Chapter 344: Chapter 344

344: Chapter 124: The 8th Martial God – Part One 344: Chapter 124: The 8th Martial God – Part One Xiang Shan dragged a prosthetic-bodied Martial Artist to a deeply hidden warehouse.

Xiang Shan had long-term leased this warehouse, and he had compromised the surrounding surveillance systems.

It was a small corner hidden from the Protectors’ view.

The Martial Artist’s body was completely stiff.

His emotional fluctuations were too severe, and the system had automatically locked down the prosthetic body to prevent a frenzied human from harming himself.

In the Old Era, the system would have automatically contacted the hospital and the police at this time.

However, more than a hundred years after the Martial Ancestor’s demise and the Seventh Martial God’s seventh defeat, there were no longer any police or public hospitals in the world.

Moreover, the protracted struggle between the Kings’ Allied Forces led by King Aqini and the Seventh Martial God had drained Jianghu of its rebellious strength.

Today was indeed the dimmest moment for chivalrous righteousness.

It was possible that there really were no police or public medical facilities left within the Solar System.

The locked-down Martial Artist pleaded, “Great Hero…

“When you crushed that old man with your fist, did you think about sparing him?

Ah, you could even argue that you didn’t realize she was a pregnant woman several months along,” Xiang Shan coldly retorted.

“Those who have lost the status of ‘Protector’ are even less than tools.

At least a tool can be considered ‘private property’ and receive extended protection from its owner.

There are always people who will say things detrimental to their mental health,” Xiang Shan continued.

Then, with a surge of Inner Strength, he instantly found the back door and dismantled the man’s defenses.

The man stood up and walked over to a strange device on his own.

“I have always believed that the most severe punishment for a person is death,” Xiang Shan said calmly, “so I must apologize for what I am about to do next.

This might be a punishment beyond death.

Really, I do feel sorry about this.”

As Xiang Shan spoke, several mechanical arms slowly removed the electronic components near the man’s brain-machine interface.

Then, several nanoneedles descended from above.

“What will happen to me…” the man trembled and said.

“The elimination of self-consciousness is theoretically not much different from death.

But if impulses lingering in the nerves can also be called ‘you’…

perhaps you will suffer,” Xiang Shan said, joining his hands together, “I am sorry.”

Then, the anesthetic was injected.

Brain activity was temporarily halted.

Immediately after, the nanoneedles pierced in.

Xiang Shan held his own forehead.

From an ethical standpoint, this act was even worse than most actions by the Order of Scientific Knights.

Even though his chosen targets were individuals full of evil deeds, it did not change the essence of the fact.

Under ideal conditions, an “execution” should simply be “executing,” and should not be used as a means of “acquiring resources.”

There wasn’t an environment concerned about such matters.

The concept of “the rule of law” was indeed good.

During the era of the Fourth Martial God, it had been only a decade or so since the Sublimation War had ended, and there were still many survivors from the Old Era.

The “Secret War” before the “Sublimation War” had been conducted without public knowledge, and most people remembered only having experienced one global conflict.

They retained a common vision of “society.” The Fourth Martial God’s slogan was a call for Heroes to legislate for themselves and rapidly build a workable society using this common vision.

However, King Aqini’s bombardment that obliterated the Fourth Martial God’s efforts also destroyed the order built at the spiritual level.

He altered the world’s understanding with his naked material force.

The fact that “King Aqini was not executed by the Civilization Protectors” meant one thing—the relationship between Civilization Protectors and humanity was no longer the “government and citizens” or “monarch and subjects” of the Old Era.

The human understanding of the concept of “society” had been completely rewritten.

This slogan could only be used once.

When the first person who used this slogan failed, human confidence in the slogan weakened significantly.

Until all human cognition was changed by history.

Although humanity does not learn from history, history indeed does not allow exactly the same events to happen twice.

Reality would not provide him with a “perfect” opportunity.

Xiang Shan had no choice but to do this.

Most data, Xiang Shan could obtain from the public blockchain of either the Order of Scientific Knights or the Heroes.

But some key things could absolutely not be leaked.

This involved experimenting with “inputting a pseudo-personality mask in reverse into a biological brain,” combined with “repairing severe brain damage” technology, plus “fundamental vulnerabilities in security protocols,” potentially leading to the “complete manipulation of the human brain by a computer.”

Consciousness would reside within the computer, the human brain functioning as an add-on to the computer.

The only advantage of the human brain was its “higher level on mathematical models.” Otherwise, it was inferior to the most advanced computers in every way.

Humanity possessed a strong creativity, capable of imagining “concepts never conceived before” and could construct models greater than themselves.

Meanwhile, Turing and Gödel had earlier set the boundaries for computers—their problem-solving capabilities had an upper limit.

There were some issues they could not understand from the outset.

A computer could not surpass this upper limit.

Of course, there should also be an upper limit to the human brain’s problem-solving capability.

Perhaps due to problems of self-reference, humans might not realize this limit.

But it “might” be higher than that of computers.

Within known theories, the human brain still was capable of things computers could not do.

Perhaps one day computers might manage it, but it likely wouldn’t be soon.

Beyond this, “personality,” “will,” “emotions,” “strategy”…

all could be simulated by computers.

After undergoing deep learning, computers might even surpass humans.

Yet this technology could, in one step, use computers to completely control the human brain, making the brain’s own personality irrelevant—all would depend on the personality within the computer.

And this personality could be artificially fabricated by anyone.

Personality is not something noble.

In other words, if someone possessing this technology harbors ill intentions, they could overlay their own personality, or the “personality of my slave” onto the brain-machine interfaces of all humanity.

The diversity of human minds would vanish in an instant.

However, for a Hero, this might be a meaningful experiment.

“Seizing another’s biological brain’s computing power” could extend the reach of an Internal master’s power.

Even someone as powerful as “Turing,” Zhu Xinyu, could maintain absolute control only within one light second.

But if she could remotely commandeer the brain resources of others—for instance, the brain of any Internal Martial Artist within the fleet in “The Only Defeat”—then history might be rewritten.

This thought troubled Xiang Shan deeply.

However, fortunately…

no, one shouldn’t say “fortunately.” There are really a lot of scum in this era.

“Those without protectors” are not considered part of “humanity.” Everyone accepts this rule, and there will always be a few scum who vent their dark desires on these defenseless wretches.

The Wilderness is also home to incurably violent addicts like Green Forest.

Of course, Xiang Shan is aware.

This is just a compromise with reality and does not mean that it is good.

Xiang Shan watched the villain with the flickering Prosthetic Eye and pressed his forehead.

“Is ‘Xiang Shan’ such a person?

Or is ‘Zhu Xinyu’ actually more intense than Xiang Shan?

Is the incision she makes black?

Would ‘Xiang Shan in Zhu Xinyu’s eyes’ do such a thing?”

Soon, the implantation of the nanoneedles was completed.

The machine autonomously executed the awakening ritual.

This very useful machine was acquired by Xiang Shan through a deal with another mysterious organization.

That was many years ago.

At the time, Xiang Shan’s Internal Strength was not yet fully developed, but he encountered an Internal Strength Master in the starboard computer of a satellite.

This master was likely under King Aqini’s command.

However, for some reason, he instead helped Xiang Shan erase traces and proposed a “trade.

The mysterious organization was very interested in Xiang Shan’s experience of developing such Internal Strength under the eyes of King Aqini and wanted to cooperate.

Xiang Shan actually had no experience.

His success was hard to replicate—his brain still harbored the world’s foremost Internal Strength Master’s logical thinking and worldview.

His perspective on Internal Strength was highly consistent with Zhu Xinyu’s.

He could quickly enhance his own Internal Strength.

Xiang Shan had several dealings with that mysterious organization.

This occasionally self-proclaimed “Demon Sect” provided him some help in bioengineering.

At least these surgical assistive devices were absolutely cutting-edge.

Xiang Shan even suspected that they were Heroes lurking within the Order of Scientific Knights.

Without the help of the Demon Sect, Xiang Shan might have been able to steal data from the Order of Scientific Knights, but he could not have carried out his plans so smoothly.

Xiang Shan had recorded his own neural network structure a long time ago.

Now, he intended to use those implanted nanoneedles to make other people’s brains more similar to that structure.

Along with the awakening of the biological brain, the sinner’s body began to move again. Follow current novels on novelꜰire.net

But the first thing that appeared was not thought, but convulsion.

Many data flowed into the instrument that monitored his brain.

It was only after ten minutes that Xiang Shan injected a neural receptor blocker and neurotransmitter antagonist into the man’s brain.

“As I thought, it still doesn’t work,” Xiang Shan stared at this person while reminding himself not to expand the “experimental subjects.”

He roughly guessed the reason for the failure.

The implanted data belonged to himself.

This guy’s brain was too different from his own.

No matter how hard cognitive scientists try, they cannot find a copy of Beethoven’s music or Li Bai’s poems in the brain.

There are no texts, images, grammar rules here.

There are only networks formed by neural connections.

Information, data, rules, software, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memory, images, processors, sub-programs, encoders, decoders, symbols, buffers…

an array of informatics terms fills the realms of cognitive science.

But this is just a metaphor.

In fact, it’s not like that.

“Memory” does not exist in the human brain in the form of some file.

Even if it existed in an entity, this entity itself would undergo some ordered changes by the brain based on individual experiences

And no two people would respond the same way to the same experience.

If two people attended the same concert, listening to the same piece of music, it is almost certain that the changes occurring in the first person’s brain would be completely different from those in the second person’s brain.

No matter what those changes are, they are built on an already existing unique neural structure, each structure formed from the unique experiences of an individual’s lifetime.

This guy’s brain, like two channels with scrambled signals, was discordantly coexisting.