Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 281 - 281 61 Rebuilding

281: Chapter 61 Rebuilding 281: Chapter 61 Rebuilding “`

“Biological Extraction” can be a very dangerous undertaking in certain respects.

Take the simplest example.

Millennia before the common era, humans already learned to use yeast to produce alcohol and flavor substances from high-starch plants.

But brewing is not entirely safe.

Many homemade rural concoctions, though refreshing and not highly alcoholic, result in pounding headaches and a potent aftereffect when consumed.

This is certainly not “drunkenness” in the usual sense.

The medical community prefers to call it “congener alcohol poisoning.”

During the fermentation of plants, if wild strains other than the yeast in the malt mix into the culture medium and are not rapidly displaced and eradicated by the yeast, the resulting liquor will contain a mixture of congeners, including methanol.

Cases of methanol poisoning leading to blindness due to blind trust in natural airborne microbes were very common in the early 21st century.

Modern alcohol production uses genetically engineered yeast strains to minimize contamination by unwanted microbes.

And that’s the danger of Biological Extraction.

Even a small number of contaminating microbes can render the final product unusable.

The saying “one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel” applies here.

The strength of the Yawill extraction method lies precisely here.

Yawgmoth amplified the trait of “horizontal gene transfer in microbes.” Microbes processed through the Yawill method are more aggressive about releasing genetic material.

Plasmids carrying these genes can easily pass through the cell membranes of most of Earth’s native bacteria and fungi, but the altered yeast cell membranes and nuclear envelopes will reject plasmids from native Earth species.

This forms a kind of one-way genetic traffic.

The wild strains that absorb these plasmids will either obediently metabolize the Restoring Enzyme and then collapse and die due to a bug in their life strata system, or they won’t.

This method of extraction is revolutionary.

But the problem lies with “Earth’s native microbes.”

Considering the state of the biosphere, Xiang Shan felt that the presence of “non-native Earth microbes” in the air wasn’t out of the question.

Specifically, bacteria modified by Yawgmoth’s technology.

Yet, the moment this idea arose, Xiang Shan found it bitterly ironic.

The Yawill extraction method was designed to reduce the costs of producing medicine, so that even the poor could afford professional pharmaceuticals, by creating a resistance to most wild strains.

It was Yawgmoth’s very own handiwork.

And for him to prevent Hero from acquiring the Restoring Enzyme through the Yawill method by spreading a contaminant in the air that could disrupt it…

Yawgmoth was indeed capable of that.

That was also why Xiang Shan hoped to have test subjects, like guinea pigs or Ganges monkeys.

Those adorable creatures are best suited to help humans develop medical technology and validate techniques.

However, that one risk did not affect Xiang Shan’s decision to use the Restoring Enzyme potion now.

He was now in desperate need of it.

As his consciousness and memories slowly recovered, they heightened his Inner Strength.

He could engage more brain tissue in the interaction with the computer.

An advanced Inner Strength skill would stimulate the involvement of the entire Soth Divine Realm.

The numerous minor injuries, together with the abnormal brain discharges that followed, had already begun to severely affect Xiang Shan’s daily activities.

The Restoring Enzyme could reverse damage to the brain’s nerves, and even redifferentiate them.

And the unusual growth phenomenon in his brain ensured that any lost neurons could be regenerated.

Once this injection is administered, he could start to reorganize his Inner Strength.

The only thing causing Xiang Shan hesitation was…

The Restoring Enzyme would affect existing memories no matter what.

Why did Hiroshi Matsushima refuse to practice Internal Strength?

Because he couldn’t bear to lose the External Strength he had already perfected.

It was his life’s achievement.

The action of the Restoring Enzyme would blur both memories and skills he had mastered.

And at Hiroshi Matsushima’s level, even he didn’t know whether he could train External Strength to such a degree again.

Xiang Shan faced the same dilemma.

His own cultivation was already strong, Inner and External alike, and the technical knowledge in his brain was comprehensive.

Once lost, such things are hard to reclaim.

Beyond that, there was another issue.

When Yuki found Xiang Shan, he had nothing but a pair of high-precision Prosthetic Eyes and a vast amount of knowledge in his mind.

And now, Tao Enhai, partially out of caution and partially to protect, had taken those Prosthetic Eyes.

What remained connected to his past were just these fragmented, still unclear memories.

If one’s memory could be likened to a library, then Xiang Shan’s library was one where some books had been plundered by an outside force and others had been dislodged by an earthquake, leaving the remaining volumes scattered.

Though it is difficult to reclaim the books that have been taken and those scattered are not readily readable, if he continues to sort through them, one day Xiang Shan will be able to organize his scattered memories and understand what was lost.

Injecting the Restoring Enzyme, then, is tantamount to selling those old books to fund the rebuilding of the library.

In that process, it’s unpredictable which “books” might be irreversibly lost.

Xiang Shan only has these memories left.

They are unmistakably his.

Losing these memories…

“I don’t really have to prove that I’m ‘Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan,'” Xiang Shan murmured, cradling his skull.

“What’s so great about Xiang Shan anyway?

Right?

I’ve lost so many times…”

“`

“If the Martial God no longer emerges, maybe that’s a good thing,”

But still…

Those were his memories, after all.

Xiang Shan didn’t fear death.

If the Personality Mask would make the same or similar decisions in the same situation, then “Xiang Shan” had already sacrificed himself for the greater good eleven times.

But those were his memories, after all.

Xiang Shan had spent a lot of time transferring as many of his organized memories as possible.

But the hard drives he had now were too inferior, and the input/output devices were poor.

He couldn’t, like the Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan of past years, entrust most of his memories to a quantum hard drive.

Injecting the syringe was bound to carry risks.

Even though he had diluted the Restoring Enzyme many times over.

These past few days, Xiang Shan had spent quite some time guiding Yuki, getting to know his foundations, and had even created a more detailed teaching plan.

He recorded all these plans in a document, stored them well, and even made them read-only.

He was afraid that because of the side effects of the Restoring Enzyme, he would gradually forget about Yuki’s matters.

Lacking the “life-saving grace” as well as the experience of surviving together, he couldn’t guarantee that he would still teach his disciple wholeheartedly.

But Yuki could be dealt with this way—what about those friends from the past…

Xiang Shan’s eyes once again filled with the image of Zhu Xinyu.

“Sorry, Xinyu,” Xiang Shan said to himself: “I’ve only just remembered.”

He was sitting in front of the syringe.

“My friends, I salute you,” Xiang Shan whispered: “I hope I don’t forget too outrageously…”

It felt as if he had gone back to the late 40s.

It was only during that brief period that he had participated in similar “no-backup injection of Restoring Enzyme” experiments.

After all, back then the memory storage technology was not very mature.

It was after he and scholars like Yawgmoth further advanced their cognitive abilities through the Restoring Enzyme that they developed the relevant memory storage technologies.

“Right, it’s just something I’ve done before,” Xiang Shan operated the mechanical arm to press down.

In the detection device of the mechanical arm, his own brain was getting closer.

Xiang Shan locked down most of the mobility in his upper body, grateful that fully cybernetically transformed Cybermen hardly needed to breathe, otherwise, he would definitely be breathing rapidly from nervousness.

The tiny needle pierced through the electronic components, breaking the Brain-Machine Barrier.

Although the brain itself has no sense of touch, Xiang Shan still felt a slight prick.

“There’s no need to fear,” Xiang Shan said again.

Probably the medicine, which had dissolved the Restoring Enzyme, had indeed entered the brain tissue.

Xiang Shan didn’t feel it.

The mechanical arm had already retracted.

Xiang Shan then controlled the mechanical arm to press the needle into another lesion.

He repeated this several times until one unit of Restoring Enzyme was used up.

Xiang Shan didn’t feel anything too special.

The only sensation from using the Restoring Enzyme was “forgetting.” But “forgetting” doesn’t produce any special feelings.

He quickly recalled the past that he had remembered in his mind.

South Asia, the Rama Project, Yawgmoth, United Nations University, Transhumanism, Inc., Nobel Prize, colleagues, Tao Enhai…

More…

more…

more…

But the revolving memories finally stopped.

—We are the ones who steal the Heavenly Fire.

Xiang Shan, wearing an assassin’s hood, said this.

—Let’s create a new technology.

Combine open access with decentralized production to make something that anyone can pick up and use.

Xiang Shan, dressed in black, said this.

These memories…

Those memories can wait until later.

Xiang Shan, you have to remember what you’re doing.

Xiang Shan sat down cross-legged once again.

This position, almost like “Five Hearts Facing the Sky,” didn’t have any practical rationale since a cybernetic body neither has meridians nor chakras.

However, Xiang Shan’s cultural background enabled him to accept without question the claim that “this posture facilitates a tranquil mind,” so when he did this, his mind truly settled.

Xiang Shan took out a hard drive.

It was a trophy he had obtained after wiping out the first Green Forest Stronghold, “Group Z,” upon awakening—the Inner Strength of Little Poison Insect.

Little Poison Insect acquired a Magnetic Chain through Magnetic Core Fabric, then used the Magnetic Chain to download the Cultivation Technique.

This technique might have been an experiment thrown out by some great power.

Xiang Shan had not fully recovered his memory, and he was still unable to judge the true power of this technique.

But this was the only “modern” Inner Strength he had on hand.

At least for him, a man from two hundred years ago, it was sure to be quite inspiring.