Life Game In Other World
Chapter 478: Welcome Back, Vian.

Chapter 478: Chapter 478: Welcome Back, Vian.

In the silent glass container, the white-glowing liquid silently boiled, one bubble after another bursting forth from the fluid, flowing down through the transparent glass pipes into the ground below.

Streaks of white light twinkled in the dim hall, emanating from the liquid coursing through the glass pipes on the floor.

This liquid gathered from all directions of the expansive hall, converging beneath a silver-grey rectangular metal box at the room’s very center.

The metal box, roughly two meters long and one meter wide, featured a minimalist metallic design with sharp angles. Its surface was densely covered with intricate patterns, with a faint white glow occasionally flashing along these lines.

An ancient and simple aura emanated from these lines. In between the mysterious patterns, tiny screens displayed the life signs.

Weak, steady heart-rate graphs trickled across the monitors like tranquil streams, vanishing into the silent darkness.

This device, a blend of mystery and science, operated smoothly and steadily in the dimmed space.

Such a state seemed to have lasted a very long time.

And it seemed as if it would continue indefinitely.

A tiny bubble formed in the glass container holding the white liquid.

This bubble detached from the transparent glass walls, and, like the others boiling around it, rose slowly to the surface of the liquid.

Then

Pop—

Amidst this extremely faint bursting sound, the tranquil heart-rate graph on the electronic screen shook violently for a moment, spiking like a towering mountain peak on the otherwise hill-like graph.

Following that, the peak became more abrupt and frequent, like a rushed drumbeat or the patter of rain.

As these peaks clustered and crowded, one pattern after another on the lid of the metal box lit up, slowly outlining a lush, majestic tree—its straight trunk and layered leaves came to life as if the tree itself was alive and vivid.

Click—

The catches on the metal box loosened, and the tightly sealed lid suddenly sprang open, revealing the brimming milky-white liquid inside.

Thud—

An arm, lined with streamlined muscles, suddenly emerged from the silent liquid, grasping the edge of the metal box.

A bright light shone from the center of the room, illuminating the arm.

Then, one light after another lit up from inside out, like straight soldiers welcoming their returning king.

"Welcome back, Vian."

The crisp, gentle voice echoed throughout the hall.

The liquid in the metal box parted to either side, revealing the face of a young man, with wet hair clinging to his cheeks, crossing the boundary between air and liquid.

He sat up from the metal box, his graceful and muscular upper body emerging, with the milky liquid quickly slipping off his body.

He took a deep breath, expelling the liquid that pressed against his throat.

Then he slowly stood up from the metal box.

A small, multi-functional robot, carrying a brand-new white cashmere towel, approached and stopped beside him.

The young man casually took the towel, drying off his body and hair,

Then, several robots came over at the same time, carrying a set of clean white formal wear to assist him in dressing.

A robot handed him a glass of water.

"Eve," said He Ao, taking a sip to moisten his throat, getting used to his somewhat stiff body, he casually asked, "Gather for me the moves made by the Group regarding me after my ’slumber’, and all the quarterly reports, semi-annual reports, annual reports, board meeting reports, and Group monitoring reports since then. I’ll take a look."

"Certainly,"

The lights on the ceiling flickered, "Vian, do you need a cup of coffee?"

"Thank you."

He Ao straightened his suit and headed for the door.

As he stepped out of the lobby, a small robot came by, handing him a steaming cup of coffee along with an ultra-thin tablet.

"Eve, I remember you couldn’t do this before."

He Ao took a sip of the coffee, which was Vian’s favorite, bitter with very little sugar added.

"I’ve recently loaded the Trison domestic service module,"

The image of a little girl in a white dress appeared on the tablet screen that He Ao was holding. She looked at He Ao through the screen with an obedient and cute smile, "This semi-open source module developed by Trison Group is currently the most used by Federation domestic robots. Following your instructions, I’ve been collecting such informational resources to enrich my database."

The girl looked adorable, but her words remained in Eve’s typical style of gentle and meticulous.

With the Federation’s current technology, artificial intelligences can perfectly mimic expressions and tones just like a human.

There are even fairly advanced intelligent robots that are sold only to adults.

However, all of these are the results of stacking massive amounts of data.

Artificial intelligences appear human and can respond smoothly to human queries simply because cloud data is calculating and simulating in real time based on the interacting human’s actions and speech, to produce the best possible response.

If an interaction strays outside what the AI robot’s cloud database contains, the machine will crash immediately, giving some irrelevant response.

And as a tech enthusiast, Vian always wanted to ’create’ a real artificial life form, but he had never succeeded.

Eve, as his last masterpiece, retained a vast array of functions that Vian dreamed might allow an artificial intelligence to break through the boundaries of wisdom back then.

Such as this feature of continuously learning and enriching the database through a certain screening mechanism.

These features did not help Eve become a true AI, but they enabled her to understand a lot of ’strange and unusual’ knowledge.

"Did you design this virtual persona yourself?"

He Ao glanced at the image of the little girl that was Eve, took a sip of coffee, and flicked through the files on the tablet, beginning to read the report data from recent times.

The Nolanka Group is not a publicly traded company; its reports are for the board of directors and Vian to read, so they don’t contain as much fluff.

However, many realities cannot be discerned from the reports alone, as some true situations are not fully detailed there.

This necessitates monitoring the entire company’s data.

And this was Eve’s responsibility.

"Yes, based on my analysis, this type of persona is more likeable."

The image of Eve nodded her head, then withdrew very obediently.

Outside the lobby, where the ’Vian’ body was kept and where He Ao now stood, was a small nook resembling a lounge.

The most eye-catching piece of furniture in this nook was a sofa bed, which judging from the wear on the bed, was likely often used for rest.

He Ao withdrew his gaze, continuing to read the material on the tablet while moving forward.

He didn’t have much time, as the Character Card was only usable for a day, and he couldn’t control both the Character Card persona and the Copy World character at the same time.

When one was in use, the other would fall into a slumber.

And this meant that He Ao couldn’t use the Character Card for too long, as he needed to check back with his Copy World character periodically to avoid being ’killed’ during a ’slumber’, which would lead to a game over.

Moreover, to avoid arousing suspicion from this back and forth transition, He Ao could only choose times for extended activity when it was unlikely to be questioned.

Like at night when everyone was sleeping. Because most people would be in a state of sleep, ’Pete’s sleep wouldn’t be easily suspected.

However, the system indeed learned the essence of pay-to-win games.

Character cards do not cost money, and the exchange price is very cheap, even offering a free exchange the first time, but to use a character card, one must pay an additional exchange fee.

The cards are free, but using them costs money.

And the rule that doesn’t allow controlling two bodies at the same time also imposes a significant limitation on character cards—to continually experience them, one must keep spending.

The system is really shrewd.

He Ao lamented inwardly.

He rapidly skimmed through the events after Vian had fallen into a slumber, and even though he had already known most of it through Eve, he still felt some emotions when reading that Roger had been called to prolong Vian’s life.

However, the summary of information provided by Eve had mentioned something He Ao did not previously know—when Roger came to Kaye City, he brought a "metal box" with him.

At this point, He Ao’s thoughts paused for a moment.

Because Joey had also had contact with Roger, he suspected that Joey’s body might be inside that metal box.

Could it be why Joey’s character card ’Primeval Flame’ was preserved?

Is the system’s standard for creating character cards that the body must still be alive?

By that logic, Nell also seemed to possess similar traits. The power of the War God had transformed Nell’s body into something of a mythological nature, to an extent ensuring the ’life force’ of Nell’s body.

Therefore, ’The Presumptuous’’ character card was preserved.

But not every time was one so lucky as to have the body preserved.

Moreover, there was a limit to the number of bodies Roger could take care of.

He Ao withdrew his thoughts and stepped out of the resting room.

Beyond the resting room was a vast experimental lab, where numerous mechanical arms and robots were busily at work.

Since Nolanka Group still publicly claimed that Vian was alive, the true status of Vian could not be known by too many people.

Therefore, Roger’s assistant was mainly ’Eve.’

To be more precise, it was a multitude of robots controlled by Eve.

And as ’the assistant’ for longer and longer periods, Eve learned more and more skills. Even in Roger’s absence, Eve was still capable of completing the production of potions and the maintenance of Vian’s body.

This was also the reason why Roger could leave with peace of mind this time.

He Ao made his way out of the laboratory.

This laboratory was located on the third sublevel of Nolanka Group’s building, which was originally a group storage warehouse. The elderly butler, Danny, had specifically cleared this area for Roger to be transformed into a laboratory.

Leaving the lab led to the elevator to the upper floors.

When He Ao left the lab, the elevator in front of him had already arrived and was slowly opening.

Almost all of Nolanka Group’s equipment, including the elevators, was controlled by Eve.

He Ao stepped into the elevator and after pondering for a moment, he pressed the button for the top floor.

Then his gaze returned to the tablet, and this time, he read through various reports of Nolanka Group.

The current state of Nolanka Group was quite peculiar.

Good, but also not good.

More than half a year had passed since He Ao completed the Vian Copy World.

In that half-year, under the guidance of Lina and the elderly butler Danny, the entire Nolanka Group was still progressing along the direction initially set by He Ao.

With large-scale construction and promotion, a considerable number of homeless and poor people in Kaye City found jobs, and the strategy of reducing apartment prices with subsidies allowed these people to have homes to live in, ending their lives of sleeping rough.

Meanwhile, as factories restarted, more and more people had work and money, were willing to spend and buy goods, and the internal commercial circulation in Kaye City gradually recovered.

The virtual currency issued by Nolanka Group, which could only circulate within the Group, was gradually accepted by the market, greatly relieving the Group’s financial pressure.

The essence of currency is actually a bond, and the virtual coins issued by Nolanka Group are a type of bond guaranteed by its own credit.

Generating this ’virtual currency’ is actually just a change in some simple bytes, with almost zero cost, but Nolanka Group could use these ’virtual coins’ to offset part of the salaries and exchange them with other people for real goods.

This is because those accepting the virtual currency believe in the credit of Nolanka Group, and trust that these changing bytes can indeed buy things of equivalent value at Nolanka Group.

The value of money is actually people’s trust.

Besides those within Kaye City, now some enterprises in other cities also recognize the purchasing power of Nolanka’s virtual currency, and these are basically Kaye City’s main commercial and trade partners.

Indeed, they can buy things at Nolanka Group with virtual currency.

Rock City and the Miners’ Mutual Aid Association are among the largest forces acknowledging the virtual currency, with the Association selling minerals to Kaye City and Nolanka Group, and Nolanka Group selling them industrial products and absorbing some of their workers.

In fact, the elderly butler Danny has been strongly avoiding the use of virtual currency by more external forces, which was also one of the key tenets initially established by He Ao.

Although Nolanka Group has alleviated financial pressure through various means, a large amount of continuous investment, particularly in food production and medical investment,

has consumed most of Nolanka Group’s profits due to these massive investments that are difficult to see a short-term return on, keeping Nolanka Group’s cash flow tight.

Simply put, they were out of money.

Ding—

The elevator reached the top floor, and its doors slowly opened.

A young woman in professional attire, a pencil skirt, and a high ponytail happened to be standing at the door holding a stack of documents.

"Excuse me, please move aside, thank you," she said softly, holding the documents in her arms.

"Okay."

He Ao sidestepped and walked out of the elevator.

"Thank you."

The woman nodded gratefully, ready to walk into the elevator when she seemed to suddenly realize something.

She abruptly turned around to look.

But at that moment, He Ao had already pushed open the door of the board of directors’ secretary’s office.

The sound of folders and books clattering to the ground echoed from behind.

"Is there something you need?"

The elderly man was sitting at a desk, carefully reading a document.

"Is there something..."

He waited a while but received no response, and slowly lifted his head.

His gaze rested on the young man standing before him with a smile.

He froze in place.

Gently bending over, He Ao embraced the old man, whose cheeks were already streaming with tears.

Just as Vian had done countless times before.