"If the lord was in a good mood, a thug might get away with anything. But if he had just lost protection, the lord might kill him?"
The mayor nodded. "The lord might announce the temporary revocation of Civilization Protection for our town. We would be declared illegal as a 'group.'"
Xiang Shan froze. "So what would... happen...?"
Youji seemed to have mentioned thugs in the wilderness...
"Wilderness gangs." The mayor sighed heavily. "Gangs generally did not dare attack towns under protection. But occasionally, a town's protection would be revoked. At that point, residents who went to other settlements could still retain their 'individual protection,' but as long as they remained within this settlement, they would be treated as 'unprotected.' Bandits could loot them as they pleased..."
Xiang Shan more or less understood. This so-called "protection of civilization" was actually divided into two parts. One was "group protection," the "safe zone," while the other was "individual protection," meaning "law-abiding citizens."
Only when "law-abiding citizens" were inside a "safe zone" was protection considered absolutely effective. Otherwise, whether protection took effect 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." Those who had lost protection could still enter a "safe zone"—as long as they were not afraid of being beaten to death.
Xiang Shan was deeply surprised. "Then why not go to another settlement?"
"First, other settlements have limited crop yields. They cannot 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 on the road to another settlement, we might be attacked by thugs." The mayor shook his head. "The village still has surveillance lines, so under normal circumstances, bandits would not 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 to make all of us disappear without anyone noticing."
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 a chaotic age.
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 can resist, we 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 sense of urgency.
It was different from the oppressive feeling Xiang Shan had experienced when recalling "Yawg Moff."
This was a crisis that was right at hand.
"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 was interested in.
Xiang Shan intended 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 disgusting human face and had pierced straight through the Biological Brain embedded in its chest.
The Biological Brain lay within a brain-machine barrier made of Metal-Based Protein. 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 "hung" from the spine.
Using the doctor's tools, he quickly peeled away the layer of fur covering the dog.
"Whoa..." Youji exclaimed in surprise from the side.
Beneath the fur was not an iron-plated body as expected, but some kind of pale blue translucent muscle.
That was right, real muscle. Countless translucent fibers were layered together. Countless discharge units were embedded within the muscle, and both ends of every fiber were connected to discharge units. This seemed to be some kind of polymer shape-memory material. Once charged, it rapidly contracted like genuine muscle.
It was truly beautiful.
Xiang Shan, however, focused his gaze on the fur in his hands.
Naturally, this was not real animal hide. Even after adjusting his eyes to optical microscope levels, Xiang Shan could not see structures like sweat glands or hair follicles. The main component of this layer of fur seemed to be a silicone-like polymer material. It possessed a certain toughness; at the very least, Xiang Shan could not tear it apart through arm strength alone.
But no matter how breathable the material itself was, once its surface had been fashioned into a layer of "fluff," it immediately lost any meaningful "heat dissipation."
Xiang Shan could only express profound confusion at this practice of sacrificing "performance" for appearance.
If Will Grand Dog had not possessed 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 seize.
"Xiang Shan..." Youji tugged at Xiang Shan's arm.
Xiang Shan shook his head. "When outsiders are around, you can call me whatever you want. But when it is just the two of us, remember to call me 'Master.' That is the rule among Vagrants."
"Oh, Master..." Youji pursed his lips. "How... how are parts like these supposed to be transferred onto you?"
He looked at Xiang Shan's legs. They were still two rods made of solid iron pillars.
They seemed utterly mismatched with those muscles, which resembled industrial works of art.
"If I am not mistaken, every fiber in these electronic muscles can be removed separately. That way, even if one gets damaged, it can be replaced quickly..." Xiang Shan poked at a discharge unit with a magnetic screwdriver, quickly opening the prosthetic limb before fiddling with it a few more times. The discharge unit and surrounding fibers naturally came loose.
Xiang Shan set the discharge unit aside first. "Mm, it looks like that is indeed the case... I am fairly lucky."
Apart from a patch of muscle in the chest that had been pierced through by an electric baton, leaving all its fibers unusable, every other muscle fiber was completely intact.
Xiang Shan turned his attention back to the penetrating chest wound. When he had removed the spine, the brain and cerebellum had already completely died. He intended to set them aside for now.
However, Youji pointed out that according to regulations, organic components like these had to be taken to the town's farmland to recover their organic matter.
Xiang Shan was not accustomed to viewing a human brain as a resource. But from the perspective of "maximizing social benefit," the morality Youji knew was not wrong. He nodded, indicating that Youji could dispose of the brain according to the local rules.
Youji was fascinated by watching his master dismember the prosthetic body 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 had been installed in case the other failed or encountered a bug. The other was specifically used to convert brain-machine signals, allowing the Biological Brain to control the prosthetic body more effectively.
The storage drives, meanwhile, might contain things like Martial Arts Algorithms and experience convolutions.
That was right, Martial Arts Algorithms.
The transmission speed of human neural signals varied between one meter per second and one hundred meters per second. It depended on the specific nerve fibers—different nerve fibers had different values. The bioelectrical signals inside nerve cells were manageable enough, but the chemical signals between nerve cells could truly only be described as "slower than a turtle."
Much of the time, reaction speed depended entirely on how many times a signal had to cycle between neurons.
But in any case, compared with electrical signals traveling through metal wires at nearly the speed of light, neural signals were practically motionless.
Human consciousness could not truly keep up with the movements of a prosthetic body. Only by breaking the prosthetic body's signals down into the shortest possible data, turning them into the simplest stimuli and transmitting them into the human brain, then having the brain produce reactions akin to primitive instincts—only then could one keep up with modern high-intensity prosthetic bodies.
It was simply that a Turing Machine had things it 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 within the Biological Brain that could "adapt" to Martial Arts Algorithms was something every martial artist had to do—and to some extent, it determined the heights that martial artist could reach.
Behind the brain was a battery. This was far more advanced than the trash Xiang Shan had used before. Its energy storage capacity was at least fifty times that junk's, and it really could 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 piece of iron wire and dipped it into the remaining liquid on the internal combustion engine. He no longer possessed smell or taste, so he placed the wire beneath a small piece of iron sheet, then found a way to create a small electrical spark.
A pale blue flame flashed and vanished. Xiang Shan adjusted the lens of his prosthetic eye and noticed a tiny, nearly imperceptible droplet of water on the iron sheet.
Ethanol.
This thing actually used ethanol fuel.
"This is..." Xiang Shan thought for a moment, then carefully examined the mechanical structure inside the canine prosthetic.
"This connects to the mouth? When the battery output is insufficient, the internal combustion engine adds extra output..."
Although its energy conversion efficiency was very low compared to a battery with stable output, a heat engine possessed especially powerful explosive force.
This was meant to add bursts of power while the battery's maximum output remained fixed.
After inventorying his spoils, Xiang Shan picked up the small repair terminal he had borrowed from the doctor.
Next came the main event.
Processing the chips.
The "small repair terminal," also known as a "small medical terminal," was a specialized intelligent terminal. Its front looked very much like a twenty-first-century smartphone, except it was much thicker. Its back was a special structure made up of 1024 by 1024 metal rods. With a gentle press, an interface conforming to the object being pressed against it would appear.
This device could read most common modern chips and storage systems. It could even read ancient magnetic disks.
Xiang Shan had already dismantled this terminal in advance. For the moment, he removed its network card, then attached a magnet to an area that would not interfere with the terminal's own operation, maximizing the chance 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, while the chip's interface naturally came into contact with the tips of the rods, as though there had always been a slot there.
Very quickly, the data was read.
"Hmm?"
If Xiang Shan still had eyebrows, they would have been tightly furrowed.
"What is it, Master?" Youji asked curiously. "You do not understand it, do you?"
"If I did not understand it, that would not be too frightening..." Xiang Shan muttered. "But I feel like... it should not be like this?"
I can actually... understand all of it.