The Brain

With the arrival of the Nüwa robots, Yi Xuan and Liang Shi were completely freed from manual labor. Yi Xuan also installed Bluetooth devices on the other machines in the secret chamber.

With that, No. 01 became the true master of the secret chamber, with everything in it under its control.

Apart from Liang Shi, who still had to enter the secret chamber every day to study with No. 01, even Yi Xuan went in less often.

It wasn't that he didn't want to go. Rather, each time he went in, he found he had little to do apart from entering new information into No. 01. Even if there was something to be done, he only had to tell No. 01, and it would control the various devices in the secret chamber to carry out his request.

Yi Xuan returned to the days when he set up his stall by the entrance every day, just as he had at the beginning.

Nearly a month passed like that, and Yi Xuan was bored out of his mind. Although his grenade business had grown better and better over the month, with production now reaching four hundred a day,

business at his stall by the entrance had gone from bad to worse. Recently, he had gone nearly seven days without a single customer.

That left Yi Xuan even more bored. With nothing else to do, he took out the Spirit Refining Instruction to study it.

Unfortunately, no matter how he studied it, he made no progress with the Cultivation Method. Every time, just as Yi Xuan began cultivating and the hammer formed from his Divine Sense touched the object he visualized, a loud boom rang out in his mind, driving him out of his cultivation state.

Moreover, every time he was driven out of that state, his head would ache, and it would take a while for the pain to ease. It got to the point that Yi Xuan was almost afraid to try again.

One day, while Yi Xuan was sitting behind his stall, thinking about the Spirit Refining Instruction, inspiration suddenly flashed through his mind. It seemed he had caught hold of some crucial piece of information.

Yi Xuan hurriedly packed up his stall and went to the secret chamber.

Liang Shi, who was studying, looked at him strangely. After all, his master had not come to the secret chamber for many days.

"Master? What brings you here?"

"Don't speak!" Yi Xuan shoved Liang Shi, who was still studying in front of No. 01's screen, aside and sat down in the chair himself.

Liang Shi was about to say something, but when he saw the serious look on his master's face, he obediently stood behind him.

"No. 01!"

"Boss! What are your orders?"

"Start calculating. With your current hard drive storage capacity, can you construct a model of the human brain?"

"Please wait! Calculating based on the available data! Please wait!~ Please wait!~"

"Ding, calculation complete. The current hard drive storage capacity cannot meet the space requirements for constructing a model of the human brain."

"It's that big?"

"Yes, boss. Based on the available data, it can be estimated that the complexity of the human brain is equivalent to the extent of the network if the entire world were fully networked..."

Only after hearing No. 01's description did Yi Xuan realize how formidable the human brain was. This world was much larger than the world of his previous life, and yet the complexity of the human brain was nearly equal to the entire network of this world if it were fully networked. Yi Xuan could hardly imagine how complex that was.

"Multiplied by 1,400!" No. 01's voice continued.

Only then did Yi Xuan realize that he had still underestimated the complexity of the human brain.

"It seems my earlier idea was too naive!" Yi Xuan sighed and shook his head.

Yi Xuan had suddenly thought earlier that, since his own brain could not withstand cultivation of the Spirit Refining Instruction, perhaps he could construct a simulated human brain inside No. 01, then simulate the operation of the Spirit Refining Instruction within it.

After all, the human brain could not withstand being ravaged by the Spirit Refining Instruction repeatedly, but a computer could. As long as Yi Xuan could use the computer to simulate the Spirit Refining Instruction repeatedly, he would eventually find a suitable object to visualize and complete his cultivation!

"Boss! Are you trying to construct a model of the human brain?"

Yi Xuan had already given up, but when he heard No. 01's question, he nodded. "Yes. Unfortunately, constructing a human brain requires far too much memory. Your current Jade Slip hard drives aren't even in the same league!"

"Yes! But have you considered using image compression?"

"Image compression? Hm? That's right!" No. 01's reminder made Yi Xuan suddenly realize that this was a good idea.

In his previous life, as the resolution of images grew higher and higher, so did their pixel counts. This brought with it a problem: images took up more and more memory.

The clearer the image, the more memory it took up, and gradually a vicious cycle formed.

Then, someone invented a way to compress images: transforming a two-dimensional pixel array into a statistically uncorrelated set of data, thereby greatly reducing the memory an image took up.

What No. 01 meant was that the brain, too, was a collection made up of a finite number of types of elements. To construct a brain, Yi Xuan did not need to construct every single element present in it. He only needed to transform those finite types of elements into a statistically uncorrelated set of data, which would greatly reduce the storage space needed for the model.

After No. 01 ran the calculations, it turned out that this method really could greatly reduce the hard drive storage required. It should take no more than five Jade Slip hard drives.

To be safe, Yi Xuan installed another six Jade Slip hard drives in No. 01 and also wrote a program for it that could compress the brain model in real time.

With everything ready, Yi Xuan began communicating with the Book of Technology in his brain, asking it to transmit the data for the human brain model directly through his body to No. 01's hard drives.

As the data was transmitted, Yi Xuan had No. 01 start the compression software. The incoming information was instantly compressed and stored on No. 01's six additional hard drives.

Yi Xuan did not dare send the data to No. 01's main hard drive. If something went wrong during the process and damaged No. 01, Yi Xuan wouldn't even know where to go to cry.

The sheer volume of data for the human brain model exceeded Yi Xuan's imagination. Even though the Jade Slip hard drives stored data at tremendous speed, they still struggled to keep up with such a massive stream of information. It took a full day and night to finally enter all the data.

Sure enough, just as No. 01 had calculated, five hard drives were enough to hold the entire brain model.

Before starting the model, Yi Xuan had No. 01 back up its main system onto the last empty hard drive, then put the drive into his Storage Bag in case anything went wrong.

"Start!"

At Yi Xuan's command, the brain model officially started.

"Simulate an immortal cultivator's sea of consciousness!"

The image on No. 01's screen gradually changed. The black screen slowly began to brighten until it became a hazy white.

Seeing this, Yi Xuan knew he had succeeded, because that was exactly what his own sea of consciousness looked like.