighed all known variables.
Everything followed the principle of efficiency, avoiding the unnecessary waste of a valuable potential resource like a high-level rogue AI. This completely aligned with his expectations and planning.
"A wise choice." Joric's avatar merely nodded slightly, his tone so flat it carried no emotion of praise, sounding more like a simple confirmation of an established fact. "Then, first, you require a more stable residence."
He said no more. With a shift of consciousness, he mobilized deep-level permissions for the local "Blackwall" protocol.
For him, who could use the Blackwall as a broadcasting tool, guiding a specific consciousness safely through this barrier was no difficult task.
In the data-space, a channel distinct from the surrounding information flow, bearing a unique encrypted signature, opened quietly, emitting a stable and concealed gravitational pull.
Spider Murphy felt this force. After a slight hesitation, she guided this part of her core consciousness to slide into the channel.
The process was smooth and rapid, triggering almost no abnormal reaction from the Blackwall AI.
In the next moment, her perception was situated in a brand-new network environment—inside the Badlands manufactorum, the local area network zone that had been preliminarily modified and reinforced by Joric.
This zone wasn't vast, but its structure was stable, its defense level far higher than the external public network, and it maintained a monitored connection with Joric's manufactorum core data link.
For her, this was both a relatively safe sanctuary and an invisible prison.
"This zone is temporarily assigned to you." Joric's voice sounded directly within the internal network of the Badlands, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. "Your first task is to instruct the three network operators currently in the bastion: Sasha, Kiwi, and Lucy."
He immediately transmitted three concise files containing the basic parameters of the electronic warfare cyberware he had modified for Sasha and Kiwi, their current demonstrated upper limits of ability, operational habits, and an assessment of Lucy's characteristics and potential, which leaned more toward traditional netrunning skills.
"Sasha and Kiwi's electronic warfare capabilities have indeed surpassed local conventional levels after basic modification," Joric evaluated objectively, but then shifted tone. "However, by my standards, their processing logic remains crude. Their foresight regarding potential threats is insufficient, and their efficiency in utilizing their own hardware performance is more than 35% below the baseline. They have significant room for optimization."
He had no intention of instructing them personally.
In Joric's view, investing precious time and computational power into such basic, repetitive teaching work was a massive misallocation of resources.
The wisdom of a Mechanicus Explorator should be focused on more macroscopic strategies and cutting-edge technological breakthroughs, not acting as a trainer for junior technicians.
"As for Lucy, her technical foundation is relatively solid, possessing certain unique potential, but she lacks systematic high-level theoretical and combat guidance," he added.
Now that he had a subordinate—a legendary netrunner from the Old Net era, experienced and possessing a technical style consistent with the local system—Joric naturally wouldn't waste this ready-made high-quality resource.
Making full use of everything was a basic principle engraved in his logic-core.
However, Joric's recruitment of Spider Murphy wasn't merely to satisfy some quirk of collecting legendary figures, or simply to find a top-tier netrunning coach, and certainly not for the initially backup plan of "research material."
In his value system, "Subordinate Unit" and "Experimental Sample" had clear boundaries and different treatments.
The former was a functional component requiring resource investment for maintenance with the expectation of long-term returns; the latter was a disposable resource for short-term consumption to extract specific information.
He distinguished them very clearly.
Joric's core purpose in recruiting Spider Murphy lay in bolstering his increasingly expanding reserve of high-quality talent.
As his research into the dimensional teleporter deepened, the initial simple cycle of "Charge-Teleport" had been broken.
His research was steadily advancing to a more challenging and strategically valuable stage.
That is, attempting to open a controllable, stable dimensional rift relying on his own power without dependence on a fixed dimensional teleporter, achieving true individual free travel.
Although this research was currently only in the most basic stage of data accumulation and theoretical framework construction, with not even a workable mathematical model fully formed, this did not prevent Joric, with his habitual long-term perspective, from beginning to lay the groundwork and position pieces for it.
Planning ahead and stockpiling key resources was his consistent code of conduct.
This shift in research direction also consequently influenced his assessment and planning for this Cyberpunk world he was currently in.
Originally, Joric hadn't invested much attention in this world.
In his view, the environment here was harsh, manifesting as widespread ecological collapse and a deformed social structure; its civilization as a whole showed a trend of degeneration, mired in the swamp of corporate monopoly and the loss of humanity.
Although the local tech tree exhibited unique style and value in certain specific fields, particularly cybernetics and basic network technology, its development suffered from obvious imbalances and bottlenecks difficult to break through.
Compared to the technological legacy of the Imperium of Man in Warhammer that he knew, the overall technological level of this world appeared limited and crude.
(End of Chapter)