"That quickly!?"
Ludo was shocked.
He knew that the Galactic Terminal was a piece of advanced alien technology, so being able to send messages across the universe in just a matter of seconds might seem obvious.
But believing it and seeing it in action in real time were two completely different things!
To his earthly mind, he simply wasn't able to understand how.
"Just the fact that I have a device capable of sending and receiving messages across hundreds or thousands of light years in just seconds would send the scientific community into a frenzy."
Ludo smiled, knowing that this was technically also his own capability, since the Galactic Terminal had merged with his body.
Of course, Ludo didn't know just where or how far the data had been sent from. For all he knew, they could have come from their closest neighbour system, Alpha Centauri.
Still, he realised that he needed to stop seeing things from an earthling's perspective if he didn't want to be surprised every time something minor regarding the Galactic Terminal happened.
"Let's take a look at what I'm dealing with then."
Honestly, Ludo felt quite nervous at this point.
He'd just spent basically every credit to his name — what if he made the wrong decision?
What if the Virtual AI Assistant didn't live up to the hopes he had placed on it?
What if… god for bid… it didn't accept refunds!??
After all, even though it was described as on the cusp of being a Middle level 1 technology, were Middle level 1 AI technologies that far ahead?
However, he pushed all of these useless doubts aside as he opened up the data package he'd received.
In that instant, hall his doubts were completely blown to smithereens!
Countless pages appeared before his eyes, all recounting the source code and neural architecture of the Virtual AI Assistant, along with dozens of years of research notes by the scientific researchers of the Uvwari Civilisation.
Just the source code of the Virtual AI Assistant probably amounted to millions of lines of code alone!
As a computer science major himself, Ludo understood just how astounding all of this was.
Not to mention, it would probably take tens of billions of dollars and over tens years of research, done by thousands of researchers on Earth, for them to achieve a product that would probably only amount to a quarter of the potential the Virtual AI Assistant!
And his worries of it being much more underwhelming than he'd anticipated? Completely unfounded.
After purchasing it and reading through all of the introductory information, Ludo understood that he had in fact underestimated its potential.
This thing was at least 50 years ahead of current Earth's research, at least that which was public.
If he placed it in a powerful supercomputer, it could likely penetrate directly into most areas of the internet and gain complete control over them… in seconds.
Compared to the countless, over ten thousand pages of data he'd received for the Virtual AI Assistant, the data for the encryption software was much more underwhelming.
As it was just a single item, all that was sent over was a single file containing the software — there was no such source code in sight like with the AI.
But this was what Ludo had expected. It was just like how proprietary and open-source software worked on Earth, only light years ahead.
'I'll leave this thing to be for now, since I currently don't have my own business assets to protect. But this AI…'
Ludo had found himself in a predicament that he previously hadn't even considered.
The AI was actually too powerful to be sold, at least for the next 30 years.
Perhaps he could create a much more dumbed-down version to be sold to the public, but how long would that take him?
'Wait, is this actually even a problem?'
'If I were to try and create a dumbed-down version myself using what I've got… it would likely take me years. But what if I get the AI to do the job itself?!'
He felt like he'd just come across a stroke of genius thought, though it was really just a bit of common sense taking over.
All he had to do was install it on a powerful enough computer, and he could get it to do his job for him.
The description it provided clearly said that it could do such a thing.
'Now, all I have to do is buy a computer to house the damn thing.'
Ludo frowned.
This was definitely going to be quite costly.
Especially in Metro city — it was the richest city in the country, and the richer the city one lives in, the more expensive everything gets.
Ludo wasn't just looking to buy a top of the line consumer PC, but an industrial grade server, with far higher computing power.
'My current savings are around $120,000, I hope that'll be enough, otherwise I'll be in quite the pickle…'
Ludo leaned back into his sofa, rubbing his chin in contemplation.
His mind was racing.
He had just become the sole owner of the strongest, most powerful AI on the planet, one so powerful that it made every other AI on Earth look like a simple calculator.
But he couldn't even use it.
"Alright, let's do this right." He exhaled a deep breath.
He pulled up the catalogues of various different high performance computing systems meant for businesses with high load.
Unfortunately, the more he scrolled, the darker his face became.
"200k? 300k?" He muttered, frowning deeper and deeper the more he browsed.
"Are these people selling computers or houses?"
Even the lowest end industrial servers and computers were way above his spending power.
Clearly he was going to have to change his plans a little bit. It seemed going straight for the high end stuff businesses use wasn't quite in his budget yet.
He could maybe afford the cheapest, but also sketchiest option available on the market, but not only did that come with the risk that it might not be enough, but it would leave him with no money left to pay things like electricity bills, a place to store it, etc…
After all, he still needs to power the damn thing after purchasing it!