Chapter 36: Machine Cores

  I hadn't lied to the siblings and the path I made Diaochan find for me through the labyrinthine streets of the city tier was a prompt one. This was especially true as I had changed her parameters so that she didn't discard paths that took me through privately owned property or over various roofs and obstacles. It required leaping across the gap between several buildings and, at one point, walking across a pipe that wasn't wide enough for my feet to be side by side. However, I was back at the workshop in short order.

  "Explain to me again why I need to make or buy a gun rather than just killing a man and taking his?" I asked Diaochan while the siblings put a few finishing touches on their own equipment. They had informed me that while weapons were against the rules tonight, everyone would be armed to the teeth with subtle and not so subtle weapons hidden around their persons.

  "Uuummm." Said Diaochan who was in proximity mode next to me. As per usual her pouted lips and thoughtful expression had the potency of a Soul Emperor's natural treasure collection. "Well technically you could do it, but it's risky."

  "Elaborate." I demanded while lounging back in the sunset room's couch.

  Her eyes glowed green for a moment or two, before the A.I offered a quick nod.

  "Alright, so you remember before you died when a cultivator placed their brand on an item?"

  "I do."

  "So it is kind of like that, but instead of using Qi to forcibly mark a weapon or equipment and make it a part of the cultivator's domain. The gun, or bike, or car or whatever has that built in, the first time it gets activated it reads the owner's DNA and makes it so only they can use it."

  "DNA?"

  "Oh umm blood."

  'Right." I said idly flicking between entertainment streams on my HUD. "But If I take another cultivator's treasures, I can pour my own Qi into them either all at once or over time to break their brand and seize the item as my own." The pretty little A.I spirit gestured at me and nodded.

  "I can do something similar on your behalf, but I have to defeat the item's built in ECMs. Which I can do, but if I fail it's really bad."

  I didn't have to ask what an ECM was, as the meaning appeared on my HUD as she spoke.

  [ECM- Electronic Counter Measure]

  Description: Built in defenses that slow or prevent an A.I or Hacker Class from accessing the software of an item, weapon, vehicle, building, or person.]

  I focused on the word software, and a similar explanation of what it meant appeared. It was a much more complicated concept than ECM, but I'm reasonably certain I wrapped my head around it. An A.I or a hacker which wasn't anything to do with a hatchet or axe. These things could attack a person in the spiritual realm which is what software referred to. So as a counter to this most people, vehicles and sects had what was essentially barrier formation built in to defend their souls from such interference.

  "Are you any good at breaching these kinds of defenses?" I asked. "Or would I just be sending you to get slaughtered?"

  "A bit of both."

  I turned an extremely flat and unimpressed gaze on the A.I.

  "So I'm not built for hacking, but you could buy modules that make me better at it, there are also cybernetics that would make me better at it, plus you can just allocate more of your soul energy to me and my processors to make me better at, well everything for a little while."

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  From there, I insisted she explain why this was the first time I was hearing about it. Apparently it was dangerous for both Diaochan and by extension my HUD. As I understood it, A. I's have what are called 'processors'. These are tiny devices that act like Dantians for the A.I spread around within my body. The 'processors' drain a tiny amount of the unused soul energy that I pour into the world around me just by existing. There are different kinds of these, with differing degrees of power, just like a Dantian. Anyway, if I chose to, I could 'overclock' these processors and offer her more of my unused power to increase Diaochan's speed, strength, or whatever it was that determined the ability of a spiritual being. The problem was if I did that the processors would heat up to the point of damaging themselves or even other parts of Diaochan's mind.

  In the end I chose to give her permission to overclock her processors or not as her discretion. I am Lu Bu, there is no way she could steal enough of my power for it matter before she overheated herself to destruction. As such I wasn't worried about removing such limitations.

  Besides it seemed to me that if tonight was going to be a meeting of criminals and slum dwellers covered in hidden weapons I could definitely get my hands on a gun of superior quality, and see if Diaochan considered it safe enough for her to break into. Naturally, by 'get my hands on' I meant steal from someone, either through guile or force.

  After our conversation about all of this I dismissed Diaochan and went into the workshop looking for the siblings. My HUD had the time listed as [4:23] less than two hours before we were due at this meeting. I still thought this weird resetting half way through the day nonsense was the dumbest time keeping system I had ever encountered, but I at least had a decent understand of how long an hour was now.

  To my utter lack of surprise the siblings were arguing about cybernetics when I found them. Ha-Rin thought she could add additional effects to her arms and Ji-Ho was insisting that she had only just finished assimilating the repairs from the injuries she'd taken on our hunt, and those same injuries wouldn't have been anywhere near as bad if she hadn't been in the process of assimilating new parts then.

  "So put in more nullifiers." Ha-Rin had insisted

  "That is exactly what you said last time, and you ended up rejecting your lungs." The older brother held up a pair of almost touching fingers. "You were this close to drowning on air."

  "First of all nothing is going to happen, secondly we aren't talking about my lungs. It's just an extra ability or two slotted into my arms."

  Ji-Ho shook his head and went right back to welding something onto a pair of boots.

  "If nothing is going to happen, then you won't need more abilities, and if you get hurt, your body could reject your arms, right when you need them. No, be happy with the new stuff we added to your clothes for a few more weeks."

  The disgust and annoyance in the girl's voice when she replied was just as evident in her voice.

  "Ugh, fine, be a pussy about this, too."

  "Rather be a living pussy than a dead idiot."

  I was watching all of this from in the doorway to the same workshop I had woken up in when the siblings had first brought my wounded form here.

  "Are we ready to go or what?" I asked impatiently.

  "No." Both of them snapped at me simultaneously. Before talking over each other in their efforts to explain what each of them still had to do in preparation and why it was important.

  "I need to add an external power supply for my emergency relocators."

  "My forge ring is still recalibrating as a weapon, basically no one uses the forgefiend class anymore so they won't know that it can do that."

  In response I slowly panned a glare between the two of them that made the pair of siblings freeze in place.

  "Well hurry up." I ordered. "I am anxious to meet the people who supposedly rule this area."

  Ji-Ho and Ha-Rin shared a look of almost identical concern before they rushed to assure me it would be quick and that each of them only needed to do a few more slight and quick adjustments.

  "Hurry Up." I repeated in a growl this time. Ji-Ho had called to check up on me like a serving maid checking on a noble's child earlier today. I was not going to put up with being made to wait while they tried to tinker their weapons and selves into mechanical perfection. Especially as they had already assured me they couldn't do anything of the sort for me and my equipment until they either had access to some new materials or I was of a higher level.

  Still glaring at the siblings I stalked backwards out of the workshop and moved to wait in the cement courtyard outside the workshop/home. I had acted like I wasn't interested and didn't care about what they were doing, but that was just so that they wouldn't be encouraged to keep working on minutia and finally hurry up.

  I still had Diaochan explain what they were talking about to me once I was confidently out of earshot.

  Assuming anyone sticks around(my retention is terrible on this story lololol) I can't wait to show off some of the classes and abilities