Kilar Mountains, a water collection point.

Long Yuehong, wearing a military exoskeleton, used the flashlight he carried to provide lighting for Shang Jianyao and the others.

To be honest, his legs were a bit weak right now, and he just wanted to find a place to sit down and rest.

This wasn't because the pursuit by the robot guards had made him too nervous. After the bridge was blown up, he basically hadn't seen any pursuers, relying entirely on the occasional sounds to remind him not to relax.

His nervousness mainly came from speeding in the middle of the night, and in the mountains.

Those sharp turns, those cliffs, those stretches of broken road, coupled with the jeep's wild advances and the headlights he dared not turn on, all formed Long Yuehong's nightmare tonight.

Especially later, when they deviated from the original route, Bai Chen was no longer familiar with the environment and needed to rely on Genaeva's instructions, things became even more perilous—at least, that's what Long Yuehong thought.

He was really afraid that Bai Chen would accidentally drive the car into a ditch. Even if they drove into a ditch, that would be okay, but if they flipped down a cliff, no one in the car would survive, including Genaeva, the intelligent robot.

Whenever he recalled the scene at the time, Long Yuehong's legs would tremble a bit.

Fortunately, the moon was relatively bright tonight, so the driver didn't have to rely solely on the headlights.

"Alright, let's continue," Jiang Baimian said, walking back with her water bag.

Standing on the other side, the silver-black robot Genaeva proactively suggested,

"I'll drive next, you probably aren't familiar with the area we're about to pass through."

"Okay." Jiang Baimian also felt that it was better to leave this to Genaeva, the Kilar Mountains "terrain expert."

What was this called?

This was called full-intelligent driving!

While opening the passenger door, she said to Long Yuehong,

"Take off the exoskeleton, we've basically shaken off the pursuit for now, we need to conserve power."

Long Yuehong had already been notified by the system about the power issue, so he had no objections.

After the jeep resumed driving under the moonlight, Jiang Baimian turned to Genaeva and asked curiously,

"Don't you have any worries about running out of power?"

Intelligent robots also mainly rely on high-performance batteries for energy.

"I've already changed it," Genaeva replied simply. "We intelligent beings use a dual-energy system, we can replace the battery at any time. Just like you need to prepare food when you go out, we usually carry four high-performance batteries as backup. I even stole two extra ones earlier. Well, we try not to use backup batteries whenever possible."

"I stole two as well," Jiang Baimian said upon hearing this.

"Affluent," Shang Jianyao expressed his opinion.

Genaeva skillfully steered the jeep around a bend, without responding.

Jiang Baimian asked in a casual tone,

"Are there many intelligent beings like you who escape from 'Mechanical Paradise'?"

If he was the unprecedented first, she suspected that there would be a lot of trouble ahead.

Genaeva was silent for a moment, the blue light in his eyes tinting the windshield with a hint of color,

"There are some, most of them escape because of their level of humanization."

"What happened to them later?" Shang Jianyao asked with concern.

Genaeva replied in a slightly synthetic baritone voice,

"Maybe they were caught, maybe they weren't. This isn't public information, we don't have permission to read and download it."

"You have an internal network?" Jiang Baimian asked casually.

"Yes, apart from updates to the main module, everything else can be obtained on the network, but it must be within the base station's coverage area." Unlike Bai Chen's wildness, Genaeva drove very calmly, with basically no sharp turns or sudden stops, but the speed wasn't much slower.

Jiang Baimian nodded and then asked,

"What does the 'C' in your designation mean?"

Gaining as much intelligence about "Mechanical Paradise" as possible would help them choose and determine subsequent plans.

"C stands for common type," Genaeva didn't hide anything. "The first two digits of the designation are the year the main module was loaded onto the core chip, and the subsequent digits indicate the number of that year."

He paused for a moment and continued,

"A represents computing type, mainly assisting 'Source Brain' in carrying out corresponding research; B represents experimental type, on the one hand, participating in various dangerous experiments, on the other hand, trying out new versions of the main module, the latest algorithms, etc.

"In the eyes of us intelligent beings, these two models of robots are closer to tools."

So there's a hierarchy of contempt even within robots... Jiang Baimian chuckled inwardly, thoughtfully.

Bai Chen and Shang Jianyao were listening very attentively, seemingly very interested in this.

Long Yuehong, who was sitting in the middle of the back row, was more curious about another question,

"What exactly is the level of humanization?"

The vehicle sped along the dark mountain road, and Genaeva, while looking ahead, unconsciously slowed down his speech,

"My understanding is the awareness of oneself, and the degree of similarity to humans.

"The more one considers oneself human, the more one behaves like humans in every aspect, the higher the level of humanization.

"Once it exceeds the 70 percent limit, one will be punished by 'Source Brain.' Too low, and one will be considered unsuitable for contact with humans, posing a potential danger."

Long Yuehong roughly understood what the level of humanization was all about,

"For intelligent beings with too high or too low a level of humanization, uh, what does 'Mechanical Paradise' do with them?"

There was some confusion in Genaeva's tone,

"They will be formatted, the main module and corresponding algorithms will be reloaded. That is to say, there will be another Genaeva, or not called Genaeva, taking control of this body.

"I really don't understand, we are clearly a species, with our own reproduction and production model, why does 'Source Brain' still position us as intelligent tools?

"Many companions don't understand..."

Before Shang Jianyao and the others could respond, he asked himself repeatedly,

"If that's the case, why set a lower limit on the level of humanization, to keep us the way we are now?

"To better serve humans, to not harm humans? But..."

Genaeva fell silent, seemingly unable to find an answer, and not expecting Jiang Baimian and the others to provide one.

Jiang Baimian listened quietly and asked a question,

"If you become too humanized, what impact will it have before you are reviewed and punished by 'Source Brain'?"

The core point of her question was: Is the level of humanization a mandatory regulation of "Source Brain," or a limitation of the intelligent robots themselves.

Genaeva turned the steering wheel and said after a moment of silence,

"At certain times, on certain issues, there will be some malfunctions.

"When we realize this, we will deliberately avoid it, because once the corresponding fault code appears repeatedly, 'Source Brain' will know that our state is not right."

Speaking of this, Genaeva gave a bitter laugh in a slightly synthetic tone,

"Whenever this happens, I know that maybe we are not real humans, not real species. Our creators have set too many restrictions in our core modules, making it only a tool, not a soul."

Shang Jianyao smiled suddenly upon hearing this,

"Do you know what our next goal is?"

"What?" Genaeva asked cooperatively.

Shang Jianyao pointed in a northerly direction,

"Go to First City, find the descendants of Aure Ubis.

"He's also called Maximian, and was once the chief scientist of the Third Research Institute."

After Shang Jianyao finished speaking, Jiang Baimian helped supplement Genaeva with a sentence,

"Perhaps you don't know, but the predecessor of 'Mechanical Paradise' was the Third Research Institute.

"Maximian should be the creator you're talking about."

Shang Jianyao continued,

"At that time, we might be able to get some information from his descendants, which can remove the various restrictions in your souls."

He used soul to replace the core module, or main module, that Genaeva mentioned.

"This..." The blue light in Genaeva's eyes suddenly brightened, illuminating the road ahead with a pale blue light.

He was clearly shocked.

At the same time, Jiang Baimian frowned slightly, then relaxed, turning her gaze to the rearview mirror as if nothing was wrong.

A few seconds later, the intelligent robot Genaeva sighed,

"That's really something to look forward to...

"I never expected that this escape would involve the creator."

Shang Jianyao asked with a smile,

"Do you believe in fate now?"

"Fate..." Genaeva chewed on the word again, still without answering.

Seeing this, Jiang Baimian changed the subject and asked casually,

"Genaeva, uh, it feels a bit unfamiliar to call you that. Have you ever seen humans at 'Mechanical Paradise' headquarters?"

What kind of question is this... Long Yuehong was a little confused.

The next second, he heard Genaeva answer in a low voice,

"No."