In the laboratory, beside those enormous cultivation tanks, there was a small fish tank. Inside, an orange-and-white fish swam back and forth, blowing bubbles, with a thin black wire connected to its head as well.
The so-called Orange God in the virtual world was actually conscious. Its brain in the real world was this fish.
The information produced by a brain in a fictional world could be fully received by Li Heng, and the amount of information it provided rivaled that of a thousand people in the real world.
The brain activity of this little fish could also be completely received. At first, the information it provided was disordered and simple, its value almost negligible compared to a human brain—a difference of trillions of times.
However, the act of those hundred-plus brains chanting to it about Orange in the fictional world caused the value of the thoughts and consciousness generated by this fish's barren brain to rise, even surpassing the total informational value a human brain could produce.
This meant that when other Intelligent Beings projected their thoughts onto a particular lifeform, the value of the information produced by that creature would also rise.
When information on the internet drew the attention and recognition of more people, its value rose. When real people or objects in reality drew the attention and recognition of more people, the value of the information they produced also rose.
"Faith, worship, the attention economy—they're all the same thing. Gather the chaotic thoughts of a group onto a single thing, and raise its value."
The tens of billions of people in the real world were limited by infrastructure, and only one-thousandth of their information could be expressed online. Moreover, that information was vast and chaotic; absorbing, sorting, and organizing it also consumed enormous computing power.
The virtual world was the same. A world with only a few hundred people was manageable for now, but if a virtual world with millions of people emerged in the future, directly absorbing the endless information generated by those brains would require massive computing power.
So Li Heng began experimenting with the Orange God in the virtual world.
It attracted the vast and chaotic thoughts of a group, raised the value of a certain person or thing, further simplified complex and disorderly information, and improved the efficiency of information absorption.
However, this method could only be used to aggregate information into backup energy—low-efficiency information meant for annihilation.
By Li Heng's calculations, he truly could continuously pile up information and endlessly increase his brain's control, until quantitative change eventually led to qualitative change, allowing him to directly control molecules, atoms, and even delve into the quantum realm.
But this was undoubtedly a very stupid brute-force method, like an immortal person using an unbreakable shovel to dig through the Earth. It was theoretically possible, but it was still an incredibly foolish method.
Li Heng did not know what Truth looked like, but in the current material world, many things could indeed be accomplished more efficiently with the aid of human wisdom and theory.
Without methods for catalyzing rapid cellular division and growth, as well as those virtual reality technologies, if Li Heng had been an idiot who knew nothing, he could never have created such a rapidly operating realistic virtual world through computing power alone.
Human wisdom and theory were to Li Heng what algorithms were to supercomputers. Excellent algorithms could turn a supercomputer into efficient artificial intelligence, enabling entirely different things to be done with the same material foundation.
Therefore, Li Heng could not choose to brainwash all humanity into fanatics. That would cause human science and technology to stagnate, and it would turn Li Heng, who had grown through human wisdom, into an immortal idiot who only knew how to swing a hoe.
Even if that idiot could control every cell and was practically a God on Earth, he would still be an idiot.
However, most of humanity's newest technologies were created by only a small number of people.
The human brain was better at abstract and fuzzy calculations. Knowledge had now become far too complex and divided into countless fields, and there were almost no people capable of studying deeply enough to reach the cutting edge.
Not to mention that, constrained by food, clothing, shelter, transportation, birth, aging, illness, death, and other unavoidable forces, it was nearly impossible to expect ordinary people to devote themselves to scientific research.
On this point, Li Heng did somewhat agree with Mi Yue's view: those capable of driving technological progress should enjoy the most resources, while ordinary people consumed their lives in increasingly realistic virtual networks.
Learning knowledge was tedious and painful for ordinary people, because the process truly did cause large numbers of brain cells to die, just as the saying described.
But for the mutated Li Heng, receiving more information and making his brain run faster and faster was more enjoyable than grinding monsters and leveling up in online games had ever been.
The human brain possessed vast computing power, but its algorithms were vastly different from those of supercomputers that excelled at precise calculations.
That was also why so many people feared the awakening of artificial intelligence. Its speed in learning knowledge and receiving information was simply too fast.
Now, Li Heng had a new idea.
He hoped to create, based on his own mode of thought and his ability to control cells, a new Intelligent Being that possessed both the vague, chaotic thinking methods of the human brain and the precise calculating ability of electronic computers.
From then on, complex knowledge would no longer be an obstacle. Everyone could become a super genius, photographic memory would become an inborn instinct, and performing hundreds of millions of billions of calculations per second would be effortless.
The human body was too frail. Birth, aging, illness, and death dragged down the brain's wisdom. With only a few decades of lifespan, humans had no time to consider the future thousands of years away and could only focus on immediate disputes and interests.
Eternal life and superhuman intelligence—the new humans could produce more ordered information, generate more scientific theories, and form a Civilization system completely different from the past.
However, that was merely a distant final vision. Countless difficulties still lay in between.
The goal of immortality was not far away. Li Heng's body still obeyed the laws of real-world physics, and with an existing specimen before them, current science and technology had a chance to unravel its secrets.
But superhuman intelligence was entirely unknown territory. Li Heng's brain only looked like a brain now; even Li Heng himself did not know what was actually inside it.
Absorbing ordered information from Intelligent Beings could let him grow quickly, but that did not mean he necessarily needed such information. Like ordinary people, he could also grow slowly by observing the outside world and obtaining information.
All of that still fell within the scope of energy conservation. Yet Li Heng could even sever all connections with the outside world and create more information simply by reorganizing the memories already in his mind.
When ordinary people thought, generating new information through memory reorganization required energy. Li Heng's thinking required no energy; instead, it could create more information and convert it into energy.
Ordinary Intelligent Beings achieved entropy reduction by consuming food to obtain energy from the outside world, maintaining their internal order and low-entropy state.
Li Heng, on the other hand, was an Intelligent Being that violated energy conservation. His brain had already become a real miniature perpetual motion machine.
Although the energy contained in his brain was still very little compared to the real world, as human technology developed and humanity left Earth for the starry cosmos, the energy he could produce would expand without end.
Inside a fully sealed laboratory somewhere in the base, Li Heng sat quietly on the floor. Hundreds of black threads extended in every direction, connecting every Intelligent Being on the island, as well as an orange-and-white fish.
Boom!
A muffled sound rang out. A huge hole burst open in Li Heng's chest. His metallized bones melted into liquid under the high temperature, exposing the carbonized tissue within as plasma gas sprayed from his chest.
"Failed. Although I can directly control each cell, and the precision is many times greater than that of conventional fusion devices, I still can't achieve Nuclear Fusion inside the human body. The device is too small—unless I can directly control molecules at the nanoscale."
The ability to control cells naturally had its limits. The information contained in Li Heng's million years of memories allowed him to precisely manipulate tens of trillions of cells, roughly the total number of cells in a normal human body.
But relying on those cells alone to operate a fusion device was still far too difficult.
Although he could adjust the device's structure in real time according to internal conditions, the energy released by Nuclear Fusion was simply too great. Confining high-temperature magnetized plasma within such a small space was still beyond what he could do.
"So I have to begin building a new large-scale virtual world. I need more information to control more cells."
A million years' worth of memories could precisely control tens of trillions of cells. Ten times the information would allow him to control ten times as many cells.
In a completely sealed virtual world containing ten million people, Li Heng could absorb nearly all of their virtual information. That could provide him with no less information than the entire online world.
"At least several dozen times more cells, along with external mechanical equipment, will be needed to complete a full fusion device capable of continuously outputting energy."
That meant he might need a virtual world made up of tens of millions of brains to provide a continuous supply of information, allowing him to create a stable and usable fusion device within a few years.
Such a huge number of clones would require massive supplies of raw materials. It was not something Li Heng's small-scale activities on the island could possibly conceal.
"With the information technology of the Hong Alliance and the Commercial Alliance, I can't accomplish all this within their borders. Besides, the lifeforms in this virtual world can't be given memories one by one by me. I still need to maintain my current state as much as possible. Therefore, the virtual world must contain a large number of real humans."
To avoid drawing widespread attention, the region's population had to reach several hundred million, and its administrative management had to be chaotic. Only then would it be possible to quietly obtain such a huge number of humans.
"It's you, India."
With a population exceeding 1.7 billion, internal ethnic chaos, a massive gap between rich and poor, and the caste system on top of that, almost no one would care if a few million impoverished people disappeared without a trace.
Li Heng's left hand began to twist and deform as its cells rapidly transformed into a completely new tissue structure.
A tiny heart began to beat. Various internal organs formed, muscles grew over bones, and white feathers began to sprout. In the end, it became a white seagull connected to his arm.
The door to the sealed laboratory opened. The seagull flapped its wings, detached from his arm, and flew into the distance.
Li Heng could remotely control every movement of this seagull through the internet. Though it was not as precise as the cells on his own body, the seagull still qualified as a biological machine, and with it, Li Heng could remotely manipulate certain humans.
Aside from the Commercial Alliance and the Hong Alliance, which possessed superconducting Quantum Computing and complete quantum-encrypted transmission technology, the computer networks of other nations were practically undefended 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 dividing at high speed. Moments later, he had fully recovered.
The virtual world experiment was complete. Next, it was time to begin a new project.
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