I Am The Swarm

As the number of “allies” embedded within the Confederation grew, Luo Wen gained a deeper understanding of his enemies. The intriguing bits of intelligence he uncovered became more frequent, and Luo Wen often found himself using these tidbits to pass the time.

Since becoming a conceptual higher-dimensional entity, multitasking had become trivial for Luo Wen. While handling important matters, he enjoyed diverting some of his attention to studying the histories of the Confederation’s member races and their interesting anecdotes.

The information about nanobots and body modifications was something Luo Wen had come across during one of these leisurely readings. At the time, he had simply chuckled and moved on, treating it as an amusing diversion.

But now, precisely because he was aware of these regulations, he found himself puzzled and confused.

The individual currently fusing with the biological armor was, based on the state of his body, undoubtedly a highly modified cyborg. Combining this with the earlier observation that the biological armor couldn’t detect his visual neural signals, and the current fusion progress data, Luo Wen concluded that this individual likely had very few original body parts left.

Such behavior by the biological armor’s host was a clear violation of the Confederation’s regulations. If Luo Wen had encountered such a high-tech individual on a remote, technologically backward planet, it might have made sense.

But where was this happening? This was Ji Race territory, a high-end biological research zone, with at least one Ji Race elder present and who knows how many others watching via video feed.

Under these circumstances, a lawbreaker openly appearing here, and clearly still connected to the network, was highly abnormal.

This wasn’t the early days of civilization, where personal connections and favors could smooth over certain issues. Well, even in some advanced civilizations, such practices still existed today.

What was one of the most criticized aspects of Lumina? Its inability to be flexible or consider context. It was a collection of programs and algorithms, rigidly adhering to rules, an enforcer that followed regulations to the letter.

Even the esteemed Ji Race elders were under its supervision. Over time, the accumulation of laws and regulations had become overwhelming, to the point where even professionals specializing in this field couldn’t guarantee they knew every rule.

But Lumina didn’t have this problem. Its storage system contained the most comprehensive legal code, meticulously detailed, with no room for oversight.

The Ji Race, however, lacked this capability. They couldn’t guarantee they would never violate regulations, especially in urgent situations where expediency often meant ignoring certain rules.

But Lumina didn’t understand such behavior. In its eyes, there were only 0s and 1s, right and wrong, with no middle ground. Although the esteemed Ji Race elders had passed some regulations granting themselves certain exemptions in special circumstances, these were limited to specific situations and didn’t cover all violations.

This was why many Ji Race members had a love-hate relationship with Lumina.

But what was happening now? A highly modified cyborg, in clear violation of regulations, was brazenly operating under Lumina’s watchful eye. And after all this time, Luo Wen hadn’t seen any mechanical soldiers storming the castle to arrest him.

Was it because he was an experimental subject? Luo Wen quickly dismissed this idea. As mentioned earlier, Lumina was a rigid program. It wouldn’t overlook a violation just because the cyborg was part of an experiment.

Was there some behind-the-scenes deal? Had Sade and his team secured some special permission? But the crime of mechanical modification wasn’t punishable by death, and the individuals involved still retained significant rights. To allow such a violator to participate in an experiment of this scale, Lumina would likely require a small council meeting, a significant event that would notify all the elders.

But Luo Wen had his own “allies” within the Ji Race elder council. He quickly contacted Elder Humes, who immediately set aside his tasks to investigate the matter for his beloved Overlord. The result? No such meeting had taken place.

This meant Sade and his team hadn’t secured any special permissions through the elder council to allow a free, highly modified cyborg to participate in this experiment.

Could it be that the cyborg had volunteered for the experiment, lowering the approval threshold? Perhaps only a small council meeting or the consent of a few elders was needed, and Sade had simply held a private meeting with some friendly elders to get it done?

This possibility couldn’t be ruled out, but it was highly unlikely. Again, Lumina didn’t understand nuance or human concepts.

A cyborg volunteering for an experiment? But he had violated regulations first and needed to be punished before participating. And after the punishment, Lumina would meticulously provide repair services to ensure the cyborg had the opportunity to violate the rules again.

These repair services involved removing the nanobots that had replaced critical body parts and using methods like cloned organs to restore those parts to their original state.

But judging by the experiment in the castle, this cyborg clearly hadn’t undergone such repairs. This made the first hypothesis slightly more plausible, though it hadn’t been completely ruled out.

There was another possibility, one Luo Wen didn’t want to consider: Lumina knew about this. Well, of course it did. With so many networked machines and surveillance systems in the castle, there was no way Lumina hadn’t seen what was happening.

This meant Lumina had tacitly allowed it, or perhaps even participated in it. The speed at which the biomimetic walls of the nanobots around the biological armor were updating was far too rapid for a small experimental team to achieve.

Moreover, achieving this would require not only a large, specialized team but also significant supercomputing resources, which again tied back to Lumina.

Luo Wen also thought about Sade, who belonged to the Inheritor’s Faction, a group that supported the mechanical path. Yet Sade had been assigned as the overseer of a major biological research zone.

What was the connection here?