The Civilization Poison Core, A Cosmic Treasure

"A punk... group?"

The senior engineer now possesses a photographic memory and a vast memory capacity, so with just a slight recollection, he was able to recall where this unfamiliar word came from.

That was an anomaly created by Number Thirteen during the battle for the Collapse Entity, in order to lure Wanwei and Watts away. This anomaly was the "Revival of the Punk Group".

If the three Electronic Ascendant had stayed together, Xuanyuan X wouldn't have been blown to bits with one punch, and the other two wouldn't have been tricked into self-destructing.

So just how troublesome is that "Punk Group" that it has caused three old guys from different civilizations to be overwhelmed and panicked?

The bird of paradise wasn't one to play games; it spoke directly:

"100 years ago, in the civilized era, the Northern Federation experienced a very dangerous survival crisis. At that time, this ancient civilization was almost destroyed. In the end, it was only through the joint efforts of the three civilizations—the Empire, the Odick Alliance, and others—that it was suppressed. This process was called the Cold War, and the target of the Cold War was the 'Punk Group'."

The word "Cold War" flashed through Gao Gong's eyes for a moment, but this was not his previous life after all, and Gao Gong quickly came back to his senses. This was definitely a completely different historical event.

"So, what is that Punk Group?"

The bird of paradise thought for a moment and said:

"Based on the information that has been declassified, you can understand it as a special human-shaped virus vector."

The counterpart to the Cold War is the Hot War, and as we all know, the Hot War is a battle for industrial systems. In this respect, the Great Xia Empire is the strongest, and even the combined forces of the Odick Union and the Northern Federation are no match for it.

At that time, the leader of the Great Xia Empire was ambitious and had the ambition to conquer the planet. There were constant frictions on the border, and the alliance was having a very difficult time defending itself. It would not be an exaggeration to call it a "political crisis". This is the historical background.

"... Therefore, in order to ensure that their regimes would not be disintegrated, the loosely organized major technological continents of the Federation united together. The 'Research Association' that were constantly fighting amongst themselves also opened up all their technical data and used the power of the whole country to create the 'Punk Project.' Their goal was to develop a 'killer virus' that could instantly destroy the core of the Empire's industry."

"This killer virus wasn't exactly a failure; in fact, it could be considered a great success. But it was too 'successful.' The resulting 'killer virus' was completely out of control, spreading randomly and killing randomly, causing immense harm to the three major powers."

"In the end, the leaders of the three countries finally abandoned hot war and joined forces to deal with the 'Cold War,' which took a full 30 years to suppress the last 'punk killer.'"

The bird of paradise exhaled a long breath.

"And such major events in the civilization era, even if the civilization era is destroyed, still have a significant impact on us."

"How so?"

The bird of paradise held up three fingers and said:

"First, the prototype of Electronic Barrier was developed during the Cold War to counter punk killers."

Secondly, according to rumors, the current Cyber Killer was created by the Deep Web by extracting a portion of the Punk Killer's 'source code'.

Third, the cyberspace virus database No. 0 originated from the earliest punk killer; it was its database.

The senior engineer looked enlightened:

"Now that you mention it, I think I understand why those three old guys turned pale at the mention of it."

The bird of paradise said with some regret:

"Unfortunately, there is very little information available from the civilized era. The information about the 'Punk Killer' was also dug out by hackers who dug into ancient databases."

"Actually, that's already quite a lot."

The senior engineer said softly.

If we set aside all the conspiracies and schemes in history and analyze things from the perspective of "civilization," many things are actually not hard to guess.

The Northern Alliance follows the "brain-based civilization" route.

The so-called "brain civilization" is a civilization that develops the brain's computing power. Its ultimate goal is to make everyone in the civilization become an "Einstein".

By then, any technology or weaponry will be readily available.

This civilization system has a total of six "professional knowledge chains".

Virtual personality, neural editing technology, electronic doctrine (Turing machine), life science, electronic life chip, mechanical brain

Each one seems to have some connection to "developing brainpower".

For example, the "Electronic Brain Project" currently being implemented is based on the theory of "mechanical brain".

At that time, the Northern Federation was likely preparing for something big.

This big one is similar to a senior engineer using his "professional knowledge chain" to gamble on "third-order civilization buildings," or even bigger.

Given the circumstances at the time, creating one or two "Tier 3 Civilization Buildings" would not have helped resolve the empire's military pressure.

It's highly likely that it's preparing to gamble on the 'Civilization Core'.

Every civilization has its own "core of civilization".

However, let alone a Level 2 civilization, even among Level 3 civilizations, very few are able to develop a 'civilization core'.

Because this thing is related to "civilization ascension".

A civilization that wants to "ascend to the next level" must have a "civilization core".

Civilizations that follow the path of integration face even more stringent conditions; they must have two "civilizational cores": one core of a carbon-based civilization and one core of a mechanical civilization.

This is why senior engineers are interested in 'basic knowledge'.

He must at least ensure that he has collected all the knowledge of both civilizations before leaving the cyber test site.

One is the civilization of the modifiers.

The other is the civilization of the brain.

From a senior engineer's perspective, developing the "Civilization Core" is actually quite simple.

It involves collecting all the civilization's "professional knowledge chains," sending them to the faction panel, and synthesizing them.

However, for planetary civilizations without a 'faction panel,' it becomes extremely difficult.

On the technology tree, there are not only apples, but also poisonous apples.

It's different from failing to synthesize blueprints.

If the blueprint synthesis fails, then it's a failure, and all that's wasted is experience.

However, failure to synthesize the 'core of civilization' will inevitably result in a 'backlash'.

This backlash in the universe is called the "civilization poison core".

A thing that, in turn, can destroy civilization.

There is a greater than 50% chance that the "Punk Group" is a "toxic core of civilization".

He even thought further ahead.

The 'cosmic relic' that is about to be synthesized has intricate connections with three civilizations.

Is there a connection between avalanches and landslides?

To take it a step further and consider a conspiracy theory, was the creation of this thing intentional, or was it an accident...?

Bird of Paradise carefully examined the senior engineer's face and found that he wasn't as surprised as she had imagined, which made her somewhat disappointed.

The senior engineer also snapped out of his reverie, thought for a moment, and said:

"Number Thirteen is a rewind system. I'm not surprised it can produce something like 'Punk Group,' but how is 'Avalanche' connected to this thing?"

"The source code of 'Avalanche' overlaps with 'Database 0,' which originally stored the data of the first punk killer."

Are the two "avalanches" related?

The first avalanche was the one developed by Number Thirteen and the war; the second avalanche was the "memory erasure software".

"There is a slight, vague connection. The 'Avalanche software' stores an 'application' that actually triggers an 'avalanche,' which was discovered by one of our hackers."

Which hacker?

"The twelfth ranked 'Personality Simulator'."

The senior engineer was taken aback. The name sounded familiar. Wasn't this the one who betrayed the Poison Scorpion, causing the Poison Scorpion to escape to the Puppet City and create the second personality, Du Mei, while he himself was forced into a deep sleep?

Du Mei, along with her husband Black Python (the former king of the underworld, Black Dragon), now both work at 'Dugo Technologies'.

Their daughter, the little android, was seriously ill, and it was Rose who cured her by asking him to.

"Did Du Mei recommend him?"

Because the relationship was a bit complicated, the senior engineer couldn't help but ask again.

"Yes."

"Hmm, bring him to meet me."

Watching the disappearing figure of the Bird of Paradise, the senior engineer pondered a question: Had he been having too many male secretaries lately, making even women with ordinary figures like the Bird of Paradise seem more attractive? However, the senior engineer then raised his eyebrows.

'Ding—' 'Ding—'

[Beep beep, you have triggered a Tier 2 "Hellish" quest chain - "The First Avalanche"]

[Beep beep, you have triggered a Tier 2 'Hell Level' limited-time quest—'The Core of Civilization along the Fusion Route']

[The First Stage of the "Initial Avalanche" Mission: The "Avalanche" of Virtual Personalities]

Difficulty: Hard+

Mission Briefing: 'Avalanche' is a form of data decomposition and also a different kind of data encryption. If virtual reality is considered a kind of electronic hallucinogen, then 'Avalanche' is a sobering agent. So why not start by sobering up our 'personality'?

Mission objective: Guided by the 'Personality Simulator,' proceed to the 'Site of Simulation' to find clues for the next stage of the 'Avalanche.'

Task Rewards: 1 million experience points, 10 skill points, 10 specialization points, and one random virtual skill upgrade.

Hmm, as expected of a "hellish" series of quests, the first one is already "hard+".

The senior engineer looked at the second hellish task.

This is still a time-limited task.

[Civilization Totems: Knowledge Graph]

Difficulty: Hell

Mission Briefing: The integration of individual military forces is only the first step in the integration of civilizations. Now, it is time to take the second step.

Mission objective: To collect all professional knowledge across the three civilization systems: the Modifier Civilization, the Artificial Data Space, and the Brain Domain Civilization.

Limited time offer: 3 months

Mission Reward: A Cosmic Treasure

Note: You should know what cosmic treasures are, right?

A cosmic treasure!?

Compared to previous missions, there were various 'mission rewards', 'extra rewards', and 'supplementary rewards'.

The rewards for this hellish mission were pitifully small.

But the senior engineer was pleasantly surprised!

Let me put it this way.

If we say that the Infinity Gauntlet with three or more Infinity Stones is equivalent to a cosmic relic, then...

Therefore, the Infinity Gauntlet without the gems is a cosmic treasure.