The crowd surged, and Qin Chunzi felt insignificant.

Yet when the crowd receded, Qin Chunzi inexplicably felt a tinge of loneliness, like a dense coffee brew diluted in water, the bitterness lingering at the lips instead of dissipating.

’What a bizarre environment. It’s said the Fortress governs the heart, human nature, and personality, and can directly modify neural data. Truly lives up to its reputation.’

Qin Chunzi wiped the sweat off her forehead with a thumb adorned in red nail polish, realizing at some point she had entered an archive hall. Besides herself, there were over a hundred similarly dressed professional managers, scrutinizing each other.

’Quite a crowd,’ Qin Chunzi thought, frowning.

Typically, the number of companies participating in a corporate war doesn’t exceed double digits, around 30 or 40.

After all, with war comes death. Behind every corporate war, numerous companies are dissolved, and Corporate Will is devoured.

Moreover, the content of each corporate war differs, as do the technological paths undertaken.

Not every war requires participation.

Qin Chunzi took a deep breath, striding in black high heels to the data collection platform at the hall’s center. On this platform, green registration forms flickered, piecing together fragmented faces.

’Do you understand the meaning of life? Do you wish to achieve corporate evolution? Do you want to touch a deeper layer of objective reality?’

Qin Chunzi didn’t speak, instead handing over the prepared documents.

On the screen, the constantly opening mouth of a face devoured the documents bit by bit through Virtual Reality.

For a moment, countless faces appeared before her: her boss, her boss’s certain lover named Gao, Daisila, Professor Han... one familiar face after another.

’Corporate registration: Du Gao Technology, Tier 3 Military Contractor, personnel 513...’

’Camp development direction: various military arms, large war weapons, Biological Chips...’

’Evaluation standard: A-’

’Signing corporate alliance agreement, cooperation partner: Holy Brain Group...’

Upon mentioning ’Holy Brain Group,’ the electronic voice contained a hint of surprise, after all, the Holy Brain Group being an old-school Biological Group, had an evaluation standard of S+.

’Technology route marking: marked project—’Virtual Helmet’.’

"Surprisingly, it’s not brain-machine interface development, but an external plugin. Qin, your company sure is unique."

Qin Chunzi didn’t turn back, instead blocking the screen just in time.

Only when registration was complete did she turn around, mocking, "Scott Reddy, I’m surprised any company would still want you."

"Hehe, there are always those with blind eyes," the refined scoundrel in front of her grinned broadly.

The Cyber Era is the era of companies. Monopoly corporations, emerging enterprises, and super companies twinkle like stars, giving rise to a large group of professional managers; those who thrive may rise swiftly to become domineering presidents, while those who flounder may become subjects of forbidden experiments, being dissected and researched in various ways.

Both Qin Chunzi and the one in front of her were part of a circle of professional managers.

And their careers were surprisingly similar.

Qin Chunzi, for secretly pulling strings with a newly employed young worker (actually to avoid being devoured by Corporate Will), was kicked out, gaining a terrible reputation in the circle.

As for the one in front of her, he was even more impressive. Any company he was involved with went bankrupt. To date, he had taken down four medium-sized companies, notorious as ever.

"I am curious, which company saw potential in someone like you? Not afraid of the curse of fate?"

The refined scoundrel adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and smiled dryly: "A small company, dealing with brainware, called Dark Realm."

Dark Realm, Skull Society member?

Qin Zhenzi squinted her phoenix eyes.

She was well aware there was some enmity between this company and her female boss.

"Enough about me, what about you? Du Gao Technology has quite a name, and now it’s allied with Holy Brain Group, does this mean you’re aiming to become a Corporate Knight?"

In corporate wars, forming alliances is quite common, especially the combination of technology companies and Military Contractors; where tech companies pursue technology routes and Military Contractors provide security, preventing surprises from other hostile companies, thus also known as ’Corporate Knights’.

"But what’s strange is, your company’s project differs from Holy Brain Group’s, interesting!"

The refined scoundrel, or rather, Scott Reddy, eyed Qin Zhenzi up and down, tutting, filled with perplexity and curiosity.

Generally speaking, military groups in corporate wars are just fighters, not leaders.

Few military groups have their own technology routes.

What’s more interesting is that Holy Brain Group’s ’Brain-Machine Plan’ distinctly differs from the ’Virtual Helmet’ route.

What is this, straddling two boats?

Qin Zhenzi glanced sideways at the other party, remaining silent.

In fact, every corporate war sees Mother City preemptively leaking some information, like this time, the ’brain-machine interface technology’ is key.

However, ’brain-machine interface technology’ also has various factions, such as differing mechanical brain-machine plugins, or biological-mechanical hybrid brain-machine technologies, or implant chips, deep brain modification, brain remodelling. Different technical routes imply different technological directions.

Virtual Helmet is considered brain-machine too, but of the unconventional kind.

In a self-reforming booming era, this technology is too conservative! 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Qin Zhenzi naturally wouldn’t divulge her corporate secrets.

Scott still wanted to pry more information, but suddenly, a shadowy silhouette composed of light and shadow emerged from the data, her face and form splendid, unmatched beauty.

Yet, some high-level professional managers displayed startled expressions.

The woman before them was too familiar, Ms. Deep Web.

’The simulated Deep Web avatar from the Fortress.’

’After grasping Cyber Space, the Fortress’s digital Authority has grown stronger!’

’Terrifying Power!’

Deep Web, or rather, ’Pseudo·Ms. Deep Web,’ did not speak, yet vast data and information had already been transmitted into all the managers’ minds.

Brain-Machine War!

A comprehensive human modification plan for the entire planet!

A dual war of reality and Virtual Space!

A digital plan to break the computational power limit of Cyber Space!

Human completion! Social completion! Human nature completion!

The scene suddenly hummed, becoming noisy.

No one expected the scope of this corporate war to be so grand.

The entire Zone 30, all human settlements were within the scope of the transformation.

"You don’t seem surprised?"

Scott stared suspiciously at Qin Zhenzi, unable to see astonishment in her eyes.

"No, I am very surprised," Qin Zhenzi flatly denied, then surveyed her colleague, suddenly flashing a charming smile.

"Well then, see you in the corporate war."

"Wait, perhaps we can collaborate!" Scott suddenly called out when Qin Zhenzi reached the door.

"With you, or with Dark Realm?"

A thin stream of data flashed across Scott’s gold-rimmed glasses, the refined scoundrel looking quite sincere.

"Both can be discussed, both can be negotiated."

...

In terms of hierarchy, Tier 3 Civilization Architecture is superior to Tier 3 Starships.

But in terms of construction difficulty, the reverse is true.

After all, the construction difficulty of a civilization’s industrial system surpasses the breakthrough of one or two Knowledge Chains.

Starships are creations of the industrial system.

However, at this moment, the ’Mechanical Floating City’-shaped ’Great Curved Saber’ is vibrating. Its surface, the paint continuously melting and re-coating.

Valkyrie frowned at this scene, unsure of her thoughts.

And at the core of the starship, a unique surgery was taking place in the seat of the Subspace Engine.

Director Du’s skull was open, and Gao Gong was both adjusting the parameters of the ’Great Curved Saber’ while modifying it.

He planned to replace the ’Great Curved Saber’s’ Artificial Intelligence with Du Zhaodi’s data.

During this process, the Starship instinctively resisted.