Three Civilizational Paths

The arrival of the aircraft caused a stir among all the media outlets in the city that never sleeps.

"According to reports from Channel 4, a magnificent mechanical goddess appeared in the sky above the welfare home—"

"The mastermind behind the City That Never Sleeps, a machine agent, has appeared in the outer city, suspected to be related to the secrets within the welfare home."

"The reason why the machine agent appeared is likely related to the hacking of the mechanical informant. These crazy hackers are trash, scum, and lunatics..."

"Report from Channel Nine: The 17th Fugitive Game will be announced on the 1st of next month. At that time, many new faces will make their debut..."

"In order to maintain stability and prosperity in the outer city, the City Council decided to expedite the approval process for 'security maintainers,' but many social commentators suspect that these councilors may have been terrified by the arrival of 'machine agents.'"

Baozi looked up and asked, "Boss, what is 'machine agent'?"

"The managers of the city that never sleeps, large-scale artificial intelligence."

"Oh," Baozi touched his nose and smiled sheepishly, "Um, boss, can I leave a little earlier?"

"You've been very busy lately."

"A little bit, just a tiny bit."

Ever since Sister Ji installed the "Social Bull Chip," her business has taken off. Fighting, errand running, delivery, stalking, assassination—the group has become a mini-publication platform.

With so many tasks, the group was even short-handed, so Sister Ji had to restart the "Hero Ranking" and recruit a few more level 4 or higher members from the forum.

Go ahead.

"Okay, I'll definitely settle the accounts before I leave."

After Baozi left, the senior engineer lazily slumped in his recliner, as if he were sleeping, or as if he were waiting for something.

Finally, a mechanical eyeliner suddenly appeared at the store entrance and flew in without hesitation, landing on the senior engineer's shoulder.

A dangerous red light kept scanning the senior engineer.

"Gao Yuanyuan's guardian, Engineer Gao, is here on orders from the Brain Machine Agent of the City Lord of Never Sleeps to search your memories."

A cold, mechanical electronic voice sounded, and before the senior engineer could speak, the anesthetic needle from the mechanical eyeliner was inserted into his head. The senior engineer's head lolled to the side, and he promptly passed out.

When the senior engineer woke up, his forehead was wet and covered in blood. When he looked in the mirror, he saw that his head had been shaved bald and had four suture marks that looked like centipedes.

"Brain search and brain examination, the style is as simple and crude as ever."

My forehead is still throbbing.

Upon opening the "Identifier," two pieces of information popped up.

Following a search, you have been temporarily removed from the suspect list.

Please go to the government service hall in the business district to pay your taxes as soon as possible.

The senior engineer got up, closed the door, and staggered back to No. 3-301, Employee Lane.

The room was empty and felt rather desolate.

As the engineer closed the door, the bedroom door opened, and a mechanical monster ducked out.

"Here it comes," the monster said hoarsely.

Looking at the other party's tall and terrifying figure, the senior engineer had a strong sense of déjà vu.

"Dude, you look kind of familiar."

The mechanical monster didn't say anything, it pounced on him and swallowed the senior engineer whole.

The colony, carbon atom reactor, mechanical gun flag, and shuttle-shaped floating cannons—these advanced mechanical weapons quickly returned to their positions.

Similarly, with the implantation of numerous nerve bundles, lost memories are rapidly restored.

After a moment, the senior engineer finally let out a long sigh of relief.

"The machine agent is easy to fool, but I don't know if the mother city will send someone to investigate. If it does, it will be a bit troublesome."

As a planetary-level administrative center, Mother City has hundreds of departments, among which there are six core departments: Memory Supervision Department, Humanity Experimentation Department, Electronic Network Department, Machine Consciousness Department, Prosthetic Body Registration Department, and Ghost in the Shell Mobile Department. Each department's members are the elite of the elite, formidable characters above level 30.

For example, Ah Hong's senior, the hacker king named Xiu Yue, is the head of the Machine Consciousness Department, and there should be two levels above him.

Each department has a different division of labor, and in order, they correspond to memory, humanity, hacking, AI, human modification, and mega-corporations.

If the other side really wants to investigate, then the "Ghost in the Shell Mobile Unit" should be dispatched. This unit is specifically designed to deal with large corporations, and everyone in it is a monster, notoriously ruthless.

"If they're going to investigate, they'll investigate the Cloud Nobles; they're unlikely to find me," the senior engineer muttered to himself.

With his forearm outstretched, ten "hacker chips" popped out, burning hot. Just like a graphics card can overheat, hacker chips can overheat too.

Small-scale hacking intrusions naturally wouldn't reach this level, but if it's about infiltrating the databases of large enterprises, then preparing a 'spare chip' is an essential task for hackers.

"Since it's already a bit broken, it's reasonable for me not to pay you, right?"

The senior engineer muttered to himself, naturally preparing to renege on the debt.

You'd be better off grabbing a million tokens!

The senior engineer removed the storage chips, a total of twenty, filling the entire container.

The senior engineer found a hacked version of a holographic reader and inserted the chip.

One holographic projection after another appeared.

It was all scenes of various experiments.

The subjects of the experiment were children who came to the welfare home because of various "accidents".

Each experiment is equivalent to a grade-level assessment.

In this inhumane experiment, only Gao Yuanyuan successfully graduated after passing all the tests.

The rest either have their heads explode, or suffer from memory loss, personality defects, or mental disorders.

In fact, Gao Yuanyuan's work cannot be considered perfect; she released painful memories in a special way.

That is to create a second personality in cyberspace.

A crazy, hysterical AI girl Gaokesi.

The senior engineer suspects that Gao Yuanyuan's ability to remain rational for so long is largely due to the protection provided by the "Mother of Data".

This protection shelters the second personality, and also protects the original personality.

Without her own timeline, Gao Yuanyuan would inevitably be turned into an "electronic ghost," and after Elisa is suppressed, Gaokesi would probably also be unable to escape the clutches of the "Blackwing Killers."

"Not bad at all."

The senior engineer muttered to himself.

Creating the "electronic ghost" is extremely complex, involving over thirty different plans, or more than thirty blueprints. Half of these blueprints are at level five or higher, and four are at level ten or higher. These blueprints cover technologies such as [Advanced Neural Shuttle], [Virtual Personality Editing], [Darkened Artificial Intelligence], and [Advanced Electronic Control].

If these four abilities are successfully developed, it will create a high-tech version of Sadako.

"So, the internet isn't mimicking Gao Yuanyuan, but rather Gaokesi?"

Although Sadako is scary, it's not the same as internet androids.

"This secret will probably only be known after Elisa is resurrected."

The blueprints are fine, there are plenty of virtual technical blueprints in the senior engineer's memory, but the key is professional knowledge, which is what he needs most.

[Brain Chemistry], [Brain Structure], [Artificial Psychology], [Electronic Rhapsody], [Memory Datafication].

These five types of professional knowledge, including brain chemistry and brain structure, belong to the same professional knowledge chain called "mechanical brain technology".

[Artificial Psychology] belongs to a professional knowledge chain called 'virtual personality'.

[Electronic Rhapsody] belongs to a special professional knowledge chain called 'Electronic Doctrine', and interestingly, on this planet, this professional knowledge chain is in the hands of the Turing Church.

The first four types of professional knowledge all belong to a civilization system called "brain domain civilization".

In this cyber test site, there are three civilization systems: "Cybernetic Civilization", "Brain Domain Civilization", and "Virtual World".

[Memory digitization] belongs to the last type, virtual world civilization.

Each of the three civilizations has its own characteristics.

Among them, the "Civilization of the Modifiers" is similar to a mechanized Spartan society. The stronger the modifiers are and the deeper the degree of modification, the higher their social status.

The "Brain Domain Civilization" is a Level 2 carbon-based civilization, and it is one of the few carbon-based civilizations that possesses "hive mind." This civilization focuses on the development of brain technology and is adept at producing freaks, abnormalities, and geniuses.

As for the 'virtual world,' it goes without saying that it's a standard virtual reality, a world for shut-ins.

It's worth mentioning that in his previous life, the senior engineer made his fortune by creating virtual characters and began building his civilization, starting with the 'virtual world'.

The senior engineer is certain that cyberspace is the culmination of two civilization systems: "Brain-based civilization" and "virtual world".

Similarly, the future Electronic Brain Project should be a product of the "Cybernetic Civilization" and the "Brain Domain Civilization".

In the past, there were "androids" and "data concept entities." In the future, there will be "cyborg legions," "advanced species fusion projects," and "mechanical microorganisms." These planetary-scale experiments are all products of technological cooperation between different civilizations.

The cyber wave arose largely because these planetary-scale experiments went too far.

Senior engineers need to continuously collect professional knowledge.

Because he understood a principle.

Only a system can fight against another system, an ecosystem can fight against another ecosystem, and a civilization can fight against another civilization.

If the senior engineer hadn't unlocked the tech tree for the "Mechanical Hunters," these desert bumpkins would still be sulking and playing in the sand.

Of course, if you're a level 200 or even 300 cosmic monster, then destroying a planet is naturally no problem.

But the problem is, you aren't.

As one of the 99% of ordinary intelligent life forms in the universe, you can only ascend one level at a time.

If you don't climb the technology tree, how are you going to climb higher?

Currently, the level cap for mechanical hunters is 30. After level 30, they meet the standards of a level 2 civilization.

Just like powerful monsters always have powerful backers.

The strongest professions are also supported by civilizations, and possibly more than one civilization.

"Currently, it appears that knowledge from 'brain-based civilizations' can be stolen from corporate databases, while knowledge from 'virtual worlds' can be obtained from cyberspace."

It's definitely not enough for a senior engineer to do it alone.

But there are players, aren't there?

It's time to teach the NPCs what people's war is all about.

However, we need to create a major storyline first to warm up players and increase brand awareness.

What will interest players are fighting, storyline, rewards, and immersion.

So, it's called a crackdown on prostitution and organized crime?

There aren't many other things in the outer districts, but the number of gangs there is extraordinary.

The senior engineer decided to do something big.

Before that, he decided to go see his adopted sister.

The place where Gao Yuanyuan is hiding is so remote that you probably wouldn't find her even if you searched the entire city that never sleeps.

Because she doesn't exist in reality at all.

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