Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1123
Long Yangjun's pupils were entirely occupied by the two enormous new crystal processors. She frowned and said, "There's no need to be so professional. All you need to do is tell me the uses of such a thing."
"It has a lot of uses." Li Yao tapped on the light beam crazily until it was brimming with ripples like the pool on a rainy day. "They have wiped most of the files, but judging from the remaining data and the summaries, once the new crystal processors are successfully created, they will serve as the best control core of the next-generation artificial bodies. Or rather, they will be the best protective cabins for the soul and extend the longevity of ghosts multiple times over.
"You know that ghosts are usually quite vulnerable. Most people's souls suffer from the interference of radiation and spiritual waves after they pass away, which turns them into broken souls. Even if they are lucky enough to be found again later, their souls are often no longer complete. After that, even if they use artificial bodies as shelter, because of the limitation of the computational ability of traditional crystal processors, the new bodies will not be nearly as handy as their old fleshly bodies.
"The new crystal processor, on the other hand, has completely replicated and even surpassed the architecture of the human brain. Not only can it repair the broken soul of a ghost, it can also improve the soul power of a ghost to the maximum, helping the ghost or whatever's left of their soul to travel freely on the Spiritual Nexus and do anything they want in the virtual world!
"Secondly, judging from the data here, they have scanned the brains of tens of thousands of people. The subjects must be the vegetative patients. They were previously elites of their respective trades and high-level Cultivators above the Building Foundation Stage covering all four categories. Compared to normal people, the brains of high-level Cultivators have all undergone a slight degree of mutation, which makes them the most precious 'treasuries'!
"By scanning the brains of tens of thousands of high-level Cultivators with special mystic rays, reconstructing the brains in the virtual world, and slicing and studying the different parts of the brains including the unsubstantial 'spiritual root' layer by layer, it's possible to unveil the deepest mysteries of brains and find out how brains generate and build up the soul!
"After they understand how the soul is created, won't it be only one step away from 'creating a soul' on their own?"
"Creating a soul on their own…" Long Yangjun's eyes shivered quickly. "What exactly does Professor Mo Xuan want?"
"My professor already told me a while back. He is indeed frank and forthright, not keeping anything to himself!" Li Yao smiled bitterly and said, "My professor believes that the Spiriters are the future of mankind. However, the Spiriters are still not an independent species right now in that they still lack one of the most fundamental elements for every life form—reproduction.
"The Spiriters are transformed from living people after their physical bodies are destroyed with certain odds. The Spiriters do not boast any ability to reproduce by themselves. Therefore, they can only be a different form of human beings, or vassals of humans.
"However, if they are capable of creating souls on their own, it will be possible for the Spiriters to reproduce without external help. After that, they will really become a third form of mankind after humans and demons."
Long Yangjun took a deep breath. "That will be the 'virtual life' that can completely live in the world of the Spiritual Nexus?"
"Exactly." Li Yao nodded. "However, the study has only just begun. The 'soul' is itself the most enigmatic stuff. It is already tremendously difficult to figure out the essence of a soul, not to mention the creation of brand-new souls. They are actually trying to create a life, and intelligent life at that!
"It took nature billions of years to complete the work of creating intelligent life, and my professor intends to reduce the time cost to one billionth and finish it in only decades? It's too much of a rush. He admitted it himself!
"They probably haven't touched such a dreadful field yet and are incapable of creating real 'virtual life'. However, if the new architecture that is a complete simulation and optimized version of the human brain and can independently think is combined with the terrifying computation, deduction, and rendering abilities of traditional crystal processors, it will be possible for them to create certain… unimaginable artificial intelligence!"
Long Yangjun furrowed her brow so hard that her eyebrows were almost vertical. "I don't understand. Please explain."
"For example," Li Yao said, "didn't I just mention that I met a fake Wei Qingqing, a fake Ling Xiaole, and a fake you in the second Spiriters' Realm? At first, I thought that they were played by somebody, because the real-time computational ability of normal crystal processors couldn't have been that high. But now that I think of it, they were very likely the artificial intelligence that was derived from the 'simulated brains'!
"Building up vivid, lifelike images in the Spiriters' Realm is just one of the functions of the simulated brains. Don't forget that they have scanned the brains of tens of thousands of high-level Cultivators! What kind of chemical reactions will be caused when the techniques inside so many brains are combined? What exactly is my professor going to do with such artificial intelligence?"
The two of them looked at each other in bewilderment. Both of them felt that the issue was much more severe than they had anticipated in the beginning.
Compared with Professor Mo Xuan's plan, even the invasion of the Imperium of True Human Beings seemed secondary right now.
Right now, a feeble spiritual wave spread out from the deepest part of the laboratory, but it was as deafening as rumbling thunder for the two of them!
Passing the long, narrow pathway at the center of the laboratory past the models of brains in various different shapes, they found a thick, heavy gate at the end of the laboratory. But the gate was ajar, and spiritual waves were escaping from the dark gap on the gate.
The two of them looked at each other and nodded, raising their alertness. All the rune arrays and magical equipment on them was humming, and spiritual shields of different layers covered them in glamorous colors.
Creak!
They pushed the gate, only to see the impossible scene at the same time.
Before their eyes was a bottomless abyss.
The dark abyss, enshrouded by the black fog that looked like swamp, seemed to be directly leading to the center of a planet. However, they were clearly in the middle of space. The town where Deep Blue Super Brain Hospital was located was no more than twenty kilometers in diameter.
The black fog was boiling, rolling, and raging. Now and then, black bubbles surfaced and floated up toward them before they changed into bizarre and hideous faces that were creepy enough to freeze the hearts of anyone who saw them.
The abyss was surrounded by uneven crags where almost a thousand shrines had been dug densely. Inside every shrine, an abnormal monster that was weird in appearance and covered in tumors was glaring at them brutally, mocking, bellowing, and howling nonstop.
But the eyes of Li Yao and Long Yangjun did not stay on the shrines for too long because their full attention was attracted by the magnificent being at the center of the abyss. It was a monster with more than a hundred tentacles that looked like a mutated octopus. Sucking discs were everywhere on every moisty tentacle, and every sucking disc had rows of tusks that could be turned freely. On the bald, enormous head of the creature, a thousand bloodshot, pale eyes without eyeballs were grown!
A thousand dead eyes were staring at them without blinking at all, as if from the deepest level of hell. Li Yao and Long Yangjun's every nerve was paralyzed, and they could not even move their little finger.
Even if they could move, there was nowhere they could run to, because the moment they opened the gate and walked in, the laboratory and giant door behind them had vanished. They seemed to be floating in the bottomless cave, surrounded by solid crags, shrines where monsters were lurking, and the most insane embossments in all directions.
They were trapped!
Chiliu! Chiliu! Chiliu! Chiliu!
Dozens of tentacles dashed out from the depths of the black fog with blood-freezing noises as quickly as lightning and snatched Li Yao and Long Yangjun. The sucking discs that were full of sharp teeth revolved rapidly like a metal shredder, ripping both their spiritual shields and their crystal suits into pieces. The most irresistible strangling force was imposed on them, too, as if the rocks of a whole planet had been piled on their body, pressing them into tiny atoms!
Creak! Creak! Creak! Creak!
The monsters in the shrines nearby were squeaking in even louder voices. Some of them even opened their broken wings and swooped at them, apparently hoping to get their share of the meal.
Li Yao felt that his every nerve seemed to have been plucked out of his body and minced hard by the enemy.
His brain seemed to have been caught in a black hole where it was stretched to millions of kilometers long in that moment.
The extreme pain that he had not tasted for a long time made his mind even clearer than before. He knew that the enemy had launched terrifying mental attacks toward him and Long Yangjun and trapped them in a fatal illusionary world!
Chapter 1738: Mental Recoil! |
All these illusions cannot trick me!
Li Yao's mind was as clear as ice and as tough as a diamond. He stayed where he was calmly despite the scourge of all the evils that were coming at him!
There were two ways to break the illusionary worlds created by mental attacks. The first way was to find the flaws in the illusionary worlds. For example, it was impossible for an abyss of such enormity to exist in a space station, or it was biochemically unnecessary for an octopus monster to grow a thousand eyes on its head although the creature did look more intimidating this way. If one could see through the logical mistakes, the illusions would fall apart by themselves.
However, this was a way of pure defense, which was not suitable to resist the mental attacks of super high intensity.
Although the illusions were false, the mental attacks that consisted of tremendous spiritual energy were real. Even though one could see through the illusions, it was still possible that the mental attacks would stimulate and even wreck their brains.
It was just like somebody could pass out or be scared to death when watching horror movies even if they knew that the movies were not real.
Li Yao preferred the other way to break the illusionary worlds, which was to summon his own mental power and build a stronger, more violent, and more majestic illusion to fight back!
The worlds of illusions were battlefields where mental combat ability was all that mattered. Powerful imagination was the best weapon!
"Argh!" Li Yao roared furiously like a primeval beast. Flames of spiritual energy darted out of the gaps of the abnormal tentacles like thousands of light swords, before they revolved crazily and absorbed all the tentacles that were packed with sucking discs.
For a moment, broken limbs were flying everywhere, and stinky blood and pus were spluttering. The thousand terrifying eyeballs on the octopus monster in the dark abyss were trembling crazily, too, as the creature screamed in such ear-splitting noises that the entire abyss was shaking. The monsters in all the shrines on the wall left their shelters and flew in midair anxiously!
Li Yao regained his freedom. The crystal suit on his body that had already been shattered fell apart into black butterflies before they dispersed into nothingness.
What replaced the old gear was a bright gold, translucent crystal suit that seemed to be made of the purest diamonds and never existed in the real world.
The bright gold, translucent crystal suit flowed out of his every pore and blossomed like flowers, covering his entire body instantly. The implementation was complete!
It was the ultimate battlesuit that Li Yao had craved to produce day and night based on the string-light crystal suits of the Imperium of True Human Beings, the primeval armors on Kunlun, and the essence of the various suits on the Nuwa warship. He had pictured it in his head more than ten thousand times before.
However, there were still too many technological conundrums in terms of material science, structural studies, studies of spiritual energy, and mechanics. It was barely possible to combine the essence of various sorts of suits that had been invented over hundreds of thousands of years.
So, he could do nothing more than picture it. Such a suit could never be produced in reality.
But this was a world of illusions. Imagination plus vision would be one's combat ability!
Looking at the monsters down below that were flying crazily, Li Yao put on a smile of satisfaction. He opened his arms, making his arms and his chest look like a bow that had been drawn to the maximum. The plate armor on the bright gold crystal suit was opened, revealing the arrays of super tiny crystal cannons, honeycomb-type flying sword launchers, and activation arrays of destructive mystic rays. All kinds of aggressive magical equipment that could never be combined in the real world turned the crystal suit into the craziest arsenal!
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Zi! Zi! Zi!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Before Li Yao, almost a thousand streaks of colorful brilliance surged out like a flood that had overwhelmed a dam, turning into torrents of destruction. Wherever they landed, all the monsters were immediately dispersed before they were completely burnt to ash by the crystal cannons, the scorching fire, and the high-frequency vibrating mystic rays. The only thing left was mottled smoke that was lingering in midair like a swirl, but the remains were gone in a second, too!
In just one moment, almost all the little monsters were blown into smithereens by Li Yao. The few lucky dogs that survived the slaughter were trembling in fear in the shrines, unable to charge forward at all under the intimidation of his magnificent mental power!
Zhi! Zhi, Zhi, Zhi, Zhi!
In the swamp of darkness, the enormous octopus monster with a thousand dead eyes shrieked at the top of its voice. For regular Cultivators whose souls were relatively weak, the shrieks alone were probably enough to collapse their mind and wreath them in the utmost horror.
However, for Li Yao, who had completely seen through the truth of the illusionary world and possessed a solid soul, he clearly heard the confusion and dread hidden in the shrieks.
He glanced around, only to discover that Long Yangjun had been freed from stupefaction and horror. Although she was still wearing the crystal suit that had fallen apart, clusters of new crystals were growing in front of her arms nonstop, like the protective crystal suit that had once covered her entire body deep inside the bridge of the Nuwa warship.
But this time, the clusters of crystals were extended before her arms, interweaving what appeared to be a crystal railgun!
When Li Yao cleared all the little monsters around, the crystal railgun that had grown out of Long Yangjun's arms was already fully charged with spiritual energy. Triggering arcs of light that were ten thousand times more brilliant than lightning and releasing the spiritual waves that were more immense than the main guns of a crystal warship, she locked onto the octopus monster in the abyss and opened fire!
Shua!
Li Yao saw the ripples of spiritual that felt like real entities spreading to every corner of the entire abyss. Even he was almost awed by the storm of spiritual energy that was sweeping right above his soul. The next moment, a small sun rushed out from the crystal railgun from Long Yangjun's body and lunged at the head of the octopus monster in the abyss, burning the thousand dead eyes into a thousand holes!
Looking at Long Yangjun's crystal railgun, Li Yao was amazed. "So, this is your real strength. I didn't know that your mental power was so high!"
"Monster Li, likewise!" Long Yangjun glanced at the bright gold battlesuit that Li Yao had imagined and smiled.
The two of them launched attacks at the same time. Streaks of brilliance that entailed explosive forces rained upon the octopus monster overwhelmingly, not only blowing the hideous creature apart but also ripping apart the black smoke that looked like a swamp.
The abyss and the caves were shaking more and more violently. Thick gaps appeared on the crags around, which joined each other and spread quickly. However, behind the gaps were not dark rock stratums but ivory light. When the ivory light filled all the walls, nothing could stop the illusionary world from collapsing anymore. Li Yao and Long Yangjun heard the scream of a woman loud and clear before they returned to the real world after a flash!
The excruciating pain all over their body was gone. They only felt that their heads were extremely tired. Their crystal suits were still intact, exactly the same as when they opened the gate at the end of the laboratory.
The big gate was right behind them. Below their feet was an airborne platform that extended forward. There was indeed a deep space below the platform, but it was nowhere near as impressive as a bottomless abyss. The elevation difference was only about fifty meters. Counting the distance from their heads to the ceiling, the height of the entire room could not have been more than a hundred meters.
Right in front of their eyes was a cylindrical room that looked like a vertical silo to launch starships. A lot of shrines had indeed been dug out in the mottled wall of the silo. But it was not monsters that had lumps all over their bodies and reeked of pus that were stored in the shrines but brains.
More precisely speaking, judging from their size, form, and colorful nerve clusters, they were the 'new crystal processors' that were 3D printed after molecular scanning and slicing.
All the new crystal processors were at least half a meter in diameter. They were soaked in dark red, unknown liquids. Most of them were hibernating as if they were dead, but a tiny proportion of them were emanating dazzling brilliance that flowed quickly from the hippocampus like rainbows. Those brains were apparently calculating and thinking quickly.
