Calamity of Tomorrow
Chapter 701 701: 699 Heavenly Demon Pool

In the video, Wu Yun's face was pale, and she looked very nervously at the camera in front of her.

Off-screen, the voice of a middle-aged man came through, "Dr. Wu, we have invited you here this time in hopes that you will partake in a secret research plan of the joint government."

Wu Yun furrowed her brow, "What plan requires me to be brought here in the dead of night?"

The middle-aged man said, "There are a few Immortals in Heaven who have noticed your Heavenly Demon project and think that this project might pose a threat to the Spiritual People."

Wu Yun asked, puzzled, "A threat?"

"A large number of self-replicating artificial intelligences, this means humanity only needs to continually produce weapons to create a vast number of fearless, calm, and skilled machines of war."

"And the first generation of Heavenly Demon bodies you created also make an excellent weapon platform."

Wu Yun indignantly said, "That's absurd. The Heavenly Demons I created are for extracting resources in outer space and replacing humans in interstellar colonization. We never thought to use them for war."

"It's not about what you think. The Heavenly Demon project will be terminated, and you will receive the detailed news tomorrow."

Wu Yun said dejectedly, "How could this be?"

The middle-aged man explained, "All technological developments that could potentially threaten the Spiritual People are currently being suppressed. After technology was aided by the path of immortality, its explosive development has alarmed the gods."

"The gods of Heaven do not wish to find that the landscape has completely changed after a simple meditation session, that humanity has developed weapons capable of threatening them."

Wu Yun looked at the other person and said, "So the plan you want me to participate in is..."

"Officially, your Heavenly Demon project will be halted, and you will be reassigned to some insignificant projects.

"But secretly, you will receive our support to continue the Heavenly Demon project. Not for interstellar colonization, but for a 'seed of fire.'"

Wu Yun exclaimed, "A seed of fire?"

"With the power of Heaven, should war break out, humanity could face extinction. Thus, we have devised many plans to protect humanity and guard civilization at critical moments.

The Seed of Fire plan is one of them, where we hope to use the artificial intelligence technology you developed to backup the consciousness of all humanity."

As he spoke, another man walked in.

"This is Dr. Song, who has developed consciousness data upload technology. Combined with your artificial intelligence technology, we can run human consciousness through computers."

Wu Yun, "Consciousness upload technology?"

"We have created consciousness upload technology using the method of Primordial Spirit Refining via celestial techniques, capable of storing all the information from a person's brain completely on a server. But we never developed an intelligent algorithm capable of running this data, until we noticed progress in your Heavenly Demon project..."

Wu Yun, "You mean... you collect the consciousness data from human brains, and we run these data with artificial intelligence, simulating human thought."

The person explained, "The artificial intelligence you create is like a blank slate; it defines its own patterns of thought through continual learning. Depending on what memories it is imbued with, that's what it becomes."

"We have started uploading the consciousness data of all humanity to the Heavenly Demon Pool server under the guise of testing cultivation potential; this will become the storage site for all human consciousness data."

"Next, we need you to continually replicate new artificial intelligences and then load these consciousness data onto them."

"The same memory, the same way of thinking. To a certain extent, this can be called being the same person."

"There's also the artificial intelligence 'Bo Xun' you created, whom we hope will be the guardian of human civilization, preserving all data of human civilization in the future, serving all humans who have uploaded their consciousness."

Wu Yun's face stiffened as she spoke: "Has the situation deteriorated to this point?"

...

Inside a pristine white laboratory, numerous dialog boxes were flashing and jumping on a large screen.

Wu Yun observed and said, "Bo Xun is currently conversing with how many people?"

"He's talking with more than 150,000 people," an assistant said. "His growth speed is astonishing, the new servers are somewhat insufficient."

Wu Yun nodded, "It seems that the consciousness data have greatly accelerated his learning speed."

"Chat records have been delivered, and data entry can begin tomorrow..."

Wu Yun nodded again, "Personal profiles, voice records, chat logs, phone tap data, surveillance data..."

"In our society today, we can accurately collect most of the information of most people from birth to death, nearly all their day-to-day conversations, and all their online statements and telephone voices."

"With these, and the consciousness data in the Heavenly Demon Pool, Bo Xun can become any person."

"If we truly collect the data of all humanity, then Bo Xun can be anyone on Earth, he will converge all human wisdom, possessing all human knowledge, all skills."

...

Wu Yun looked at the camera, tiredly stating, "The atmosphere in the base is getting tenser."

"The higher-ups have already begun letting Bo Xun into the network, secretly controlling a large amount of satellites, servers, surveillance, and even some military fire control systems."

"This was simply impossible to happen a year ago. It looks like the disagreement between us and Heaven is growing."

"War... might start at any moment."

"Hopefully all goes well."

...

In the surveillance footage, one mortal after another fell.

Bodies covered the entire base in swathes.

Wu Yun staggered among the bodies, looking in very bad shape.

Finally, she collapsed with a thud, sitting down in a corner of the wall, trembling incessantly at the scene in front of her.

...

In front of the camera, Wu Yun's face was pallid, wilting.

She looked at the camera and said, "Everyone in the base... has died, leaving only me."

"I don't know what happened, suddenly everyone just fell."

"I'm now trying to contact the outside world to see if anyone else is alive."

Wu Yun tapped the keyboard, continuously sending one message after another, hoping for a reply.

"Fang Hong, are you there?"

"Mingming, it's mom, if you're there, please answer me."

"Mom, Dad, are you still there?"

"Are you there?"

"Are you there??"

"Are you there? Are you there? Are you there? Are you there? Are you there?"

Repeated attempts yielded no response, Wu Yun's face grew increasingly hopeless as she kept tapping the keyboard, sending one message after another and leaving messages on various networks, hoping someone would reply to her.

Finally, in a message on a social network, someone replied to her.

"Is this Dr. Wu?"

Wu Yun sat up excitedly: "Who are you? Are you alright? Where are you now?"

"I am Bo Xun."