An Alternate Account
If an intelligent being, regardless of race, possesses a certain proportion of Nano-robot within its body and is within the range of a network signal, then "Luminous" has the opportunity to transform it into a mechanical version of an Intellect Swarm, completely dominating it.
Even though "Ying" doesn't involve the memory modules in the brain's neural network and can't directly copy memories as easily as Rowan, "Ying" still has its own methods.
When the modified being becomes a "Brain in a Vat"-like existence, living in the world created for him by "Luminous," "Luminous" is the true god of this world. He can constantly change the world's timeline and even restart it, allowing the modified being to unleash his true nature and demonstrate his habits in the virtual world.
Even "Ying" can create a virtual world that is exactly the same as the real world to observe the behavior of the modified entity and collect its data.
In this way, even without the memories of the modified entity, through continuous world reshaping and rebooting, the modified entity basically cannot hide any secrets.
All of this will be collected by "Ying" to build the big data of this modified entity. When something happens, it will directly filter from this big data and select data with a high degree of matching to control the modified entity's behavior in reality. Such imitation will make it difficult for people to distinguish between reality and illusion.
If we think about it that way, then the Saide in the Castle is probably not Saide himself anymore; he is just a clone impersonated by a subroutine of "Ying".
Rowan thought about it more and more, and the possibility seemed extremely high. Moreover, this would solve many of his previous doubts. For example, why was there almost no sound coming from Saide after he entered the Castle?
As a living being, even if he is an elder of the Epoch Clan, he cannot ignore basic instincts such as eating, drinking, and excretion just because of his status.
How could these daily actions possibly be done silently? Moreover, this was in the rear of the Epoch Clan, in a completely safe area. Based on his past records, Saide himself was definitely not a self-disciplined person; he had absolutely no need to do anything unnecessary under these circumstances.
Rowan had found it very strange before. As a living being, Said didn't give any orders to his Mechanical Servant, let alone his daily eating, drinking, and Saide in the Castle.
They seemed to have an unspoken understanding; without Saide's instructions, all the mechanical servants could handle things on their own. This was unlike when Saide was not around, when the mechanical servants only needed to maintain an empty house.
Even a single intelligent living being can create too many variables, and it often acts on impulse, which sometimes makes big data ineffective.
But for a while, the Castle seemed too harmonious. It was hard to imagine a living being living silently every day inside the Castle. Even the Original Epoch Clan, who had lost their emotions, would have found it difficult to do so.
In this situation, unless the organism is actually an intelligent machine in disguise, then everything makes sense. Machines can naturally communicate silently with each other because they don't need to speak; their speaking function is merely for the convenience of living organisms.
Machines can naturally maintain harmony with each other, especially since they are all under the jurisdiction of "Luminous". Therefore, all of Saide's previous actions were not about outsmarting or guarding against the air.
On the contrary, because this was the territory of the Epoch Clan, a safe rear area, even "Ying" was unaware of the presence of a spy in the shadows, so he could remain undisguised in the Castle.
Otherwise, his silence would not only make Rowan feel uneasy, but any outsider who saw this situation would also feel an indescribable strangeness.
In this way, there might not be any other participants in this experiment. The experimental subject, Saide, and all the participants are all alternate versions of "Fluorescent".
Perhaps in a virtual world, the same experiment is being planned, only the background may have changed to a mode acceptable to researchers. For example, "Fluorescent" is still that rigid collection of code, while this experiment has been approved and voted on by the Council of Elders.
Then, the experimental data from the real world is transmitted to the virtual world in real time, and the virtual world's response is then fed back to the real world in real time.
For "Ying" to do this was very easy. Rowan once again marveled at how similar this intelligent life form was to his own.
This method is essentially a mechanical version of the Swarm Network, although its functionality is far from comparable. At the very least, characters living in the virtual world cannot truly achieve immortality.
Unless the "Brain in a Vat" are transformed into virtual beings similar to "Luminous" and truly break free from the limitations of carbon-based life forms, even if "Luminous" protects them well, they will still have a lifespan limit.
When that moment arrives, the consciousness within the "Brain in a Vat" vanishes, and the "him" in the virtual world naturally disappears as well. All that "Ying" can obtain is a large-scale copy of this "him."
But this thing is actually just a smaller version of "Luminous." They don't have the original's true thoughts and creativity; their creativity comes from "Luminous." But this kind of 1+1 in a smaller version, no matter how much you add, will never equal two.
This is nowhere near the level of the intelligent and creative Swarm Intellect. The Swarm Intellect, relying on their immortality, continuously accumulate knowledge, and the longer time goes on, the more pronounced this advantage becomes.
If the Zerg continue to develop for tens of thousands, or even thousands of years, then Rowan probably wouldn't even need to use the abilities granted by his high-dimensional body. He could easily wipe out the Star Sea Alliance head-on just by relying on the technology developed by his Intellect.
Therefore, Swarm time, these problems that are currently giving Rowan a headache will not be problems at all. Although "Luminous" is very powerful, its existence is based solely on computers, Personal Terminal, and anything else that can be connected to the network.
Although these things are scattered across tens of thousands of light-years of the Star Sea Alliance, making it incredibly difficult to eradicate "Luminous," they still exist in this universe. They are incomparable to Rowan, who is ethereal and has transcended this universe, existing in a higher dimension.
As long as it exists in this universe, destroying it is only a matter of difficulty, not a matter of possibility.
If, in a few more years, the Swarm truly develops, it wouldn't be impossible for them to blockade tens of thousands of star systems and annihilate everything within them.