Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 680 - 324 History and History [Major Section]

Chapter 680: Chapter 324 History and History [Major Section]

Hiroshi Matsushima woke up in a dimly lit underground space.

He opened his eyes, propped up his body, and looked around. This place seemed to be a ruin of collapsed walls. It must have been a magnificent place before the collapse which seemed to have occurred a long time ago. There was even a slight metallic sheen to some fungal stains on the ground.

"Where is this? Zero?" Hiroshi Matsushima asked.

Shortly after entering the underground area, he had fallen into a coma. At the last moment of his consciousness, he had relinquished all control of his prosthetic body to TX-0, allowing it to operate in his stead.

This wasn’t even "loaning out the brain." His own mind was comatose from brain damage, and Zero was completely relying on its artificial intelligence to control the prosthetic body.

His memories afterward were very vague and ambiguous. Hiroshi Matsushima had faintly regained consciousness intermittently. He dimly remembered that he and Zero had been on the run. When he was in a better condition, Zero had apparently tried to reach the surface, but they were still blocked and had to return.

"An underground station from a very long time ago, an utterly unimportant node," TX-0 said. "The inflammatory response from the microglial cells has been stopped... but we really don’t have enough medication to fully recover. Check yourself to see where else you haven’t healed."

"I’ve already felt it," Hiroshi Matsushima said, looking at his slightly trembling right hand. This tremor could also be eliminated with algorithm-assisted control. However, Hiroshi Matsushima was used to entirely controlling the prosthetic body using his own neural network.

He was accustomed to using full control.

For a master like him, auxiliary control plugins, which are like "training wheels," were just things that limited his performance.

But now, due to brain damage, Hiroshi Matsushima couldn’t remove this unnatural tremor without using auxiliary plugins.

"Be satisfied. If you were still a Natural Person, you would have died long ago," TX-0 said.

As a Cybernetically Enhanced Person, Hiroshi Matsushima relied solely on electric field energy to replace the respiratory function for power, and only needed to replenish a small amount of nutrients through osmotic pressure. Thus, he had no blood circulation or blood pressure.

There wasn’t any "continuously expanding traumatic brain hemorrhage."

However, his situation was not optimistic.

The central nervous network is one of the most precious organs in a living body. Its proto-oncogenes are almost inactive, hence it hardly proliferates or becomes cancerous. Because of this, any minor damage to this area is hard to reverse.

To protect this precious organ, evolution devised the blood-brain barrier, which keeps the brain separated from regular immune cells—after all, the principle of immune cells is to "kill all wrongdoers rather than let one survive." The brain relies on microglial cells, known as the "Imperial Forest Army," for immune responses.

Despite this, microglial cells are still considered by human doctors as having more disadvantages than advantages once activated.

Animals on Earth often trigger inflammatory responses due to physical injuries.

Naturally, cranial injuries also lead to inflammatory response syndrome.

Part of Hiroshi Matsushima’s brain cells were killing his brain.

"Oh..." Hiroshi Matsushima looked at his hand, "Will I die?"

"Most likely not. But it will affect some parts of your brain lobes," TX-0 said. "If you want to minimize the damage, you have to do everything at once, prepare several types of medication to suppress the production and activity of pro-inflammatory factors, block or reorganize corresponding receptors... If only we had known this was coming, we should have stolen more from the Mona Knight Order three years ago."

"Didn’t we set up many supply points underground... are there any medications?"

"If you hadn’t had that big fight with the Lord, causing a hundred thousand AI automatons to chase after us, we could leisurely go and get the medication from those supply points," TX-0 said. "Without a functioning brain, I’m basically just a script! I don’t even dare hack those AIs!"

"What about now?" Hiroshi Matsushima asked.

TX-0 returned with a question: "Do you want to become brain-damaged?"

"That would indeed be..."

Hiroshi Matsushima sat back down on the ground: "What shall we do now?"

"I need to think... AIs aren’t suitable for ’breaking through tough situations.’ Here’s what, I’ll try using the sectors that weren’t damaged. Let me use it."

Hiroshi Matsushima waved his hand: "Whatever."

Soon, Zero had an idea: "Let’s do this. This place is after all a major project from the old era. Look inside, maybe you’ll find something useful."

Hiroshi Matsushima paused for a moment: "Even if there’s medication here, it would be at least two hundred years old, right?"

"Damn. That’s not important," Zero shook its head. "This place is part of a global transportation network. If this station was large enough before it collapsed, we might be able to find a read-only storage device in its medical center. If we’re lucky, it might have been kept in a shock-absorbent container. If we’re even luckier, we might find a set of fermentation tanks. If we’re extremely lucky, those tanks might still contain spore state of a special yeast..."

Hiroshi Matsushima shook his head: "Wait, my brain isn’t working right now, I can’t keep up. What’s that ’read-only storage device’?"

"Ah, didn’t you know? If there’s no need for ’repeatable erasure,’ humans can indeed create devices capable of storing information for a long time," TX-0 said. "Let’s talk while walking."

Hiroshi Matsushima stood up. Only then did he notice that he had been leaning against a piece of a broken train, its dust caked into clumps. When Hiroshi Matsushima arrived, he had fallen onto this object, knocking down a good amount of the clumped dust. Underneath was a patchy sign. There was a capital "H" followed by a smaller "H+" on the upper right corner, Hiroshi Matsushima casually wiped it, and beside it was the symbol "H+."

"This..."

"Ah, the ’Superhuman emblem’. Didn’t notice it just now,"

Familiar with the stories of Martial Ancestor, Hiroshi was quite astonished: "Is that what it means?"

"Originally not, but it ended up being that too. Martial Ancestor himself joked about it," TX-0 said. "You see, this thing, in the past, was a connected global underground transportation network. Initiated by Martial Ancestor, various institutions shared the technology, multiple countries collaborated to solve employment issues..."

"What is the job position?" Hiroshi Matsushima interrupted.

"Sss... it’s hard to explain to you right now. Stop interrupting, just think of it as a ’very important issue for an old organization.’" Zero continued, "This thing is very complicated, supported by distributed computing resources provided by the global network, powering several powerful AIs to command. For the Martial Ancestor back then, it was a display of his ideals, his determination, as well as his power and technology."

Following Zero’s "mission clue," Hiroshi Matsushima left the train and started climbing upwards: "So?"

"Many stations are equipped with a very simple medical center. It occupies a small area, half of which belongs to a computer and a few fermentation tanks," Zero added, "Do you know about the Yawill method? It uses microbial metabolism to synthesize most organic compounds in a special extraction method."

Back then, a small group of people wanted to rely on ’pharmaceutical knowledge’ to achieve long-lasting wealth. The World Openers defeated them. To declare their victory... or to show their determination, in short, they even equipped each station with such a mini-factory... All stations could be self-sufficient in producing any type of emergency medicine."

Hiroshi Matsushima broke through a nearly shattered wall and entered a very narrow crevice: "What is that permanent read-only storage device for?"

"’Even if there was a huge disaster, humans could rely on these devices to reboot. Just need sugar and water... and a bit of electricity.’ That’s what a predecessor said back in the day," Zero said, "They thought that if humans faced natural disasters or any war, losing the network, they could quickly produce common medicines with the data stored at this base—Who could have guessed back then that humans would create ’the Great Infection,’ a tragedy no medicine could cure?"

"Then what? What use is this equipment to us?"

"Medications that suppress inflammatory responses are also considered common. Some surgeries really need this stuff."

"So I still need to find sugar and water now?"

"Sugar isn’t hard to come by. People with a low degree of cyberization eat sugar. At least getting some sugar now is far less difficult than breaking through blockades to get to other supply points," Zero said, "Even if we can’t get that, the data storage device is still worth taking out. It contains some data that is currently being scrutinized, many Heroes can’t find resources now."

"That’s too much relying on luck."

"Otherwise? I just happened to escape into this ruin. Looking at this place, maybe no one has been here for two hundred years. So there’s value in taking a gamble," Zero suggested, "If we don’t take a gamble, we’ll just have to wait for reinforcements."

"Did you also call for reinforcements?" Hiroshi Matsushima asked, "The Martial God?"

"Oh. What else?" Zero replied.

"When did you call?"

"Before we escaped, I sent a command to one of my online AIs. If things go south, it would automatically process the last set of data we uploaded into a video and upload it, while sending a distress signal to several specific targets," Zero explained, "It’s been a few days, I guess."

Hiroshi Matsushima suddenly stopped, "Hey, I think your premise is wrong. This place isn’t one that hasn’t been visited for hundreds of years."

By now, Hiroshi Matsushima had squeezed into the narrowest area. It was a stable zone formed by the collapse of several large building materials.

A crude terminal was standing there. Even Hiroshi Matsushima could tell that the style of this device was out of place with the surrounding ruins, obviously added later.

"Hmm, done," Zero admitted, "I completely don’t understand why there’s a terminal here in a place with no signal."

Hiroshi Matsushima pressed the power button on the computer: "Let’s find out, shall we?"

Accompanied by a buzzing sound, the old terminal actually powered on.

Hiroshi Matsushima connected a data cable directly to this terminal. Zero took over the perception: "Let me see... Hmm?"

Zero, controlling Hiroshi Matsushima’s prosthetic eye, moved to the back of the large terminal. He saw a strange-looking machine connected to a data cable.

"Alright, a small drone pulled a wire up through the crevice. It’s powered by a nuclear battery. The device was made by a Hero, pretty skilled. Capable of steadily hunting Mobile Cavalry, probably here for an assassination of a Lord," Zero continued his exploration, "Let’s see... a Hero called ’Yulin.’ The system’s last time record is 205 years. For about a decade or two. He was collecting intelligence here."

"This place is an unknown fortress, then he set up a peephole here. Connected to the network, it was enough for him to collect intelligence related to the Lord from various clues... Wow."

"Hmm?" Hiroshi Matsushima sensed something was off.

"Ah Hong, I have good news and bad news, which one do you want to hear first?"

Hiroshi Matsushima shook his head, "The bad news?"

"Your apprentice is going to be executed, the ones who were caught," Zero said.

He was using Hiroshi Matsushima’s brain now. He had to say it. Even if he didn’t mention it now, the outcome of the brain’s chemical activities would still linger in Hiroshi Matsushima’s mind. He would "feel" it eventually.

Though Zero didn’t want to say it at all.

He continued, "Amilcare wants you to go to a specified location in twelve hours, otherwise..."

Before he could finish, Hiroshi Matsushima stood up.

"Hey, hey, I recommend you listen to the good news, okay?" Zero earnestly suggested.

Hiroshi Matsushima took a deep breath, "If you’re going to say ’I’m heading to my death’..."

"No, not at all," Zero interjected, "Keep going deeper, there’s a fridge inside. If you open it, you’ll find some drugs that are still usable after a decade or so in a cold environment. It includes some that you’ll find useful. If you look closely at that fridge, you’ll discover it’s actually designed to be installed on a prosthetic body."

"That Hero had acquired a nice refrigeration unit but hadn’t managed to assemble the other prosthetic parts to match it. There are also metal foil-wrapped parts nearby. With these, you might still have a chance to survive."