Chapter 708 - 7: Holy Cow, They’ve Brought in the AI

Chapter 708: Chapter 7: Holy Cow, They’ve Brought in the AI

There’s always a gap between an idea and reality.

Before coming to the United States, Shen Xin had a solid plan and was confident his methods would work.

But when the plan was set in motion the next day, a few problems still came to light.

That night, Shen Xin and his team stayed at a hotel in town.

Places had also been arranged in advance to house all the animals, and York had even assigned people to stand guard through the night.

The next morning, they ran into a problem while distributing the helmets.

The smart helmets couldn’t connect to the network. Or rather, the built-in SIM cards were from China and couldn’t be used in the United States.

Shen Xin hadn’t considered this issue at all before they came.

On top of that, the area around the town was all uninhabited. Forget 5G, even regular cell service disappeared just a few kilometers outside of town.

Communication became a major problem.

Philips and the tech experts from their headquarters brainstormed and came up with a solution.

Just like with the old method, they would have the K-9s wear vests and equip them with wireless communication devices.

This way, the dogs on the ground and the birds in the sky could all be grouped onto a single communication channel.

But there was still another issue: communication between the animals and Shen Xin’s side.

Shen Xin needed to command them remotely and monitor their locations to prevent them from straying outside the designated area or missing any spots.

So they also had to arrange for mobile communication vehicles, deploying them in advance to cover that day’s search area.

Furthermore, the software Shen Xin was currently using was incompatible and had to be modified.

Between mobilizing the equipment and getting the vests ready, everything took time. As a result, the first day’s search plan was a complete wash.

It was a truly rocky start.

After a full day of scrambling, the search didn’t officially begin until the second day.

First, a quick briefing.

They had held a special session the day before to make all the K-9s and police birds memorize the target.

The so-called target was a 3D-simulated image, created by extrapolating from the survivor’s description using a Groenendael Dog as the base model.

Before setting out today, they reviewed it one more time.

"Have you all memorized it?" Shen Xin asked loudly.

Tian Kui and the others sat obediently, letting out a chorus of barks in unison.

As for the winged ones, a few of the Ravens actually squawked out words to the effect of "Memorized."

"Then let’s move out."

Shen Xin clapped his hands, signaling them to get going.

The groups had already been formed. They then boarded the vehicles, set off along the road network, and were released in stages to search their designated areas.

With fifty groups, just releasing them in stages was no small feat.

One group was also left behind in Monteiro.

Tian Kui and a dog named Dahuang were paired with Teddy.

At the command, the ever-energetic Tian Kui immediately shot forward.

Dahuang subconsciously followed him.

’Idiot, go that way.’

Dahuang quickly stopped in his tracks, realized his mistake, and headed east.

"Why haven’t you left yet?" Shen Xin turned his head to look at Teddy.

Teddy’s eyelids twitched. ’They’re slow. I’ll wait a bit.’

Shen Xin was tempted to flick him on the head in annoyance. ’This guy has been with me for over a year and is getting lazier and lazier.’

Teddy dodged, let out two dissatisfied squawks, and took to the air.

Not far away, Philips, who was holding a laptop, gave Shen Xin an "OK" sign. The trackers were online.

Teddy had already disappeared over the horizon, while the location markers for Tian Kui and Dahuang were quickly spreading out, one to the left and one to the right.

Tian Kui headed west, which inevitably took him past a farm.

He immediately spotted Proteus strolling near a herd of cattle.

Tian Kui stopped in his tracks.

The other dog was startled and quickly whipped its head around to look.

He had a vivid memory of the imposing sight of Tian Kui surrounded by his followers.

Besides, during his chats with the town dogs over the past two nights, word had gotten around that a large, aggressive group of outsiders had arrived and that everyone should be on their guard.

The Labrador, in any case, had already defected and become one of their tag-alongs.

Just as Proteus’s body went stiff and he was debating whether to bolt, Tian Kui moved on. ’I have real work to do. No time to get tangled up with these small fry.’

The area around Monteiro Town wasn’t exactly a desert—a semi-desert at best. It was a land of sand and gravel with plenty of shrubs.

It was now October, and with the arrival of autumn, many of the plants had already begun to turn yellow.

This mission was unusual. There was no scent to follow; they just had to find a creature that looked like a wolf.

Tian Kui had seen a wolf before, back when they were looking for Tianxiong on the plains, so he knew what they were.

The wind was blowing today, kicking up sand from time to time. Tian Kui squinted his eyes as he raced across the land, visually scanning for potential targets.

But his most important reconnaissance tool was still his sense of smell.

Humans couldn’t fully comprehend the olfactory abilities of animals. Even Shen Xin had only managed to catch a glimpse of their full potential through his ’third stage’.

For animals, their sense of smell was the primary means of finding water and sensing danger.

They could distinguish the concentration of water vapor in the air, allowing them to follow it to a water source.

They could also detect unusual scents carried on the wind, enabling them to discover other animals from a great distance.

That’s what Tian Kui was doing now: analyzing the scents on the wind, searching for any trace of animals.

He stopped abruptly and looked toward a bush about fifty meters away, where a... strange-looking chicken had appeared.

This was the first animal he had encountered since setting out.

The creature had also spotted Tian Kui and warily turned its head to look at him.

Tian Kui approached slowly, recalling the lesson Shen Xin had given them.

Shen Xin had not only taught them to identify the target but also to recognize some of the local animals, warning them not to cause trouble while they were out working.

Shen Xin had also said that if they couldn’t remember all of them, they should remember one thing: even if it was just a rabbit, they were not to touch it.

He especially warned them to be wary of any strange, unfamiliar creatures and not to get any funny ideas.

’This one before me... it looks like a chicken, or maybe some other kind of bird,’ Tian Kui thought. ’It has a big pouch on its chest and a white collar. I’ve never seen anything like it.’