Bian Ziyuan sat in front of the computer, his hands on the keyboard, staring at the line of code on the screen, his eyes gleaming with the light of a gold prospector seeing gold. But this gold wasn't something he had found; it was something he had invented. His feelings at that moment were more excited, and also more complex than those of a gold prospector.
He knew that with just a light tap of his finger on the Enter key, this line of code would be implanted into the program, which would then serve as a supplement to the game, optimizing the intelligent aspects of Kronos within the game.
But he hesitated because the program would bring revolutionary changes to Kronos, so much so that he couldn't estimate the depth of its impact. And since Kronos was implanted into the Dream Guide game, he had become an integral part of the entire game.
Bian Ziyuan knew that the Space Box and the Dream Guide game were the culmination of the efforts of almost all the world's top scientists, especially Professor Mei Yiqiu. If anything went wrong because of him, he didn't know how he would face these people.
Although he and his Kronos development greatly helped the project, and Professor Mei even praised him as a contemporary Von Neumann, Bian Ziyuan was not arrogant enough to take these words seriously.
He knew he had only happened to be there at the right time, developing an artificial intelligence program, while the entire Dream Guide project was incredibly vast. In addition to artificial intelligence, it also included cutting-edge sciences such as quantum computing, biochips, brainwave analysis, neural center simulation, virtual reality, virtual spacetime, and spacetime simulation of multidimensional superposition states. These fields may not sound as popular as artificial intelligence, but even a small breakthrough in any of them would be Nobel Prize-worthy.
In addition, the Space Box project has some theoretical applications that go beyond the scope of science and are somewhat close to metaphysics. I don't know Bian Ziyuan this aspect.
Of course, he also had a proud side. He was young and more energetic and creative than those big scientists. In addition to Kronos, he also offered many constructive suggestions. It was precisely because of this that Professor Mei brought him into the core team and gave him the privilege of conducting in-depth research on the project in the rooftop laboratory without restriction.
After learning some of the truths about consciousness invasion, Bian Ziyuan was deeply shocked. The existence of Parasites, Internet Consciousness, and so on far exceeded his previous understanding of the world, but at the same time, it also excited him immensely.
From childhood, he lived in a dull and endlessly repetitive world. Every day he would get up very early, eat the nutritious breakfast his mother made for him, and go to school. He would listen to the national anthem and watch the national flag rise again and again. Teachers would repeat the same boring test-oriented knowledge lesson after lesson. The students would be drowsy, and when the school bell finally rang, they would always hear the teacher say, "I'll talk for five more minutes, and then..."
No matter how good your grades are, making others envious, or how bad they are, making you doubt your own intelligence, you can't escape the fate of going to school, doing homework, sleeping, going to school, doing homework, sleeping... and perhaps some people would add another one—attending tutoring classes.
Bian Ziyuan understand why everyone, who was so different, lived the same kind of life.
Fortunately, he didn't need to attend tutoring classes, and because of his good grades, his parents allowed him to play computer games on weekends. Only when he was immersed in the world of games did he feel that life had meaning.
He was a gaming genius, but he never became addicted to any one game. He had played countless games, and completing them was a piece of cake for him. His greatest pleasure was finding bugs in these games, exploiting vulnerabilities to access the servers, and modifying the game data. From his initial sneaky actions to his later lawlessness, he even hacked into Penguin Group's servers because of his dissatisfaction with a certain game.
He noticed that games worldwide were becoming increasingly simplistic and vulgar. While this might be due to market factors, he still believed developers bore some responsibility. Therefore, he decided to develop a highly intelligent game himself. However, he quickly realized this goal was unrealistic and almost impossible for him to accomplish alone. Developing a game requires more than just programming skills; the initial planning and plot structure already stumped him, not to mention the later stages involving art and UI design. So, he made a slight change to his decision—shifting from originality to borrowing—adding an intelligent expansion module to other mature games to enhance their playability. This was his initial idea for developing Kronos.
The idea was just an idea. Before going to university, it was just a thought in his head, because he didn't have much time to do it. Life was still repeating its boring cycle—going to school, doing homework, sleeping, going to school...
No matter how good your grades are, you can't escape the arrangements of fate. You have to look at the formulas and words that are deeply imprinted in your mind, read them until you're annoyed, and copy them until your hands are sore.
He said, "Teacher, can I learn something else?" When he got 90, the teacher said, "You're still far from good enough." When he got 95, the teacher said, "That's not very good." When he got 98, the teacher said, "Still a little short." When he got 100, the teacher smiled broadly and said, "Let's consolidate our knowledge."
This continued from elementary school through high school. He thought things would change when he entered university. Admittedly, university life became more colorful, but to him, it became increasingly boring. Most of his classmates were just venting the emotions that had been suppressed for many years by the dull high school life, without releasing the vitality and value that life should have.
After a few months of indulgence, everyone began to calm down, and after calming down, they became even more confused. So some people started to go back to their old ways, returning to the repetitive life of going to class, doing homework, and sleeping.
Bian Ziyuan was confused for a long time, until the handsome Kronos appeared in the Forbidden Land of Magic, looking down at him condescendingly and saying: My people, what do you want?
For the first time Bian Ziyuan felt reborn. His dying life suddenly had a meaning to live. Although he couldn't quite explain what this meaning was, he knew that he was living for it.
When Bian Ziyuan first came to participate in the Turing Test at Mei Yiqiu's lab, he only admired Mei Yiqiu's reputation and never imagined that he would later enter a world-class laboratory to participate in the research and development of top-tier projects. It wasn't until he came into contact with the core content of the Space Box and the Dream Guide that he suddenly understood the meaning of life he had been vaguely pursuing—
Save humanity!
Yes, that's how cringeworthy, that's how empty, that's how ridiculous—it sounds like a primary school student's ramblings.
However, Bian Ziyuan knew that this was exactly what he had to do.
Human society is like a mindless game, and everyone is a mindless NPC in the game, endlessly repeating the same boring plot.
As for who the game's protagonist, or rather, the player, is?
He didn't know, but it certainly wasn't one of those ordinary people, nor even one of those seemingly glamorous celebrities and tycoons. The main characters, the players, must be somewhere in the game, struggling and striving to complete it, but unfortunately, the NPCs couldn't see them, or even if they did, they wouldn't know.
However, it doesn't matter if you can't become the protagonist, because the protagonist can't change the game; only the developers can change the game.
Are there developers in the human world? If so, it's probably God!
Bian Ziyuan know God, just as he didn't know the developers of the Forbidden Land of Magic, but he created Kronos, an intelligent extension program that could change the game.
There are seven billion NPCs in the world: save them or destroy them?
Bian Ziyuan he placed them on the keyboard. His raised ring and middle fingers paused for a long time before finally landing heavily on the Enter key.
The code on the screen flickered.
Just once.
No miracle occurred.
But a seasoned programmer knows that Pandora's box has been opened, and God is on his way to Earth...