The Beginning of Rebirth

"If the lord was in a good mood, a thug might get away with anything. But it was also possible that the moment he lost protection, the lord would kill him?"

The mayor nodded. "The lord may announce the temporary revocation of civilized protection for our town. As a 'group,' we would be declared illegal."

Xiang Shan froze. "So, what would... happen..."

Youji seemed to have mentioned that there were thugs in the wilderness...

"Gangs in the wilderness." The mayor sighed heavily. "Gangs generally didn't dare raid protected towns. But sometimes, a town's protection was revoked. At that point, residents could still retain their 'individual protection' if they went to another settlement, but as long as they remained in this settlement, they would be regarded as 'unprotected.' Bandits could pillage them at will..."

Xiang Shan more or less understood. This so-called "protection of civilization" was actually divided into two parts. One was "group protection," namely a "safe zone," while the other was "individual protection," namely being a "law-abiding citizen."

Only when a "law-abiding citizen" was inside a "safe zone" did protection count as absolutely effective. Otherwise, whether that protection applied still depended on the mood of the "protector."

In this era, anyone who had not violated the Dyson Principles was automatically considered a "law-abiding citizen." Even someone who had lost protection could enter a "safe zone"—provided he wasn't afraid of being beaten to death.

Xiang Shan was shocked. "Then why not go to another settlement?"

"First, the other settlements have limited crop yields. They can't feed everyone. If the residents of another town refuse to let us stay there... they can drive us away in the name of 'defending their own property.'"

"And we might be attacked by thugs on the way to another settlement." The mayor shook his head. "The village still has surveillance lines, so under normal circumstances, bandits wouldn't dare damage them. That would damage the lord's reputation and embarrass him. But if we left the main road for another settlement... they could use an EMP and make all of us disappear without anyone knowing."

Xiang Shan felt cold, even though he no longer had nerves that could sense temperature.

From the mayor's words, he learned two things.

First, this era truly was chaotic.

Second, anyone's sensory prosthetics could become the eyes of those above them.

Otherwise, there would have been no need to specifically mention "using an EMP."

What an utterly terrible era...

The mayor sighed. "If we could resist, we would want to resist as much as possible. Shan, when the thugs attack, you'll help us, right?"

Looking at the mayor's expression, Xiang Shan once again felt a certain urgency.

It was different from the oppressive feeling that came when Xiang Shan recalled "Yog-Sothoth." This was a sense of crisis pressing right up against him.

"There isn't much time." Xiang Shan spoke to himself. "I have to catch up."

Only after the mayor left did Xiang Shan call Youji back.

What came next was the part Youji would be interested in.

Xiang Shan planned to turn that canine prosthetic body into parts for his new prosthetic body.

When he had removed the spine earlier, Xiang Shan had already started from the wound in the canine prosthetic's chest and cut it open. That wound was behind the human face that disgusted Xiang Shan, and it had gone straight through the biological brain embedded in its chest.

The biological brain sat inside a brain-machine barrier made of metal-based proteins. Several nutrient lines and an independent oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange pump were directly connected to it. Directly above the brain was a heavily modified cerebellum. The cerebellum was practically "hanging" from the spine.

Borrowing the doctor's tools, he quickly peeled away the layer of fur from the dog's body.

"Whoa..." Youji exclaimed in surprise from the side.

Under the fur was not the iron-plated body Xiang Shan had imagined, but some kind of pale blue translucent muscle.

That was right, actual muscle. Countless translucent fibers were layered together. Countless discharge units were embedded within the muscles, and both ends of every fiber were connected to discharge units. This seemed to be a polymer shape-memory material. Once charged, it rapidly contracted, just like real muscle.

It was truly beautiful.

But Xiang Shan focused his gaze on the fur in his hands.

Of course, it was not real animal hide. Even after adjusting his eyes to the level of an optical microscope, Xiang Shan could not see structures such as sweat glands or hair follicles. The primary material of this fur seemed to be a silicone-like polymer. It had a certain toughness; at the very least, Xiang Shan could not tear it apart with arm strength alone.

But no matter how breathable the material itself was, once its surface was made into a layer of "fuzz," it immediately lost any capacity for heat dissipation.

Xiang Shan could only express profound confusion at this practice of sacrificing "performance" for appearance.

If Will Grand Dog had not had this layer of skin, he might not have needed to open such a large air intake, and Xiang Shan naturally would not have found an opportunity to catch him.

"Xiang Shan..." Youji tugged at Xiang Shan's arm.

Xiang Shan shook his head. "When there are outsiders around, you can call me whatever you want. But when it's just the two of us, remember to call me 'Master.' That's the rule among wandering martial artists."

"Oh, Master..." Youji pursed his lips. "How... how are you going to transfer parts like these onto yourself?"

He looked at Xiang Shan's legs. They were still two rods made from solid iron pillars.

They seemed completely mismatched with those muscles, which looked like industrial works of art.

"If I'm not mistaken, every fiber in these electronic muscles can be individually removed. That way, even if one gets damaged, it can be replaced quickly..." Xiang Shan poked at a discharge unit with a magnetic screwdriver. He quickly opened the prosthetic limb, then fiddled with it a few more times. The discharge unit and the surrounding fibers fell away naturally.

Xiang Shan set the discharge unit aside first. "Mm, it looks like that's how it is... I'm fairly lucky."

Other than one patch of muscle in the chest that had been pierced by an electric baton, leaving all its fibers unusable, every other muscle fiber was completely intact.

Xiang Shan turned his gaze back to the penetrating wound in the chest. When he had removed the spine, the brain and cerebellum had already completely died. He planned to set the thing aside for now.

But Youji pointed out that according to the rules, organic components like this had to be taken to the town's farmland for organic matter recycling.

Xiang Shan was not accustomed to this view of treating a human brain as a resource. But from the perspective of "maximizing society's benefit," the morality Youji knew was not wrong either. He nodded, indicating that Youji could dispose of the brain according to the rules here.

Youji was watching his master dismantle the prosthetic body with fresh fascination and was reluctant to leave. The brain was temporarily left on the table.

Along with the brain, there were also three chips and several storage devices.

Of the three chips, two were used to drive the prosthetic body. One of them was installed in case the other malfunctioned or developed a bug. The remaining one was specifically used to convert brain-machine signals, allowing the biological brain to control the prosthetic body more effectively.

The storage disks, meanwhile, might contain things such as Martial Arts Algorithms and experience convolutions.

That was right, Martial Arts Algorithms.

The transmission speed of human neural signals ranged from one meter per second to a hundred meters per second. It depended on the specific nerve fiber—different nerve fibers had different values. The bioelectric signals within neurons were manageable enough, but the chemical signals between neurons could truly only be described as moving at a "snail's pace."

Much of the time, reaction speed depended entirely on how many times a signal had to pass between neurons.

But no matter what, compared to electrical signals traveling at nearly the speed of light through metal wires, neural signals were hardly moving at all.

Human consciousness could not possibly truly keep up with the movements of a prosthetic body. Only by breaking down the prosthetic body's signals into the shortest possible data, turning them into the simplest stimuli and transmitting them into the human brain, then having the brain make reactions resembling low-level instincts—only then could one keep up with the high-intensity prosthetic bodies of the modern age.

Still, there were things a Turing machine absolutely could not do, which was why human brains continued to exist within martial artists.

Or rather, "martial arts" had been designed this way from the very beginning.

Writing "instinct programs" in the biological brain that could "adapt" to Martial Arts Algorithms was something every martial artist had to do—even to a certain extent, it determined the height a martial artist could reach.

After the brain came a battery. This was far more advanced than the junk Xiang Shan had been using before. Its power storage was at least fifty times that piece of trash's, enough to support high-intensity combat for a while.

Then, inside the dog's abdominal cavity, there was actually an... internal combustion engine?

Xiang Shan found a wire and dipped it into the remaining liquid on the internal combustion engine. He no longer had a sense of smell or taste, so he placed the wire beneath a small piece of iron sheet, then found a way to create a tiny electric spark.

A pale blue flame flashed and vanished. Xiang Shan adjusted the lens of his prosthetic eye and saw a barely perceptible droplet of water on the iron sheet.

Ethanol.

This thing actually used ethanol fuel.

"This is..." Xiang Shan pondered for a moment, then carefully examined the mechanical structure inside the canine prosthetic body.

"This is connected to the mouth? When the battery's output is insufficient, it uses the internal combustion engine to provide additional output..."

Although a heat engine had a much lower energy conversion rate than a battery with stable output, its explosive power was exceptionally strong.

This was used to add explosive power while the battery's maximum output remained fixed.

After taking stock of his spoils, Xiang Shan picked up the small repair terminal he had borrowed from the doctor.

Next came the main event.

Handling the chips.

The "small repair terminal" was also called a "small medical terminal." It was a specialized intelligent terminal. From the front, it looked much like a twenty-first-century smartphone, only far thicker. Its back was a special structure composed of 1024 by 1024 metal rods. With a light press, it formed an interface that fit whatever was pressed against it.

This device could read the vast majority of common modern chips and storage systems. It could even read ancient magnetic disks.

Xiang Shan had already taken the terminal apart beforehand. For the moment, he removed the network card inside, then stuck a magnet onto an area that would not interfere with the terminal's own operation, ensuring as much as possible that no one could spy on him.

Then, he removed one of the driver chips and pressed it against the back of the terminal. A section of the plane formed by metal rods immediately sank inward, and the chip's interface naturally came into contact with the tops of the metal rods, as though the terminal had originally possessed a slot there.

Very quickly, the data was read out.

"Mm?"

If Xiang Shan still had eyebrows, he would have been frowning deeply.

"What is it, Master?" Youji asked curiously. "Don't tell me you can't understand it?"

"If I couldn't understand it, that wouldn't be such a frightening thing..." Xiang Shan muttered. "But I feel like... it shouldn't be like this?"

I can actually... understand all of it.