Chapter 20: Dad

In a dark cave inside a dungeon. A room of around 20 meters square existed in a very secret location.

In the darkness, the green light flowering plant illuminated the surroundings.

The light reflected a slight shadow, it was that of a man and an object unknown to this world's inhabitants.

*Hummm*-the sound of the object as the man presses a flat surface with many segments with a symbol carved on it; Q,W,E,R,T,Y,...

The man continued to type and press many unknown buttons as time passed until…

A light appeared!

Ding!

The flat surface that was unlit before now gives out such brilliant color inside the room. The light from an object called a monitor then converges as it becomes the symbol of a tree before changing into an image of an icon and a blank column of space with the word "PASSWORDS" written on it.

The man then types a bunch of seemingly random letters into the column as the image in the monitor changes into an image of a yellow smiling emoji. With the changes, a sound was heard in the room.

"Tsk… I don't have time to design a character for my AI. Looks like choosing this smiling emoji as a temporary avatar is not a good idea since it looks annoying."

The man was our protagonist, Nomura Kentarou. He continued to type on a black-white space beside the smiling emoji as a bunch of letters and sentences appeared in white font.

def initialize(self, model: tf.ALICE.Model):

ckpt_dir_or_file = self.task_config.init_checkpoint

logging.info("Trying to load pretrained checkpoint from %s", ckpt_dir_or_file)

if tf.io.gfile.isdir(ckpt_dir_or_file): ckpt_dir_or_file = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(ckpt_dir_or_file)

if not ckpt_dir_or_file: return

if hasattr(model, "checkpoint_items"):

checkpoint_items = model.checkpoint_items

else: checkpoint_items = dict(model=model)

ckpt = tf.train.Checkpoint(**checkpoint_items)

status = ckpt.read(ckpt_dir_or_file)

status.expect_partial().assert_existing_objects_matched()

logging.info("Finished loading pretrained checkpoint from %s", ckpt_dir_or_file)

def build_model(self) -> tf.ALICE.Model:

def __init__(self, params,logging_dir: Optional[str] = None, name: Optional[str] = None):

super().__init__(name=name)

self._task_config = params

self._logging_dir = logging_dir

~Author note: Don't think too much about the code. I just put some random miscellaneous python code to make it more believable.~

The laboratory was brightly lit, and Kentarou continued his development in an unmanned room, striving to make it perfect. On the monitor, the APRIL language code(Artificial Plant Ribonucleic Intelligent Language) begins to change, delete, and add.

The time is not long and the code changes. The new source code is listed on the monitor. In Kentarou's gaze, with the flow of light in the monitor, He keeps the optimization place in mind.

These optimizations can make this probably medium-level artificial intelligence more perfect.

Until the seventh day at night, the modification is completed and it is confirmed that there is no error. Kentarou can't wait to put the source code file on the desktop of the Plant computer. Kentarou smiled at the corner of his mouth and pressed his finger on the Enter button

Logging complete… ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) Artificial Intelligence successfully loaded.

"Artificial intelligence is starting, identifying the creator identity."

The innocent female voice is heard in the Plant computer's stereo, and the camera of the computer is automatically turned on. Kentarou said nothing, aiming the camera at his face.

"If the identification is complete, please enter the artificial intelligence name."

"Alice."

"Artificial intelligence name confirmation: Alice, please select the personality. Well-behaved, cold, shy, belly black..." The Plant computer's stereo sounded again.

"Oh,... well-behaved," Kentarou said to the computer microphone as a black line formed on his face.

'I wonder for what reason should I add this setting? Looks like my fun in creating AI end up giving it some useless options.'

"The character selection was successful and the artificial intelligence was successfully launched."

After the sound of the Plant computer rang, the artificial intelligence source code file on the desktop of the computer disappeared, and there was no movement at all.

'Huh? Is it successful?'

"Uhm… ALICE?"

As Kentarou called the computer, a voice different from before called out to me. It was an innocent young girl voice, unlike the previous female robotic voice sound.

"Dad!"

With the call of the Plant Artificial Intelligent, I can feel more black lines forming on my forehead.

'Did I just become a dad before Hajime???'

"ALICE… Why did you call me Dad?" Kentarou ask with unbelieving voices

"Uhm… I don't know? I only have a feeling that whoever is in front of me is my parents. Dad if it is a male and Mom if it is female."

Hearing this reply, Kentarou can only tsukkomi inside his head. 'You are not a baby chicken!'

'Is it because of some of the genes from the base plant being similar to humans that the Artificial Intelligent have this kind of functionality? After all, this is not a mechanical computer-based AI but a different artificial life form.'

Kentarou can only sigh at this. He can only thank for his new skills that He got after continuing on developing plant AI; [Nature's Blessing]. This skill makes all plants whether it is his or not, to have goodwill towards him. Not only that! Plants could also never be able to hate, hurt or betray him. This makes the scenario of AI going rampant to be invalidated.

From the start to now, there are a lot of things that Kentarou needs to invent since the computer itself is an amalgamation of various technologies. To create the monitor, He first needs to obtain a Light plant and Camouflage plant.

The light plant is obtained from growing plants using the serene stone or the green-glowing stone in this Dungeon. This creates a plant that is able to convert mana to light energy as it emitted light from its flower. On The other hand, Camouflage plants are the result of my optical camouflage ability that is used in a plant. This allows the plant to change its epidermis/outer skin to any color it wants to.

These two abilities are then combined through [+Plant Combination] and adjusted through [+Plant Directed Mutation] to create an LED Plant. Simply put, this plant is able to emit light of any color from its epidermis/skin that is shaped like a flat surface like a monitor.

Other than that, Kentarou also needs to make Plant Camera, Plant Microphone, Plant Stereo, and others using his abilities. Although most of these can be easily obtained through getting the monster organ which is directly learned/mutated by the plant to be its own organ.

"Well, you can call me whatever. How about you try to control the current army and divide it into groups of 9 soldiers with 3 soldiers of each type and 1 tank?"

"Okay! Should I do it now?"

"Wait a minute, I will go to the field first then tell you later."

The current army that Kentarou possesses has grown from measly 30 soldiers and 3 tanks to a whole 180 soldiers (60 for each type) and 20 spider tanks. This is all after using some free time when He finishes making a part of the computer in this one week.

Kentarou then moves toward a field where he puts all his plant army as he commands Alice through a communicator in his hand resembling a smartwatch.

"Ok, you can do it now Alice!"

"Okay, Dad!"

With the command, Alice started to command the plant army that has already been connected to the computer. The 200 plants in total moved and divided into 20 squads of 9 soldiers and 1 tank. From the unorganized mass of the Plant army, it started to form groups that formed a straight line formation with all the melee soldiers at the front, ranged soldiers behind them, sniper behind the ranged soldiers, and finally, the Tank in the backmost part of the formation.

With the AI and computer ready, Kentarou started to continue his journey to the end of the dungeon with his army.

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After 1 month from the time falling to the true great dungeon, Kentarou finally arrived at the last floor. After Kentarou finally finished all his preparations, He went to the staircase that led him down.

The level He stumbled upon, was a very large space supported by a vast number of pillars. Each of the pillars was 5m in diameter, and each had spiral designs and vine patterns engraved onto them.

The arrangement of each row of pillars was very uniform and was even spaced out evenly. There were about 30m to the ceiling. Unlike the usual rough ground in the dungeon, this place had beautiful flat ground, and the room gave off a solemn atmosphere. He and his army stepped into the room while He continued to observe the surroundings for any magic circle.

All the pillars started to shine faintly then. This got Him to finally enter battle stance. Pillars lit up sequentially towards the back of the room.

"Alice, start to enter battle preparation! Load all railgun cannon in the back of the spider tanks and prepare all ranged and sniper-type soldiers to be ready to shoot!"

"Okay! Entering battle formation. Loading artillery shells. Removing safety from all guns… All set."

Kentarou was vigilant for a while, but He decided to advance because nothing was happening. He advanced while making full use of His senses and perception skills. After He progressed 200m to the front, He found a dead end ahead with a huge door. The double door was 10m tall and had extravagant sculptures engraved onto it. Particularly, some of the patterns drawn were the same as the ones on top of the octagon system.

He finally walked past the last of the pillars and advanced towards the door. At that moment, a huge magic formation nearly 30 meters wide appeared in front of him and his army. Crimson light emitted from the magic, and it pulsated.

The magic circle was of the same category as the summoning magic that summoned the behemoth. But the magic formation for the Behemoth is merely 10m in diameter. Compared to the magic formation from last time, this was 3 times larger than that, a lot more complex and detailed.

The formation shone more and more until it finally burst. It gives out blinding light that makes Kentarou adjust the pupil of his eye to lower the amount of light entering it. When the light disappeared, the boss finally decided to come out.

A monster over 30m in length, 6 heads with long necks, sharp fangs, and dark red eyes. Comparable to the Hydra of the myths.

"Kuruuuuuaaaaan!"

Those six pairs of eyes stared at Kentarou and his army as it gave off a strange roar. It seemed to want to bring judgment upon the intruders who didn't know their place. A fierce thirst for blood, due to the anger of it being besieged by many intruders of unknown things never before seen by it.

Finally, unable to endure any longer, one of the heads with a Red Crest on it opened its mouth as flames emitted from it. The flames were already on the scale of a massive wall.

"Looks like we finally met huh… HYDRA!"