The Ultimate Evolution

Zi was grinding some coffee beans at the moment.

Her hair fell down at the side to cover half her face. The dark colour of her hair stood out on her pale white skin, and coupled with her serious, concentrated look, she exuded a heart-stirring charm.

Sheyan held his chin in his hand as he stared at Zi. The sight of her was such a pleasure to the eyes. At that moment, he felt that coffee-grinding was just as elegant as a tea-brewing ceremony – probably because his attention was not on the coffee-grinding act but on the person grinding the coffee instead. He suddenly had the impulse to hear Zi’s voice, so he blurted out, “Is it strictly necessary to grind the beans for so long?”

Zi turned her head and spoke patiently like she was educating an ignorant child. “The grinding of the beans is the crucial step that determines whether a cup of coffee will taste good. Coffee beans are made up of fine fibroblasts; during the grinding process, the fibroblasts will be crushed and the coffee oil and the coffee’s aroma will be released. Therefore, in order to brew a cup of delicious coffee, the grinding process is very important. The grinding time will differ according to the type of coffee beans and the quality of the coffee machine. I’m far from done!”

Sheyan: （─o─ |||）

Zi stared at him one more time and said, “You know that faint sour taste left in your mouth after you finish a cup of coffee? Once instant coffee powder has come into contact with the air for too long, it’ll produce a sour taste due to oxidation. If you leave a cup of coffee in the air for too long before you drink it, it’ll also produce a sour taste. That’s why freshly ground coffee tastes best, and you should drink it right after it’s brewed. Only then will it leave a fragrant aftertaste in your mouth. You have to be patient to drink the best coffee.”

Sheyan had no authority in this field so he could only nod earnestly.

After a series of complicated processes, during which the carefully ground coffee powder was assaulted by high pressure and 90 degrees Celsius steam for 9 times in 20 seconds, Zi finally extracted 30 milliliters of strong coffee with a thick layer of coffee oil on top. After adding some fresh milk to it, the coffee was finally ready for consumption.

Sheyan took a sip. He could indeed feel the silky texture of the coffee spreading through the surface of his tongue. The strong aroma gave him a heartfelt pleasure both physically and mentally.

Zi herself was full of praise for Mr. Dolittle’s almond brownies. She cut them into small pieces and ate them one small piece at a time. She indulged herself in the sweet chocolatey taste that was in perfect harmony with the rich aroma of butter in the brownies. Zi rated them higher than the ones in the exclusive VIP stores in the real world.

While they were indulging themselves in delicious food, an alarm clock went off next to them. The expressions of Zi and Sheyan changed at the same time. They immediately rushed out.

The alarm clock was actually used to send a warning signal. The one who sent the signal was Dolittle!

Honestly, the first thought that came to Sheyan’s mind was that it must be an attack from the contestants who practiced Eastern mystical arts. Only their mysterious skills could launch such a covert attack. They really were hard to get rid of.

But after Sheyan rammed open the door to Dolittle’s room, he found the old man safely sitting on a chair. Seeing that, Sheyan even suspected Dolittle would stammer out an excuse like “I accidentally touched the alarm” in the next instant.

Of course, Dolittle did not. He was not someone who would joke about these things.

“Six of the eight temporary base stations I set up around this area have sent out abnormal signals. The Lurande signal has risen by three milliamperes and the Milligaussian index has risen by 7712%, which are very abnormal,” said Dolittle with a frown.

Seeing Sheyan’s confused face, Dolittle sighed and said, “Well, to put it in simple terms, Skynet has successfully tracked the the information we left on the Internet back to this place. In two minutes at most, three time displacement sphere will be activated around here. Three Terminators will be here to attack me.”

“What!!” the news shocked Sheyan. It had only been a little more than eight hours since Dolittle released the information. Sheyan had previously expected Skynet to only react more than twenty-four hours later. Skynet’s reaction was much faster and crazier than he imagined.

Dolittle remained frowning as he told them, “Such a rapid response speed can only mean one thing – the newly-developed TOK715 class Terminators have been officially put into use. These new models can mingle among human society to collect various kinds of news, so that Skynet can make timely responses against any changes.”

The TOK715 Terminators did not make an appearance in the main movie franchise and had only appeared in “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” spinoff. Their main function was to infiltrate human society, so all of them had the appearances of beautiful men and women in order to help them gain favour with humans easily.

They had living tissue as coverings and even had body odours, so they were hard to tell apart from humans. Their frames consisted of a superalloy mechanical skeleton controlled by a microprocessor, and they possessed a high degree of artificial intelligence. They had stronger learning function compared to other Terminators and detailed programming of social behaviour. Their only weakness was that their fighting ability was not that strong.

Sheyan’s brows furrowed when he heard about the TOK715.

“The Terminators are doing infiltrations now? Future Skynet is interfering so heavily with the progress of this era. Will that lead to the coming of Judgment Day before John Connor matures?”

Dolittle shook his head. “That’s absolutely impossible. With so many Terminators invading, do you think the government are idiots? We can already glean lots of useful information from the data you brought back from Cyberdyne. Future Skynet’s attempt to recreate itself in the current world’s Internet network has already attracted a lot of attention from the government. They’ve even set up a special task force to scan and destroy it.”

“Although Skynet is still assiduously trying to create itself in this era, the government’s interference so far has already shown some significant result. According to my calculations, Skynet’s awakening will be delayed rather than brought forward.”

In truth, future Skynet was also caught in a dilemma.

When human beings are on guard, it was very difficult to accomplish anything by sending low-end Terminators. When the people or things Skynet targeted in this age grew up, they would become major threats to it. On the contrary, if Skynet sent high-end Terminators, although they could kill the targets and eliminate the hidden dangers, they run the risk of being captured or destroyed. In such cases, the technology they contain would enable the humans to get stronger. The humans would then become more effective in clearing the traces of Skynet on the Internet….

Dolittle pressed a few keys on the computer keyboard and three progress bars that were slowly lengthening appeared on the monitor.

Dolittle explained that the three progress bars were showing the completion of the time displacement spheres. Once they reached 100%, the three Terminators would appear and launch a fanatical assault on Dolittle. They would not stop until they were destroyed!

Dolittle started to pack up all kinds of stuff. Sheyan asked in confusion, “What’re you doing?”

Dolittle seemed surprised Sheyan would ask that.

“I’m getting ready to leave, of course! Every one of these devices is invaluable to me; I can’t afford to lose them! Surely you know how destructive the Terminators are! That’s why, I’m leaving this place with my stuff so that they won’t be destroyed in the fight!”

Sheyan smiled in response. “There’s no need for that. Just stay put and continue your experiment. Since future Skynet is opening three time displacement sphere in one go, it shows how much importance future Skynet places on you, but that also means it won’t be sending a T-1000.”

“Of course it won’t. Skynet won’t send a trump card like the T-1000 unless it’s to perform a particularly important tactical mission. The program I wrote was only a one-time virus that can’t evolve into new virus types, so Skynet will only need to slightly tweak the Terminators’ firewall to guard against it. It won’t think that highly of me,” said Dolittle with a shrug of his shoulders.

Sheyan smiled reassuringly. “Since we won’t be facing a T-1000, you have nothing to worry about.”

Dolittle had not witnessed the strength of Party Ace for himself, but he did know that the Cyberdyne headquarters was a heavily guarded place. Since they managed to bring out all kinds of equipments that could be regarded as important national secrets from there by force, their strength was beyond doubt. His hands that were packing things stopped. A fanatical scientist like him would definitely prefer not to waste any time on things not related to his research if he could.

But at this time, Sheyan started to ponder something.

He then said, “Mr. Dolittle, based on previous Terminator entries into this era, the time displacement spheres can only be opened at an approximate area, and not directly at a target’s house like they are now. More importantly, the Terminators who’ve just entered this world won’t have too much information of the target. They usually have to look for photos of the target and other information in order to locate the target accurately!”

Dolittle thought about what Sheyan said in silence, then asked, “What’re you trying to say?”

Sheyan continued, “The way the Terminators located you this time was as precise as a scalpel during a surgery. You mentioned the new Terminator class, the TOK715, before. Could they be involved somehow?”

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