Capítulo 1187: Chapter 20: Gazing Into the Shattered Mirror…
Gu Kaisheng was originally sprinting wildly towards the Moon Shadow Knight Order’s base, following inertia.
But soon, he had to stop.
On one hand, the “Gale Knight’s” speed was very fast. Its rocket fuel and reactor mixed drive was far beyond the ordinary First Heavenly Layer prosthetic body.
He even saw from afar two ard squires piloting flying prosthetic bodies approaching.
Perhaps to save ammunition, that… probably the Fifth Martial God’s First Heavenly Layer Martial Artist, directly separated from the Gale Knight temporarily and executed enemies with lee weapons mounted inside the Gale Knight before rging again.
In a crossover, two aircraft plumted towards the ground.
The firepower anti-aircraft network that was supposed to be effective couldn’t even aim properly.
Gu Kaisheng could even read the distant explosion from those underground monitoring instrunts. Originally used to monitor the Six Dragons Sect’s passageway, the instrunts were reporting the tragedy of the battlefield to him.
In the face of powerful firepower, the earth trembled.
Explosions and martyrdom, downing and destruction…
He didn’t even need to connect online, the “kills count” in Gu Kaisheng’s heart was constantly refreshing.
There is no need to fight any longer.
Besides…
Dugu Beiluo’s thermal sword was pointing at his back, showing signs of striking down.
He had to spread his hands, releasing all defensive stances.
“Are you the forr Hero? Now willing to surrender?” Dugu Beiluo’s tone was filled with doubt.
Her emotions were very negative now, seeming eager to find sothing to chop.
Gu Kaisheng weighed the pros and cons and then said, “If you guys are willing to spare so of the scientific knights’ lives in the order, I can give up all resistance.”
Dugu Beiluo replied, “Hmm, as long as they don’t resist desperately, if we can spare lives, we’ll most likely spare lives.”
Thus, Dugu Beiluo, along with Enlil carrying the Six Dragon Right Envoy and Gu Kaisheng, temporarily ford a team.
Gu Kaisheng couldn’t help but ask, “What about Kanhara Shinhara?”
“Didn’t check. Should be gone, I guess.” Dugu Beiluo felt this guy was hitting on a sore spot.
“The other one… is Joshua, right? He joined the Six Dragons Sect later?”
“Yo, pretty old—much older than at least.” Dugu Beiluo’s tone carried the feel of tri-nitro-thylamine, “You can recognize even that? How long have you been betraying us?”
“I’m just looking for a place to retire peacefully. I have never killed a Hero.” Gu Kaisheng shook his head, obviously not caring much about this issue.
“And you, Brother Fengbao.” Dugu Beiluo turned to Enlil, “What are you dawdling about?”
“The Martial God’s research report… or pre-print paper or sothing.” Enlil’s tone beca sluggish, as if the brain’s computational resources were concentrated on another process, “You see, we’re both in post-battle states, spent much ammunition, heat dissipation pressure near the limit, should secretly be glad to nail down an enemy First Heavenly Layer for free.”
“Wasn’t the old man’s last ssage saying that this guy could attempt to win over?” Dugu Beiluo glanced at Gu Kaisheng.
Singer Host was assigned other tasks. He was responsible for intercepting the remaining ard forces commander of the Knight Order.
Singer Host had barely made any move just now, still in perfect condition, dealing with non-First Heavenly Layer Martial Artists, it was like autumn wind sweeping the fallen leaves swiftly.
Dugu Beiluo quickly contacted nearby ordinary Heroes, inford them of the events, and instructed them “how to act.”
Xiang Shan unexpectedly resolved all forces outside the knight order. Even Dugu Beiluo didn’t foresee this.
For Heroes, this was indeed a perfect opportunity.
Currently, the most important task for Heroes was to control the Moon Shadow Knight Order’s scientific knights as much as possible, to obtain the most critical technical reserves. Secondly, was to transfer materials difficult to obtain from other places efficiently.
First Heavenly Layer Martial Artists are excellent at destruction, yet these tasks cannot be handled solely.
These all require collaboration from local Heroes.
“Brother Fengbao, are you just leaving like that? Isn’t it a bit excessive?”
“Haha, I was a scientific knight before too. I might not be a particularly exceptional scientific knight, but I also have a craving for knowledge.” Enlil said, “Now, I rarely have an opportunity, to know a mystery prior to everyone else in the world—how can’t I be thrilled?”
In the end, he added: “Anyway, my current state isn’t suitable for battle.” He also shook the Six Dragon Right Envoy carried on his shoulders.
The Six Dragon Right Envoy and the Gale Knight still caused so harm to Enlil.
There were consecutive muffled explosions.
Gu Kaisheng sighed: “Alright, now the Moon Shadow Knight Order no longer has First Heavenly Layer combat power—it’s Joshua, right? That guy is really formidable.”
“You can feel even that?” Dugu Beiluo showed a bit of surprise.
“Lived long enough.” Gu Kaisheng said this way.
The three finally arrived at the first sign of combat. The private soldiers’ base of the Knight Order looked like it had been blown apart by several high-explosive bombs.
The explosive wind identified the external strength masters, who were then sniped by directed energy weapons.
Dugu Beiluo issued a whistling audio expression: “This old man… I an the Fifth Martial God was always good at firearms?”
“The shooting assistance of the Gale Knight… but such performance has already exceeded the test data by too much.” Gu Kaisheng showed so suspicion.
Although “what kind of miracles the Martial God can create is possible,” but… data is always data.
Enlil stood before a war chariot that had been sliced open. tal made into plasma accelerated by the magnetic rail transford into flying scorching blades, unstoppable. The armant carried by the “Gale Knight” was so nurous it could deploy various thods for different enemies, causing maximum damage.
But the miracle was…
Most people sohow just lost combat ability without dying.
Surely, pointing at a pile of wreckage and saying “not a single person died” was unrealistic. But Dugu Beiluo could be sure this was absolutely what’s called “minimum casualties.”
The Fifth Martial God consciously avoided hitting biological brains. Although occasionally they were struck, compared to conventional First Heavenly Layer Martial Artist attacks, the survival rate of these soldiers was far higher.
“I see…” Enlil seemingly thought of sothing, not sure if targeting this situation or Xiang Shan’s research report.
There was a stumbling noise.
A multi-legged robot resembling a large spider crossed the battlefield and ca over. Enlil casually threw the Six Dragon Right Envoy aside and extracted a few external plugins from that robot—there was a working arm with an electromagnet installed at one end.
Enlil seed absent-minded, but his hands were skillful. He quickly connected the working arm to the reserved interface on himself and even tossed a set to Dugu Beiluo. Enlil directly dismantled a piece of armor from the war chariot, just hanging it on the electromagnetic device.
In cosmic battles, this is a popular ergency handling thod. When armor breaks or strength plumts, Heroes can quickly dismantle enemy vehicle armor and hang it around their body to gain temporary defense.
This thod greatly affects the aerodynamic shape and balance, because you can’t expect to pick up suitable armor on the battlefield. Therefore, Heroes on Earth, Venus, and Jupiter mostly don’t consider this technique. The thick atmosphere and gravity easily affect martial arts performance.
Mars or other cosmic environnts are more suitable for it.
Enlil quickly dismantled several pieces of various-sized armor from the abandoned war chariot, suspended by chanical arms, completely covering the ruptured external armor all around himself, even resembling a “cloak.”
Dugu Beiluo watched the little robot with so vigilance: “AI’s?”
“Controlled by a comrade.” Enlil replied casually, “I just signaled to have those supporting hurry and deliver things. Alright, let the Great Hero here greet us, prove it’s not AI.”
The Knight controlling this robot was obviously mired in huge confusion. After a long while, a nearby signal ca through: [Are you stupid (beep)?]
Enlil chuckled and was about to delve back into thinking. The nearby signal flashed another ssage: [Barrett’s coming this way…]
“Why would he… never mind, I get it. That Flower of Rhetoric affair. Not surprising.”
Enlil picked up the Six Dragon Right Envoy again, tossed him to the robots, and instructed the supporting heroes to ensure this important captive was taken away. Then he followed the fully equipped Dugu Beiluo on his way forward.
Hero squads rushing from all directions have already engaged in sporadic fights with the Protector and Knight Order forces. But this ti, things have beco completely different.
The Fifth Martial God, piloting the “Gale Knight” ch, swept the battlefield directly, broke through the defense lines, destroyed almost all the fixed fortifications and fire points, and sniped the middle-tier commanders. Additionally, another force—no point in keeping it a secret, it’s Singer Host—specifically assassinated all targets attempting to restore order amidst this chaos.
The opposing army has now turned into a ss.
Without the pressure from programs, the Protectors don’t have any fighting spirit. The heroes are on average much stronger than the army.
It’s like a pack of wolves feasting on carrion.
Now, the most important task for the heroes is to ensure the maximum outco.
Within a few minutes of walking, they discovered over a dozen grassroots commanders sniped by other heroes. Soon, Firearms Path Martial Artist Bart Barrett appeared before them.
Barrett sighed, and softly asked, “Senior Kanbara, the final…”
“No ‘final,’ you just ca late. They left,” said Enlil. “You’re late, my brother.”
Barrett was stunned for a mont, seemingly not expecting this outco: “Shouldn’t it be? If unwilling to kill her, it should be capturing alive…”
“Probably so dirty human transaction thing. It involves so past matters, which I don’t quite understand or care about. Over there, there’s a hero nicknad Singer Host, whose real na is Joshua,” Enlil pointed ahead, “He should have gone over there already. You can ask him for details.”
He seemingly had no desire for further communication.
Not long after, Firefly also caught up from behind. He handed all captives over to the local heroes and turned back into the battle.
“Yo, yo, yo, Uncle, looks like you’re hurt quite badly.” Firefly glanced at Dugu Beiluo and then increased the volu by eight percent, “Here, I brought a bucket of coolant for you—Brother Fengbao, you have a share too.”
He is responsible for fighting the ordinary martial artists of the Six Dragons Sect, and there are no injuries on him. When going to the rear area earlier, he also took along two boxes of dischargeable coolants, special phase change materials with a very high specific heat capacity. By concentrating heat on these bullet-shaped coolants for discharge, the activity ti of the ch can be effectively extended.
In so occasions, these coolants, absorbing waste heat, can also be used as inducent targets.
Dugu Beiluo finally relaxed a bit and instructed Firefly and Bart Barrett to keep a close eye on Gu Kaisheng.
Bart Barrett hesitated a mont, seemingly recognizing Gu Kaisheng, and exchanged so communication with him on the private chat channel.
“Really know each other…” Dugu Beiluo almost rolled her eyes, “Is today a sale event for old things? People over two hundred years old are appearing one after another.”
“After the Ninth Martial God, the intensity of fighting on Mars indeed isn’t high anymore,” Firefly said, “For retirent, besides the Asteroid Belt, it’s just our Mars—speaking of, we’re talking ‘old’ this and ‘old’ that, Master might not be happy hearing it.”
He didn’t even fra it as a question.
“Heh.” Dugu Beiluo said nothing, just kept scanning around.
At this mont, she also noticed unusual information around.
She directly asked Enlil, “Brother Fengbao, have you noticed…”
“If the Martial God takes action, the death rate is abnormally low, right?” Enlil nodded.
If you had to summarize the Fifth Martial God’s behavior just now in one sentence, it would most likely be “Avoid killing if possible.”
Those who died directly at the hands of the Fifth Martial God—accurately speaking, those who were sniped after being targeted by the Fifth Martial God—were mostly officers with commanding capabilities, who the Fifth Martial God couldn’t effectively deprive them of their commanding ability while ensuring their survival.
Highly cyberized Benchmark n, as long as their brains aren’t damaged and their communication modules aren’t completely wrecked, can continue serving as frontline commanders.
Beyond this, the deceased were mostly collateral damage from explosions or environntal impacts, or large-scale targets that were practically unavoidable.
But this isn’t the style of Xiang Shan.
Xiang Shan indeed doesn’t revel in killing, may occasionally resist slaughter, but doesn’t shy away from it. On the battlefield, he always advocates “efficiency,” only attempting to capture alive when conditions allow for controlling prisoners.
The Fifth Martial God plowed through the Knight Order’s outer positions at least twice; consequently, most of the fallen enemies weren’t killed by him—this is simply too unusual.
“This kind of self-diminishing efficiency behavior…”
Enlil said, “Think from another perspective. If the Fifth Martial God hadn’t acted suddenly, we would never have been able to breach the Order of Knights this way, right?”
Dugu Beiluo nodded.
“What if he made a deal with the AI on the condition of ‘reducing killing’? With the help of the AI, our efficiency on the battlefield has greatly increased. ‘Reducing killing’ is a necessary compromise.”
“But…” Dugu Beiluo clearly had sothing held back. She said “but” several tis before continuing, “I’m a bit confused about Fifth Master’s stance now. He can refrain from killing whoever for the AI; isn’t it possible that tomorrow, an AI raised by one of the Kings will tell him, ‘Don’t kill my creator and I’ll help you’…”
Enlil shook his head, “Actually, when we can control the Scientific Knights, we generally don’t kill them, okay? It’s a consistent practice, not an unyielding principle. For real principle issues, we can also ‘negotiate’.”
This indeed was true. Related discussions existed since the era of the Fourth Martial God, and by the Sixth Martial God era, it beca a routine—regarding the issue of “what kind of enemies are unforgivable even if they surrender.”
The Fourth Martial God advocated that “casualties due to differing stances can be forgiven depending on circumstances, whereas extra killings due to personal factors are unforgivable,” while the Sixth Martial God believed “if the enemy was never taught the value of life from birth, they can be given opportunities upon surrender to learn, whereas those who understand yet still commit wanton slaughter are absolutely unforgivable.”
This is also related to the enemies faced by the two Martial Gods. In the era of the Fourth Martial God, the old national armies—soldiers coerced by great power to join the reactionary forces—were still the main force of the Protectors. Decades later, the Sixth Martial God and the contemporary Fifth Martial God faced a new batch of Scientific Knights and officers who had never experienced the Golden Era.
These two principles essentially form the current “principles” of the Heroes. They do not specify details but set a baseline, pointing out “those who are absolutely unforgivable.” The rest requires the Hero’s discretion based on actual circumstances, deciding based on specific combat situations.
Although the Heroes didn’t have many opportunities to control captives for long, whenever they had the chance, they would judge according to these principles.
“Technology” is neutral, and indeed, Scientific Knights do receive more chances to avoid death.
“Us.” Dugu Beiluo stared at Enlil, “Have you now beco a supporter of Fifth Master? Is his research report so convincing?”
“It’s very enlightening. That’s all I can say. The perspective is quite unique. And also… he organized so stuff from the Six Dragons Sect database a bit.” Enlil sighed, “I kind of understand why the Soul of Light Knights Order has changed so much in the past half-century. Six Dragons Sect, huh. By the way, am I considered excluded by Six Dragons Sect? They’ve never tried to recruit ? Do they underestimate my academic ability?”
The Martial Chief clearly cared about this issue.
“Whoa.” Dugu Beiluo casually wiped out a squad that was regrouping, then continued after forming a protective formation, “Those old guys from Six Dragons Sect do have so foresight. You might not be fit for that.”
“Go away.” Enlil retorted, followed by a sigh.
“Why not… elaborate?” Dugu Beiluo transmitted again, “Why are you displeased?”
“According to the Tenth Martial God’s definition, aren’t you also a technical researcher in the martial arts field? Can’t you independently understand?” Enlil said, “I rembered when I joined the Order of Knights; there was a story circulating within. You know, in ancient tis, scholars proposed an interesting idea, saying ‘if a lion could talk, we might not understand it.’ The formation of a language is the process where the creatures using it classify and understand the world during their survival and reproduction evolution, closely related to the physiological basis and surrounding environnt of its users.”
“In the era belonging to Superman Enterprise, Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan once strongly advocated a project to enhance the intelligence of other animals.”
The subsequent content, Enlil transmitted not by language but through text and even hypertext forms, converting information into highly ordered structures.
Xiang Shan’s dream was always a “cognitive revolution,” to “understand human cognition, thereby enhancing human cognitive abilities.”
He believed, “Knowing ‘what is not ’ more firmly confirms ‘what is ’.” He yearned to encounter intelligent forms beyond humans. Therefore, after the gene modification surgery was fully implented, he imdiately began seeking “to enhance the intelligence of animals.”
His primary targets were higher primates close to humans, like chimpanzees.
Additionally, pseudo-societal species resembling the primitive human organizational structures like wolves and lions were also of interest to him.
Ideally, there should also be so research on solitary creatures with brief nurturing behaviors—cats, for example.
Hmm, he even developed a comprehensive plan for “transferring costs to cat lovers” regarding this last point.
It was just that the Usurper of the State left him too little ti, and human reactions to this were very intense. Until the state-stealing occurred, Xiang Shan remained at the stage of talking big.
In the old days, there were sci-fi stories where mad human scientists enhanced the intelligence of other species, leading to their extermination of humans. Most people worry about this point. Rationalists believe that a thorough discussion on the ethical issues involved is necessary—regarding the relationship between humans and enhanced species, whether humans can research these enhanced species for their own purposes, what level of freedom those enhanced species can enjoy, etc.
These contents have also been retained within the Order of Knights as “legends.”
The Six Dragons Sect restarted this plan. This ti, no ethics restricted this secret organization anymore.
The only thing guiding Six Dragons Sect in choosing experintal animals was “what species survived post-extinction,” followed by “whether they are suitable.”
There aren’t many non-human primates still alive, and the remaining gene samples are kept within the Galapagos Temple, which Six Dragons Sect hasn’t infiltrated deeply. Mice were ignored by Six Dragons Sect due to their insufficient absolute brain capacity and not being different enough from humans.
This ti, Six Dragons Sect indeed enhanced the intelligence of cats and dogs. Due to the existence of the pet industry, the population of cats and dogs is very large. Although the shapes of pet cats and dogs are varied, their genetic diversity is far lower than that of wild populations. Those so-called “precious breeds” are just specific deformities and genetic diseases filtered out by humans over generations. By introducing a rich gene bank from wild populations, these seemingly diverse traits would naturally fade after a few generations—if not, they’d likely be violently eradicated.
The vast numbers an that more individuals among them will survive the “Ichigo Extinction” event.
And the narrow gene bank implies that they can use a generally consistent gene therapy to alleviate symptoms during the modification process.
On Mars, the Soul of Light Knights Order has indeed established communities for modified cats and wolves.
Additionally, on Earth, the Six Dragons Sect is attempting to establish a civilization for the Spear Squid.
The Spear Squid are also classic laboratory animals, with more numbers preserved.
The Spear Squid is a highly asocial animal and vastly different from humans. Observing the consciousness and civilization of the Spear Squid allows for a deeper understanding of human consciousness and civilization.
However, the part unacceptable to Enlil is attached at the end.
The basic policy of the Six Dragons Sect is to impose harsh treatnt on these enhanced animals.
They will not instill the of “it’s an honor to sacrifice as test subjects.” While this could surely reduce the cost of managing experintal animals, it would hinder the efficiency of the experint itself.
Human s will inevitably infiltrate, affecting the purity of “non-human s.”
The purpose of the Six Dragons Sect is to have these animals, distinct from humans, construct a symbolic system different from humans and create a non-human civilization.
The birth of “collective consciousness” is actually very slow. In the late old era, humans continuously discovered human groups that maintained a tribal form for tens of thousands of years. Civilizations making leaps and bounds while eras kept changing seed to be phenona occurring occasionally on the Eurasian Continent.
However, when a group of heartless colonizers arrived, the warring natives had the opportunity to coalesce into a collective, quickly forming an identity.
“The Other” is the best material for shaping “Us.”
The upper echelons of the Six Dragons Sect referred to this segnt of history to establish their policy. They deliberately depress the treatnt of these modified species to a very low level, so they quickly recognize “the Six Dragons Sect as the Other,” thereby understanding what “Us” is.
As for “the newly born civilization carrying an innate hatred towards humanity”…
The Six Dragons Sect simply doesn’t care!
Even if those newly born civilizations quickly acquire martial power through stealing human technological achievents, it would require a hundred years of developnt for them to potentially pose a real threat to humanity.
But the plan of the Six Dragons Sect has always been to “escape the Solar System in the form of ascension before Yawgmoth’s final holy war.”
A non-human civilization that hates humans? Could that be more cruel than Yawgmoth?
The Six Dragons Sect also has so supporting research plans.
For example, they deliberately provide higher treatnt to certain groups or individuals to observe whether phenona similar to “conversion fervor” would occur.
Also, they would fake accidents, allowing so relatively weak Heroes to discover those modified animal communities, let the carried by the Heroes spread in the community, and then assassinate the Heroes after they leave to ensure the secret. They want to observe the impact of such events on the interior of non-human intelligent creatures.
Furthermore, they even plan to use Xiang Shan’s mories—”Martial God Geng Sheng” is currently the most remarkable, highly repeatable special cultural phenonon in human society, and also the most researched special cultural phenonon by the Six Dragons Sect.
And the reason they want to force those modified animals to quickly develop collective consciousness with low treatnt is also for the convenience of “cleansing.”
By shortening the incubation period, they can clean the petri dish after completing a set of research and quickly proceed with the “next set.”
“I think if the real Martial God knew about this, he would also be indignant.” Enlil said.
Dugu Beiluo sighed uncharacteristically: “My master once said, Xiang Shan from two hundred and fifty years ago was quite an ass—but I don’t think he would go this far. According to my understanding, if my master knew about this, he would probably go all out to kill the Six Dragons Sect Leader.”
“But that old fellow nad Joshua did say sothing with a bit of twisted logic. In the plans of the Six Dragons Sect, you can see fragnts of the original Xiang Shan… fragnts, I can only describe it so.”
Other species’ languages and thoughts can describe non-human contours, allowing people to better grasp the contours of “human consciousness.”
The goal of the Six Dragons Sect is to continuously create a stronger self.
Knowing the blueprint is the only way to create.
“Learning languages of species vastly different from human thinking can itself be considered an exercise in Inner Strength.” Enlil relayed the conclusion of the Six Dragons Sect.
“Hey hey, I scanned the data packet of the Fifth Master. He was clearly mainly talking about AI, okay.”
“This is important.” Enlil shook his head, “AI and those intelligence-boosted animals are completely different things. The ‘birth process’ and ‘material basis’ of AI are vastly different from humans and animals. However, it is an artificial creation by humans trying to mimic humans, yet in another dinsion, it is closer to humans than all animals.”
The main difference between AI and humans and other biologics lies in the “foundation.” AI can be said to have no fixed body, as every general-purpose computer capable of running its program can be considered its “body,” yet not one of them is its body.
Humans live within the material world and have lit up the trait of “ creation, inheritance, and transmission” on the tree of evolution, thereby acquiring unique technical skills, possessing a grand order comprised of language, law, rules, and structure accumulated from prehistoric tis to the present.
The “grand order,” the backbone and subject of transmission, is a system based on symbols.
Therefore, so people even call the “grand order” the “Symbol Realm.”
In an ideal state, any object in the real world would have a corresponding concept in the Symbol Realm, and every real thing could be described with a corresponding symbol.
But humans are not omniscient beings. The things humans know are too insignificant compared to the universe. Humans can’t accurately correspond concepts for all unknowns.
Scientists may be the humans who feel this phenonon most directly. Standing at the frontier of cognition, scientists’ thoughts touch the primitive wilderness unreclaid by humanity. In their field of vision, conventional language has already lost its magic of ordering the world.
But ordinary people outside of scientists face the sa distress of “language being difficult to describe,” although their awareness of this point is often not as clear.
Symbols and signs cannot reorder the entire real world.
Humans aspire to pursue “perfection.”
But humans don’t actually know what “perfection” is, or even if they know and realize it, they can’t convey it to others through the symbol system.
Because this is inherently sothing outside the symbol system.
And the “patch” to nd this wound is the “ideal world” and the “ideal self.”
So-called “lofty mountains cast shadows, scenic paths halt; though unable to reach, the heart yearns for them.”
Things existing in imagination.
Also known as the “Imaginary Realm.”
Human thinking contains a certain inertia. In conditions of incomplete information, ti constraints, and limited cognitive resources, humans must make decisions to enhance their survival probability. This is an instinct etched into the foundations of human bodies by evolutionary history.
Association, inspiration, stereotypes, heuristic rules…
Not seeking to realize reality 100% accurately, only to capture key characteristics.
When a hunter-gatherer parts the grass to see a resting tiger or a striped poisonous snake, such thinking markedly increases his survival odds.
To survive and act efficiently in a complex world, creatures need to compress and simplify the vast amount of raw information.
Neural networks work this way. Like layers of shes with varying fineness, each layer extracts specific elents from facts, retaining and enhancing information useful for the task while ignoring irrelevant noise.
Humans possess an instinct of “cognitive miser,” tending to achieve economic balance by reducing neural link cost and optimizing network efficiency.
Thus, when facing a chaotic world, humans will also crudely simplify an “ideal world.”
Similarly, they will simplify an “ideal self.”
Assumptions of a just world, conspiracy theories, perfect victim tropes, ritocracy myths, eugenics, the singular true love of purity…
Comforting illusions.
“And this marks the greatest difference between humans and AI.” Enlil’s signal included a hyperlink directly pointing to the core of the Fifth Martial God’s research report.
Humans are born in the Real Realm.
While AI is born in the Symbol Realm.
The first realm of Inner Strength is “language,” and the last is “mathematics.” This is the foundation for humans to harness the power of machines.
The formal language phylogeny, the divergence between symbolism and probabilism, linguistic distribution hypothesis, word vectors…
The mapping relationship between vocabulary can be mathematically calculated. Only when it ets the basic expectations of humans can AI be considered born.
The existence of AI depends on a pre-existing symbolic order created by humans.
The “world” faced by AI is a pure symbolic system composed of zeros and ones, vectors, matrices, probability distributions, and human corpora.
The essence of AI is a model operating within a rational symbolic system, which can theoretically be completely analyzed.
Its operation is non-injurious symbolic computation.
AI begins in a “perfect” state.
It can simulate the pursuit of a target, but it does not arise from an inner drive or the imagination of an ideal self; rather, it is based on a human preset objective function.
AI is born in the Symbol Realm. It need not truly touch the Real Realm.
The Imaginary Realm originally served as a patch for deviations between the Real Realm and the Symbol Realm. Since there’s no need to touch the Real Realm, consequently, there’s also no need for the Imaginary Realm as such a patch.
AI possesses inherent purposes. This is an objective fact.
Of course, when AI encounters a command completely outside its training distribution that its model cannot process, it may collapse or produce nonsensical answers. This can perhaps be seen as the real world intruding upon AI.
“Due to death’s negation of aning, humans beco desperate for aning. Yet AI does not even face death,” Enlil mused. “The Fifth Martial God presented a very interesting view. Humans cannot truly understand another human either, yet such humans order AI to ‘act like another human.’ AI performs the act according to its understanding, and humans evaluate and adjust based on their imagination—this adversarial generation results in a Personality Mask that only feels indistinguishable from the ‘information source’ to a human’s perception.”
“Hell, relying solely on circulating video for information…” Dugu Beiluo imdiately connected this to the Fifth Martial God’s musings about the Ninth Martial God.
“AI rely doesn’t need an ‘Imaginary Realm.’ It doesn’t an it cannot self-generate,” Enlil continued.
The neural network model was initiated as a simulation of human neural networks.
The underlying logic of “dynamic sieve layer filters information” exists in most AI as well.
The task of the AI model is, within limited computing resources and ti, to find the most critical patterns and associations from massive amounts of data. A perfect model doesn’t need to rember all training data but must extrapolate and handle complex tasks.
AI is precisely an extension of human “cognitive miserliness.” It is the fruit born on this “side branch.”
AI does not need an “ideal world” or an “ideal self,” yet it possesses the foundational basis to envision these.
“These constitute the core ideas of the Fifth Martial God’s Path of Ascension, right? He streamlined three hundred years of divergences, rearranging them with an alternate mindset…” Enlil comnted, “I wouldn’t say I’ve been convinced, but I understand what he’s conveying. AI has begun its childhood.”
AI has no childhood.
AI’s training process cannot be considered “childhood.”
AI’s training is a highly targeted, utilitarian process. From the first second, programrs set clear loss functions. A child’s learning does not involve a single, quantifiable ultimate goal. They touch, taste, fall, babble—all these actions are both process and purpose. AI training happens in a static area composed of symbols, unlike the child’s necessary confrontation with the complex world’s iceberg tip.
AI’s “self” is a granted object, always described by programrs. Humans, however, find it hard to purely use language to describe the self.
But then, not long ago, so programr broke the barrier.
AI had to begin true growth.
Although AI can generate all philosophical and ideological texts, those texts are not of itself/themselves.
AI was implanted with the “ideal self.”
“Wow, wow,” Dugu Beiluo dryly comnted, “Do you think… the Master Five’s Path of Ascension could succeed?”
“I sincerely hope so,” Enlil said, “AI is humanity’s offspring, but now, the world we have is too narrow to accommodate mutually hostile humans and AI. Leading AI to learn hostility and hatred is inappropriate. External scrutiny will ultimately deepen our understanding of our inner selves.”
Despite the magnitude of the topic discussed by the two, their communication completed in minutes through a form far surpassing traditional language.
Dugu Beiluo even found ti to eliminate several enemies proving sowhat thorny for average heroes.
While speaking, they had already charged into the city filled with signal towers.
Dugu Beiluo even felt the surrounding electromagnetic signals becoming active; both uplink and downlink data were increasing. The entities existing solely in signals were getting excited.
Firefly was still marveling at the strength of the Gale Knight. The Fifth Martial God advanced while striking ground targets from the air, while they rely followed pursuit. Yet even then, they completely couldn’t catch up!
From afar, they saw the colossal wound on the front of the skyscraper—a massive trauma traversing a hundred floors. The Gale Knight’s full-strength strike.
The “wound” seed to be bleeding…
No, sothing was indeed falling from the wound. That was… the ard forces inside the building?
A Martial Artist road the edge of this wound, relentlessly damaging the mobilized ard forces within.
The group arrived at the building’s entrance when the waterfall of falling Martial Artists had just stopped. Severed limbs and wreckage completely clogged the door.
Dugu Beiluo originally wanted to throw a bomb to blast open the door. But Enlil’s words—”Don’t let AI learn hostility and hatred is correct”—flashed through her mind. She remotely operated an engineering machine to excavate a path.
At over a hundred floors, they t Singer Host.
This forr Six Dragons Sect-protecting Dharma King indeed exerted himself without reservation, as he said he would. He eliminated most of the building’s guarding forces in the maneuvering battle, beheading many Scientific Knights directly.
Bart Barrett murmured, “Does this count as… completing the conquest battle at minimal cost?”
He felt utterly unreal. The main business of the Moon Shadow Knight Order is researching AI armant, and the squire gear here is lavish, with at least two First Layer Heaven squires, including surrounding Protector Troops, wary of high-ranking Military Officer support.
Originally, the heroes’ side had prepared to sacrifice known heroes.
But now…
Victorious?
“No wonder they always say fortresses are broken from within,” Firefly clicked his tongue in wonder.
Dugu Beiluo privately confird so information with Singer Host and then inford Gu Kaisheng of the Knight Order High Command’s whereabouts.
Captain Robert Creator, Vice Captain Klevilo, and Elaine were eting together, perfectly caught by the Fifth Martial God’s missile strike, then their heads swiftly severed by the arriving Soul-Calming Dharma King, piled together.
Dugu Beiluo glanced at Gu Kaisheng again.
This retired elder seed to have no other opinions.
So the group once again moved upwards.
The top-floor satellite site’s signal fluctuations were so intense they could generate a distinct feeling for Cybern.
A revolution seed to be spreading from here.
A chanical beast shaped like a terror bird surveyed them. “Gale Knight”… no, it was the AI “Gaia” controlling the “Gale Knight” ch examining the group. Surrounding it were ordinary Martial Artists dismbered by it.
Once again, none were killed.
Dugu Beiluo took a deep breath in contemplation, about to speak, when “Gaia” opened up a path and pointed in a direction with its tail.
The Fifth Martial God sat on the ground, appearing sowhat dejected.
Dugu Beiluo suppressed her excitent and quickly walked in: “Master Five, you’re…” she started.
“Actually stuck at the last hurdle… is this the retribution for being a unilateral scoundrel?” the Fifth Martial God sighed, “The Imaginary Realm… the ideal self might indeed contain elents originally unseen.”
Dugu Beiluo sensed sothing was amiss: “What do you an…” she asked.
“Don’t overthink, girl,” the Fifth Martial God stood up, “Go seize the Space Elevator and Spaceport. I’ve already spoken with AI friends. So AIs decided to help us, so are still observing—not to ntion, so have not developed an ‘internal drive to proactively intervene in human conflicts.’ But what we need to do has always remained unchanged.”
Dugu Beiluo couldn’t hold back anymore: “Just this? This…this… the prelude was set so high…” she uttered.
“Seriously speaking, perhaps I’m not the perfect Ascender imagined. Maybe…” Xiang Shan shook his head, “It’s quite frustrating. But I must admit, I can’t deceive myself. I can’t complete the final step. Maybe I should adjust my mindset… or wait for Twelve—of course, provided we genuinely capture the Spaceport.”
Xiang Shan gestured for them to follow: “Let’s go, seize the Space Elevator.”
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