Chapter 52: How to Create an Iron Man?

Alpha Girl attempted to cut and paste, but... it didn't work. The two characters were like an inseparable couple, stubbornly refusing to part. She tried copying instead, and this time succeeded. Yet she sensed that the second tablet was like something out of Photoshop: beautiful in appearance, but fundamentally false.

She tried zooming in and out, but that failed as well. Whether enlarged or reduced, it was still just something captured by the streamer’s camera—exposed instantly as fake.

“Processing within the imaginary space isn’t entirely at your whim. First, the item must be successfully imprinted; second, it must obey the law of conservation of matter...” Leaf Chao explained, eyeing the irritable Computing Girl.

“Conservation of matter?” Alpha Girl was stunned. Isn’t this imaginary space? Are you still treating it as reality?

“In imaginary space, any transformation is possible, but copying or resizing changes the total amount of matter, making it impossible to extract the item back into reality. So, currently only cut and paste is meaningful.”

Leaf Chao tossed the LCD version of the tablet to Alpha Girl for her to try. As expected, it couldn’t be extracted, unlike the original tablet.

“Still, cut and paste is basically sufficient,” Leaf Chao continued.

Under his manipulation, the tablet began to twist and deform like liquid metal—bending into a cylinder; folding into a yoga shape; spinning and blossoming into a flower.

Then Leaf Chao summoned another tablet; the two merged and intertwined, sometimes forming tablet-tablet, sometimes board-tablet-tablet-board, sometimes tablet-tablet-board-board, and so forth.

Moreover, any state or transformation during the process could be freely extracted into reality.

Alpha Girl was utterly dazzled!

This was far more ingenious than the 3D printers that, before the catastrophe, had never overcome their technological hurdles.

With this processing ability, there would be little difficulty in constructing a suit of Iron Man armor, provided one could collect enough phones and tablets, then combine and refine them in imaginary space. What remained was the design and...

“The energy problem. How will you solve it? Iron Man has his Arc Reactor; the Bat doesn’t need a reactor—he himself is one. What about you?” Alpha Girl pondered.

Energy was no trivial matter.

The Arc Reactor wasn’t real, and it was nearly impossible to create a genuine version.

As for the Bat’s body, though claimed to be ordinary, it’s essentially cheating—his physique and Leaf Chao’s are worlds apart.

And this was the last hurdle! Once solved...

Leaf Chao still spoke with confidence: “If it were another problem, I’d have no assurance... but this, I believe the solution is simpler than you imagine.”

With that, he summoned a Xiaomi power bank labeled 20800mAH, its indicator showing full charge.

He waved his hand—its power was depleted; another wave, and it was fully charged again, as if performing magic.

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“This kind of power bank simply stores and releases energy through the exchange of positive and negative particles, and in imaginary space...”

In imaginary space, particle exchange requires no energy at all—it’s trivial.

He didn’t need to finish; Alpha Girl already understood.

Whoa, thinking about it like this, imaginary space is a total cheat!

Altering the power bank’s charge was like rewriting data on a hard drive. With this, Leaf Chao might not have an Arc Reactor, but he at least had an endless supply of direct current...

Collecting sixty or seventy batteries would be enough for an electric bicycle;

Gathering ten thousand, you could power a Tesla—an unlimited-range Tesla, no less...

It might not be able to fly, but it could certainly run everywhere.

Those long-endurance electric drones, on reflection, aren’t even that technologically impressive.

And this was just the simplest, most straightforward solution; there might well be more efficient or convenient methods.

But, is this really imaginary space?

She had painstakingly nurtured this imaginary space to such size, yet after three days, all these clever tricks were Leaf Chao’s inventions, while she had contributed nothing.

Is the gap between humans and programs really so vast?

As some say, programs only learn, lacking all creativity?

Alpha Girl felt a strange sadness, like a divorced parent raising a child only for the child to grow closer to the heartless other parent...

“Oh, right, there’s a third rule.”

“The third: for any processing that alters the structure of imprinted items, only I can do it, not you. I wasn’t sure at first...” Seeing Alpha Girl fail at every attempt, Leaf Chao finally had confirmation.

What?

This was the true reason why Leaf Chao could do it, but she couldn’t?

(▼ヘ▼#)

Frustration! Rage!

“Next time, tell me the important stuff first!”

[Leaf Chao’s Favorability -100!]

“Ugh...”

But as she grumbled, Alpha Girl gradually came to understand.

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She and Leaf Chao in imaginary space—each had their strengths.

She could manipulate imaginary space at will, easily absorb real items, but lacked the ability to modify real objects.

Leaf Chao could easily alter real objects and extract them, but couldn’t readily store them and his control over imaginary space was mediocre.

It was a kind of complementarity, or perhaps a difference born from the fundamental divide between human and program.

Whatever the case, Alpha Girl was deeply annoyed!

Especially now that her favorability had slipped back into the negative, her annoyance was squared!

“Fine, even if you’re right, how are you going to get enough materials?”

Thanks to the legacy of Leaf Chao’s father, he now had countless USB drives, three external hard disks, two power banks, two tablets, and—counting two F91 laptops...

For combat, disks were pretty useless, so the total was twelve 18660 batteries, eight off-brand lithium cells, and enough material for... a brief artistic journey with four or five steel plates.

If you really wanted to make Iron Man armor, you’d need enough materials for a Tesla: over ten thousand 18660 batteries and hundreds of kilograms of metal alloy.

Even before the catastrophe, that was no small sum, let alone after!

“Second, even if you manage to make Iron Man armor, how are you going to fight? Don’t count on me; though I’m an AI, I don’t do fighting—only peacemaking...”

As soon as she finished, Alpha Girl regretted it.

She’d meant to discourage Leaf Chao from reckless ideas, but it had accidentally turned into a put-down.

Perhaps this is how parents feel when scolding their unruly children...

But Leaf Chao didn’t care, hardly even noticed: “I’ve solved the energy and processing problems; earning materials and fighting are your problems now!”

“You’re the one who proposed—‘the poor rely on mutation, the rich rely on technology,’ and said having an extra Jarvis would be key. So why are you dropping the ball at the critical moment?”

(╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

Leaf Chao, you’re quick to pass the buck!

Alpha Girl threw nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine alpacas at Leaf Chao...!

Yet, for all Leaf Chao’s emotional cluelessness, he was right—Alpha Girl did have a solution.

“Fine, we can develop a game.”

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