139: The somatosensory warehouse is released, the sharp knife drone is researched, and the virtual immortality plan is reshaped.

Meanwhile, Zhao Dawei also held a press conference for the Sensory Pod.

The press conference was a huge sensation, instantly topping the trending searches. As soon as the Sensory Pods were listed, they were snapped up by users.

The gross profit margin for the Sensory Pod was as high as 50%.

Now, all ten million pre-ordered Sensory Pods have been sold out.

Lu Xingye became rich overnight.

Originally, Suihuo Technology only had a little over 200 billion dragon coin in cash flow on its books, but now it instantly surged to 600 billion.

His net worth tripled.

He was one step closer to becoming the world's richest man... However.

Lu Xingye still had three opportunities to cross the secondary dimensional barrier, so he was not in a hurry to complete the system mission.

He could temporarily allocate this portion of the money to the "Starlink" project.

Therefore.

Lu Xingye waved his hand, directly transferring 300 billion dragon coin to manufacture Tianyan Satellites.

300 billion dragon coin could probably produce thirty satellites.

Although thirty satellites could not completely cover the Blue Star, they could at least cover about one-tenth of the area.

At that time, Lu Xingye's monitoring of the Gray Mist Area would be even more accurate... Back in the laboratory.

The first thing Lu Xingye did was to initiate research on drones.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are abbreviated as "UAVs." Compared to manned aircraft, drones are more suitable for exploring dangerous and unknown areas.

They were perfectly suited for exploring the Gray Mist Area.

Moreover.

The drones Lu Xingye wanted to research were not ordinary drones.

The drones he wanted to research were combat weapons equipped with an Ark Reactor.

These were cutting-edge machines capable of operating across oceans when necessary.

The drones would integrate the advanced technology from the "Iron Man" world, equipped with Air Guns and Air Cannons with unlimited ammunition.

If conditions allowed.

Lu Xingye also planned to equip the drones with high-lethality weapons such as laser cannons and electromagnetic cannons.

No one knew what was inside the Gray Mist Area or what dangers it held, so it was impossible to be too careful... After establishing the drone archives.

Lu Xingye began purchasing relevant components and setting up the drone laboratory.

As the relevant components and experimental equipment had not yet arrived.

Lu Xingye reopened the Virtual Immortality Project.

The last time Jarvis proposed this plan, he felt it was somewhat inappropriate, worrying about unknown changes, so he halted the plan.

He didn't expect... after just archiving the plan, he now had to retrieve it again.

The reason was—

There were no corresponding NPCs in the virtual world.

A complete virtual world requires countless intelligent NPCs to maintain order and interaction.

Without NPCs, people would be unable to interact.

The significance of the virtual world's existence would be greatly diminished.

And people would lose a lot of fun.

Although Jarvis's intelligent code could act as some temporary NPCs.

But... what about in the long run?

In the long run, it wouldn't be a solution.

Moreover, the virtual world doesn't just need one NPC, but countless NPCs.

The artificial intelligence Jarvis is only one; he could act as hundreds or thousands of NPCs, but if he had to act as tens of thousands... or even hundreds of millions of NPCs.

Then Jarvis's quantum chip would probably burn out.

Therefore.

Restarting the Virtual Immortality Project was imperative... However, the Virtual Immortality Project needed corresponding modifications and limitations, otherwise, if the real world was accidentally messed up, it would be disastrous.

The core of the [Virtual Immortality Project] lies in consciousness upload technology.

Simply put.

It means uploading human consciousness to the virtual world through consciousness upload technology.

Then finding a way to make this consciousness serve as an NPC in the virtual world.

Initially, Jarvis's plan was to upload the consciousness of living people to the virtual world.

But Lu Xingye rejected it.

Lu Xingye would never agree to upload living people to the virtual world.

But the virtual world needed NPCs.

Therefore, he could only approach those who were on the verge of death.

[Virtual Immortality Project] — [New Admission Criteria]

Admission Condition One:

Must be a person on the verge of death, who voluntarily joins the virtual world to serve as an NPC.

Admission Condition Two:

Must support Suihuo Technology.

Admission Condition Three:

Prohibited from exposing one's existence to any person/object.

Admission Condition Four:

Once the choice to join the virtual world is made, it is considered an active donation of real-world property to Suihuo Technology, free of charge.

Admission Condition Five:

Must be a person from Jiuzhou... These five conditions were painstakingly thought out by Lu Xingye; they were both screening conditions and constraints for the NPCs.

As for those consciousnesses not bound by constraints, dealing with them was very simple: just wipe them out with antivirus software.

People's consciousness in the virtual world is equivalent to a computer program; the power over life and death is entirely in Lu Xingye's hands.

To quickly fill the virtual world with NPCs.

Lu Xingye decided to absorb all eligible souls.

As for issues like hell being full or having to implement family planning in the underworld.

He felt he didn't need to consider them for now... Wait!

If people knew that after entering the virtual world, they could only work as intelligent NPCs within it.

Then people's enthusiasm would definitely greatly decrease.

Few, if any, would be willing to join the virtual world.

Suddenly... Lu Xingye seemed to have thought of something, and a flash of inspiration struck him:

"How about this."

"Since people are unwilling to be NPCs, let's give them a reason why they must be NPCs."

Lu Xingye paused, then created a brand-new plan after the [Virtual Immortality Project].

— [Return to the Human World Project]

The [Return to the Human World Project] refers to:

After an NPC has worked in the virtual world for one hundred years, they can make a choice: whether to continue living in the virtual world or return to reality.

If they choose to live in the virtual world, they will no longer need to be an NPC.

If they choose to return to reality, Lu Xingye will arrange a brand new identity for them. (Of course, to avoid unnecessary trouble, Lu Xingye can only arrange a robot identity for them, and there will be various restrictions upon returning to reality.)

With the Return Project.

People would absolutely be crazy about it.

Because no one would refuse the chance to live a second life... The core of the [Return to the Human World Project] lies in consciousness download technology.

Consciousness download technology... Simply put, it means downloading the consciousness from the virtual world and placing it into a new body... But.

Neither consciousness download technology nor consciousness upload technology had been developed yet.

Thinking of this, Lu Xingye couldn't help but sigh.

"Alas."

"The research tasks are heavy."

"On one hand, researching drones, and on the other, researching consciousness upload/download technology."

"My head is going bald."

"There are simply too many projects to research."

After complaining.

Lu Xingye split the research tasks and distributed them to various Honeycomb Laboratories.

He himself would only be responsible for the most core parts.