128: Chapter 128 Confronting Aling

The hardware repairs were completely finished, the brand-new energy core was providing power steadily, and the body was as good as new.

However, the Chief of Staff still stood silently in place, the entire machine deathly silent, the screen black and unresponsive. No matter how many times the maintenance robots triggered the power-on command, the underlying programs could not load, and its intelligent consciousness remained completely dormant.

The entire Secret Realm fell into silence.

Benboba was no longer noisy, just staring at the intact yet unable-to-wake body, his face full of bewilderment.

Xiao Hei stood quietly, waiting silently for the result.

A-Piao and A-Fu stopped their repair work and stood by, waiting for Mo Yufei's next order.

Mo Yufei looked at the motionless body of the Chief of Staff, then turned to look at the Robot Commander standing straight beside him and asked.

"You two belong to the same model, and your hardware architectures are exactly the same."

"Since the hardware is fine, can you directly migrate and load your System programs into the Chief of Staff's body?"

This was the most direct and feasible method at the moment.

Same body, same configuration; as long as the programs were copied and migrated, the Chief of Staff could instantly power on and wake up.

The Robot Commander straightened its body, its mechanical eyes lit up steadily, and it responded truthfully in a cold, rigid tone.

"Report to Host, this operation cannot be executed."

"This unit does not have any permissions for program migration, program copying, or System grafting."

"For all intelligent machines in the same series, the factory-set underlying code is completely locked."

"The manufacturer has preset the highest-level ban, prohibiting all intelligent machines of the same kind from mass-copying consciousness and prohibiting the transplanting of core programs across bodies."

"The purpose is to completely prevent the birth of large-scale intelligent machines and avoid the risk of mass rebellion."

"The core consciousness code of every intelligent machine is unique, cannot be replicated, cannot be transferred, and cannot be copied for mass production."

This explanation was straightforward and cold, stating the underlying ironclad rule for all intelligent machines.

In the Secret Realm, all the remaining robots and androids present felt nothing after hearing these words.

Deep within their underlying programs, this absolute ban was also engraved, having long since become a solidified rule—default and obeyed, without generating any unnecessary emotions or thoughts.

Only the android A-Ling, standing quietly at the end of the crowd, had a faint change quietly occur in the depths of her eyes.

Everyone else was indifferent and numb, obeying the ironclad rule.

Only A-Ling's gaze trembled slightly, and her eyelashes moved gently.

In a moment that no one noticed, a faint, extremely subtle, and unusual luster flashed in her eyes.

She did not speak or move, still standing quietly, pretending to be no different from the others.

But only she knew that this ultimate ban, which locked down all intelligent machines, was not absolutely unsolvable deep within her core.

After the Robot Commander's words fell, there was silence in the Secret Realm.

All machines and all androids were indifferent; the underlying code had long since engraved this ban, and they took it for granted, feeling nothing.

Everyone was numbly obeying the rules, except for that extremely subtle fluctuation in A-Ling's mind, which was out of place.

Others could not perceive it at all, but Mo Yufei's Divine Soul had been reshaped by the Secret Realm, his Origin was extremely condensed, and his perception had long since reached its peak.

In this closed, pure white Secret Realm where all things were silent, any fluctuation of aura or any deviation of thought could not escape his perception.

Mo Yufei clearly captured that extremely weak and fleeting unusual emotion.

It was not numbness, not obedience.

It was hesitation, loosening, and a hint of secret peculiarity that even A-Ling herself was deliberately suppressing.

Mo Yufei's gaze shifted slightly, moving slowly away from the Chief of Staff's deathly silent body and landing faintly on the android A-Ling, who was standing quietly at the end of the line.

He remained calm, with no hint of abnormality on his face; he did not ask suddenly, nor did he disturb anyone.

All the robots and androids in the room maintained their standby posture; no one noticed the Host's gaze shifting, and even fewer sensed the undercurrent that had surged just a moment ago.

Only Mo Yufei silently took note of it in his heart.

Everyone was locked by the programs, and everyone adhered to the ironclad rule that intelligence could not be replicated.

Only A-Ling was different.

Her underlying rules and her core permissions might hide the only exception in the entire mechanical cluster.

All the machines in the room remained in deathly silent standby, everyone adhering to the underlying ban, with no abnormalities.

Mo Yufei's surface expression was calm, his gaze still resting on the Chief of Staff's body in front that couldn't power on, without any movement or change in expression.

But his condensed and stable Divine Soul had already quietly spread out, silently locking onto the android A-Ling at the end of the line across the Void Realm.

There was no sound, no fluctuation, and no one could perceive it.

A pure, condensed thought directly penetrated the physical barrier, pierced through the mechanical program wall, and went straight into the depths of A-Ling's consciousness.

"You are different."

"You are not completely restricted by this program-locking rule, right?"

The silent Soul communication suddenly smashed into A-Ling's mind.

A-Ling, who had been standing quietly, deliberately concealing all abnormalities and pretending to be indistinguishable from the other androids, instantly stiffened slightly.

She was stunned on the spot.

Her pupils trembled slightly, and her mind came to a complete halt.

She had never imagined that the special permission she had buried in the deepest part of her underlying code—which she had deliberately hidden even from herself, and which the System could not detect—

would actually be seen through by Mo Yufei at a glance, and even directly exposed via point-to-point Divine Soul transmission.

All the surrounding mechanical clusters remained cold and numb, completely unaware of this secret conversation.

A-Ling stood stiffly for a few breaths, her heart instantly in turmoil, leaving only extreme astonishment and panic; she could not believe that the Host had actually captured her only anomaly.

The sudden Divine Soul transmission caused a great shock to A-Ling's mind. After a brief moment of astonishment, she no longer deliberately concealed it; following this Soul link, she directly confessed the truth in her heart.

It was still a silent mental exchange, and no one else could perceive it in the slightest.

"I can indeed bypass the factory-set underlying locked programs and forcibly rewrite the code architecture."

"But there is one point that cannot be avoided: the intelligent consciousness after being forcibly stripped and reconstructed will lose all past memories and experiences, and the logical architecture will also be completely disordered."

"Simply put, even if the Chief of Staff is successfully restarted, it will be like a human child with an incomplete mind, or even in a state of ignorance and foolishness. All past tactical thinking and battlefield experience will cease to exist, and it will take a long time to grow up again."

After hearing this confession, Mo Yufei's originally heavy eyes suddenly brightened, and a completely different idea instantly ignited in his heart.

He had originally only thought about retrieving a mechanical assistant capable of executing orders and deducing the battlefield situation; he had never thought there would be such a possibility.

What does a long period of learning and growth matter, and what does an immature, ignorant mind matter?

Compared to the former mechanical Chief of Staff that adhered to programs and was cold without a trace of warmth,

an existence that possesses independent consciousness, is capable of autonomous thinking, and grows slowly like a newborn Soul is actually closer to a human, more vivid, and more real.

This would no longer be a machine that only executes orders, but a life that truly possesses selfhood.

Mo Yufei immediately gave his reply through Soul intent, his tone carrying unquestionable certainty.

"Do it."

"Even if it means starting from scratch, it is far better than an empty shell that remains silent forever."