My Cyber Psychosis is Task Prompt

[Eden City - Dan Street No. 013]

Silver Rider 577 slowly rotated on the maintenance platform in the garage, as robotic arms conducted vehicle assessment and routine maintenance.

The Bolago Club collected clients' vehicle information in a similar way to promote membership packages, but John had already hacked into the apartment system using Black Light.

His user profile remained on the previous version.

John returned to the familiar entry hall.

Black and gold silent carpets, sharp-edged walls, and that always-smiling intelligent butler.

"Welcome home..."

"Let me have some peace."

John gently pressed his palm.

The apartment system controlled by Black Light directly muted the news channel.

The intelligent butler watched John all the way to the elevator, yet no sound came, making it eerily quiet.

The chatter was muted, but not the scent.

The public area had a new aroma.

The elevator cabin began promoting, claiming that a new product from Gaia Cells could relieve anxiety. Just a wave of the hand would charge the Bolago membership account, and the new fragrance would reach inside through the ventilation system, showing effects within two minutes.

[In the Cyber Era, advertisements are the most prevalent substance in the air.]

Ding ——

The elevator cabin opened.

A package awaiting signature was placed at the door.

John glanced at it casually but immediately paused, hand reaching for the weapon at his waist, his prosthetic eye flashing, already connected to the apartment's surveillance system through Black Light.

He had a delivery line at Dan Street Apartment.

[Black Spider] would deliver "valuable items" dug up from the landfill through [Captain], such as windfall money cards or prosthetic body data remnants for making Special Inhibitors.

However, with Black Light lurking in the apartment system, packages did not require signing or scanning.

This delivery came from someone else, and what truly made John nervous was the large [Internet Surveillance Office] logo printed on the box.

State police messing with him again?

John checked the interior carefully, switching to the surveillance system inside and outside the apartment to observe the building surroundings.

No hovercars descended from the sky.

No ground vehicles were closing in.

No elite soldiers crashing through the windows!

"Really getting paranoid because of those bastards."

John grumbled, cursing.

There was no problem with the package.

A standard electronic items sealed box, with impact-resistant hardened plastic and custom internal supports.

Inside was neither a bomb nor a tracking device, but a carbon-fiber-glossy "arc helmet."

[Item: Virtual Headset - Morpheus MS-8]

[Manufacturer: Morpheus]

[Description: Morpheus 8th Generation Smart Headset, triple immersion modes, supports 0.5ms latency playback and deep compilation, features IP68 waterproof and EMP electromagnetic shield protection...]

John recognized this thing—after experiencing the immersive device with Angelica, he had also looked into rendering equipment.

Morpheus is a high-end brand.

Hot commodity on the black market too.

Who sent it?

The headset in the box began to flash, opening the box seemed to trigger some kind of scanning function.

The next moment.

[Unknown Contact [Unread Message]]

[Put it on.]

John guessed who the sender was, while also feeling in his heart that it had finally arrived; he just hadn't expected that the path Serum promised would be a player device.

He was not stupid enough to just put it on his head.

The other side was a wandering AI, not to be feared, but not to be underestimated either.

John went to the workshop, connected the headset to the terminal, and, while connecting to the in-room player, also scanned and accessed it with the help of Black Light.

"As expected, there's something wrong."

The firewall provided by Morpheus company was not triggered.

John didn't even need hacking skills; just the feedback from Black Light told him—someone had already tampered with the headset before him.

The upgraded Black Light had become more professional.

It violently overwrote the contents inside but did not delete the backdoor, nor did it modify any code, only leaving protective measures at some key nodes.

If things went wrong, John had the right to "stop anytime."

He still didn't rush to put it on but organized the prosthetic body materials delivered by [Captain], made several [Special Inhibitors], and placed them where he could quickly grab them.

Black Light activation would harm the body.

The burden needed to be counteracted with [Special Inhibitors].

John harbored no hostility, purely self-preservation.

After making ample preparations.

He took a deep breath, lay on the deep-diving chair that hadn't been used since he moved in, and officially activated the headset.

[Neural sensing synchronization in progress, rendering initialization, calibrating device parameters, server connection failed, local network reconnection application, no data source detected...]

John hadn't inserted a chip.

So his consciousness didn't fully immerse, remaining on a control interface.

The headset did not detect a playable Super Sensing Chip.

The device only installed the game "Cyber Era."

As soon as John connected, he received an access signal, and it wasn't in the headset but within the entire apartment, or rather, Black Light lurking inside the system detected an exceptionally powerful signal.

It spanned half the city's local network, releasing shadows in different lines, repeatedly hopping until it fell into the apartment server, paired with the corresponding room number, seeking the deep-diving equipment connected to the headset.

Serum had arrived.

A ripple stirred in cyberspace.

Pixelated noise coalesced into a familiar humanoid figure—a middle-aged woman covered in a long-sleeve hoodie.

This reminded John of the Silver Port experience, their first meeting, also a conversation in cyberspace.

"I've got the project secret key you wanted, where's the promised lifeline? I'm damn near dead!"

"Your way out is in 'Cyber Era.'"

"What do you mean, my brain's about to melt, and you want me to play games?"

"Yes, do you accept?"

"Do I have a choice!"

John was somewhat exasperated yet helpless—even in cyberspace, he could see the symbols pulsing on his wrist through the data outline.

Those were deadly warnings.

[Mission: If I Had Three Days of Light]

[Reward: EUROPHASARK [Neural Ark]]

"Fine, I'll consider myself unlucky, betting on you with my life, but if you want me to do the work, you better disclose everything; there are so many things I want to clear up!"

"John, from an equal exchange perspective, I have no obligation to answer your questions."

"Then don't expect me to work obediently, I'll disconnect now and smash the headset!"

"You have significant emotional fluctuations."

"No shit, it's not your life on the line!"

"Then we can make another exchange, for each question I answer, you answer one of my questions too. If you're perfunctory, I'll also withhold information."

Serum seemed to be waiting for this step.

John felt a chill in his heart.

[Inquire about the Vacuum Tube. (Optional)]

[Inquire about the cause of death of Agave Rope. (Optional)]

[Abandon transaction. (Optional)]

"You must know the Vacuum Tube! Who are these people, and why are they targeting me! Don't say you know nothing; even if they've plotted against you, even if you knew nothing before, surely you've checked it out now!"

Some information may be difficult for a human intermediary stuck on the local network to obtain, but for a nearly unrestricted wandering AI like Serum, things might be different.

It paused for a moment, not out of hesitation, more like accessing data from some source.

"The Vacuum Tube [VT] comes from Pompeii."

"The city blown up by a wandering AI?"

"Yes, but not entirely accurate, it simply disappeared from human-controlled maps. In reality, Pompeii has been active in cyberspace all these years, it's just that its data world distance is so vast, even the most experienced hackers find entering Pompeii as challenging as crossing the Black Wall."

According to Serum's explanation.

There is a deep connection between the Vacuum Tube and Pompeii.

And there are very few living people in that city, it's a completely AI-owned Eden.

"The Vacuum Tube works for wandering AI, I don't know their exact operations."

"Wandering AI... what do they have to do with me."

John just felt exhausted.

"This question exceeds my ability to answer, if there's a chance, you could ask one of their people."

Serum interrupted John.

"Now it's my turn to ask, what do you think of AI?"