They felt the very real strain on their bodies as the ship trembled slightly.
Inside the sealed hibernation pods, joy returned to faces still wet with tears. This was no failed launch that ended in an explosion at liftoff!
The Homeward Bound carried humanity on its journey home. Humanity had left.
Within the silent Myriad Stars System, Luo Qi watched it gradually pull away from Orange Star, while he remained on this godforsaken planet.
Luo Qi felt a little lost, and a little wistful for life among others, but he quickly smothered those feelings and thoughts.
He was no longer human anyway.
He was a brave man whose primary goal was to conquer the truths of the universe, with the smaller goal of returning to Earth for a look!
The sun hung in the black sky.
"Ms. Huang Qi, it's not too late to change your mind."
Two figures stood outside the residential building.
One was Huang Qi, and the other was the Liquid Robot, who had only appeared after everyone left to replace the T3 Robot.
The robot stood 1.8 meters tall, with a mirrorlike humanoid body but no facial features.
"I still have my own mission. Dad, can you speed up the biological research? I want it to go faster."
Huang Qi shook her head, thinking only of accelerating the development within the biospheres.
The T4 Robot gazed at the black sky.
"Embryo cultivation is actually fast enough already. Seven varieties of plants have sprouted in one biosphere..."
"It's still not fast enough... help me, Dad."
"All right. You can try virtual reality interaction and directly control multiple selves."
This copy of Luo Qi focused on biological research, while also observing and studying human life forms.
The land-based production line took two hours to produce a brand-new set of Virtual Reality Equipment. It looked like a white single bed.
Robots converted the former six-person dormitory into a single room, placing the virtual reality pod against a wall in the corner.
Huang Qi was familiar with virtual reality and lay down inside without hesitation. The absence of a helmet only made it seem more advanced.
Hidden instruments scanned Huang Qi's main neural control system and hypnotized her brain.
They also transmitted hibernation commands to her body, quickly putting her to sleep.
All of Huang Qi's physical readings indicated deep sleep, but her brain remained highly active, just like a dreaming human's.
In the blink of an eye, she found herself standing outside the residential building, wearing no protective suit, only thin white clothes.
The sunlight was strong, and she estimated the temperature at around nineteen degrees Celsius. A faint, soothing green lingered inside the quiet plant greenhouse.
"Welcome to virtual reality. Here, thought moves faster than language, and information is exchanged through brainwaves. I'll train you to operate multiple robots in reality at the same time."
"This..."
Huang Qi pinched her cheek and distinctly felt pain. The air was dry, with a hint of chill.
She strode toward the greenhouse glass and passed straight through into the greenhouse. "The wall didn't stop me..."
The air here became fresh, filled with the scent of rain and dew.
Huang Qi knew that external electrical signals were merely stimulating her body and brain, awakening some of the sensory memories in her neural pathways.
Scattered droplets fell on her, cool against her skin. The young woman stepped across the greenery, spread her arms, and spun around, utterly delighted.
Only after she tired herself out did she say sheepishly, "Dad, have I wasted too much time?"
"Strictly speaking, only one second has passed outside. When people are awake, their thoughts are limited by their brains' neural response speed, greatly slowing all kinds of responses. In the virtual world, those limits are completely removed."
"Then can I start learning?" Huang Qi had already fallen in love with this place.
She looked at the crops beneath her feet, trampled beyond recognition. With a thought, the plants refreshed themselves.
Then her eyes lit up, and she closed them, working hard to construct something.
The copy was rather speechless. Just a second ago, she had agreed to start learning.
The next second, the entire world changed color.
With Huang Qi at the center, vast expanses of green spread swiftly and freely.
Red, purple, and brilliantly multicolored flowers emerged from soft, calf-high grass.
Colorful butterflies fluttered through the radiant flowers beneath golden sunlight.
Clear birdsong chirped and twittered as tiny, elusive figures hopped among the flower stems.
Yet although the ground was bright and dazzling, a river of stars hung overhead.
Bright and dark nebulae, blue and green, overlapped and mingled in clusters and swaths.
"This is the extinct Purple Orchid, and that's the Monarch Butterfly, which disappeared ages ago. I've only seen them as museum specimens. And there's the Red-billed Green Magpie..."
Once she got into it, she forgot everything else.
The copy sighed, left with no choice but to act as an observer for now.
When Huang Qi remembered once again that she was supposed to be learning, she blushed with embarrassment.
"Um... Dad, I haven't held you up, have I?"
"It's all right. I'll guide you through connecting to and controlling the robots."
"For now, you can try operating them yourself. Imagine controlling a robot."
Ten industrial robots flashed into existence on the grass.
Huang Qi looked at them, knitting her brows and concentrating hard.
As she watched, wilted red flowers sprouted from the industrial robots.
"To start with, you only need to control one robot. I'll help you complete the neural synchronization."
A little embarrassed, Huang Qi heard only Dad's voice.
In the blink of an eye, she was seeing from the robot's perspective.
Detailed data labels appeared over every plant, bird, and beast she saw. When the scan encountered an unknown, distorted object, red markers filled her vision.
Huang Qi experienced little trouble when trying to control a single robot, but the moment she tried controlling two, their interactions became confused.
Fortunately, the robots in the virtual world provided only fixed test data.
After repeated unsuccessful attempts, the copy began to find it strange.
Freed from the limitations of their original bodies, human thought should theoretically be able to branch out and control multiple bodies. Living humans had many thoughts die away every day; all she needed to do now was make good use of those active thoughts.
Had his explanations and demonstrations not been detailed enough for Huang Qi to fully understand?
The copy prepared a new approach as Huang Qi grew discouraged after repeated failures.
He took the opportunity to introduce it: the Brainwave Memory Implantation Method.
"Memories really can be implanted?" Huang Qi was deeply interested. On Water Blue Star, this had been a forbidden area of research.
It was also a field she had never explored, and she could hardly wait to try it herself.
The copy did not report his actions to the main self, independently initiating the memory implantation method in the data model.
The project originated from the main Luo Qi's plan to clone humans in the future and implant all the memories of his previous life into a human shell.
This technology had never undergone any clinical trials. It could even fry someone's brain.
Luo Qi's copy first read Huang Qi's brainwaves and stored a digitized backup of her individual consciousness in the database.
As the experiment began, their brainwaves interacted.
Inside the simulation pod in the real world, Huang Qi's facial muscles twisted slightly. The computer results indicated that memory implantation was proceeding normally.
The human brain still needed time to repeatedly process and understand things, and the copy continued recording his observations.
An hour passed in the real world before Huang Qi finally recovered.
This was not memory implantation at all. Someone had stuffed a lump of "instinct" into her head!
She naturally knew how to do it, but that sudden "knowledge," along with the replacement bodies and control methods, gave her body no chance to learn or adapt.
"Dad, I feel like I've been split apart..."
Huang Qi's left eye looked from side to side, while her right eye moved independently!
Splat!
One Huang Qi became two. She was herself, yet not entirely herself!
Huang Qi collapsed to the ground, her facial features out of control.
Her limbs twitched and turned into limp tentacles. Splat-splat-
Soon, many soft, floppy Huang Qis appeared on the ground, looking exactly like slimes splitting apart!
The copy immediately imposed restrictions, ruthlessly destroying the others and leaving only two!
The copy said, "Multiple-body control means copying yourself in the data world. But you have to learn to control this division, or the explosive increase in sensory input will make your brain's mechanisms collapse in reality."
"On Water Blue Star, this would be described as schizophrenia or multiple personalities. But in the virtual world, it isn't schizophrenia. Every version of you is interconnected and shares sensory information. You need to avoid creating confusion."
"All right, Dad..."
Both Huang Qis on the ground closed their eyes. Their bodies stopped twisting, and their limbs returned to normal.
She followed the experience "implanted" in her brain, an abstract, strange sensation that could not be described in words at all.
Huang Qi was soon able to stand. Her two selves studied each other curiously, and she could perceive both their fields of vision.
The conflicting sensory inputs affected her brain's judgment. She felt as though she had become a four-dimensional being.
The two Huang Qis pinched each other's cheeks and smoothed each other's hair, then struck silly poses.
After a while, the two Huang Qis could function independently, no longer affected by the other self.
"Dad, I'm certain I have schizophrenia now..."
One of the Huang Qis could not help quipping.
"No wonder I was so determined to stay on Orange Star."
The copy explained, "Every divided copy differs slightly from the main self. When you return to reality, I'll help you correct the sensory conflicts."
As the copy explained, Huang Qi learned to use this implanted "instinct."
She began to freely copy and consolidate herself. She had thought the copies would die, but only when she consolidated them did she understand: a copy was more like a point in time, splitting off versions of herself from different times and spaces.
In the end, they still had to return to a single individual, bringing their memories with them. The sudden influx of knowledge and memories made her brain feel swollen!
Meanwhile, the copy quietly recorded all this data. A human soul in the data world could not behave the way the main self's data did.
A human's digitized soul could not merge with data itself. They were two completely different things.
If memories could be loaded, then they could also be erased...
Before you continue