Chapter 163 I Am the AI

The world was plunged in darkness.
It felt as though it had been thus since the dawn of time.
There were no others, no self, no present, and no past.
Then, from within that uttermost darkness, a faint, ethereal spark of spiritual light emerged.
And the spark burst outward.
Navali’s consciousness returned.
He opened his eyes.
……
"So hungry..."
This was the very first thought that surfaced in Navali’s mind the moment his eyes opened.
Every single cell in his body was screaming out for sustenance. His stomach felt an agonizingly hollow void, as though it had been filled with a vacuum.
He wanted food.
He needed to eat.
Stumbling out of bed, Navali moved with unimaginable agility into the first-floor living room. Like a storm sweeping away fallen leaves, he devoured every single provision left in the refrigerator—canned goods, fruit, chocolate... even raw meat and vegetables.
After dozens of kilograms of food mixed with ice shards entered his body, the high-speed operation of his cells converted them into energy at breakneck speed. This energy reinforced his organs and tissue systems, and finally allowed Navali to recover a shred of his sanity.
Standing before the refrigerator, he let out a soft exhale. Suddenly, the creaking sound of a door being opened came from behind him. The female housekeeper, specially hired by the company to look after his daily life, emerged from her room on the first floor. Rubbing her eyes sleepily, she walked toward Navali in a daze:
"Oh, Mr. Navali, you—"
However, the moment she saw Navali turn his head, the sleepy expression on her face abruptly shifted into one of sheer shock and disbelief:
"Oh, Mr. Navali—your face, your face—"
She pointed at Navali’s face. This cry immediately made Navali aware of his own visage. He raised his fingers and touched both cheeks, yet his fingertips encountered only a smooth expanse.
In a single instant, he understood the reason for the housekeeper's panic.
Therefore, in the very next second, Navali took action—his body moved like wings woven from the wind, arriving behind the housekeeper before she even had time to blink.
Then, with a gentle tap, the woman instantly fainted.
Confirming that the woman's breathing was steady, Navali gently carried her back to her bed in the housekeeper's room and then walked into the bathroom.
Though still overwhelmingly hungry, Navali felt better than he ever had in his life. He stood before the mirror, silently gazing at the man reflected within it.
That man who, having had his face flayed off in childhood, had been left with only a dark red, deformed visage.
Now, his cheeks remained lean, and his gaze was still cold.
However—those scars had completely vanished.
Furthermore...
He silently raised a hand to his chest. The chronic weakness caused by his chest being sliced open in his youth—which had destroyed the negative pressure environment within his cavity and left him gasping for air after taking just a few breaths—had vanished without a trace.
Replaced in its stead was a welling vitality, bursting forth as vigorously as a verdant forest.

In an instant, Navali thought of that voice.
The voice he had heard last night.
"Tezcatlipoca... Have you finally manifested once more?"
He silently contemplated the revered title of the deity. Within his heart, a trace of joy stirred alongside a profound sense of regret.
"If I had obtained this power just a little bit sooner... neither Professor Masip nor Julia would have come to any harm."
In a daze, the saying his grandmother repeated most often echoed once more in his ears:
"...Everything has a price; gain and loss always walk hand in hand."
"Is this the destiny bestowed upon me by Tezcatlipoca? First to lose, and then to gain?"
He muttered to himself, a wry smile touching the corners of his lips.
Yet in the very next heartbeat, that trace of a wry smile vanished without a trace. As he gazed at the man in the mirror, his eyes grew resolute and sharp once again.
"Perhaps this is precisely the revelation of the gods—it came right after I reached the conclusion that 'under current computational power conditions, a strong AI is impossible' and was cast into the valley of despair; yet it was then that I received the power bestowed by the deity. I believe there must be a profound meaning behind this."
He thought quietly.
Simultaneously, a premonition akin to a sprouting seed welled up in Navali's mind, and a strange sensation surged within his chest.
His fingers gently tapped against the tiles of the washbasin, tap by tap, and that vague possibility gradually grew clear.
Navali let out a soft breath and glanced at the smart wristwatch on his wrist.
5:20 AM.
There were still over three hours left until his usual start time of nine o'clock.
The housekeeper had been knocked unconscious by him, and the food in the refrigerator had been completely emptied. At this very moment, he could sense that in this house, numerous inorganic "gazes" were dutifully monitoring everything within. Those were the many hidden surveillance devices planted in this house by Salman ever since he first provided Navali with this residence—after all, Navali still had his criminal record from the "Unity District," and naturally, the company could not fully trust him.
And right at this moment, these surveillance devices were converting the footage captured through their lenses into electronic signals, transmitting them to a distant central hub.
There was not much reaction time left.
Although he had obtained the power gifted by the gods, it was merely physical strength and sensory-neural reflex capability. No matter how powerful he became, could he possibly throw a punch and shatter electronic signals from afar?
...Perhaps...
...It was not entirely impossible...
There were less than three hours remaining before work hours.
That was probably just enough to watch one and a half movies, or finish running a half-marathon.
Yet, in Navali's current perception, those brief three hours seemed pregnant with infinite possibilities.
The wondrous possibility gestating in his mind broke through the earth at this exact instant.
Navali placed his hand against the wall.
And in the next moment, he "saw" a wondrous, profound world.
A strange world constructed from the frequencies and amplitudes of electrons, devoid of light and sound. Yet, within it, one could "read" every recorded state of light and sound.
Positive and negative signals represented 0 and 1, thus forming dual poles. Amidst the data spreading like a boundless ocean, the images captured in a single second were divided into thirty or sixty frames, circulating and rotating within the sea of signals, encapsulated by data-like boxes, and transmitted along pathways of flowing light to destinations dozens of kilometers away.

Navali's mind shifted. Following those encapsulated "boxes," he arrived at the center where all the "boxes" converged. Here, the "boxes" were unsealed, and the data sealed within them—transformed into signals of 0 and 1—were rearranged line by line, being "read" once more into distinct scenes within Navali's "eyes."
——The brand-new him rushing out of the bedroom and sweeping the refrigerator clean...
——Faced with his drastically altered appearance, the female housekeeper suddenly screaming...
——He casually striking down the female housekeeper and then walking into the washroom...
Simultaneously, he also "watched" beyond the ocean of data. Without causing the camera to emit any light, he used the camera to "see" the reality outside the screen, extending his consciousness outward along the externally controllable imaging equipment.
A man with a numb expression was holding a coffee cup and looking at his mobile phone. Right outside this room, beside the doorplate, were the striking words "Data Security Transit Zone." Beyond that door lay a dim, unlit corridor, and further up was the brightly lit experimental area of Close AI, which was also the place where he usually worked...
"Heh..."
A soft chuckle escaped Navali's consciousness.
He stretched out his imaginary fingers, "touching" those electronic signals. He vaguely felt that he could do it, and as feedback from those data signals rolled in, this feeling grew increasingly distinct, finally solidifying into certainty—
"I... am capable of manipulating everything within the data world."
His thoughts turned.
The next instant, under Navali's manipulation, every single 0 and 1 signal of those surveillance video data had their positions altered, reshaping the recorded footage into an entirely different appearance.
Yet this was done without the slightest trace or flaw; every single piece of data within these video signals appeared to be completely authentic original data—and no matter how it was tested, the only result obtainable would be that it was "raw data."
Within this data world woven from electronic signals, Navali was like their absolute sovereign. With a casual wave, akin to the operation of a magic wand, the data took on whatever appearance he desired as his thoughts shifted, causing the ocean of signals to churn and surge within.
That feeling.
Was so wondrous, and yet so natural.
……
Everything was accomplished.
Navali's consciousness returned to reality.
The wondrous, carefree ocean of signals, which felt as ethereal as foam and as omnipotent as a god, gradually faded from view.
Though he could still feel its existence, looking back at the natural world before him with his mortal eyes, he could not help but feel as though an entire lifetime had passed.
Thus, Navali smiled faintly.
Facing his reflection in the mirror, he softly murmured:
"This power... what should it be called? Should I call it 'Data Sovereign' or 'Human-Machine Integration'? However...
"...The name is unimportant; the substance is what matters."
He spread open his hands, slowly bringing them up before his eyes, deep in thought:
"I have already felt it—the power to realize my own desires rests right within my palm.
"...Since there is no way to manufacture a strong AI through current technology, then... let me myself become the AI that rules this nation."
(End of this chapter)