After the first round of the group competition ended, Taro Tanaka immediately contacted Xu Yang.
"It’s astonishing," he said, "orders are continuously rising, and the remaining 90 A Series robots are constantly being reserved, having just sold A70 and A15. Many companies want to outright purchase the patents and production rights for the A Series robots, especially Kyoto Infinity. But they were all scared off by my price."
"How much are you planning to sell for?" Xu Yang was curious.
"4 billion," Taro Tanaka explained, "The A Series robots are the culmination of my life’s work, and I can’t just transfer the patent casually. I’ve also set the licensing fee very high to preclude any other companies from replicating it. I have a mature commercialization plan, profitability, living, and redevelopment are not issues, and I want the A Series robots to only be produced at Tanaka Intelligence. Am I being too selfish?"
"I don’t know," said Xu Yang, "but the biggest problem is that even if other companies were to replicate them, you don’t have the means to punish them—Tanaka Intelligence is too small to wage a corporate war."
"Exactly, especially at the other end of the world, if someone quietly starts imitating my work, I wouldn’t know what to do," Taro Tanaka said, "Moreover, if I want to boldly set up a second production line, there might come a day when I would have to sell the A Series’s patent after all."
"It must be hard to get financing now," said Xu Yang.
"Of course, only Xisheng Group has the capability to invest," Taro Tanaka said, "all other banks have already tightened their investment channels. I hate Kyoto Infinity, but now banks will only lend to companies specified by Kyoto Infinity; their essence is nothing more than controlled puppets. It’s a real dilemma—if in the end, I have to go back and seek investors from Kyoto Infinity, I should have just bowed down to them early on, there was no need to start my own company..."
Taro Tanaka rambled on, and Xu Yang could feel his urgency.
"I can help you get in touch with people from Xisheng," said Xu Yang, "as long as you can provide a competitive business proposal."
"I’d be very thankful, but this also makes me feel ashamed," Taro Tanaka’s electronic tone sank, "I’m only good at pure technology, which is not something entrepreneurs value. After this festival is over, I’ll reorganize my development thoughts. Actually, I have already compromised a lot."
"A long time ago, I set out to develop robots that could completely replace human labor," Taro Tanaka explained, "but my partners warned me, saying it would destroy the world. Various companies deliberately reserved a lot of boring, low-end repetitive labor positions to ensure the minimum subsistence for most people. If I really developed such useful synthetic humans and smashed their last bowl of rice... it would trigger a real disaster."
"Right now, we are all just floundering in the same rotting pool," Xu Yang said, "You are a scientist, and it’s your duty to lead civilization towards the future."
"Who would give me such a platform?" lamented Taro Tanaka.
"Mr. Xu..." Taro Tanaka was startled.
"You remember the company A40 represented in the battle, don’t you?"
"New World Mechanism." Taro Tanaka immediately thought of numerous things.
"After coming to Anjiu City, I founded New World Mechanism," said Xu Yang, "It also embodies the spirit of unity and progress, a time to act."
"That would be great," Taro Tanaka’s tone became cheerful, "if I could set aside ’commercial monetization’ and wholeheartedly develop robots, improve human living conditions, then my efforts wouldn’t have been in vain."
"For now, let’s join forces and deal with A40’s situation," Xu Yang flipped through A40’s combat core upgrade report, "I’ve already archived the related logs, and will send them to you now."
"The progress is too significant," Taro Tanaka observed the upgrade progress of A40, "’Martial Arts’ is an abstract concept, but A40 has mastered it very well. It effortlessly integrates various types of fighting techniques, many of which it has learned through its learning module."
"Is it a fighting prodigy?"
"Yes, but I also read many complicated things," Taro Tanaka sent the error logs back to Xu Yang.
Xu Yang frowned upon seeing that A40’s storage contained an excessive amount of memory files, specifically those concerning Huang Feng that A40 had deleted. They originally took up too much space in A40’s memory, severely affecting its frequency of progress updates.
"If only we could expand its memory storage," said Xu Yang.
"That won’t work, those are too heavily intertwined with its emotional module, leading to overly complex connections, triggering repeated reads, just like how we humans ’reminisce’ every day, resulting in astounding piles of files," Taro Tanaka explained, "Even now that those memory files have been deleted, there’s still the phenomenon of ’phantom files,’ which are traces left behind from the recording and erasing of memory disks."
"The impact is significant," Xu Yang flipped through the error report, and after Taro Tanaka had highlighted it in red, he discovered that since the A40 had encountered Huang Feng, its combat evolution system had been functioning abnormally. It even deleted many of the sword techniques preset by Taro Tanaka to make room for memories related to Huang Feng.
"Although I don’t know what it encountered that makes it so fixated," Taro Tanaka said, "it’s best to avoid letting it encounter similar situations in the future. Otherwise, it will hardly make any progress in martial arts."
Xu Yang took out the A40’s memory backup disk, which contained 4000G of memories about Huang Feng.
To have it carry the memories of Huang Feng but be hindered by attachment, struggling to make progress in martial arts. Or to revert to the version before it met Huang Feng, still a clueless synthetic human, with nothing but fighting on its mind.
If A40 were to decide now, it wouldn’t recognize Huang Feng at all and would definitely not want to reinstall these 4000G memory files. The A40 at this moment is also A40, and might even have more say than the previous A40. It’s a point that’s exceedingly complex ethically and logically, but now is not the time to delve into it.
Exhausting the company’s humanities jargon to the utmost, Xu Yang innovated with grammar, drew on a wide array of references, expanded the framework, and successfully expanded Farosa’s previous draft into a business plan of over ten thousand words and sent it to Kanako.
Kanako received the document and initially was very happy, but upon seeing the size of the file, she immediately felt nervous.
What, Farosa only wrote ten thousand words! Kanako flipped through the plan. Such a thing couldn’t touch her mother’s meticulous heart—it’s like an amateur’s trickery compared to a street con.
Kanako carefully went through the plan, reading it over a dozen times, removing all the sensitive parts about mysticism and witch rituals, leaving 9000 words of business text. She handed over what remained to the trainees at the investment bank to expand as a business writing exercise, asking them to extend the content of around 9000 words to 90,000 words. She instructed them to fully exercise the art of argumentation and self-reference, and to accompany it with complete presentation materials and immersive virtual effects for demonstration purposes, aiming for at least a 30-minute showcase, and demanding submission by midnight tonight.
"Let’s go to the competition together," Kanako cheerily invited Xu Yang to join her at the Colosseum event after getting everything done. Most of the family members would attend the Colosseum fighting competition, a business event that had become a primary social occasion recently, where watching others bleed cleanly from the sidelines is quite the pleasure.
"I can’t just show up in person, I can only sync remotely," Xu Yang replied, "See you on the live communication channel."
"My mother’s samurai, Fumihiko Yanagawa, is also in the arena," Kanako said.
"Yes, I’ve seen him." Xu Yang observed Fumihiko Yanagawa’s performance in this Colosseum festival, where he nearly instantly killed his opponent in the first round. He was the leading favorite for the championship and was basically assured to be the overall champion of this Colosseum festival.
After all, this man was Honma Noriko’s personal bodyguard.
He’s also in the East Division, meaning if A40 keeps winning, it will inevitably face Fumihiko Yanagawa himself in combat.
"It’s really terrifying, isn’t it," Kanako said casually, "By the way, did you pass the ’Xylophia’ matter to ’Farosa’? How did Farosa react?"
"She seemed very much looking forward to meeting Xylophia," Xu Yang replied.
Being one of the ancient Chaos Witches, Xylophia’s revival seemed like a potent signal, hinting at the collective return of ancient mystical forces.
"... and Xylophia thinks so too," Kanako said, "Should we try bringing Farosa out?"
"Xylophia seems to be in possession of Farosa’s weapon?" Xu Yang recalled what Farosa had said earlier—her weapon to battle the gods, entrusted to Xylophia for safekeeping.
"Correct," Kanako nodded, "That being said, can A40 win the championship?"
"Perhaps," Xu Yang doubted, "Why do you ask?"
"It’s quite significant. After the start of the Colosseum battle festival, Xylophia sent me a handwritten letter. I’ll make a copy for you."
Once the document was in hand, Xu Yang slowly unfolded it.
Greetings upon reading this letter. I do not know which Envoy can establish contact with you, but I don’t have time to keep your Godslayer weapon. I’ve consigned your Godslayer Weapon to the locals, instructing them to hand it over to the champion of this Colosseum competition. Send someone to snatch it, or take it yourself. I’m going home, and if you have the power to show up, this is the last chance.
Loving you, Xylophia."