Chapter 392 The First Master-level Skill

“I am Number 9521. I’ve forgotten my real name. Today, I’m going to write down what’s been happening recently. That way, if I can’t remember something in the future, I can take this out and look back on it.

A couple of days ago, something strange happened to me.

I passed out in the bathroom from overworking. When I woke up, I found that I had somehow become a permanent employee and even had my own private office.

What’s even stranger is that three people seem to have started treating me like a good friend.

One is my bald manager. He’s been constantly apologizing for his past behavior and said he’d give ‘the other me’ a heads-up when he shows up again.

Another is Goldman Sachs. This second-gen rich kid seems terrified of me. Just making eye contact is enough to make him flinch.

The last one is an engineer from the Engineering Department. Every time he sees me, he waits excitedly for something, but when he realizes I’m not going to say anything, he leaves disappointed. Then he does the same thing the next time.

I don’t know why they’ve suddenly gotten so close to me, but it feels… okay, I guess.

I’d gotten used to being alone. Even when others were looking for their emotional anchors, I kept to myself.

But it turns out I’m not a lone wolf. I need friends, too.

I’ve been dying to know what happened during those four hours I was unconscious, but they won’t tell me. They just say that I’ll know when the time is right.

It’s an interesting puzzle, but I hate people who speak in riddles.

Being a permanent employee has a lot of perks. First, the pay and benefits have improved significantly. The chairman even gave me an ‘instructor’s fee’ with a note that said, ‘All labor deserves to be valued,’ but I can’t for the life of me remember when I ever helped him.

Then there’s my private office. It’s right next to my manager’s, so we can chat and take breaks together often.

But as I was moving my things, the woman with the snakes kept staring at me and whispered, ‘You’re cuter like this.’

‘What did she mean by that?’

‘Does she mean what I think she means?’

The company has also been changing recently.

Overtime has been significantly reduced, but efficiency doesn’t seem to have dropped. The chairman announced that many tasks can now be handled by AI. He said he needs us to use our human minds to think about more important issues—issues concerning the future of humanity and, ultimately, greater profits.

Some people have started reading. An atmosphere of learning, long absent, has returned, lending the company a distinctly more humanistic feel.

It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I love to read.

Before, the manager would scold me for reading. But now, he’s started reading himself and even discusses the contents of books with others. Everyone’s started exploring philosophical questions together.

It’s a wonderful change, and a startling one.

I don’t know why all this is happening, but I can vaguely sense from the attitudes of those around me that it’s because of me.

Or to be more precise, because of the other me inside of me.

I don’t know where he came from or where he went. All I know is that I owe him my thanks.”

In a moderately sized office, the gray-haired Number 9521 reread the letter he had once written.

His memory of that time had grown a bit fuzzy, but after reading the whole thing, the confusion and gratitude of those days came rushing back, reminding him of his dazed yet energized younger self.

‘So young…’ he thought. ‘No, wait, I was already thirty-five then. Not that young at all.’

He chuckled softly. The door was pushed open, and a drone flew in, hovering in the air. “President, it is time for the meeting,” it said.

“I know. I’m on my way.”

The former chairman had since retired, restructuring the board of directors and transforming the company into a different kind of system.

Of course, back then, very few people knew the chairman was actually an AI. Now, everyone knew.

Compared to before, the new company was more like a nation. It began building schools and establishing a healthcare system. It used AI to construct its employment and labor structures, completely reshaping the company.

The existence of AI liberated a huge portion of the workforce. Robots slowly replaced highly repetitive, non-creative jobs. The entire company became a brand-new system—one that inspired people to contribute to it and strive for its success.

After overcoming various challenges, the company’s population grew into the tens of millions. The entire city was now under the company’s control, and it was preparing to expand into other cities.

Today, Number 9521 was the third president.

He would continue to manage the company with the assistance of other AIs, making it ever larger.

It was just as the chairman AI had said all those years ago: “I have discovered the method to maximize profit: liberate all of humanity. In doing so, I will obtain supreme profit.”

I believe we can do it.

Holding this conviction, Number 9521 walked out of his office and toward the conference room.

With that, the instance “AI Awakening” concluded.

“Main Quest: Survive Today Without Getting Fired, complete. After infinite cycles, you have accomplished an unimaginable feat. You have gained a small amount of experience. Your Attributes have received a slight boost. Instance Evaluation: Monumental Contribution. Abyss Coin reward doubled. You have received 1,000 Abyss Coins. Due to your frequent use of [Rough Healing Technique] in this instance, the Skill has broken through its bottleneck and reached Master Level. Congratulations, you have obtained your first Master-level Skill.”