Memory and Games

The development of brain nerves was not simply a matter of having more of them.

In reality, the "maturation" of the neural system was a process of subtraction.

The brain's original state was a primitive network in which every node had equal weight. Later, through people's daily activities, some neural pathways were used frequently while others were used less often.

The more frequently a pathway was used, the greater its weight became. Those barely used had lower weights.

Then, high-weight pathways were further reinforced. They might even develop specialized "protective sheaths," forming mature "circuits" that became fixed in place.

The infrequently used ones, meanwhile, gradually regressed.

Neural pathways were thus effectively "specialized."

During this process, humans learned to walk, learned to use their hands, learned to speak...

That was also why someone who went too long without speaking could become "mute"—the circuits responsible for speech faded away on their own. They forgot how to speak.

It was generally believed that "learning" was the process of suppressing unnecessary channels of information input, thereby strengthening one's ability to perceive target information. This suppression and reinforcement naturally changed dynamically.

But a certain enzyme could reverse the physiological cycle of neurons within a certain range, returning a neural network to its primitive state and preparing it for a second round of development.

It did not renew cells. It merely reversed the neurons' physiological cycle.

Xiang Shan even remembered that, when this technology was first invented, humanity had regarded it as an "epoch-making technology for expanding the brain's potential," the prelude to a dramatic transformation into superhumans.

But later, the technology quickly fell out of favor and was ultimately used only in fields such as neurosurgery, psychiatry, and reconstruction for congenital intellectual disabilities.

The reason was simple: this enzyme made people forget far too much, and the time required for retraining was exorbitant.

Humanity could hardly rely on this technology to create people who surpassed human intelligence.

Not until Metal-Based Protein and Cybernetic Body Technology became widespread.

With storage devices that could assist memory, people could entrust their memories to hard drives and expand the brain's capacity.

But it was generally believed that doing so offered very poor value for the cost.

After all, for most people, there was no difference between storing memories on a hard drive and storing them in a Biological Brain. If they wanted to learn a new skill, they could simply store it on a hard drive. All they had to do was let their Biological Brain adapt to the information on that hard drive.

There was only one issue.

A Biological Brain and a Turing Machine might not be the same. No common ground between the two had yet been found. No matter how skilled an Inner Power master was, they could not excavate the information inside a human Biological Brain.

But information stored on a hard drive could be freely deleted or altered by a true master.

"Do you remember that thing I made you memorize with your Biological Brain?" Xiang Shan looked at Youji. "Anything recorded on a hard drive can be taken away. At least until humanity truly deciphers the mysteries of the brain, a Biological Brain cannot be hacked."

Xiang Shan had prepared for this long ago.

But this issue had another major difficulty.

After Brain Hard-Drive Technology emerged in the late forties and early fifties, neurologists conducted measurements and concluded that the capacity of a human brain, once converted into a format that could be stored on a hard drive, was roughly 5 PB.

Five PB was about 2,560 TB, or 2,621,440 GB. In theory, that should have been enough to hold the complete written materials of several libraries.

Unfortunately, humans could not store their knowledge in formats such as TXT or PDF.

After humans perceived something from the outside world, they generated a whole series of memories. Memories of "a specific event" were broken down into categories such as "sensory information received during the event," "emotional memories of the event," and "knowledge brought by the event," then stored in different parts of the brain.

Much of the memory space was often occupied by things that were not "knowledge" at all.

But with the aid of Rejuvenation Enzyme, neurosurgery, and similar methods, Xiang Shan could alter this somewhat.

He transferred every memory that could be moved onto a hard drive. Then, he used that Rejuvenation Enzyme on his own brain, washing away what was already there and retraining his Biological Brain to retain more knowledge.

What he possessed now was all the knowledge required to "start from scratch."

How many twists and turns had he gone through? How much blood, sweat, and toil had he paid during the process of "retraining"?

Xiang Shan remembered none of it, and he could never remember it. Even this process was something he had inferred from his own "knowledge." He had no memories of it. He had forgotten the entire experience long ago.

If he did not recover those memories, he would never be able to remember them himself.

He could not remember the things he had experienced, either. He could only determine whether a memory was something he had personally lived through by whether "this memory matched the emotional memories in his mind," whether he could truly empathize with it.

That said...

Xiang Shan had never expected all of his memories to be physically taken away.

This should have been a measure meant only to guard against hackers.

Why? He had already fallen to that state. If his enemies wanted to kill him, it would have been effortless.

But no matter what, he had indeed fallen into the worst situation he could imagine.

Only pure technology remained in his Biological Brain, along with the "passion" that technology at the time had been unable to precisely convert.

He did not know how to use those techniques, nor did he know what actions that passion was supposed to drive.

He had inferred everything himself.

From those techniques, he inferred what he had done in the past. From that fire of passion, he inferred what it should burn.

"My past self had already made preparations. That version of me knew everything. He was me. I merely have a little less memory than he did." Xiang Shan crouched beside Youji and gazed into the distance. "That version of me knew many things... He understood more than I do now. And our emotions are the same. So I trust the decisions my past self made—how could I betray that past self who knew everything?"

Youji cried out, "But Master, you know things now that your past self didn't, right? Your past self didn't know me, and he didn't know the people here either..."

Xiang Shan placed a hand on Youji's head. "Enough. I decided what needed to be done in the past. That will never change. For the rest of my days, if you still want to learn the last little thing from me, then... come here around this time. Of course, it's fine if you don't. But after I leave, remember to format the drive I gave you..."

Before Xiang Shan could finish speaking, Youji stormed off in a huff.

Xiang Shan had wanted to call him back and scold him a little, but in the end, he shook his head and laughed.

"This guy..."

He stood atop a mountain of garbage, atop the wreckage of a warship, and looked into the distance. Garbage stretched as far as the eye could see. Twisted metal blanketed the earth. Farther away stood a small town whose appearance differed little from the scrapyard. At the edge of his sight, on the horizon, a sea of silver-gray plants rolled in the wind.

Sometimes, he wondered how old he had been before losing consciousness. By his own feeling, he should still have had the temperament of a young man. But he seemed to have experienced many similar "partings."

"Tch. The me who hadn't lost his memories definitely wouldn't believe that I could actually develop even the slightest... attachment and sense of belonging toward a place like this scrapyard. What, some kind of imprinting effect?"

Still, for a knight-errant, perhaps this was commonplace.

Over the next ten days, Xiang Shan did not see his disciple.

In a two-dimensional world, a little man carefully jumped, dodging an oncoming turtle and missiles falling from above.

A surge of chemical energy swept through Apennine's neurons. Even the electrical discharge system in his brain that assisted reflexes began to operate.

This was the game's most difficult trap. It allowed only one frame of reaction time. Every movement of the little man had more than one frame of animation. He had to complete his "prediction" before the trap took shape. Within that single frame, the little man under his control had to reach the only safe "point" in the entire field of vision...

—An old martial arts master once said that it concealed the secret of External Power combat.

Bang!

At that moment, a flashing icon suddenly appeared in his field of vision. Because the priority of this "notification system" was higher than that of the game, the computer suffered a delay that should never have occurred.

The two-dimensional little man's head grazed the missile.

Collision detection... failed.

The little man fell into a bottomless abyss of despair.

Apennine disconnected from the game and calmly reflected on his gains and losses. He should not have been angry at that moment, because the same situation could arise in martial combat. He should not make excuses for any failure.

This was a form of martial arts training. Modern martial artists were always using all kinds of methods to trace the origins of martial arts, trying to understand it from the perspective of technological history. One theory held that the earliest martial philosophy had originated from the "games" of Old Humanity.

Then, with a ding, a brain together with its spinal cord emerged from a black box-shaped mainframe and dropped into the cybernetic body directly below, whose skull was split open. The spine wriggled twice like a snake, found the interface, and connected. Then the skull closed.

Naturally, Old Humanity's games could not be played by modern martial artists using cybernetic bodies. Strategy games were one thing, but in action games, the reaction mechanisms built into the drive chips would bypass the brain and control the cybernetic body with something akin to "scripts."

For modern martial artists, the speed of their "hands" was simply too fast.

So fast that neural signals, which could travel at a maximum speed of one hundred meters per second, could not keep up.

To undergo this kind of training in the "Way of Martial Arts," one had to remove the cybernetic body and use the brain to feel the game's "challenge."

This was Apennine's usual cybernetic body. It was a body used for reproduction; aside from the brain, only its reproductive system remained biological. This body was proof that their Protectors had fulfilled their "obligation to maintain genetic diversity." Of course, its artificial skin, whose sensitivity could be adjusted, also allowed the body to be used for entertainment during leisure time.

But Apennine did not like that kind of entertainment filled with obligation at all. He was more interested in this sort of martial arts training.

The secretary was standing nearby.

The events of more than half a month ago naturally surfaced in Apennine's mind. He looked at the secretary and asked, "How is that 'Shan' I told you to keep an eye on doing now?"