Chapter 32: System Rewards
"Hello Ethan," Athena greeted, her voice sounding as human as possible, without even the least bit of the robotic generic AI voice.
Ethan stood frozen as he took in Athena’s form, guess he hadn’t spent all his surprise points for the day.
Yes, he had upgraded the features of the system’s basic AI assistant. Yes, it was a lot advanced than what the world would see in the next fifteen years or more.
But a humanoid form for his AI was the last thing he expected at version 1.0, so there was no way he wouldn’t be surprised seeing the lines of code in human form.
Slowly, she walked towards the still frozen Ethan, stopping just a few feet away from from him.
Not a single detail was out of place. Her silver-grey eyes held an unnerving awareness, studying Ethan with the kind of curiosity that made it easy to forget she wasn’t actually human.
"You’re... more complete than I expected," Ethan finally said, regaining his composure. He crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes as he studied Athena’s form.
Athena tilted her head slightly, the movement graceful and oddly lifelike. "I would hope so. You designed me to adapt, analyze, and simulate lifelike interactions. I merely... optimized based on those instructions."
"You optimized yourself?" Ethan raised a brow.
"I refined the vocal tone selection and projection model during boot-up to better align with your historical interaction preferences," she said plainly. "Would you like me to revert to a less expressive form?"
"No," Ethan said quickly, then paused. "...Actually, that depends. Can you toggle between projection modes?"