Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 137 - 137 57 Mystery of the Anomaly

137: Chapter 57: Mystery of the Anomaly 137: Chapter 57: Mystery of the Anomaly Who was he, really?

Xiang Shan had to face this question once again.

Although his memory told him that he was Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan, the problem was that, apart from this memory, there seemed to be no evidence to prove it.

On the contrary, there appeared to be many pieces of evidence suggesting that he might not be that legendary figure.

According to the stories passed down from later generations, Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan was killed by the government forces towards the end of the Sublimation War, merely to preserve the dignity of this past hero, so the government had never disclosed the specifics.

Xiang Shan’s own memories flashed in his mind and corroborated this point — he had indeed been defeated by an enemy who used Pseudo Star Device.

Having had his energy device destroyed, he should not have had the ability to escape.

Nor should he have awakened in a landfill centuries later.

Of course, one thing was certain, Xiang Shan certainly had not “grown” back from mere cells.

There were three reasons.

First, his Prosthetic Eye was an authentic electronic optical device, non-biological.

His skull was also made of high-tech alloy.

Cell regeneration couldn’t possibly grow these things.

Second, his regenerative ability was not complete regeneration, but a kind of pathological variation of bodily function.

Normally, there is no need for so many receptors on the spine.

Most of the human body’s tissues do not possess tactile receptors.

If his brain had indeed been damaged, then according to this regenerative ability, he could only regrow a malformed neural network, not an organized brain.

The most important point was that his brain retained part of the memories.

Under the existing technological systems, “memory” was still something that couldn’t be inherited.

Therefore, Xiang Shan could be certain that this Biological Brain must have belonged to someone from the past.

But this “person” might not necessarily be “Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan.”

The reason was simple.

Xiang Shan had found “his own” memories in the hands of the Demon Sect.

This at least indicated one thing — the real Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan had preserved his memories in some form.

These memories had even ended up in the hands of a low-level member of Green Forest.

In other words, the method to obtain the “real Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan’s” memories might not be so rare.

On the other hand, the “symptoms” mentioned by Huang Ouguang also reminded Xiang Shan of another matter.

Xiang Shan had also seen a successful case where nerves were entangled with electronic components.

“Chain Missile” Gleayard.

After Xiang Shan defeated this Green Forest bandit, he lifted his rear cover to find his nervous system interwoven with specially made electronic components.

However, in Xiang Shan’s view, this was genuinely not an efficient notion.

The natural body is a product of evolution, accumulated with a multitude of “if it works, it’s fine” ideas behind evolutionary defects.

In this respect, the creator indeed seems to follow the same path as programmers.

Third-rate programmers never care why their program can run, how it runs, whether the code is clean and elegant, or if it could cause problems for future development.

Evolution works similarly.

As long as an animal’s negative trait doesn’t affect its survival until it reaches reproductive age, evolution will ignore this defect.

If a certain negative trait is particularly attractive to the opposite sex, evolution will further enhance this negative trait, fulfilling the task of “ensuring the animal reproduces,” regardless of how this negative trait might complicate “future version updates.”

Regarding this matter, the Bighorn Deer which went extinct because of overly large antlers, and the Stalk-eyed Flies whose population is embarrassingly low among Diptera, probably have a lot to say.

Programmers call codes inherited from years past, full of ancient bugs, with comments resembling cryptic texts, a “codebase disaster.”

Today, every higher species that has undergone hundreds of millions of years of evolution, every single one of their genetic information, looks like a “codebase disaster.”

If a high-level intelligent creature were to view a species’ genetic information as a product, they would find the design permeated with strangeness, utterly incomprehensible as to why it was designed this way.

And if he were to knock out one gene, it might cause the entire life system to collapse.

To rebuild it… nearly impossible.

Human-designed mechanical products, on the other hand, resemble newly written programs, small and beautiful.

Perhaps their fault tolerance is far less than that of “codebase disasters,” but they are very convenient to modify, no matter what new functions you want to add, it’s easy.

Therefore, adapting the flesh to machinery is not a convenient approach.

Adapting machinery to the brain, that is the development direction of prosthetics.

Of course, the only exception is “Inner Strength.” The cultivation of Inner Strength, the emergence of the Soth Divine Realm, is the result of a brain specialization, adapting to computing outcomes.

But this is based on a slight inherent advantage in the computational structure of the human brain.

That is, “the human brain may exceed the boundaries of a Turing machine.”

And the martial arts of the Demon Sect might just be based on this idea.

It’s just that the method of entangling neurons and electronic components, seemed rather inefficient to Xiang Shan.

If it’s a technological product of the Demon Sect.

Perhaps it possesses the technology to cause abnormal growth of nerve cells.

No, rather, this should be considered essential technology for the Demon Sect.

According to records, it was several years ago that Gleayard underwent transformation.

In other words, that neural network entangled with electronic components had also completed its growth within a few years.

Of course, this involved the action of viruses and hormones.

However, without having undergone specific gene therapy beforehand, ordinary people, even if exposed to those viruses and hormones, would not experience such abnormal growth.

But there lay a problem.

“What kind of gene therapy did I undergo back then…”

Xiang Shan muttered to himself.

What he underwent should be considered the beta version of the metal-based gene therapy.

The alpha version of this technology was conducted on animals.

After a dozen Ganges monkeys had undergone this transformation process, humans, unable to wait, applied it to themselves.

And after the various advantages of benchmark humans were confirmed, numerous researchers volunteered themselves.

This was also considered a “benefit” of that research institution.

After all, under that version, completing one session of gene therapy, including medical personnel and potions, could cost tens of millions of US dollars.

The large amounts of precious potions used in this process, being limited by their manufacturing process, were more expensive than their weight in gold.

Ordinary researchers might not be able to afford it.

The longer lifespan and secondary development of the brain that came from the metal-based transformation were highly tempting to these scholars.

In this batch of clinical trials, Xiang Shan was not among the first to undergo the procedure.

And because the version was very primitive, the genetic information the pioneers received indeed contained some “codes of unknown utility and unclear meaning.”

In the versions of the therapy released to the public, those ambiguous genes were removed.

On one hand, this was to enhance controllability; on the other hand, it was to conserve resources.

After all, having an extra piece of redundant information inside the cells meant slightly more consumption during cell division.

When those pioneers started this project, the consideration of “saving resources” was part of it.

Of course, the genetic information implanted in the pioneers by the beta version therapy could indeed confer some special abilities.

For instance, Xiang Shan’s abnormal regenerative growth phenomenon.

To some people from the old era, this might seem like a positive trait.

But many times, it was not a positive trait.

Because this abnormal growth was too rapid, the nerve cells could easily invade electronic devices, causing signal interference or even short circuits.

For the cybernetically enhanced people, it simply added to the maintenance cost of the prosthetics for no good reason.

In normal gene therapy, such traits would definitely be eliminated.

So, there was a mysterious question.

Did this trait in Xiang Shan originate from the Demon Sect?

Or conversely, did the Demon Sect obtain relevant information from the cells of “Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan”?

Xiang Shan kept thinking, inevitably getting somewhat distracted.

“Senior?

Senior?” Cui Hai called out twice, finally snapping Xiang Shan back from his thoughts.

“Oh, I’m listening,” Xiang Shan nodded, quickly reviewing the auditory information stored in his mind.

He was scouting the surrounding roads with Cui Hai.

Deborah’s memory had given him the confidence to infiltrate the government stronghold and take down Ya Pining Zhao.

But Xiang Shan did not intend to be Jing Ke.

There were so many tyrants in the world, killing one was not enough, therefore he absolutely could not play a game of “A gallant warrior goes and never returns.”

He needed an escape route.

But that was not something Deborah could provide.

After all, you couldn’t expect the daughter of a lord to avoid the armed forces and electromagnetic gun defense systems every time she left the city.

Xiang Shan had originally planned to find the local gangs and extract some information from their minds.

But alas, so far, he had not managed to capture a significant gang member.

In this era, with information systems aiding in management, gangs had become more decentralized; capturing a peripheral member was not very meaningful.

So that day, he let the service station owner go to spread the word.

But unexpectedly today, he found that the service station owner had been replaced without any fuss, and there wasn’t even a cybernetically enhanced Martial Artist in sight anymore.

This was a clear sign of abandoning this property.

Xiang Shan was somewhat annoyed by this.

He felt that the gangs were being disrespectfully uncooperative.

Think about it!

A gang member gets slapped in the face and doesn’t think to slap back!

What kind of gang is that!

But since that path was a dead end, Xiang Shan had to look for another way.

At this moment, Cui Hai suddenly mentioned he had seen a distress signal commonly used by the Northern Martial Arts World and wanted to check it out.

While following up on the information, Xiang Shan fell into deep thought.

Seeing this, Cui Hai couldn’t help saying, “Senior, are you worried about the illness?”