Because Dr. Einstein had a small conflict with other scientists before, she was now unable to recruit even students, leaving her all alone in the lab.
Ryn and Mobius would often come to her lab to see if she had gotten too absorbed in her experiments and missed several meals, fainting in the lab from hunger.
Right now, Ryn was carrying a box of instant noodles to Dr. Einstein's lab to visit her.
After placing the instant noodles in a conspicuous place to make it easy for Einstein to see and thus remind her to eat, Ryn walked over to Dr. Einstein, who was clattering away on her computer, coding. After watching for a while, he reached out and patted her on the shoulder.
"Dr. Einstein, what time is it? You should take a break and eat."
"Mmm... soon... I'll come after I finish writing this program..." Dr. Einstein replied without turning her head. Her eyes were glued to the computer screen, her mind filled with the determination to finish this mountain of a program today.
"By the time you're done... it'll probably be tomorrow or the day after."
Ryn put his hands under Dr. Einstein's armpits and lifted her to her feet.
Then he pried her fingers off the keyboard, which she refused to let go of, and operated the computer for her a few times, saving the program.
"Stop writing. I've been standing behind you watching for a while now. You write, you delete, you delete, you write... If you can't figure it out, just stop thinking about it for now. If you keep forcing it... you're going to pull out all your hair."
"Ah, this..."
Dr. Einstein's attention immediately shifted from the computer to her hair. She subconsciously touched the top of her head, then opened her hand.
A small tuft of white hair, mixed with a few strands of red.
"It's over, am I really going bald?"
Dr. Einstein looked at Ryn, on the verge of tears, her voice a bit hoarse. But the next second, she seemed to have come to terms with it, shrugging her shoulders with a look of indifference.
"...Forget it, forcing myself to code like this, going bald is what I deserve."
"You're really broad-minded, I'm impressed."
"Don't be impressed with me, this thing needs to be paired with your chip later to work...
Speaking of which, how's your chip coming along? My program is already at the final section."
"It's almost done, currently undergoing final debugging. Once the debugging is complete, we'll implant the program you wrote, and the 'personality' module of the Armed Doll will be preliminarily complete."
"Let's hope so..."
Einstein nodded, said no more, and turned to make herself a bowl of instant noodles.
With the complete blueprint provided by Ryn earlier, she had made multiple modifications to the design of the Armed Doll Kevin over the years, finally completing the design for a true Armed Doll.
Unlike the Armed Doll Kevin, which was pieced together by Kevin and at risk of self-destructing at any moment, Dr. Einstein designed a true, mass-producible Armed Doll with the intelligence of a human child.
Then it was rejected by the higher-ups, who demanded that Einstein focus on weapon research and not waste time delving deeper into the field of artificial intelligence, which was considered a "good enough" technology.
Einstein couldn't care less about them. Once the funding was in her hands, how she spent it was no longer their business to dictate.
Dr. Einstein was responsible for the core of the Armed Doll, the programming of the intelligent personality, while Ryn was responsible for creating the chip that could house the program.
A 2-nanometer chip was already a development that transcended eras, but in the case of compressing its size, using just a few chips to simulate human intelligence was far from enough.
But if they went smaller than 2 nanometers, the quantum tunneling effect would be an insurmountable chasm in their way.
Ryn and Dr. Einstein were both at a loss, and after discussion, they decided that Ryn would still be in charge of the chip's development.
And how did Ryn solve the quantum tunneling effect?
He couldn't. Any further reduction in the nanometer scale would make it almost as large as the constituent particles of Honkai energy.
So Ryn chose to leave this problem to the almighty Honkai energy to figure out on its own.
After all, the Honkai is omnipotent.
And so, it came to be that, as Mobius said, every time she went to find Ryn, his so-called experiment was just him taking a nap in the lab with an eye mask on.
This was a pure and simple slander against Ryn. See, isn't the Honkai energy working on its own? Ryn was just responsible for supervising...
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On this day, Dr. Einstein finished writing the program and implanted it into the chip created by Ryn.
Then, before the eyes of Dr. Einstein, Dr. Ryn, and Mobius, who was there just for the fun of it, the "personality" chip was officially inserted into the body of the first-generation "Armed Doll."
A small, one-meter-tall loli with curly golden hair, wearing headphone-like ears and with triangular cat-ear-like shapes on her head. As it was just a prototype, it was not equipped with a weapon system.
With the insertion of the chip, the connection of the power source, and the startup of the system, the Armed Doll booted up for the first time, opening a pair of slightly vacant golden eyes.
It looked at the three people in front of it, blinking curiously. In its nascent state, it was curious about everything. But its mind was empty, and it didn't know what it should do.
It just stood there quietly, looking at Ryn, Einstein, and Mobius, and gave a smile as pure and innocent as a child's.
Mobius was very curious about how this mechanical intelligent life form was different from a normal human. She stepped forward before Ryn and Einstein to take a closer look at it.
"What's your name?"
"?"
The Armed Doll's eyes turned into two big question marks, not understanding Mobius's question.
Mobius turned to look at Ryn and Einstein, but they both shrugged in unison.
"Alright, then you probably don't have a name. I'll give you one, something simple. Let's call you Zero, Number Zero."
"Zero? Name? Checking database... empty. New name, Zero, has been entered."
"Come on, Zero, walk a few steps for me." Mobius stepped aside, making way for it, and watched Zero with anticipation.
Upon receiving Mobius's command, Zero didn't walk but instead tilted its head, with many question marks popping up above it again.
"Walk a few steps... what is that?"
"Huh? You don't even know how to walk?!"
Mobius looked at Ryn and Einstein again with a shocked expression.
Ryn, seeing this, quickly pulled Einstein back a few steps and whispered, "You didn't input any basic setting information? Why is it as blank as a sheet of paper?"
"No? What's the point of inputting that? Innate settings would solidify their personalities, which is not what I want. I'd rather they develop their own personalities based on their postnatal experiences."
"Uh... so... you mean... you, someone who can't even take care of herself, are planning to take care of these mechanical intelligent life forms?"
"Ah, this... you're right! I don't think I thought of that..."
"That's so you. See you in the next life!"
Ryn went straight up, grabbed Mobius, waved goodbye to Zero, and then, without looking back, bailed.
If they stayed any longer, Dr. Einstein would probably find all sorts of excuses to entrust Zero's education to them.