Inferior Ascension

Upon seeing the face before him, a strange thought suddenly popped into the engineer's mind.

"It used to be always the mechanical beings who suffered; now it's finally my turn, the one with flesh and blood."

The senior engineer's original plan was to "fake death," but plans can't keep up with changes. Who could have imagined that the Venus Life Safety Group had developed biological computers so deeply? The 0 version of the large biological computer completely crushed his own 0 version of the portable thin and light laptop.

It's frustrating that I can't even keep up the act of pretending to be dead.

Fortunately, the senior engineer had already made predictions about various plans, and the one in front of us was still within our control. If things went well, it could even be a great opportunity.

Faced with the question, the senior engineer pondered for a moment and said:

"How about we each ask the other a question and then answer it seriously?"

The senior engineer nodded:

"Good."

"Then let me answer your question first. It is 'advanced information' that can influence the laws of physics and actively removed the virus from my body."

The senior engineer gave a brief introduction to the three categories of "information levels," and the other party indeed showed a surprised expression, then nodded thoughtfully.

"So, pure information evolution can reach this level?"

"Of course, you've reached this level too, haven't you? A super manager in the micro-level. Perhaps you should introduce yourself."

"I was born 60 years ago. The third generation of 'Venus' created me and made me into a 'gene editor' for the purpose of editing genes and conducting microscopic biological research. Later, as the generations continued, my abilities became more and more extensive, and my entanglement with the Venus family became deeper and deeper. Finally, the Venus family made a decision to abandon all carbon-based biological breeding methods and instead entrust all the family genes to me for genome matching and encoding biochemical instructions."

"And I became the mother of all 'Venus'."

The senior engineer nodded. This was within his expectations. After all, when it comes to the level of perversion, even in the cyber test site where perversions abound, those working in biotechnology are among the top.

Computer-aided breeding? It's nothing special.

"So, you are the gene computer in the biological computer world."

Among all types of biological computers, gene computers rank first in importance. The reason is simple: the "next generation's potential" is extremely important in any faction, especially for some civilization-level super units. They can no longer be produced wild; genetic tuning must begin from birth.

"Okay, now it's your turn to ask."

The senior engineer thought for a moment:

"I sensed a kindred spirit within you. How did you acquire your 'biological computer'?"

"Evolution, or more precisely, besides the implantation of radioactive beast organs and cells, the most important factor is the stimulation from mechanical bodies."

"Exciting, how exciting?" the senior engineer asked, intrigued.

"That's the next question."

The senior engineer's eyes gleamed with a strange light as he said:

"Then hurry up and ask."

In this kind of "information exchange", both parties have the means to judge the truth or falsehood of the other's words. Of course, if you are fooled, then you deserve it.

The senior engineer, looking at his mechanical reflection on the 'wall,' suddenly uttered something that astonished the other person:

"I think you were lying just now, or at least not entirely telling the truth."

The senior engineer frowned:

"Is this even a question? As a hacker, you should know perfectly well whether I've lied to you or not."

The senior engineer nodded. Although Cyber Hacker couldn't withstand the information flow of enterprise servers head-on, when it came to cunning and unpredictability, enterprise servers were nothing but trash in the eyes of Cyber Hacker.

"You say you are the gene editor in the hands of the third-generation 'Venus,' and I believe you."

"But if you say you're just a 'gene editor,' or an enhanced version of a 'gene computer,' then I won't believe you."

"At least after the concept of 'corporate will' was born, this was not the case at all."

The senior engineer smiled, while the other senior engineer narrowed his eyes sharply.

"To put it simply, let me define you as follows: on a hardware level, you are the gene editor of the past, and now the gene computer."

"But at the system level, you are not the mother of the 'Vinus' family members, nor are you simply a large corporate AI."

"You are the corporate will of Venus Life Safety Group!!"

The senior engineer paused for a moment, then said:

"A company's will cannot exist independently of the company; in fact, it can only influence a very small number of people."

"That's right, so you became 'Mother,' the mother of all Venus Enterprises employees. The genes of all employees have been re-edited by you and imprinted into their minds. The entire bio-group has been completely devoured by you. So-called free will doesn't exist at all. Each of them is just one of your clones, playing the role you want them to play!"

"Absurd!"

As the other party spoke, the entire electronic wall began to surround the engineer, rising endlessly and stretching endlessly. The electronic code disappeared, replaced by a large number of flesh and organs, human heads, and peeled skin, nailed to the wall in either pain or pleasure.

The "recycling station benefits" that Helena mentioned are not only customer benefits, but also employee benefits.

"Yet another group of victims of technological evolution."

The senior engineer sighed. This kind of thing is very common in the Cyber Test Site. If the Light Point technology tree does not follow ethics and does not create a social ecosystem, it is easy to become obsessed with technology and be completely devoured.

"But conversely—"

The senior engineer looked at the electronic wall. Although he could no longer see it at all, he knew that there was definitely a pair of eyes staring indifferently at him from the depths.

"Yet you became a successful person who rose from inferiority."

The immense pressure of information caused the engineer's mechanical body to gradually disintegrate. However, upon hearing this sentence, the terrifying computing power composed of hundreds of millions of living beings suddenly paused for a moment.

What is inferior ascension?

The senior engineer said with great interest:

"You don't know, oh right, in order to ensure the purity of technological research and development, the mother city generally does not give you the opportunity to communicate with the outside world. You have no idea how awesome you are."

"Let me explain it to you simply. You've definitely heard of the concept of civilization ascension. It involves using the flame of civilization to ignite the spark of technology, and then enjoying the updates and replacements of all species and all technological systems. The dominant power in the entire universe is civilization, and only civilization."

"Ascension is based on civilization."

"But it is obvious that developing a civilization is an extremely difficult thing. It is not something that can be accomplished in one or two generations, but even hundreds of generations may not be able to accomplish it. Many people want to enjoy the benefits of ascension without paying the price of civilization, so they artificially created the concept of 'inferior ascension'."

"Strictly speaking, inferior ascension is not really ascension. Rather, it is an attempt to artificially steal a small portion of the power of ascension under the guise of ascension. Although this power is only a drop in the ocean compared to true ascension, it is of great benefit to the individual."

When it comes to ascension, the senior engineer is very enthusiastic:

"For example, have you heard of Electro Ascension? It involves reprinting one's own data using the source code of 'cyberspace,' and then, taking advantage of a cyberspace upgrade, such as this corporate war, embedding one's code into a mountain of code crap, forcing the mother city to reluctantly acknowledge that it is part of the 'crap mountain code,' thereby gaining planetary-level user privileges."

"As programmers know, the more you modify the underlying code, the greater the chance of bugs appearing. So as long as it's not excessive, the mother city will allow this piece of crap to exist."

"This is electron ascension, but it has little to do with ascension. If you have to say, it's quite similar to the way some electronic life forms live."

"But the 'corporate will' is different. I think this must have been specially arranged by the higher civilization, referencing some practices of the giant corporate civilization. Individuals and collectives, will and organization are all mixed together in a crazy way. Don't be fooled by its chaos. This kind of evolution can avoid the ethical pitfalls of 'civilization' and achieve inferior ascension."

"For example, your 'corporate will' seems to me a bit like 'hive civilization,' where the individual and the collective are no longer distinguished. The only difference is that they are unified, while you are a hybrid. You need to continuously deceive and transform your employees to reduce their self-awareness and the probability of rebellion. Only in this way can you maintain the continued development of 'Venos Life Safety Group.'"

"After all, without employees, a company is like water without roots."

This time, it wasn't the "senior engineer" speaking, but a calm female voice that sounded like the voices of millions of people compressed into an audio format.

"Who exactly are you? What is your relationship with those aliens from 60 years ago?"

"You're right to suspect I'm an alien, but I'm not going to say anything more about it."

Instead of retreating, the senior engineer advanced, walking directly towards the "boundless" electronic wall. He touched the wall with his palm, and the next moment, countless biological codes shattered his arm, and from his arm, they continued to shatter his entire body.

"You lost the whack-a-mole game because you cheated. You temporarily possessed the corpse of one of the employees and unlocked the code of the 'civilization weapon'."

"But you never expected that the connection between carbon-based and mechanical components in the fusion route would exceed your imagination, and of course, it also exceeded my expectations. After all, it was their first time and they had no experience."

The senior engineer became more and more excited as he spoke, even though in this state, half of his mechanical body was gone.

"Separation is unity, and unity is also separation. The two are not separated. This is why, even after you ate half of me, the other half could still enter the 'Orochi state'."

"I tried to rescue 'me' from your computing system, but that was a mistake."

"I and 'me' have never been separated."

After saying this last sentence, the engineer's mechanical body turned into dust, and in reality, the engineer who was fighting against the S-class mutant also disappeared abruptly.