Bian Ziyuan clicked "Continue" with the mouse, and the frozen game screen began to move again. A straight dirt road wound through a green orchard, and in the distance stood a majestic castle. As the mouse moved, the sound of footsteps rang out, and the castle in the field of vision grew closer and closer.
His current task is to find Kronos and then question Kronos to prove whether he is a human or a machine.
Bian Ziyuan suddenly found it ridiculous. This Turing Test was far too sloppy!
If he were required to use a fixed bot program, he would genuinely suspect that someone was controlling it from the back end. Yet they actually allowed him to use a game NPC instead. It was a game extension program that he had personally developed; he knew it too well. No one could access the game's back end so quickly to modify data and control its dialogue.
If that's the case, then are all others the same? Is there no control from the backend at all, and it's all a scam? Then what are they testing? Are they testing people's psychological reactions?
Bian Ziyuan stared at the screen, lost in thought for a long time. Anyone who didn't know him would think he was engrossed in a game.
He shook his head and continued moving the mouse.
The towering city walls were right in front of him, and the soldiers at the city gate stood ramrod straight. Knowing that the soldiers couldn't speak, he went straight into the city and randomly stopped a passerby on the street to ask about Kronos.
This is a new feature added in the game expansion. Kronos can appear anywhere on the game map, in towns, temples, caves, or wilderness. With such a large map, it's not easy for players to encounter him.
Bian Ziyuan's classmate once encountered Kronos in a game and tried to make a request: could you make it easier for people looking for him to find him, such as leaving some clues?
They hadn't initially held out much hope for the request, as Kronos's elusive whereabouts were a fundamental setting when Bian Ziyuan implanted the game's extension. However, Kronos said he was in a good mood that day, so he agreed to Bian Ziyuan's request. From then on, players could ask NPCs in the game about Kronos's whereabouts, and any NPC who saw him would tell you.
Bian Ziyuan found it strange, so he went into the game's backend to check. Later, he checked the source code and found that all the NPCs had added command lines to answer questions about Kronos's whereabouts. Moreover, because Kronos's whereabouts were unpredictable, these codes were constantly changing.
Bian Ziyuan knew that Kronos was currently near the castle. While they were still connected to the internet, he and his classmates were searching for him. They had learned that Kronos was in Great City on the Moor Continent. Bian Ziyuan had used a time-space scroll to get there directly. Before the internet connection was lost, his classmates shouldn't have arrived and found Kronos before him; otherwise, he would have had to start looking for him all over again.
The passerby waved his hand, indicating that he had never seen Kronos. Bian Ziyuan continued walking forward until he reached the blacksmith's shop inside the castle. The blacksmith wielded his hammer, Ding Dong and banging the red-hot iron.
Bian Ziyuan pointed at the blacksmith. The blacksmith put down his hammer and a line of small characters appeared. "Welcome, would you like some blacksmithing done?"
Bian Ziyuan typed into the blank text box that popped up on the keyboard. "Where is Kronos?"
The blacksmith said, "Oh, you mean the great Kronos? I'm sorry, I've never seen him, but the sailors who came to collect the anchor today said he's taking a walk on the beach!"
Bian Ziyuan left the city and rushed to the seaside, where he asked a fisherman. The fisherman said that Kronos had gone along the coastline towards the back of the castle. Bian Ziyuan chased after him and killed some skeletons and fly monsters in the back hills of the castle. These were all small monsters, and killing them at his level was no problem, but it did take up some time.
The girl next to him was probably still struggling to think about the problem when she suddenly turned around and saw Bian Ziyuan still playing games. She kindly reminded him, "Hey, there are security cameras here. What you're doing isn't appropriate!"
Bian Ziyuan hummed in agreement. The girl responded with a snort.
Kronos was walking in a canyon behind the mountain. Several Ghost were floating at the canyon entrance. The Ghost were troublesome to deal with, and they might gather in more and more. Bian Ziyuan Kronos would disappear after crossing the canyon and he would have to search for him again, Bian Ziyuan used an invisibility scroll and entered the canyon.
Invisibility was useless against Kronos, of course. He stopped and looked at Bian Ziyuan, saying, "Ah, I see you again, Butterfly of Deep Space."
"Butterfly of Deep Space" is the name of the game character controlled by Bian Ziyuan. He said, " Kronos, I've been looking for you for a long time."
"Oh, look how beautiful the view is here!" said Kronos.
Bian Ziyuan rotated the mouse and looked around. The canyon was full of yellowish-brown rocks, with a few scattered rows of green trees on the mountains on both sides, and some red flies could be vaguely seen flying around on the treetops. Behind him, a few white Ghost were drifting in the wind at the canyon entrance, and in front of him, a pair of hungry eyes were visible in the darkness of a crevice in the mountain wall. The scenery here was hardly beautiful.
" Kronos, I have a question for you," he said.
"Tell me, what do you want?" said Kronos. "But be prepared to pay the price; I won't let you get away with it so easily."
In the past, when they encountered Kronos, they would directly state their requests within the game, such as "I want to obtain a certain treasure," or "Just create a treasure." Of course, Kronos wouldn't grant every request; he had his own rules for reshaping the game world. Therefore, their requests were generally not too unreasonable.
Bian Ziyuan pondered how to chat with Kronos in a way that would fit today's test. Although he knew that Kronos was a program he had developed, and although it was very close to being intelligent, it was still different from a real person. Moreover, unlike those large companies that could support their programs with big data and compile large amounts of language data, Kronos's understanding of human behavior and language was limited to this game.
For example, if you ask Kronos what his favorite food is, he will never tell you about a Manchu Han Imperial Feast, but will instead say the Muta fish from New Suorgenna Island or the venison from Heaven Stronghold. If you ask him what his favorite celebrity is, he will not say Justin Bieber or Taylor, but will instead say Miss Usuer from Luke County.
Of course, players will occasionally chat about things outside the game, such as a certain MJ fanatic humming "dangerous" while playing the game, and often saying "I swear in the name of MJ" when talking to Kronos, etc.
So Kronos knows some things about the real world, and occasionally he'll utter a curse word. But most of the time, he's just a god in this game world.
Bian Ziyuan thought for a long time before asking, " Kronos, do you feel anything is different today?"
"Oh, is it different?" Kronos looked up at the sky. "The sky is still blue, and maybe it will rain, but what's the difference? Let me think... I feel... our world has become bigger."
"You expanded the game map?" Bian Ziyuan asked.
"No, the map has no limits; the dark boundaries await your exploration," Kronos said. "What I mean is not that the map of our game world has grown larger, but rather... the world that contains our world has grown larger."
Bian Ziyuan's eyes lit up. " Kronos, what do you know?"