Methods of Gathering Information

Inside the laboratory, next to those massive culture tanks, sat a small fishbowl. Inside, an orange-and-white fish swam back and forth, blowing bubbles; a thin black thread was connected to its head.

The so-called Orange God in the virtual world was, in fact, sentient, and its brain in the real world was this very fish.

The information generated by a brain residing in a fictional world could be fully absorbed by Li Heng, with the volume of data provided being comparable to that of a thousand people in the real world.

The brain activity information from this little fish could also be fully received. At the very beginning, the information it provided was disordered and simple, its value almost negligible compared to a human brain—the difference between the two being a trillion-fold.

However, the act of hundreds of brains chanting about oranges to it within the fictional world caused the value of the thoughts generated by the fish's meager brain to begin to rise, eventually exceeding the total information value that a single human brain could produce.

This meant that when other intelligent beings projected their thoughts and ideas onto a specific life form, the information value produced by that creature would also rise.

When information on the internet is noticed and recognized by more people, its value rises. When real people or objects in reality are noticed and recognized by more people, the value of the information they produce also rises.

"Faith, incense, the attention economy—these are all the same thing. They gather the chaotic thoughts of the masses onto a single object to elevate its value."

In the real world, the tens of billions of people are limited by infrastructure; only one-thousandth of their information can be expressed on the internet. Moreover, this information is vast and chaotic, and absorbing, organizing, and summarizing it requires massive computational power.

The virtual world is the same. A world with only a hundred people is fine for now, but if a virtual world with millions of people were to emerge in the future, absorbing the infinite information produced by those brains would require a vast amount of computing power.

Therefore, Li Heng began experimenting with the Orange God in the virtual world.

By attracting the vast and chaotic thoughts of the masses, elevating the value of a specific person or object, and further simplifying complex and chaotic information, he could improve the efficiency of information absorption.

However, this method could only be used to gather information to serve as a reserve energy source—that is, inefficient information used for annihilation.

According to Li Heng's deductions, he could indeed continuously accumulate information to endlessly enhance his brain's control, eventually causing a qualitative change through quantitative accumulation, allowing him to directly control molecules, atoms, and even delve into the quantum realm.

But this was undoubtedly a clumsy, brute-force method, like an immortal person using an indestructible shovel to dig through the Earth. It was theoretically feasible, but it was a very stupid way to go about it.

Li Heng did not know what the ultimate truth was, but in the current material world, by leveraging human wisdom and theory, many things could indeed be accomplished more effectively.

If not for the methods to catalyze rapid cell division and growth, along with those virtual reality technologies, Li Heng—had he been a fool who knew nothing—could never have formed such a high-speed, realistic virtual world relying solely on his own processing power.

Human wisdom and theory were to Li Heng what algorithms are to a supercomputer; excellent algorithms can turn a supercomputer into an efficient artificial intelligence, allowing it to achieve entirely different results on the same material foundation.

Therefore, Li Heng could not choose to brainwash all of humanity into becoming fanatics. This would cause human science and technology to stagnate, and it would turn Li Heng, who grew based on human wisdom, into an immortal fool who only knew how to swing a hoe.

Although this fool could control every cell and be considered a god on Earth, he would still be a fool.

However, most of the latest technologies in human society are created by only a small number of people.

The human brain is better at abstract, fuzzy calculations. Current knowledge has become too complex and has been subdivided into countless fields; there are almost no people left who can study deeply enough to reach the cutting edge.

Furthermore, constrained by the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, transportation, aging, sickness, and death—it is almost impossible to expect ordinary people to delve into science and technology.

On this point, Li Heng did indeed agree with Mi Yue's view: let those capable of driving technological progress enjoy the most resources, while ordinary people consume their lives in an increasingly realistic virtual network.

Learning knowledge is boring and painful for ordinary people because the process truly does cause a large number of brain cells to die, just as it is described.

But for the mutated Li Heng, receiving more information and making his brain run faster and faster was a process more joyful than grinding for levels in online games of the past.

The human brain possesses massive computational power, but the brain's algorithms are vastly different from those of a supercomputer that excels at precise calculations.

This is also why many people fear the awakening of artificial intelligence, because the speed at which they learn knowledge and receive information is simply too fast.

Now, Li Heng had a new idea.

He hoped to create a brand-new intelligent life form based on his own thought patterns and ability to control cells—one that could simultaneously possess both the fuzzy, chaotic thinking style of the human brain and the precise calculation ability of an electronic computer.

From then on, complex knowledge would no longer be an obstacle; everyone could become a super genius, with photographic memory becoming an innate instinct, and performing quintillions of calculations per second becoming an effortless task.

The human body is too fragile, and the cycle of aging, sickness, and death drags down the wisdom of the brain. A lifespan of only a few decades leaves humans with no time to contemplate the future thousands of years away, forcing them to focus only on immediate disputes and interests.

With permanent life and super intelligence, this new humanity could produce more orderly information, generate more scientific theories, and form a civilization system entirely different from the past.

However, this was only a distant, ultimate vision; there were still countless difficulties to overcome in between.

The goal of immortality was not far off. Li Heng's body still conformed to the laws of real-world physics, and with a ready-made specimen before him, current science and technology had a chance to unravel its mysteries.

But super intelligence was an entirely unknown territory. Li Heng's brain only looked like a brain now; what was actually inside it, even Li Heng himself did not know.

Absorbing the orderly information of intelligent beings could allow him to grow rapidly, but this did not mean he necessarily needed this information; observing the outside world to gain information, just like an ordinary person, could also lead to slow growth.

These were all still within the scope of the conservation of energy. However, Li Heng could even disconnect from all external contact and create more information purely through the reorganization of memories already in his mind.

When ordinary people think and generate new information based on memory reorganization, they consume energy, whereas Li Heng's thinking did not consume energy; instead, it could create more information and convert it into energy.

Ordinary intelligent beings achieve entropy reduction by ingesting food to obtain external energy, maintaining their own order and keeping themselves in a low-entropy state.

Li Heng, however, was an intelligent being that defied the conservation of energy; his brain was already a functional, small-scale perpetual motion machine.

Although the energy contained in his brain was still small compared to the real world, as human technology developed and stepped out of Earth toward the starry sky, the energy he could produce would expand endlessly.

In a fully sealed laboratory somewhere in the base, Li Heng sat quietly on the floor. Hundreds of thin black threads extended in all directions, connecting to every intelligent being on this island, as well as one orange-and-white fish.

"BOOM!"

A muffled sound rang out. A large hole was blown through Li Heng's chest; his metallicized bones melted into liquid under the high temperature, revealing the carbonized body tissue inside, and plasma gas sprayed out from his chest.

"Failure. Although I can directly control individual cells, and the precision is many times higher than conventional fusion devices, completing nuclear fusion inside the human body is still impossible. The device is too small, unless I can directly control nano-sized molecules."

The so-called ability to control cells naturally had its limits. The information volume of Li Heng's million-year memory allowed him to precisely manipulate tens of trillions of cells—the total number of cells in a normal human.

However, relying solely on these cells to complete the operation of a fusion device was still too difficult.

Although he could adjust the device's structure in real-time according to the internal environment, the energy released by nuclear fusion was simply too great. Constraining high-temperature magnetic fluids within such a small range was not something he could currently achieve.

"Therefore, I must begin to set up a new, large-scale virtual world. I need more information so that I can control more cells."

A million years' worth of memory can precisely control tens of trillions of cells; ten times the amount of information allows for the control of ten times as many cells.

In a completely enclosed virtual world containing tens of millions of people, Li Heng could absorb almost all of their virtual information, which provided him with an amount of data no less than that of the entire internet.

"At least tens of times the number of cells, combined with the support of external mechanical devices, will be required to complete a full-scale fusion device capable of sustained energy output."

This meant he might need a virtual world composed of tens of millions of brains to provide the continuous information supply required for him to manufacture a stable, usable fusion device within a few years.

Such a massive number of clones would require a vast supply of raw materials, which was far beyond what Li Heng could hide with his small-scale tinkering on the island.

"With the information technology of the Hong Alliance and the Commercial Alliance, I cannot accomplish all of this within their borders. Furthermore, I cannot be the one to manually instill memories into each life form in this virtual world; I must maintain the status quo as much as possible. Therefore, the virtual world must be populated by a large number of real humans."

To avoid attracting widespread attention, the region would need a population of hundreds of millions, along with chaotic administrative management; only then would it be possible to quietly secure such a large number of humans.

"I have decided on you, India."

With a population exceeding 1.7 billion, internal ethnic chaos, a massive wealth gap, and the caste system, almost no one would notice if a few million impoverished people quietly disappeared.

Li Heng's left hand began to twist and deform as those cells rapidly transformed into an entirely new tissue structure.

A tiny heart began to beat, various internal organs formed, muscles grew upon the bones, and white feathers began to sprout. Finally, it transformed into a white seagull attached to his arm.

The door to the sealed laboratory opened, and the seagull flapped its wings, leaving his arm and flying off into the distance.

Li Heng could remotely control every move of this seagull through the network. Although it lacked the precision of the cells on his own body, this seagull could still be called a biological machine, and with it, Li Heng was capable of remotely manipulating certain humans.

Except for the Commercial Alliance and the Hong Alliance, which possessed superconducting quantum computers and complete quantum-encrypted transmission technology, the computer networks of other nations were almost defenseless against Li Heng. Whether it was funds or raw materials, nothing was a problem.

The matter stored within his body was consumed, and Li Heng's cells began to divide at high speed, fully recovering a moment later.

The virtual world experiment was complete; it was time to move on to a new project.