Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 746 - 001

Chapter 746: 001

At the end of the year 2077, Yawgmoth stood amidst the exquisite modeling that filled the sky.

They were visualizations of amino acids and their modifying groups. On the side of each bond and each group, there was a visualized Markov process, revealing to Yawgmoth the potential collapsing directions of this long chain.

According to principles such as the energy variation principle that are based on the second law of thermodynamics, this unstable polypeptide chain would eventually undergo spontaneous folding until it reached a stable state.

This "folding" process was magical. Polypeptide chains and simple modifying groups could fold into a wide variety of proteins. These proteins could even be viewed as molecular-sized mechanical parts, with countless mechanical parts meshing together to perform imprecise yet complex mechanical operations, upon which all life activities are established.

Complex eukaryotes even possess specialized organelles to assist in the folding of polypeptide chains.

And the sequence of these polypeptide chains, their folding methods, including the information on "structures that assist in the folding of polypeptides," could all be transcribed into binary or quaternary information, recorded by DNA or RNA.

DNA naturally contained the "elements that validate its own existence."

Decades ago, this process was almost invisible to humans. Nature, with its "miniscule" methods, encapsulated the entire process, and stuffed an endless amount of redundant code, BUGs, into the source code.

Yawgmoth’s work from decades prior was equivalent to providing humans with the working principles of "life"—he was like an early 20th-century engineer who dismantled logic gates from an alien computer, then understood how they worked, and even theoretically deduced the computer’s operating process.

Before that, humans were merely utilizing a black box, testing the functions of specific genes one by one.

But after that, the scope of biology suddenly became complete. Humans were astonished to discover that they were not struggling on their own, but rather, opening up vistas on a complete map.

Now, the laws of life were further deciphered. Humans suddenly understood how this chemistry-based language functioned. The rapid advances in biology seemed to be ignited overnight.

And when humans "customized" their own neurons to be more suited to electronic circuits, making the integration of the human brain and computers even tighter, human intelligence was greatly enhanced.

A new round of the "cognitive revolution" thus began.

Humans from before and after the "cognitive revolution" almost looked like two different species, with a gap so vast it was akin to the difference between "knowing how to use fire" and "not learning how to use fire." A small number of extreme conservatives who resisted these changes lived on reserves scattered across the globe, while humanity welcomed a new era of rapid development.

Biology, in this process, received yet another boost.

To humans who underwent a cognitive leap, the "vast and incomprehensible data" in the eyes of the old humans suddenly had "simple patterns." Hundreds, thousands of symbols, in their eyes, possessed the simplicity of musical notes. Any complex data instantly had the beauty of a "symphony."

In fact, these things had always been rhythmic; it’s just that the smallest units composing this "rhythm" also exceeded the intuitive memory capacity of the old humans, so they could not perceive this kind of beauty.

It was like a summer insect incapable of discussing ice.

On this basis, some people started from the functional genome and worked top-down to reverse-engineer the entire process of life. Others attempted a bottom-up approach, trying to reconstruct life’s blueprint.

And this huge success was now gathering before Yawgmoth.

Yawgmoth had a feeling that he was transcending the "physical layer" of life. The "kernel layer" of life processes was being exposed before him.

— It’s close, it’s very close...

Yawgmoth felt a wave of dizziness. He unplugged the data line behind his ear and rubbed his temples.

At that moment, he suddenly felt a sense of unreality.

— Is this year really... 2077...?

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Some parts of his memory became ambiguous in that instant. Yawgmoth suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore.

How strange. A mysterious sense of disharmony suddenly emerged.

Looking back on the past ten years of history, Yawgmoth immediately felt a sense of disarray. To use earlier history as an analogy, these ten years were akin to... Mendel and Morgan co-publishing a paper on the first day, followed by Darwin announcing his theory of evolution on the same day. Herman and Fengte discussed the physiology of neurons a few days apart. A week later, Watson and Crick discovered the double helix, and three days after that, they invented the central dogma. The supplement to the central dogma was completed within five days. Then, within the next week, humans invented optogenetics, which could directly interfere with certain physiological activities of the brain.

Such a whirlwind of rapid progress was just like...

When Yawgmoth came to his senses, he was already sitting at the dining table.

Xiang Shan methodically tore off a rib from the pork ribs, the juices flowing across the one-meter long wooden dining plate. Wearing heat-resistant gloves, he placed a rib with cartilage on the plate in front of Zhu Xinyu, and at the same time said to Yawgmoth, "This is the magic of wisdom, Yawgmoth."

Zhu Xinyu’s eyelids drooped slightly, her face adorned with a smile, she picked up her chopsticks and slowly nibbled on the ribs.

That’s when Yawgmoth remembered. It was supposed to be the time for an internal dinner at Superman Enterprise.

What had he just said... expressing to Xiang Shan his amazement over the fast progress in biology recently?

Xiang Shan continued to serve a rib to David. David also bowed slightly.

Xiang Shan then said, "You opened a door, do you remember? The alien spaceship brought the key."

In the 1930s, an alien spaceship brought a portion of biological samples. Even more astonishing, those biological samples were divided into eight different but interconnected systems.

On Earth, life occurred only once—all Earth life has a single common ancestor, the same primeval organism. However, the civilization that created those extraterrestrial beings might possess eight different Origins.

It was as if a "Super Rosetta Stone" had fallen into human hands. On the eight faces of the Stone, written in eight advanced languages completely incomprehensible to humans, were eight functional applications almost identical to each other.

—That doesn’t seem right... Rather than guessing that a planet’s life forms have eight different Origins and use eight different enzyme systems, it’s more plausible to assume that this was a research vessel that collected species samples from eight different planets...

—But then, if a civilization’s unmanned spaceship can collect species samples from eight different life-bearing planets, shouldn’t their technological level be far beyond humanity’s... Why did everyone unanimously believe back then... that the spaceship’s technology was more primitive than humanity’s at the time...

...

Xiang Shan continued to serve a rib to David. David accepted it with a chuckle and, without a care, grabbed it with his hands and chewed voraciously. Zhu Xinyu and Ingrid were joking around.

Xiang Shan smiled, "The ’vast potential’ is the bitter sea comprised of probabilities. Yet the power of wisdom can help us pass through this dark ocean. It is the compass, the Polaris. Do you know BB(n)?"

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