A Question of Technological Standards

—I could actually... understand all of it.

No flowcharts, no comments... I did not even need to use a machine to assist me.

He understood the lines and groups of code naturally.

This should not have been possible.

People nowadays had even completely forgotten things like "the Common Era" and "the Olympics," which meant he had been asleep for a very long time.

And judging from biochemical products such as the "Anti-Messenger Immersion Agent" mentioned by Doctor Schultz, the technology of this era was more advanced than the age he knew—he could even be certain that Will Grand Dog's electronic muscles would have been unimaginable in the era he remembered.

But computer technology alone...

"No way. I don't even know what era this is, and you people are still using C..."

—Though it was a variant, at its core, the code forming this prosthetic body's low-level drivers was still C.

Even if it was more advanced than the C Xiang Shan knew...

"In the field of computer science, has humanity actually stagnated?"

Xiang Shan felt as though his chip was overheating again... or perhaps something else... something was wrong...

—Why had there been no technological progress in the most crucial field?

—Had humanity climbed the wrong tech tree... No, probably not...

—It was not that "computer science had stagnated," but that... "mathematics or physics had stagnated"?

Modern science was, in truth, an integrated whole. The foundational disciplines were like its foundation, while all other disciplines were the structure built upon it. Only progress in the foundational disciplines could drive the development of the others.

For example, without optics, there would have been no microscopes, and thus no cell theory.

Without quantum mechanics, humanity could not have reached the realm of atoms, and there would have been no molecular biology.

And so on.

What determined the heights computer technology could reach was mathematics and materials science—or rather, mathematics and condensed matter physics.

Xiang Shan pressed a hand to his forehead.

He had no idea whether he should have felt happy or sad. The knowledge remaining in his mind could still be used, and he had not lost the means to "fight back." That was a good thing. But... humanity...

—Calm down, Xiang Shan.

The man told himself that.

This was only the body of a low-level martial artist. Perhaps, to these townspeople, their lord was a supreme existence. But perhaps, in the eyes of humans of higher status, this lord was merely some country bumpkin with money. This dog could only be considered a low-level martial artist as well... One chip did not necessarily represent the highest level humanity had reached.

Xiang Shan sat in his chair in silence for a short while.

"Master?" Yuki noticed that something was off about Xiang Shan's mood.

Xiang Shan waved a hand and looked at the terminal display. He scrolled up and down for a while.

"Still, even if this guy is just some low-level nobody... these drivers are written far too crudely. Not only are they poorly optimized, they have not even been properly encapsulated..."

"Encapsulation" was a mysterious programming technique. It could hide a set of code, leaving only the ports necessary for the program to operate. The process was like using seals to lock away the source of a program's magic, allowing it only to run conveniently.

Encapsulation could prevent users who knew nothing about information technology from performing unreasonable operations on data, while also making it easier to use. The process hid a class's implementation details, allowing users to access data only through methods specified by the programmer.

"Encapsulation is a process that separates the elements that make up an abstraction's structure and behavior." A new memory surged into his mind. This was what a programmer had once told him: "The job of encapsulation is to separate an abstract concept's interface from its implementation."

Without encapsulation, not only would these drivers be greatly reduced in practicality, but any illegal intruder who found a way to access this chip could freely rewrite and distort the instructions within it.

"Encapsulation" was the "Lesser Celestial Circuit of the Governing and Conception Vessels" in Cyber Inner Power.

Only after completing encapsulation could the abstract concepts that formed one's inner power become a world unto themselves, free from interference by external demons. Only then could one be considered to have entered through the gate.

At first, Xiang Shan had thought there might be some trap hidden inside.

But there was none.

No trap, no virus, nothing at all.

Xiang Shan lowered his head and murmured, "Yuki, do you see... practice martial arts without cultivating inner power, and in the end it all comes to nothing."

No matter how powerful a martial artist's external techniques were, if their internal drivers were only at this level...

Then any knight-errant who had mastered internal martial arts could toy with them in the palm of their hand.

What his prosthetic eyes saw would only be preconfigured images. What his prosthetic ears heard would only be preconfigured audio. His memories could be read at will, and his voice synthesizer would play only what that person wished him to say.

A powerful martial artist would merely be a more powerful puppet.

Of course, one could choose not to undergo prosthetic modification. But a natural human martial arts master could not even defeat the weakest cybernetic martial artist. Neural signals, with a maximum transmission speed of one hundred meters per second, simply could not keep up with a cybernetic martial artist's movements. Bones made of protein and calcium would shatter at the slightest collision with metal or carbon-fiber skeletons.

Without inner power to resist external evils, one would not even have the right to resist.

Perhaps these servants' drivers had been written this way precisely so that they could never even develop the thought of rebellion?

—And the one thing he could be certain of was that, even among servants, this dog held no status at all.

There were still knight-errants in this world who resisted those oppressive rulers. And knight-errants generally understood inner power. They, too, could freely toy with martial artists who did not understand inner power.

Either those in power had to personally fight the knight-errants, or they needed a group of servants whose drivers had been properly encapsulated.

Though servants of the latter kind also had encapsulated drivers, that did not count as "inner power" at all—they had merely received an "empowerment" from the strong and gained the ability to seal themselves off from external evils. They did not understand how to use that power.

Yuki's eyes widened. "N-No way... is it really that terrifying?"

He truly could not believe it. That powerful martial artist who had strutted about and torn open workers' throats as though playing a game had, in the eyes of the masters, merely been... merely...

A servant so lowly?

Even though his master had analyzed it, he still did not dare believe it.

"You have to believe it, Yuki." Xiang Shan looked at the empty canine body. "This guy was, in essence, weak too... pitifully weak. But perhaps he did not even think he was pitiful."

What exactly did you turn Earth into?!

The sudden anger startled even Xiang Shan himself.

Who was he angry at? Who possessed the power to turn the world into this?

"So the most important thing next is to reprogram these chips." Xiang Shan picked up the medical terminal set aside nearby. "Yuki, you may not understand anything I do over the next few hours. Go deal with this brain according to your customs first."

"Oh." Yuki obediently nodded, then wrapped the brain in some discarded plastic fibers and carried it outside.

Xiang Shan, meanwhile, took out the information storage device that had originally belonged to the dog martial artist and connected it to the medical terminal. He first backed up the medical terminal's system onto that information storage device, then entered the operating system's backend.

The voice synthesizer imitated a whistle.

Thanks to the world's richest man at the end of the twentieth century, the founder of Microsoft Corporation, and the creator of the Windows system.

This system was actually a variant of Windows—by this point, Microsoft Corporation presumably could no longer pursue anyone for software piracy. Windows itself had been the most widely adopted operating system in computer history, and Microsoft had once been one of the most outstanding contributors to the open-source world.

Many people were familiar with Windows. For programmers, it was a foundational discipline they had to learn upon entering the field.

"I will remember the positive contributions you made to this world, Mr. Gates."

Yuki happily walked down the street.

It was truly strange. Only one night had passed, yet the world looked completely different in his eyes. He still did not have a father, but he had a master. This master might be a little crazy, but he was definitely a great knight-errant. One day, Yuki would become a great knight-errant too.

The children who had bullied him before also came over. But now, after merely glancing at Yuki, they did not continue bothering him. They also knew that the person Yuki had brought back was formidable.

Yuki smiled happily. Although he had not yet had the chance to learn anything, he now knew that the children who had bullied him were all so-called "weaklings"—while he would become the sword of the weaklings and become a knight-errant in the future!

How incredible...

Smack. Perhaps he had been too absorbed in his thoughts, but Yuki accidentally bumped into someone.

"Can't you watch where you're going? If your prosthetic eyes are broken, get them fixed already!" The person he had bumped into seemed exceptionally angry, and even the synthesized voice trembled slightly. "You're Yulia's brat, right? What do you mean by this? Huh?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Yuki instinctively curled up, protecting his natural body. "I was thinking about something just now, sorry?"

"What were you thinking... You!" The man grabbed Yuki, but after thinking it over, he let go. "Watch yourself next time!"

Only then did Yuki see clearly that the man was Vili, a loader in town. His family had been poor when he was young, so he had not received a body particularly suited for labor. His life had never been very good. He could only help the heavy-duty workers when work was busy.

But he could not keep doing that job for very long, either.

Yuki remembered that his mother had hired this man for help before. But Yulia later felt that he charged too much and lacked enthusiasm for work, so she never worked with him again.

He stuck out his tongue, quickened his pace, and arrived at the organic waste recycling tank beside the farmland.

The organic components of cybernetic humans also produced waste. Even a fully modified cybernetic human like Xiang Shan, whose body had been almost entirely replaced with artificial prosthetics except for his brain, was no exception. Sometimes liquid seeped from Xiang Shan's throat. That was metabolic waste.

But most cybernetic humans could not excrete so little.

Beside this place was a public toilet. Beneath it lay a decomposition pit containing colonies engineered through genetic technology, capable of breaking down excrement and other waste at maximum efficiency. In addition, there was a dedicated inlet for other scattered organic matter. The inlet looked like a pool. Once garbage was thrown in, it sank, then passed through a relatively complex pipe system and was sucked into the decomposition pit.

The inlet was sealed with water to prevent outside bacteria from entering the decomposition pit and to prevent harmful gases inside from escaping.

Yuki threw the brain, plastic wrapping and all, into it. With a splash, the brain sent up water.

If it had been Xiang Shan, he would probably have pressed his palms together at this moment. Xiang Shan was not a Buddhist, but he believed that such gestures inherited from ancient culture could express respect for one's opponent and for life.

But Yuki showed no reaction at all. He simply hummed a tune and turned to leave.