Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

General Yi and Marshal Jiang sat down in their reserved seats.

It happened to be President Qi who was presiding over the meeting this time. He put down his coffee cup and stood up from his chair. “Everyone, Explosion Saint General Bai and Skin Saint Minister Ku are currently on a mission.”

“Together?” Everyone else was blank.

These two were exceptionally strong, and it was really rare for them to go on a mission together…

In fact, the sudden announcement that they would be having this top-level meeting in itself was a testament to how urgent this matter was; it was very likely that whatever the crisis was, it was already imminent.

President Qi nodded. “Yes, General Bai and Minister Ku went together. So it’ll be the eight of us discussing the matter in this meeting, and the head of state will make the final decision. I spoke to General Bai and Minister Ku previously about the agenda for this meeting. They have no objections at all, and are entirely at the disposal of the organization. I will preside over this meeting.”

Everyone nodded. “Alright!”

President Qi smiled slightly and then turned to look at the head of state on the side. “I’m sure everyone can already tell that there’s something a little different about the head of state today.”

“That is not the real head of state…” Spirit Saint Secretary Sun Dakang narrowed his eyes. He could hear the voices of all living things involuntarily. In fact, he had already realized it as soon as he had arrived.

“That’s right, the head of state you’re looking at now is a weapon replica developed by our Academy of Science. However, it’s currently still in the experimental stage and has yet to be made public, so it cannot be mass produced. The head of state you see now is a humanoid magic treasure; the highest level of power which it can currently exhibit is close to Itinerant Immortal level.”

President Qi said, “This human replica magic weapon is a project that has actually been in the works for a very long time. This was previously a secret study which our Huaxiu Academy of Science was carrying out with Weapons Saint Minister Ke, and it’s only today that we’re making it known to everyone, with the head of state’s permission. My sincere apologies.”

“Business is business, Old Qi, you’re too polite.” General Yi couldn’t help laughing.

“Although I could sense that there was something unusual about the head of state, I couldn’t be completely sure. But to actually be able to make it look so alike, this is truly astonishing!” Staring at this “human replica magic weapon” which looked almost identical to the head of state, Marshal Jiang couldn’t help but marvel.

“Performance?” asked Medicine Saint President Luo.

She was the only woman among the Ten Founding Generals and a real beauty. Her brown hair was coiled up and she wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses as she exuded the imposing manner of an elite.

“We’ve finished fine-tuning its basic performance. Of course, as everyone present knows, the head of state is far, far more powerful than this humanoid magic treasure,” President Qi replied. “This is currently our country’s first humanoid magic treasure prototype modeled on the head of state, number: 001.

“Command of the humanoid magic treasure is connected to the head of state’s neurons, and he can directly and remotely control it; you can think of it like a contract. But the craftsmanship involved in making this humanoid magic treasure is a little more special, so it doesn’t have a weapon spirit.

“If we get to the point where we can mass produce this in the future, the theory is that you can implement mass contracts. But ultimately, the number of contracts you can take on in fact has a lot to do with your strength, because the amount of spirit energy needed to control multiple humanoid magic treasures is considerable.”

All the generals nodded, basically understanding how the “humanoid magic treasure” worked.

“Does the humanoid magic treasure have artificial intelligence?” At this time, Secretary Dakang asked a rather vital question.

Given the level of science and technology in Huaxiu, creating artificial intelligence actually wasn’t difficult. But President Qi shook his head. “At this stage, we don’t plan to combine the humanoid magic treasure with artificial intelligence. If we do so and give the humanoid magic treasure the ability to think for itself, then the contract will be meaningless.”

Everyone understood when they heard this. To put it bluntly, they were afraid that if they gave the humanoid magic treasure artificial intelligence, and it gained wisdom and the ability to think for itself, it could in the end be uncontrollable. Clearly, the best way to avoid this kind of situation was to form a contract and control it remotely.

When Old Qi said this, Wang Ming was listening in at the research institute.

However, Wang Ming didn’t have a visual on the meeting and could only listen to it. He was one of the many contributors behind this ‘humanoid magic treasure’ research, and President Qi had reported that Wang Ming wanted to listen in on the meeting, which the head of state had approved.

Of course, only President Qi, the head of state and Wang Ming knew about this.

For now, Wang Ming’s identity remained a secret.

He couldn’t help laughing when he heard the talk on artificial intelligence.

In fact, most so-called “artificial intelligence” was “pseudo-intelligence”– real artificial intelligence was the ability to think independently. However, the so-called artificial intelligence on the market was actually just the result of software programming which didn’t have the technology to truly and meaningfully learn to reason and think independently.

Powerful magic treasures all had weapon spirits which were formed after harmonizing with the spirit energy of heaven and earth day after day, and when the rapport with their owners reached a certain degree.

However, if “artificial intelligence” could be combined with magic treasures, it would actually be completely possible to achieve what people called “man-made weapon spirits.”

But for now, this technology was jointly banned by the countries that had signed the convention.

In the end, people were still afraid of the idea that artificial intelligence brought destruction.

…

Back to the humanoid magic treasure itself.

Huaxiu nation had always prioritized peace above all else. Although the humanoid magic treasure was also a weapon, this was treated as a very distant secondary use. General Yi, Secretary Dakang, Marshal Jiang, Dark Saint, Medical Saint and the others who were listening knew that the ultimate use of this humanoid magic treasure was to protect the safety of the head of state himself.

However, this had probably already been classified as a top secret experiment. As for why it was being made public at this time, everyone present could already guess that it was likely related to what President Qi was going to say next, which was also the reason for this meeting.

No one spoke as they quietly waited for President Qi to explain.

At the very front, the replica Head of State 001 was still sitting with its head down as if in deep thought… This was in fact the specific posture it assumed in standby mode.

“I’m sure everyone has some idea about what I’m going to say next.”

As President Qi stood at the front, spirit light glowed in his hand and a 3D image of a map was directly projected into the air of the meeting room. He said very seriously, “This is space data collected by our Huaxiu Cultivation Academy of Science’s surveillance magic treasure ‘Divine Eye 1 1 . Based on the data… it’s likely that the entrance to the secret land that is Devil Valley is going to open very soon. And the site is Songhai city!”