Chapter 120: Silly Bot

Days went by, and time slowly slipped past.

One day, a small package arrived at Derrick’s house.

Inside was a key and a short note from Keira with an address written on it.

Her message was brief.

She said it was a thank-you gift for everything he had done for her back at the Chen residence. She didn’t add anything else.

Derrick drove out to the address.

He found a massive, sturdy warehouse standing in a quiet part of town.

When he checked the property details on his phone, he was shocked to see the entire place was already legally registered in his name.

He slid the key into the main door and unlocked it.

When he stepped inside, he saw it wasn’t just a simple, empty building.

It was a fully built, high-tech workshop.

Right in the middle sat a massive workstation equipped with three top-spec supercomputers, all powered on and raring to go.

Nearby was a complete line of high-grade equipment designed specifically for pill creation and advanced alchemy research.

Along the far walls stood tall, organized shelves.

Rows upon rows of neatly placed materials and rare ingredients were stacked systematically, giving him everything he needed to craft Tier 1 pills without worry.

Derrick looked up at the perimeter walls and noticed the subtle glow of active defense systems.

Heavy reinforced plating, encrypted lockouts, and automated security measures were installed all around the perimeter to stop any break-ins dead in their tracks.

Derrick stood in the middle of the quiet room, completely stunned.

He looked around at the supercomputers, the high-grade alchemy gear, and the endless stacks of rare ingredients.

Everything in this building easily added up to around 500 million Social Credits.

It was a staggering fortune.

Derrick didn’t even know how to process it or how to feel about a gift like this.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Keira’s number.

The line rang twice before cutting off. She didn’t pick up.

He hit redial and tried calling her again.

This time, it went straight to voicemail.

Buzz!

A second later, a text message popped up on his screen from Keira.

He opened it up.

{I am not taking anything back. Suck it up and deal with it.}

Derrick stared at the screen, completely speechless.

He let out a helpless breath, shaking his head with a faint smile.

Since there was nothing else he could do, Derrick decided to accept the gift.

He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Rebecca to let her know he was safe and would not come home for a few days.

Then, he locked the heavy warehouse doors behind him.

For three days and three nights, Derrick didn’t step outside once.

He threw himself completely into his work, rebuilding his entire digital system from scratch.

Using the raw power of the three supercomputers, he coded complex new firewalls, automated defense algorithms, and custom programs to run his business.

Outside, parked a short distance away, Keira sat quietly in her car.

She looked down at her phone screen, watching a live camera feed from inside the workshop.

On the screen, Derrick was typing furiously at his desk.

A faint, soft smile touched her lips as she watched him work.

Tap. Tap.

Someone tapped lightly on her driver-side window.

Keira turned her head.

A nervous man in a sharp suit and glasses was standing outside, looking at her with wide, terrified eyes.

The moment she looked at him, the faint smile on her face vanished instantly, as if it had never been there at all.

She rolled down the window.

“W-We are ready for you,” the man stammered out, his voice shaking.

Keira didn’t say a word. She opened the door and stepped out of the car.

Underneath her long black overcoat, she wore a sleek, skintight battle outfit.

Stitched onto the sleeves of her coat was a brilliant golden sun symbol.

Her sharp eyes moved past the man, looking into the distance where three other figures stood waiting, all dressed in similar combat gear.

Keira walked past the suited man without giving him a second glance.

The man in the suit stood frozen on the spot, staring at her back as cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

Was I dreaming? he thought, his face completely pale. Did I really just see the Thousand-Armed Demoness… smile?

His blood ran ice-cold. He turned around and staggered away in a panic, desperate to put distance between himself and her.

Keira approached the waiting group.

A slender man with a sharp, domineering presence turned to her as she walked up.

“Everything has been isolated,” he said, his voice cold and steady. “We can finally enter.”

Keira turned her gaze toward a massive, isolated building standing alone in the middle of nowhere.

Even from a distance, she could clearly see a bright red sigil carved into the front gates.

She nodded silently.

…

Three days had passed, and Derrick had not moved from his seat once.

He spent hours building a brand-new security construct.

He designed every layer of its code based entirely on the unknown hacker who had beaten him.

It didn’t matter to Derrick that his old computer had melted from bad equipment.

A loss was still a loss.

That unknown hacker had managed to beat him twice now.

Derrick was level-headed enough to face the truth.

Their raw skill was dangerously close to his, but they had far more experience in high-stakes cyber warfare.

He was not going to let them catch him unprepared again.

Defense was not the only thing Derrick was working on during those three days.

His fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed out a completely new string of complex code.

He was creating something to handle his day-to-day digital tasks whenever he was away from the workshop.

It would automatically upload his novel chapters, handle site promotions, and keep his business running smoothly on its own.

It was a Pseudo AI.

Derrick leaned back, looked at the completed file, and gave it a name.

Silly Bot.