APTnovel Chapter 234: A Request
Chapter 234: A Request
“Tucker, if I play the fourth version of the game, can you embed hypercube information into my consciousness data package? I mean, I want to communicate with these ‘sOSers’.”
“Sage, that might be dangerous.” Tucker was startled; he couldn’t believe the Sage would personally go into battle.
"Tucker, is there any danger?"
“You are different from the others. Those players are just ordinary people. If you were to personally go into battle, I don’t know what the consequences would be. What if the hypercube distress messages carried by these successful players are a trap or a snare? Ordinary players are fine, but for you, these distress callers might launch some kind of attack that we don’t know about.”
Zhou Yuan nodded, thinking that Tucker was quite thorough in his considerations.
If the distress messages transmitted by these hypercubes are a trap, then what should I do? Zhou Yuan thought to himself. After all, whether it was a trap or not was unknown, and Zhou Yuan was indeed curious. He knew that if he wanted to unlock the secrets of this virtual universe, it would be necessary to communicate with these "distressers" in some way. Even if it was a trap, at least it was a transmission of information, which was better than no information at all.
"Tucker, thanks for reminding me."
Then Zhou Yuan glanced at Tucker and the other scientists and said, “Gentlemen, I have a question. This question is very important, and I need your affirmative or negative answer.”
Tucker and the other scientists held their breath, worried that a single gasp from them might cause them to miss a word the sage uttered.
"Everyone, the question is: would a person really definitely ask an ant for help?"
Tucker and the others exchanged glances. They were all intelligent people and understood the meaning behind Zhou Yuan's question.
A scientist raised his hand; it was a young man with curly hair. Zhou Yuan nodded, indicating that he could speak. "Sage," Zhou Yuan said, "it's almost impossible for a person to send a distress signal to an ant; the probability is extremely low. Sage, if I may be so bold, I think your question needs to be revised. The question is: would a person really definitely send a distress signal to a group of ants?"
Zhou Yuan seemed to realize something, nodded approvingly at the curly-haired young scientist, and asked, "As you said, is this problem even possible?"
“Sage, if it were a group of ants, the probability would be much higher.”
"What do you think?"
“Sage, we believe that what the operations and maintenance team said makes sense.”
Operations and maintenance? Zhou Yuan couldn't help but glance at the curly-haired young scientist a few more times.
"Operations and maintenance, let me ask you another question: how should we, the ants, save this person?"
Operations and Tucker exchanged glances and whispered among themselves with the other scientists for a few minutes. Tucker then stepped forward and faced Zhou Yuan, saying, "Sage, we ants can transmit information, transmit this person's distress message."
As if struck by a sudden enlightenment, Zhou Yuan seemed to understand many things, but new doubts arose in his mind.
"Okay, I understand. Xiaolan, have any other players successfully completed the level?"
"There are only thirteen at the moment."
"Then you organize a global open tournament for the fourth edition of the Cosmic Domination War. If the player successfully passes the final level, I will give them a generous reward."
"Yes, sage."
"Tucker, Operations, get ready as soon as possible. I need to establish a hypercube information transmission within the consciousness stream of successful players. I need you to transmit the following information: 'Who are you? How can we save you?' Can you do that?"
“Sage, we can indeed do it. However, the method we use to build the hypercube may damage the player’s brain, and if we need to transmit a large amount of information, our human player’s brain simply cannot handle it.”
Zhou Yuan said "Oh," and suddenly remembered that he had once told the artificial intelligence Nana that if human consciousness were given to Nana in a quantum or photonic form, Nana said that she would become more powerful, but Nana believed that no matter how powerful it was, it could not exist independently of the physical universe.
Zhou Yuan made up his mind, but he still sought the opinions of these outstanding scientists. "Gentlemen, what do you think if we endow artificial intelligence with human quantum consciousness, let this artificial intelligence play the fourth version of the game 'Cosmic Warfare', replace the human player, and let the artificial intelligence act as a link between us and those who are in distress?"
Tucker and a dozen or so scientists from the operations team gathered together again. No matter how softly they spoke, Zhou Yuan could hear that the scientists were not on the same page, and this time there was some disagreement. These dozen or so scientists discussed quietly for about thirty minutes before they finished.
Tucker stepped forward and bowed to Zhou Yuan, saying, "Sage, as you probably know, our opinions are not aligned."
"Yes, I can tell."
"Our disagreement doesn't stem from a disagreement about how the AI hypercube transmits information—that's definitely not a problem. Our point of contention is our concern that if we imbue AI with human-like quantum consciousness, it might evolve on its own, and you know how dangerous that would be for us."
"Tucker, you know about the Magic Tree, right?"
"I know about the Sage. I also participated in some research on the Demon Tree. He also participated in the maintenance."
"That's good. Then we'll infuse human consciousness into the Demon Tree, and connect the Demon Tree to artificial intelligence. That way, the danger will be under control."
Tucker, operations, and a dozen other scientists suddenly had a flash of inspiration. The sage's idea was ingenious. An artificial intelligence paired with a giant magic tree—as long as the connection between the magic tree and the artificial intelligence was severed, or the magic tree was destroyed altogether, no matter how much the artificial intelligence caused trouble, it would be impossible.
"Everyone, if we want to transmit a huge amount of information, wouldn't the required flow of human brain consciousness data also be enormous?"
"Yes, sage."
"Here's the arrangement. I plan to create a 'Magic Tree Earth,' filled with the quantum consciousness of humans, specifically for communicating with those in distress. I need your cooperation, along with other scientists, to integrate artificial intelligence, a cosmic war game, and the Magic Tree Earth. To prevent the AI from rebelling, I will dispatch a fleet of warships to destroy the Magic Tree Earth at any time. Do you understand?"
"Understood, Saint."
"Xiao Lan, I will have Nana and Aya work with you to modify the game to suit the Magic Tree and artificial intelligence."
“Yes, Sage.” Mei Ruolan glanced at Zhou Yuan, her eyes seemingly pleading for help.
Zhou Yuan naturally noticed Mei Ruolan's strange look, but he ignored it for the time being.
"You guys can go out first and prepare to transmit the hypercube information. Oh, and Operations, you stay here."
"Yes." A dozen scientists bowed and then turned to leave.
The operations and maintenance personnel were also inexplicably excited, and dared not look Zhou Yuan in the eye.
Zhou Yuan whispered something in the operations engineer's ear. The operations engineer first shook his head, then nodded, and then said, "Thank you, Sage."
"Operations and maintenance, do a good job, I won't treat you unfairly."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Do you have any other instructions?"
"Nothing."
"My lord, I shall take my leave. My lord, Mr. Mei, goodbye."
"Okay, goodbye." "Goodbye," Zhou Yuan and Mei Ruolan replied.
The operations engineer bowed to Zhou Yuan, then turned and left.
Zhou Yuan watched the operations and maintenance staff's retreating figure, feeling a slight moisture welling up in his eyes. Mei Ruolan glanced at Zhou Yuan, not daring to disturb him.
After a while, Zhou Yuan turned to face Mei Ruolan and asked, "Xiao Lan, you seemed a bit off earlier. What's wrong?"
“Sage, it’s like this, the cloning center has notified me several times that my mother’s fertilization maturity is not high.”
"Your mother? Aunt Mei?" Zhou Yuan looked at Mei Ruolan, whose cultivation maturity was 99.4%. This Mei Ruolan had just replaced the Mei Ruolan with a cultivation maturity of 99.1% who had passed away two and a half years ago.
"Yes, Your Majesty, your memory is excellent."
Zhou Yuan had never met Aunt Mei, but he often heard Pan Na say that Aunt Mei was a very nice person.
"What happened to Aunt Mei?"
“I don’t know what went wrong with my mother’s consciousness back then. Several of her clones were not mature enough to meet the Council’s requirements. Sage, I hope you will take my mother’s sacrifice in the underground battle with the Western Kingdom’s descendants’ fleet and modify her consciousness data to resurrect her. I hope my mother can stay with me.” Mei Ruolan, the beautiful woman, looked at Zhou Yuan, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Zhou Yuan reached out and wiped away the tears from Mei Ruolan's eyes. Mei Ruolan suddenly leaned her head on Zhou Yuan's shoulder and kept sobbing.
Zhou Yuan sighed and gently hugged her. After a long while, Mei Ruolan finally left Zhou Yuan's shoulder, her face slightly flushed. Zhou Yuan handed Mei Ruolan a tissue, and Mei Ruolan wiped away her tears.
"Xiao Lan, don't worry, I'll take a look at Aunt Mei's consciousness data and correct her stream of consciousness data."
"Then I am very grateful to the Sage."
You're welcome. It's just that I haven't been caring enough for you.
Zhou Yuan was puzzled that Mei Ruolan's predecessor, the one with a 99.1% cultivation maturity, hadn't told Panna and himself about this situation. If Mei Ruolan's predecessor had made this request, Zhou Yuan would have readily agreed and resurrected Mei Ruolan. It seemed that the Mei Ruolan with a 99.1% cultivation maturity remained unmarried throughout her life until her death.
Zhou Yuan thought it over carefully and realized that he had indeed shown very little concern for the two Mei Ruolan.
Now, only he and Panna are together, these two immortal beings living together. Chu Xiaolu and Huo Jing both died of old age forty or fifty years ago. Although Zhou Yuan cloned the two of them, he modified and deleted the clone consciousness of Chu Xiaolu and Huo Jing. Zhou Yuan deleted all the clone's memories of him and forged memory fragments.
Chu Xiaolu's clone is currently an instructor at the interstellar special forces camp, while Huo Jing's clone is currently a scientist at the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Pan Na had initially strongly opposed Zhou Yuan's actions. She believed that even if they were clones, as long as they retained the mother-son bond, Zhou Yuan could continue cloning them. Pan Na, accustomed to the lively atmosphere of a group, felt uncomfortable suddenly being alone with Zhou Yuan. Zhou Yuan thought she would gradually adapt over time. However, Pan Na couldn't resist and told Zhou Yuan a few days ago that she wanted to go to a special forces camp for training. Zhou Yuan knew that Pan Na's request was merely to connect with Chu Xiaolu, and he didn't stop her.
True to his word, Zhou Yuan led Mei Ruolan to the cloning center he had built for the Thomas government. Guided by guards, the two arrived at the consciousness storage and transplantation room. In this enormous room, numerous large pieces of equipment were displayed, and a dozen or so men and women dressed in white were busy at work; some were gesturing in front of holographic screens, while others were rapidly browsing data.
When these people saw Zhou Yuan and Mei Ruolan enter, they all bowed in unison.