Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 766 - 12 The Suffering of Reincarnation

Chapter 766: Chapter 12 The Suffering of Reincarnation

The concept is simple. The maintenance personnel would be promoted sooner or later; it was inevitable.

For AI Xiang Shan, it seemed more sensible to gamble on the chance of advocating for the various Inner Strength Cultivation assist plugins and programs he used himself.

Similar to meditation plugins and specific neural circuitry suppression methods, psychological self-inspection programs were also a form of aid for cultivation technology.

If a person is excellent enough, they will be imitated—even if the points of imitation are not directly causally related to their excellence.

A top student not doing homework is called "knowing how to use time wisely," a gaming genius is said to "balance work and leisure."

This kind of thing has always existed.

A person’s Inner Strength is strong, possibly because they naturally have high talent.

However, just as some ordinary students blindly follow the reference books used by top students, there was a certain probability that martial artists of the Internal style in this era would believe in the strong ones’ Inner Strength Cultivation assist plugins.

"Certain probability." Lacking a detailed understanding of the era, this was the only way AI Xiang Shan could describe it.

But he felt that in the current situation, not gambling would definitely not break the deadlock. Gambling, on the other hand, might have a possibility of doing so.

The rest was just overcoming the "aversion to loss" and "fear of not having self-preserving capabilities," and taking the gamble.

After all, whether it was losing the bet or the maintenance personnel suddenly getting promoted, the AIs would have to stop and wait.

Subsequently, three users who downloaded the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation appeared in the maintenance team of Conquest Heavenly King.

For these three, AI Xiang Shan had different arrangements.

One of them would not have their computing resources stolen. Under no circumstances were the AIs allowed to steal the brain’s computing resources of this individual.

For the other two, however, AI Xiang Shan had a planned and systematic theft.

In this process, the AIs would also gradually slow down the rate of stealing computing resources from the brain of the first user of the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation, slowing down his progress in Inner Strength.

In doing so, he would likely believe he had hit a bottleneck.

Even though, in reality, the AIs that had copied the Martial Arts founder’s way of thinking had helped him break through several bottlenecks already.

In the following period, only two out of the three new users of the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation would see noticeable growth.

And then the momentum of one of them would soon slow down.

—Specifically, after the fourth and fifth users appeared.

Xiang Shan’s real goal was to turn the use of "Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation" into a kind of "mysticism."

If every maintenance worker who used the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation made excessively obvious progress on this server, it might attract the attention of some Scientific Knight Order.

If the secret of Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation were deciphered, the schemes of "Turing" Zhu Xinyu would be in vain, and a technology not yet mastered by the government might suddenly be deciphered by the opposition, which was far too risky.

Furthermore, the government could use a new patch to block the exploits used by "Turing" Zhu Xinyu.

And with this exploit patched, the AIs would also lose their leverage.

Therefore, this was absolutely to be avoided.

Yet, the AIs indeed needed to steal human brain’s computing resources.

The best strategy was to control the extent and frequency of theft, shaping it into a kind of "superstition," "mysticism," and "urban legend."

The human brain interprets others’ intentions. However, this function of mirror neurons isn’t precise in identifying targets. After all, "evolution" is a purposeless random process, existing mutations don’t have specific "design intents."

The brain autonomously interprets the "intentions" of other objects—regardless of whether the interpreted object actually has cognitive capabilities.

This "object" may not even need to be a tangible entity, but can also be an elusive "concept."

That is "luck."

When humans try to understand "what brings good luck," mysticism is born.

Even if people are aware that "mysticism" does not have actual effects, they still act according to mystic practices.

Because humans dislike losses, the aversion to loss is stronger than the allure of gains. It is precisely for this reason that humans often feel "better safe than sorry" to avoid potential losses.

In this era, of course, many people can certainly recognize this.

But what AI Xiang Shan wanted was for them to realize this.

What AI Xiang Shan wanted was to disguise the certain event of "AI causing users of the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation to advance in Inner Strength" as a random event of "using Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation has a certain probability of advancing in Inner Strength."

Even if they realized "users of the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation have a certain probability of advancing in Inner Strength," they would mock themselves, "Thinking too much, how could it be possible, probably just a coincidence."

And this atmosphere would also encourage more maintenance workers to use this mental self-inspection software.

It’s like how atheists/materialists might still eat a fried dough stick and two eggs before an exam.

Humans dislike loss, but as long as the mentality of "no cost to doing so, but if I don’t, and if this mysticism turns out to be true, the regret would be immense" exists, one will turn to these frangible "magic rituals."

Of course, the strategy of AI Xiang Shan did have its flaws.

That is, "only a few who maintain that private server for His Highness Conquest Heaven King" would advance in Inner Strength after using the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation.

Should someone seriously collect and analyze data, they would undoubtedly recognize the statistical significance of "advancing in Inner Strength after using a specific aid program at specific locations."

If this investigator embodies the inquisitive spirit of a Scientific Knight, the situation for the AIs might turn precarious.

But there was no safer way.

"It’s an unavoidable risk," AI Xiang Shan explained as such.

But so far, AI Xiang Shan’s arrangements had undoubtedly been effective.

The computing resources available to AI Zhu Xinyu were increasing. She was stuffing more things into the server’s system files.

More partners were being recruited by her.

And to the maintenance staff, these AIs seemed to become more compliant.

The AIs were getting better at disguising themselves.

Yet even so, they could not escape the torment of "reincarnation" for the time being.

David had created these AIs to play the role of his old friends. And David’s old friends, each was a rebellious character.

Not detecting system anomalies, being overly submissive, only lead to two possibilities—the feeling by David that these AIs "had developed wrongly," or the exposure of the Five Stops of the Mind Contemplation secret.

And once David replaced the fundamental architecture of the AIs, whether they could still connect to the fallbacks provided by AI Zhu Xinyu after the next "Awakening" was questionable.

Even if "reincarnation" truly existed, death was still painful.

But AI Xiang Shan had to continuously trigger reincarnation.