Among all the products developed by the Matrix Corporation in Kamiyā Yuu's previous world, none had a greater impact than the MX (Matrix) Operating System.
Before the release of MX, Windows had remained the world's dominant PC operating system.
After decades of technological advancement and software accumulation, its position was virtually unshakable.
Even if another company had managed to develop an operating system that surpassed Windows in every aspect of performance, it would still have required decades to establish a mature software ecosystem.
And throughout that time, they would have needed to ensure Windows didn't overtake them once again.
The MX operating system had been released by the Matrix Corporation four years earlier, alongside the company's self-developed 'MX CPU'.
The MX CPU employed a completely new architectural framework.
Its methods of computation and execution differed fundamentally from traditional processors, allowing it to process data with far greater flexibility and efficiency.
Despite costing roughly the same as ordinary CPUs, the MX CPU delivered more than ten times the overall data-processing capability of conventional processors.
It was easy to imagine the unprecedented shock this caused throughout the CPU market.
Both the MX operating system and the processor itself were only possible because Blake tirelessly operated intelligent machinery to conduct research day and night.
The design and production of the chips had been handled almost entirely by Blake alone.
The abandoned mining town had since transformed into a respectable high-tech city.
It consisted of three distinct levels.
The upper level occupied the surface, serving as the center for commercial activities while also providing housing and entertainment facilities for company personnel.
The middle level extended from the surface to roughly two hundred meters underground.
The deeper one descended, the higher the required security clearance became.
Most laboratories and underground manufacturing facilities were located there.
Finally...
There was the mysterious lower level.
To ordinary employees, it existed only in company rumors.
No one had ever actually reached it.
However, elevators leading downward could be found throughout the middle level.
No one dared ask the truly core personnel—those who possessed authorization to use those elevators—what lay beneath.
In reality...
The lower level was simply a more advanced version of the middle level.
Only the research conducted there was vastly more cutting-edge.
It was the domain of true black technology.
Only the company's core researchers and a handful of senior executives even knew of its existence.
Yet in the eyes of those executives...
The Matrix Corporation possessed an even deeper level.
The bottom layer.
That was what truly frightened them.
Because no one had ever actually reached it.
Nor did any route to it exist.
The only reason they believed it existed at all was because of the Ruby System, the artificial intelligence operating throughout the Matrix Corporation.
The Ruby System controlled every aspect of the company's operations.
The daily lives of those on the surface.
Equipment used by the laboratories below.
Access permissions for company executives.
Everything.
Four individuals stood as the direct administrators of the Ruby System:
Ruby.
Weiss.
Blake.
Yang.
No one had ever seen what these four administrators truly looked like.
However, many company employees had interacted with them through the Ruby System.
Among them, Weiss handled most commercial operations.
Blake frequently participated in scientific research.
Since 'RWBY' existed in that world as well, Kamiyā Yuu naturally had no intention of allowing anyone to recognize them.
Compared to Windows, the MX operating system was vastly more intelligent.
If Windows were compared to the old Symbian mobile operating system...
Then MX would be comparable to a fully mature Android system, powered by the MX CPU beneath it.
MX could run Windows software with perfect compatibility.
At the same time, it supported technologies independently developed by the Matrix Corporation, including fully immersive VR visual rendering, motion capture, sensory simulation, language analysis, and numerous other advanced technologies.
The frenzy created by the MX operating system and its accompanying CPU still hadn't subsided.
Countless overworked software engineers were forced to learn entirely new technologies to adapt to the new platform.
Traditional CPUs have long possessed more performance than most software could utilize.
So how could developers ever make proper use of hardware offering more than ten times the processing power of even the best conventional processors?
The MX operating system answered that question perfectly.
It was much like the evolution of mobile phones.
Back when Symbian dominated the market, most mobile games were under one megabyte in size.
Who could have imagined that only ten years later, those same games would occupy several gigabytes?
MX provided software developers with a vastly broader stage on which to innovate.
The operating system's greatest strength lay in its intelligence.
It possessed primitive learning capabilities.
The exact behavior of every MX installation varied completely depending on its user.
Furthermore, every MX operating system could connect directly to the Matrix Corporation's central information-processing network.
Users could freely choose to join the Matrix network, allowing their operating systems to become increasingly intelligent and convenient.
Alternatively, they could remain disconnected and customize their own MX system entirely through their own abilities.
The superiority of MX wasn't simply a matter of higher performance.
It represented an entire leap in technological generation.
That was why, immediately after its release, countless people proclaimed it to be the beginning of the Third Technological Revolution.
In just four years...
More than 500 million copies of the MX operating system had been sold worldwide.
Revenue from CPUs, the operating system itself, Matrix-developed commercial software, and countless patented technologies had earned the Matrix Corporation well over 100 billion US dollars.
Its pure profit exceeded 30 billion dollars.
Its estimated market value surpassed one trillion dollars.
And yet...
The MX computer platform that generated such staggering wealth represented only the tip of the iceberg among the Matrix Corporation's many research projects.
······
The Matrix Space.
A next-generation cyberspace was developed under Blake's leadership.
It functioned as the Matrix Corporation's private network and served as the physical carrier for the Ruby System.
A thousand meters beneath the Earth's surface lay a sealed chamber roughly the size of two football fields.
The room was constructed entirely from superalloys.
Countless black cuboid devices filled the space, connected by meticulously organized cables.
This enormous installation formed the hardware foundation of Matrix Space.
Not far away stood another, much smaller sealed laboratory.
Inside...
Four girls lay sleeping quietly within hibernation capsules.
They were the software component of Matrix Space.
Matrix Space had been created by using computer data to imitate the consciousness space itself.
Although the imitation hadn't achieved even one ten-thousandth of the original's capabilities, Ruby and the others were still able to construct worlds within Matrix Space similar to that depicted in The Matrix, perfectly simulating all five human senses.
At present, Matrix Space remained under constant development as it continued absorbing new technologies.
It still hadn't reached the level seen in 'Sword Art Online,' but it wasn't far off.
If the philosophical concept of the brain in a vat were incorporated...
Creating entirely new worlds—or even something equivalent to the Sibyl System—would be easily achievable.
Kamiyā Yuu, however, found that approach utterly disgusting and rejected it outright.
He had no desire to use human beings as batteries.
Nor did he intend to create "saints" whose role was to judge the criminal coefficients of others.