It wasn't that there weren't super AI flying cars in the world, but they were all custom-made and non-race-ready. After all, the technical requirements, circuit design and manufacturing process of a super AI flying car were much higher than other flying cars. It was why Fleka didn't think much of the idea of adding super AI technology into the mix.
Most of the time, over-reliance on superintelligence wasn't a good thing, as it would affect the driver and navigator's decision-making during a race. That was why more racing racing cars leaned towards defensive and computational intelligence, rather than superintelligence that was far above the two and on the same level as a high-end robot.
Adding super AI into the mix would undoubtedly make a flying car more attractive, but it would also attract a lot of mockery at the same time. Everyone in the business knew what was at stake. The cost was high, and the impact was huge. The loss outweighed the gain.
Of course, both Silin and Naimi had their own considerations.
"Is it really going to work?" Naimi circled around Vege-Fritter before asking Silin, "That plan is pretty risky, isn't it?"
Silin sat down on the ground and stared at Vege-Fritter that was spinning around like a coin. He smiled and said, "It's just an experiment, isn't it?"
"I really want to see their expressions when we put on an amazing show."
"You'll know when the time comes."
Naimi chuckled. In reality, the Sizer Family thought that they knew Naimi very well, but not many of them really did. Fleka wouldn't have been so surprised otherwise.
Instead of driving Vege-Fritter out of the city in a hurry, Silin had just finished work. Silin was incredibly tired from the days of work, so he didn't bother to change out of his work clothes and rest on a pile of spare parts.
That's right, there were still a bunch of spare parts left. Cillin was already prepared to try again if he failed to assemble some of the parts, but to his surprise, the assembly went very smoothly this time. Moreover, Cillin felt like he had never assembled a machine in such a concentrated manner before. Not even when he was at Mo Heng's workshop back in the day.
By the time Silin was done with the assembly, everything was set up, and everything was checked to make sure everything was in order, he realized that it had been nine days.
Naimi rubbed his hands and patted Vege-Fritter, who was rolling around excitedly because it had come to this world. He said, "Come, Vege-Fritter. Sing a song for your big brother!"
Vege-Fritter stopped flipping and asked in a baby voice, "What do you want to hear?"
Naimi thought for a moment. "I want to listen to the classic version of the Empire's national anthem!"
Silin was resting with his eyes closed when he heard Naimi's words. He couldn't believe that he would like the classic version. Usually, only older people would like the classic version. Young people usually liked the popular version.
Silin fell into a deep sleep amidst this classical music that symbolized the beat of that distant era.
He didn't sleep for long. The next day, Silin woke up. His sleep this time was very short compared to the amount of time he slept after working for a long time. But the quality of his sleep was pretty good this time. At the very least, Silin was full of energy by the time he woke up the next day.
On the tenth day, Fleka purposely put down his work and came to the factory. He had been standing in front of the door for more than thirty minutes already. He didn't turn on the surveillance system inside, so he didn't know what was going on inside. However, he couldn't bring himself to ask the two brats to open the door, so he pretended to instruct the workers in repairing the flying car in a workshop not far away from the factory. His usual gentleness was nowhere near enough to make the maintenance workers shiver in fear.
Of course the people who were being instructed understood what Fleka was trying to say. The only thought in their minds was: Come on out already, you two little devils! This guy is giving us too much pressure!
Just as Fleka was suppressing the anxiety in his heart, the factory's door opened.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the door almost the second it opened. Normally, Fleka would've scolded them already. He didn't like it when someone suddenly stopped their work in the middle of a repair. But right now, Fleka wasn't in the mood to pay attention to them at all. His eyes were staring straight at the disc-shaped flying car that was about seven meters in diameter.
A lot of people here knew that Silin and Naimi had been working on a flying car for the past few days, but they didn't know what kind of flying car Silin and Naimi were building. Now that they saw the giant disc, everyone except Fleka thought the same thing: Vege-Fritter? Why is it Vege-Fritter?!
There was no doubt that Vege-Fritter was a very bad word in the flying car circle. It had always been mocked. But Naimi, the young master of the main family, was building a "Vege-Fritter" flying car. Wasn't this a disgrace to the Sizer Family? It wasn't hard to imagine how Naimi's father and grandfather would react when they learned about this. His father would probably regret allowing Naimi to participate in the competition.
Unlike everyone else, Fleka was staring straight at the Vege-Fritter. He noticed that there were still a bunch of spare parts inside the workshop when the flying car flew out. They weren't broken parts, they really were unused parts. So this flying car didn't actually cost fifty million MB to build?
The metallic "Vege-Fritter" that everyone mocked nowadays floated steadily in the air. Naimi's smug voice rang from the external speakers, "Vege-Fritter, say hello to everyone!"
Everyone's gazes were focused on Vege-Fritter the moment Naimi finished speaking.
A simple smiley face appeared on the bare chassis of the flying car. The sky-blue flowing lines made people feel as if the smile was looking down from the sky. It was as warm as sunlight.
"Hello everyone! My name is Vege-Fritter. I was born yesterday. Nice to meet you all! "
The people below sucked in a breath at the same time.
They were all industry insiders, and they had been in this business for many years. The shortest among them was at least five if not ten years. Naturally they knew what this voice represented. It was a super AI system! It wasn't a primary and secondary operating system like other flying cars. It was a super AI system!
They could tell whether or not this machine was a super AI system and how well it was equipped with a super AI system just by listening to its voice.
But this flying car, this flying car that everyone called an obsolete historical relic, was actually equipped with a super AI system! Even if this super AI system wasn't too advanced, it wasn't low by any means. This was a racing car, so why would they install a super AI system on a racing car? Was it not worth it?
Fleka couldn't even describe his shock right now. He found it hard to believe. How on earth did Silin do this? Both the ring design and the super AI equipment were completed?!
He had to admit that Fleka's occupational disease was acting up again. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to drag Cillin over to study the super AI system. Right now, he felt like his heart was being scratched by a furry claw, but there was nothing he could do about it. It was because Naimi had flown away after saying "let's try out the flying car".
Silin and Naimi didn't drive the flying car. They had already discussed the test route, and Vege-Fritter would follow it until it reached its destination. Both Silin and Naimi wanted to see how Vege-Fritter would react to the obstacles in its not-so-advanced configuration.
The flying car first flew to the rainforest area. Birds occasionally flew into the air from the dense forest below, and the officially marked track was only a dozen or so meters away from the top of the forest. There were a lot of moving plants in this rainforest, and the thick vines would whip their prey down from the sky. Then, they would wrap the prey in the vines and stab them with their sharp thorns to absorb nutrients.
Apart from the vines, the flying car would occasionally run into some big birds. These birds would ignore you when they were in a good mood, but when they were in a bad mood, they would attack anything that flew past them even if they had a full stomach. This was what people usually said when they saw you as an eyesore.
Trees that could move, large birds, animals that could run on rocks, other predators that could fly, and so on. These were all obstacles for the flying cars passing through here.
Due to the fact that the race track had been sealed off, there was an isolation net that was flashing with electricity. No birds or other animals were allowed to approach within a 50-meter radius.
Vege-Fritter was flying at the same altitude as the track about a hundred meters away from the track. It wasn't flying too fast or too slow. While flying, it recorded all the signals it saw, heard, and received, and quickly compared and updated its existing data.
"Eh? That isolation net is emitting a certain frequency that's supposed to keep the animals away, but the strange thing is that the plants aren't afraid of it at all. In fact, some of the plants are even moving towards the isolation net!" Vege-Fritter exclaimed in surprise.
Not bad, at least it knew how to analyze this. Silin was very satisfied.
"A long time ago, someone thought he was smart enough to simulate the barrier's frequency and release it. Although he managed to chase away the birds and other animals, he was attacked by even more plants. In the end, he was swept away by the vines and survived only after the guards arrived." Naimi explained with a smile.
"Vege-Fritter, continue to collect external signals, especially audio and non-audio signals from the top of the local food chain," Silin ordered.
"Got it!"
Both Silin and Naimi noted down everything they needed to pay attention to as Vege-Fritter dodged the birds and tree branches. They would make the necessary preparations once they got back to the race so that they wouldn't screw up during the official race.
The deeper they went into the rainforest, the more attacks the flying car received. Just as it was about to get hit by a tree branch or two, the flying car's appearance suddenly started changing. It was still in the same round shape, but now it looked like a disk covered in branches and leaves. It wasn't just its appearance, even the scent of the vines had been mimicked.
This way, the attacks from the vines had decreased, and the attacks from other plants had decreased a lot as well. Now that the flying car was mainly dealing with the animals, the burden on it was greatly reduced.
"Not bad, not bad. You're pretty smart!" Silin praised.
Vege-Fritter let out a pleased chuckle, but a big bird suddenly scratched it and left another claw mark on its shell.
"Don't get too full of yourself. See, karma's coming for you?" Silin said while patting the car seat.
"Oh." Vege-Fritter let out a bitter sound and bowed its head like a child who had done something wrong.
Naimi laughed loudly before patting the car wall. "Then go fight back and show your big brother what you've got! If you're being bullied, you're going to bully them back! "
Silin shot Naimi a glance but didn't say anything.
As if encouraged, Vege-Fritter started analyzing its surroundings. Both Silin and Naimi knew exactly what it was doing through the display on the control panel.
"Is it going to …"
Naimi hadn't even finished his sentence when Vege-Fritter unleashed a series of blades of light and cut down the vines below it. The severed vines flew into the air, and Vege-Fritter shot out mechanical arms from the edge of the disk and grabbed them tightly. Then, it whipped them at the birds.
Silin: "..."
What a violent scene it was.
Along the way, bird feathers filled the sky, and the incessant bird cries spread far and wide in the rainforest.
One had to admit that it was a pretty effective tactic. The birds and animals weren't stupid, so most of them stayed away from it.
A long silence later, Silin said, "There's no chance to whip the birds while we're speeding up."
Vege-Fritter paused in the middle of whipping a bird. Thankfully, there weren't many birds that would try to cause trouble right now, and they were about to leave the rainforest. They weren't attacked during this short pause.
"You made another mistake," Silin said.
It was obvious that Vege-Fritter knew that it shouldn't have paused just now.
"Alright alright, the race isn't official yet, is it? You're doing pretty well in a situation like this. "Naimi said.
"It is, but I'll be taking over the driving rights during the race. You should record everything you learn during the race. There are a lot of important things that can only be learned during a race." Silin said the latter half of the sentence to Vege-Fritter. They weren't planning to use their super AI throughout the race to begin with. It was just for a certain segment.
"Alright!" Vege-Fritter looked very expectant.
After the flying car flew past the rainforest area, it flew past the muddy swamp area, the snowy glacier area, the vast desert area, and the winding mountain road area at the same speed.
Three flying cars were parked on top of a cliff in the middle of the mountain roads. The few of them were leaning against the flying car, laughing and chatting about the competition while holding a glass of wine in their hands.
Suddenly, one of them spat out the wine in his mouth.
"Fuck! Vege-Fritter! Am I seeing things? "
"Look at you, you can't even do something like this … fuck! It really is Vege-Fritter! "
"I can't believe there's someone driving Vege-Fritter around these days!" The man looked like he was having a hard time accepting the fact.
"Where did this come from? A museum? An exhibition hall? "
Vege-Fritter flew past the mountain in a whoosh. They didn't fly over the first part of the road, but they did so because they detected people nearby.
Sitting inside the car, Naimi propped his chin on his hand as he stared at the people standing on the cliff on the monitor. He tapped the back of the seat lightly with his finger.
Is Vege-Fritter shameful? Naimi really wanted to smack a brick in their faces when he saw the look on their faces.
Flying cars weren't shameful. They shouldn't be shameful, and they shouldn't be burdened with this heavy word. They carried people through an era, and even if they were criticized for their flaws and imperfections later on, that didn't mean they couldn't be denied. They weren't failures. They were the brightest stars of their era, and the Crescent Moon, Sharp Blade, and other so-called improved flying cars wouldn't exist without them.
When Naimi was very young and saw the round and lonely flying car parked in the largest and most complete flying car museum in the entire empire, Naimi suddenly felt as if he could feel the car's mournful wail.
The other booths were surrounded by people, and the spectators were fighting with each other to comment and flatter the Vege-Fritter. Naimi suddenly felt that the "Vege-Fritter" the "professionals" and the so-called "flying car enthusiasts" had belittled as "Vege-Fritter" was waiting to be redeemed by the "professionals" and the so-called "flying car enthusiasts" in front of him.
Compassion, understanding, and dignity were all basic human qualities, but these qualities weren't reflected in flying cars at all. Many people couldn't understand the Sizer Family's feelings towards flying cars, and only thought that it was a way to make money for the Sizer Family. But not everyone thought the same. At least Naimi didn't like flying cars for profit.
The sudden surge of emotion he felt when he was young was too strong, and it had accompanied him for many years.
That was why Naimi had suggested the name "Vege-Fritter" when it was time to name the new flying car. Silin smiled. Silin thought that "Vege-Fritter" was a really good name.
A successful and glorious person didn't need to give his name a deep meaning, because as long as he succeeded, his name would naturally be covered with a shiny coat. Similarly, a successful flying car didn't need a name that was flashy and "meaningful", as if it was afraid that people wouldn't know that it was going to be a glorious name. A successful flying car would naturally have a meaningful name.
Naimi told Silin that he wanted to send this abandoned circle back to the top, and accompany it to the top. He wanted to make people realize their mistakes, and remove that heavy word from its name.
"We'll win, Vege-Fritter!"
"Of course, I think we'll win too!" Vege-Fritter said affirmatively.
"Stop dreaming. Let's take care of the problem at hand first." Silin cut off the conversation between man and car.
"What problem?" Naimi asked in puzzlement.
"Did you bring food?" Silin looked at Naimi.
Naimi: "... Fuck!"
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