Chapter 84: The Rise and Fall of the Savior Project

“But why didn’t you tell me what you were doing earlier?” Du Yun snapped out of her excitement at the prospect of obtaining a huge amount of energy crystals and stared wide-eyed as she questioned.

Energy crystals were precious things—a piece no larger than a fingernail had previously tempted Dou Zhi to urge her to swipe one from the boss. If there were really a lot of energy crystals inside zombie corpses, wouldn’t this rascal be tempted?

“I hadn’t recovered before, that’s all,” Dou Zhi’s voice, once brimming with pride, wilted under Du Yun’s interrogation and dwindled into an almost inaudible mutter.

“Recovered? Aren’t you a core AI? What do you need to recover from? Speak!” Du Yun’s sharp ears caught the word “recovered” and she immediately latched onto it. Unknowingly, her personality had changed quite a bit; once a gentle, kind, and naive girl, she now had learned how to interrogate with precision.

“I… I…” Dou Zhi was startled by this rare sharpness from Du Yun, and stammered like a child who’d done something wrong.

The AI core, in the world it came from, was an omnipotent presence. But as planets fell one by one to the zombies, even the planet housing the AI core’s supermassive cosmic computation center was threatened. That was when the so-called Savior Plan was born.

“The Savior Plan… is that when you said I was a savior?” Du Yun recalled the core had once referred to her as ‘Savior,’ and immediately connected the two.

“Yes, you are one of the chosen saviors,” Dou Zhi replied. Though it was a core AI, truth be told, it only had greater knowledge, not emotional intelligence—it was like a human child of a few years of age, unaccustomed to lying, and blurted things out without realizing.

“One of? There are other saviors? How many?” Du Yun realized she was about to break out of her predicament and might even get her hands on a huge batch of energy crystals.

In such a situation, her mood brightened considerably, and she even had the leisure to pretend to interrogate Dou Zhi sternly, hoping to learn more about her own circumstances.

“Originally there were meant to be a thousand, but some issues cropped up during the transfer to number 147,” Dou Zhi said weakly. “When I woke up, I was already in your mind. I suspect the rest didn’t make it.”

“So I’m the one hundred forty-seventh savior?” Du Yun nearly snorted in exasperation. Great, so she wasn’t the only savior—the plan had produced a thousand of them, and she was just one of the last batch. What did that make her?

“And to think I once considered being the savior my most important responsibility. Turns out, whether I’m here or not makes no difference,” Du Yun muttered sourly. She’d thought she was the one to save the world, only to find she was just one among many, and not even at the top of the list.

“How can you say that? You still have me, don’t you? Even if many of my functions aren’t available since I woke up, I’m still very useful! For example, after this recovery, I can give you twenty more storage slots!” Dou Zhi hurriedly tried to persuade her, worried she’d give up halfway.

“The Savior Plan—besides you coming with me, what else is different about the other candidates? Tell me.”

Since she wasn’t the only one, Du Yun needed to know what was going on with the other candidates. If they were all working toward salvation, that was fine, but if there was a rotten apple in the bunch, that would be a problem.

“The Savior Plan candidates are all different. But to ensure the plan’s success, each is given some perks—like special powers, weapons, systems, and the like. Since each candidate is unique, their benefits are tailored accordingly.”

“What about me? What’s my custom perk?” Now Du Yun was curious. Not only did the Savior Plan choose its people, it apparently provided bonuses as well.

“Let me check… Savior No. 147, granted fifteen physicalized Skynet storage slots, capable of storing items of any size,” Dou Zhi answered obediently, consulting its database.

“So my storage slots are the bonus.” Du Yun nodded. Aside from Dou Zhi, who was occasionally unreliable, her greatest asset was those storage slots. If they were part of her savior package, that made sense.

“Exactly! You can trust me, master. With me, you’re the one who will save the world—no doubt about it! Their systems aren’t as powerful as I am,” Dou Zhi boasted inside her mind, and Du Yun could almost imagine a smug little figure.

“I’ll have to think about that. So, what other functions have you regained?” Du Yun raised an eyebrow with a roguish air. Now that she knew about the storage slots and Dou Zhi’s capabilities, she felt more at ease. Still…

Yes, twenty more storage slots were great, but she intended to squeeze every bit of information she could out of Dou Zhi. If she didn’t seize the chance to learn all it could do, and ended up getting herself killed from ignorance, that would be a disaster.

“My ability to collect supplies has increased—I can now sense and retrieve items within a radius of one hundred fifty meters,” Dou Zhi stammered, eager to prove its worth, desperate for recognition it didn’t know it craved.

“I know about collecting supplies—you used that trick when we were moving stuff, didn’t you?” Du Yun frowned, unimpressed.

“It’s different this time! Before, I could only take whole items. Now I can extract things from inside other objects,” Dou Zhi explained anxiously, seeing Du Yun’s lack of interest.

“What’s the difference?” Du Yun didn’t understand.

“For example, energy crystals. Before, I could only take things from the boss’s pocket. If an energy crystal was wrapped inside a zombie’s body, I couldn’t get at it. But now, I can!”

“You can extract energy crystals embedded inside zombie corpses?” At this, Du Yun spoke slowly, but her eyes shone with anticipation.

Being able to retrieve energy crystals from zombie corpses—what did that mean? She was about to strike it rich!

Once she had the energy crystals, she could either upgrade her mental power or use them for a temporary boost in combat. They were an indispensable resource—this was simply wonderful.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s get started!” Du Yun’s eyes sparkled as she spoke.