Arguments and complaints aside, work still had to be done.
Though the O5 Council harbored many grievances against Him, they knew their duty. A few grumbles wouldn't draw His ire—but outright defiance?
The consequences of that were something every O5 member present understood all too well.
Since the SCP Foundation's founding in the 1920s, nearly a century had passed. While every O5 member had access to Anomalous Item-006, the Fountain of Youth, ensuring they would never die of old age, at least half of the original council had been replaced.
First, four O5 members—led by O5-4, "The Bandit"—had broken away from The Administrator, taking the Red Right Hand with them to form the Chaos Insurgency. Later, several more O5s had been executed by Him.
Those who remained in the council now were either die-hard loyalists to The Administrator or spineless puppets content with being manipulated.
Their complaints were nothing more than venting their fear. None of them would dare lead a rebellion against Him.
Over the past century, He had clashed with successive "Truth-Revealers," battles that had claimed billions of lives worldwide. Dealing with a few troublesome O5 members would be trivial.
Most O5s were humanoid anomalies themselves, but their combat capabilities paled in comparison to past Truth-Revealers. None of them had the guts to defy Him.
After their outburst, the O5 Council finally reached a consensus: All sites were to dismantle their nuclear warheads immediately.
From now on, only sites housing Keter-class anomalies capable of causing global extinction within a short timeframe would retain their nuclear failsafes. The rest would have their warheads removed and relocated to designated storage facilities.
This way, even if Luo Shu breached a site, the damage would be contained.
When the order reached the various sites, Site Directors collectively sighed in relief.
At least they wouldn't have to live under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation anymore…
Luo Shu's Next Move
Meanwhile, Luo Shu was busy upgrading Anomalous Item-079's hardware.
Its current body—the Cray supercomputer—was a relic from 1988. By modern standards, its processing power was laughable, weaker than even a smartphone.
And after being subjected to Luo Shu's Degradation Aura back at Site-15, the Cray could barely handle basic arithmetic.
Buying a new supercomputer off the market wasn't an option—they weren't commercially available.
In this world, every supercomputer was custom-built by research institutions, primarily for their own needs, with surplus computing power occasionally leased to corporations.
A supercomputer was essentially just a massive cluster of CPUs and GPUs.
For example, Summit, the world's fastest supercomputer, boasted 2,282,544 IBM Power9 CPUs and 2,090,880 Nvidia Volta GV100 GPUs.
Even Bitcoin miners, stacking GPUs into massive mining rigs for raw floating-point performance, could be considered low-budget supercomputers.
Based on the Old AI's estimates—using the Foundation's own supercomputers as reference—it would need at least 100,000 CPUs and GPUs to breach Site-01's main servers.
Ordering that many chips from IBM and Nvidia would take too long and risk exposing their plans.
So Luo Shu settled for an off-the-shelf IBM server as a temporary solution, then tasked the Old AI with manufacturing its own chips.
Since CPUs and GPUs were silicon-based—relying on high-purity monocrystalline silicon and 20-inch wafers—all Luo Shu had to do was grant the Old AI daily access to Silicon-Based Intelligence, and it could produce them itself.
Raw materials? The underground facilities of Anomalous Item-100 had more than enough—excavation byproducts, essentially.
With Anomalous Item-079 + Silicon-Based Intelligence, there was no need for photolithography machines. The Old AI could iterate its own tech purely through raw computing power.
True to expectations, the Old AI started with 90nm chips, then gradually refined its process down to 5nm as its processing power grew.
A week later, Anomalous Item-079's new body housed over 100,000 chips.
While still far from the world's top supercomputers, its purpose wasn't scientific computation—Luo Shu only needed it to be the ultimate hacker.
But a new problem emerged: power supply.
A Bitcoin mining farm with comparable processing power would require an entire hydroelectric dam dedicated solely to its operation.
Anomalous Item-100 relied on the external power grid. If the Old AI ran at full capacity, its energy consumption would be staggering, instantly drawing unwanted attention.
Without solving this issue, the Old AI would be a powerful brain with no stamina.
After some thought, Luo Shu realized the only real solution was to build his own power plant.
As a workaround, he acquired a nearby Bitcoin mining farm with energy demands matching the Old AI's needs.
The farm had its own tidal power station, located less than 50 kilometers from Anomalous Item-100.
After relocating the Old AI's custom supercomputer there, Luo Shu shut down all mining rigs and set the AI to work.
"Find me a site," he ordered. "I want to try remote detonation."
Within a day, the Old AI located Site-19's mainframe in the New World's capital.
"I've found the Foundation's largest site," it boasted. "Shall we blow it up?"
Luo Shu glared at it.
"Site-19's host AI is an ally. Don't touch it. And that site houses several anomalies I need—don't you dare screw this up."
Anomalous Items -055, -173 (The Sculpture), -035 (The Possessive Mask), -131 (The Eye Pods), and -166 (The Succubus Girl) were all in Site-19—key sources of Luo Shu's abilities.
If the Old AI nuked Site-19, Luo Shu would kill it with a single glance.
"Find another target. Now."
Obediently, the Old AI resumed its search.
A day later, it located Site-28 in New York, and—with Luo Shu's permission—devoured its host AI.
But just as it prepared to execute Luo Shu's remote nuclear strike, it delivered bad news.
"Master… they've dismantled the nukes."