Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 637 - 281 A Casual Chess Move

Chapter 637: Chapter 281 A Casual Chess Move

For Xiang Shan, purchasing shares of the game company Action Master meant that he could leverage the prestige and channels accumulated by the gaming company to strengthen Superman Enterprise’s influence. He could advance a series of cognitive science research related to gaming, and even freeload on the computational resources of AM players.

Compared to the expensive construction and maintenance costs of supercomputers, the money spent on acquiring these shares didn’t seem so costly.

And if necessary (for instance, if one day computational resources were no longer scarce), he could sell the shares again.

As for making a loss... cough cough, at this stage, Xiang Shan didn’t need to worry about that at all. A few words of public praise from Xiang Shan for a company could possibly make its stock price jump a bit.

In the eyes of the wealthy, whatever company this technical upstart invested in represented a promising opportunity in the current era.

Xiang Shan spread his hands: "Coach Novich, what do you think? How about this game?"

Coach Novich found it absolutely unbelievable: "Could the future’s most professional training software really be a video game?"

"You could also think of it as a video game with a professional training mod," Xiang Shan waved his hand dismissively, "That’s not important. We’ve also made a lot of effort for those who don’t have high-end equipment. For instance, it’s a cross-platform game compatible with various AR, VR devices. Add on two inexpensive sensor wristbands, and you can skip the camera capture and motion recognition process. In addition..."

Xiang Shan gestured in the air a few times, and then the "sparring robot" in Coach Novich’s eyes rapidly roughened up.

In professional terms, "the number of polygons was reduced."

Soon, it turned into one of those polygonal human figures commonly seen in video games from the end of the 20th century.

"Under this graphic quality, the computing power of smart glasses alone can handle the task, or you can connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth if necessary. A few hundred US dollars should do it," Xiang Shan declared: "If someone doesn’t even have the means to save up that bit of money for equipment, then frankly, they’d better not think about becoming a boxer. After learning the techniques, they might be more likely to step into those illegal fights, right?"

Coach Novich nodded in agreement.

What Xiang Shan said was a fact. Children from poor families were indeed more likely to take risks and participate in unregulated competitions.

"By the way..." Xiang Shan waved his hand again. Then, the sparring robot in Novich’s eyes suddenly changed into an almost deceivingly lifelike...

"Tyson?" Coach Novich’s eyes widened.

"Hmm-hmm," Xiang Shan confirmed: "It’s officially licensed too. But this time I actually paid for it. I think the business model of FIFA video games is quite good, so I came up with this idea. You can purchase famous boxers’ skins for the training robots... I’ve even considered bundling the boxer’s data-trained AI in the professional version."

Coach Novich said: "What’s the point of that... no..."

It made a lot of sense.

Many boxers have a habit. Before a match, they hire a sparring partner whose body data and technical style are similar to their opponents’ for training.

If they could purchase an AI trained with opponent data, it would be relatively cheaper.

It wouldn’t violate the spirit of sports. Because on this point, all boxers were equal.

"The first step is to find retired boxers like Tyson to sell skins and give them a share of the profits. The better the boxer’s achievements, the higher their share—anyway, the specifics can be handled by professionals," Xiang Shan explained, "I want to hear a professional’s opinion. What do you think, Coach Novich?"

After pondering for a moment, Coach Novich replied: "This might change the entire training method of the fighting world."

Xiang Shan clapped his hands: "That’s great."

Xiang Shan was pushing this initiative not only for publicity but also in the hope of encouraging small studios capable of producing third-party prosthetic bodies to emerge, laying the groundwork for a future product ecosystem.

Boxing gyms, clubs, and training camps that purchased sparring robots often wouldn’t just buy one. Purchasing meant using, and using meant wear and tear would occur.

Wear and tear would create a demand for replacement parts.

Selling "an AI trained with specific boxer data" would also generate an additional need: for simulating enemies of various heights and arm spans, different limbs would need to be bought.

These sparring robots were made using prosthetic body technology. The limbs that could support the operation of such robots could also serve as prosthetic bodies (lacking only the sense of touch), and many of Superman Enterprise’s things were open-sourced and freely licensed.

Maybe some third-party manufacturers would enter the market to produce replacement parts.

And these things would pave the way for the industrial production of prosthetic bodies.

If sufficiently imaginative third-party designers emerged, Superman Enterprise could even consider bringing them into the fold.

Of course, compared to Superman Enterprise’s overall strategy, this was just a leisurely move.

There were still many similar strategic setups.

What Xiang Shan aimed to do was to change the world.

The world was changing.

At that moment, Coach Novich had regathered his thoughts. He said: "We can discuss those commercial issues later. Before that, I have another question." He pointed at Lu Xuanyu: "Lu is still wearing very thick warm clothing. How is he supposed to train?"

Xiang Shan stood up from the office desk and walked towards the door: "This question will be answered during our tour of the ’internal area.’ Follow me."

Xiang Shan pushed open the door.

Coach Novich’s main office was located on the second floor of the Sports Science Research Center, with one wall being a glass curtain wall, offering a view over the entire public training area. Coach Novich could always see the training conditions below.

And outside this office was the stairwell.

Xiang Shan proceeded downstairs.

"The upper floors are parts of more crucial research areas, not currently open to the public," Xiang Shan indicated: "The first-floor training areas and functional zones are open to all athletes, but many pieces of equipment here, I would not recommend for Lu Xuanyu to use—remember that, Lu, especially the ice bath equipment over there."

Modern athletes train intensely. After a day’s training, their muscles incur significant damage, and inflammation can occur, leading to further injury.

Low-temperature therapy can relieve muscle inflammation.

At the same time, cold promotes vasoconstriction, which can expedite the removal of lactic acid to some extent.

"Benchmark Man is more resilient to injury than Homo sapiens but not to cold. If you cool down too quickly, you might need emergency care. Those devices are prepared for sparring partners. Without such facilities, it would be really hard to attract high-level sparring partners," said Xiang Shan, "The ground floor is your dedicated resting area. Of course, it will also be open to reporters after matches—so I’ve placed a few things suitable for display there."