Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 514 - 158 The Story of Heavenly Machine [End]

Chapter 514: Chapter 158 The Story of Heavenly Machine [End]

Six Two carried out its self-uninstallation punctually, not displaying a hint of reluctance or fondness.

Perhaps "reluctance" and "fondness" are things unique to humans.

The young boy was deeply saddened.

He couldn’t get over this incident for several days and didn’t go to work.

However, in that Space City, all "work" was assigned by the management AI. The management AI would divide a large project into countless "simple small tasks that a person could complete in a short time," and compensation was calculated for each individual task. Thus, as long as the boy refused the work the AI sent his way, he would not be marked as absent from work.

The boy simply floated in his room—such an occurrence was commonplace in the Space City’s weak gravity. Humans had not developed artificial gravity technology, but Benchmark Human Remodeling Surgeries and cyberization enabled humans to ignore the negative effects of prolonged living in space.

So the boy floated there, not touching the ground, nor resting against the ceiling or leaning on a wall. He just floated in the middle of the room.

—What has happened?

—It seems that nothing has happened. I haven’t experienced anything.

A long time ago, Six Two had told the young boy a story about the "Chinese Room." In the story, there is a sealed room with an English-speaking person inside. This person, who only speaks English, carries a book with a program for translating Chinese. The room also has enough paper, pencils, and filing cabinets. Papers with written Chinese are passed into the room through a small window.

The person in the room can use his book to translate these texts and reply in Chinese. Although he doesn’t understand Chinese at all, through this process, the English-speaking person in the room can convince anyone outside the room that he can speak Chinese.

But in reality, "the person speaking Chinese in the room" is only an image conjured by the people outside; no such person exists.

Six Two is not human. Some AIs are like this... things that make people think they are human. This "non-human thing" carries its own "How to Speak Human" manual. And everything about Six Two’s personality was imagined by the boy himself.

He had simply lost a tool deemed not very useful by its developers.

From this perspective, the boy should have suffered no loss.

Just as nothing happened during the thousand and more days and nights after he left his father, so were these days, when nothing happened.

But...

The boy’s hand, no doubt, was pressing against his face. Unwittingly, he pressed his fingers harder and harder.

He felt there was a bug on his face.

Not until his vision went black did the boy realize that he had inadvertently damaged his Prosthetic Eye.

Due to some sort of bug... he felt the nerve signals sent from the exterior of the Prosthetic Eye to the brain were faulty. But this should be unrelated to the visual cortex. Instinctively feeling it shouldn’t be this way, he tried to touch his eye with his hand.

For the next six months, the boy used a camera connected to a port, relying on those external optical devices to get around.

This period of time was neither long nor short. During this time, he always observed his own movements from a third-person perspective.

It was as though it wasn’t his body. It was like he was merely playing a fixed third-person perspective video game.

In such disordered days, the boy’s mind seemed to become disordered as well.

—Indeed... even though nothing at all has happened...

He thought.

This place is a "hell where nothing ever happens."

It was only after more than half a year that he got a new pair of eyes.

Possibly because the new Prosthetic Eye model was too different from the one before, when he regained his "first-person perspective," he felt his gaze had changed, unable to return to how it was.

This precisely engineered society of Space City was already a "hell where nothing will happen." In such a place, humans couldn’t even use imaginary, fictitious stories to protect their minds.

Before becoming strong enough to face all the harsh realities, humans could build eggshells of imaginary stories around themselves to protect their minds, waiting for the moment when they unfurl their fuller wings. Some anthropologists believe that it was "stories" that made humans the most powerful species on Earth.

But these cities couldn’t even accommodate stories.

Many years later, the boy had grown into a young man and left that city to pursue his dreams in the cities of the Asteroid Belt.

Here, he encountered "chivalry" for the first time.

For a while, the young man became a "technician" among the knights of his generation, gaining a bit of fame and even published a little research. At least Six Two was a motivational AI that had played its part. The young man’s basics were quite solid.

But before long, the young man realized a problem.

The knights wanted to establish a tightly ordered modern society that was closer to the state of affairs before the "secret wars."

The young man was horrified by this thought. It brought back memories of his childhood.

Under the current system, humans can create such a hell... a hell without stories.

Isn’t the modern society of the knights’ ideals even more rigorous?

From that moment, the young man gradually drifted away from the chivalric code.

And his academic activities also drew the attention of another mysterious force.

Many more years passed before he accepted the task of "entering the Green Forest."

It seems he didn’t hate Green Forest. Foolish as it was, Green Forest was rich in stories.

It’s just a pity he never seemed like a part of Green Forest.

Right up until his death, this man realized this fact.

Perhaps because he remembered this, memories he had nearly forgotten were awakened anew.

The Hermit of Heavenly Machine wanted people to know these things.

"Such division of labor, separating man from his own work. That has made human connections unimportant," said the Hermit of Heavenly Machine, "the joys and sorrows of humans no longer communicate with their own lives. Such a world, that is hell, I suppose."

"And living as Green Forest, it’s very joyful, truly joyful. It’s an uncomplicated and fulfilling life, just like a carefree Barbarian, living freely and feeling spiritually fulfilled and abundant."

"If the development of civilization is meant to give itself a better future, then I can say, on this trajectory, humans will not find happiness."

"Then, as for the exploration of Green Forest..."

"As long as Green Forest can overcome its own minor flaws..."

"It’s equivalent to using technical means to let the entire superstructure of civilization evolve again from the hunting and gathering era," said Xiang Shan, slowly extracting the storage device, "That makes sense. Modernization... humanity’s first modernization was brilliant and great, but humanity’s first modernization was also a pile of crap. Your words may be twisted, but they’re not utterly devoid of reason."

"Considering the information you’ve provided, I’ll make a note of it."

With those words, Xiang Shan crushed the storage device.