The entire underground base was filled with excitent.
Xiang Shan stayed in the reception room, listening to the noise outside, and couldn’t help but sigh: "What is going on..."
This is the underground base, which was originally a station. Directly above it is a national park in central Africa—a place that was worth visiting for its natural environnt in the 21st century.
To get up from here, you have to take a long escalator.
This group of Heroes has on the basis of this station, continued to dig downwards, expanding a reliable underground base.
The depth of the base exceeds two hundred ters, at this distance, the daily activities of the base are basically undetectable by personnel on the ground. Additionally, there are Hero teams stationed on the ground, monitoring the governnt’s activities nearby.
Furthermore, there are several secret tunnels within the base, ensuring that when necessary, Martial Artists surpassing a major threshold can be launched directly—though rarely used. According to protocol, each ti they launch, they would cause a large section of the passage to collapse to ensure that no enemy can directly find this place. Afterward, a new path would need to be excavated, which is rather troubleso.
Within the base, most Heroes use prosthetic bodies resembling Homo sapiens. It looks like a group of people in tight suits wearing various exaggerated chanical helts, akin to a cosplay convention of chanical enthusiasts.
The prosthetic bodies typically used by Heroes are for combat; "convenience for daily life" is considered afterward.
These prosthetic bodies, when active within the base, also take up a lot of space.
When these Heroes rest within the base, they retreat from their combat prosthetic bodies and use the standard prototypes provided by the base. Their combat prosthetic bodies are handed over to maintenance personnel for complex upkeep, including stress relief and repairs of minor damages.
And using prototypes afterward makes the base seem much more spacious.
However, Xiang Shan still uses his own First Heavenly Layer prosthetic body. According to contemporary etiquette, unless he offers, as a "visitor," the host here will not proactively ask him to change his prosthetic body. This is the etiquette a sect leader should have when a foreign Hero visits other sects.
According to the Fourth Martial God’s guiding philosophy, the Heroes still pay attention to the cultivation of new culture.
Xiang Shan looked outside through the reception room. In the center of the base, in an open activity space, many Heroes gathered together, chatting about sothing—although there was no sound, judging by the noisy electromagnetic environnt, they were likely chatting enthusiastically. More than that, their hands continued to gesture, seemingly practicing moves and exchanging Martial Studies.
Xiang Shan originally felt that training boxing techniques without prosthetic bodies wasn’t wise. But after watching for a while, he saw the technique. These guys were different from those few beginners he brought; they had already transcended the gains and losses of ordinary moves, and the movents of their hands were exploring more abstract "attack and defense strategies" and "ga theory."
These highly abstract results can be applied to most Martial Arts.
"Their level is quite impressive..." Xiang Shan murmured.
—But why...
"I guess you are now wondering why they don’t practice this in Virtual Space, right?"
Xiang Shan turned around. The reception room’s speaker just started. Then, a connection request popped up. His own Internal Martial Arts were already incredibly powerful, so he agreed without hesitation.
Afterward, he saw the figure of Niyaguti.
Niyaguti chose a more aged virtual image. She based it on her appearance at forty years old, added gray hair. Her deanor was almost the sa as when Xiang Shan first t her, similarly haggard, similarly tired.
Xiang Shan outlined a smile on his face with his fingers: "No wonder you’re an old friend, you understand so well."
Niyaguti also smiled: "It’s been so many years, yet you haven’t changed..."
"Changed what?"
"When humans face ’real’ and ’virtual,’ their ntality differs significantly."
"Is that so? But I think, ’the electrical signal received by a prosthetic eye’ and ’the electrical signal read from a computer mory’ are about the sa things."
"Are you going to say that ’the electrical signal produced by the retina being stimulated by light and the electrical signal received by the prosthetic eye also makes no difference’?"
Xiang Shan let his prosthetic eye’s protective eyelid open to the maximum to make a "wide-eyed" expression: "Is there any difference? We’ve tried so hard just to make ’no difference,’ didn’t we? Why do you think I rejected Chen’s advice to ’directly inject image signals into the brain’s advanced functional areas’?"
Niyaguti couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Xiang Shan also laughed heartily.
Xiang Shan said: "Sure enough, it’s you, old friend."
Niyaguti turned her head. Xiang Shan saw the cara slightly tilt.
Niyaguti said: "No matter how close you get to reality, or even surpass reality, humans inherently pursue their ’natural form.’ Their instincts only match that natural form, any state that deviates from that natural form will cause discomfort to their instincts—I know you want to say, ’it’s just that their instincts are too outdated.’ But, that’s humans."
Xiang Shan grumbled: "You make it sound as if I’m no longer human."
"To be one step ahead is a genius, two steps a madman... and you?"
"An Innovator must be three steps ahead."
"’An Innovator must be three steps ahead.’... Xiang Shan often says this, I’ve morized it." Niyaguti rubbed her forehead, "Sorry, I don’t know what your Self-awareness is like. I still can’t treat you as the original Xiang Shan. He was my friend."
Xiang Shan crossed his arms and asked: "Is this your first face-to-face conversation with a Martial God?"
"It’s not the first ti." Niyaguti said, "I’ve t the Second Martial God, the Fourth Martial God, the Sixth Martial God. When the Seventh Martial God failed, I stayed in outer space for a while and then ca back to Earth. This place isn’t far from where I was born. You might not understand, but for , this might be a kind of comfort. I would rather fight here to the death."
Niyaguti sighed again: "Those who die as Martial Gods didn’t even have their own nas... they’d rather be covered by the titles of ’the which-number.’
Xiang Shan said: "Looks like, over the years, you haven’t changed much either."
"After all, I am over three hundred years old." Niyaguti said: "Counting by Homo sapiens’ lifespan, I’m not just an old lady anymore. I’ve even lived longer than most countries, most dynasties. People like us can’t change often. It’s too exhausting."
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