Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 770 - 16: Abyssal One

Chapter 770: Chapter 16: Abyssal One

At the end of the twentieth century, a rumor had once circulated, claiming that humans only utilized about five percent of their brain, and that proficient scientists could use roughly ten percent. But this, of course, was incorrect.

The brain consumes so much energy, that if there were really so many useless areas, they would not have evolved in the first place.

The human brain is constantly at work, but most of it is installed with the body’s "operating system"—breathing, heartbeat, expressions, muscles, all are continually managed by the brain.

This is also another advantage that Cybernetically Enhanced People possess.

Cybernetically Enhanced People, especially those with a high degree of modification, have various physiological functions that can be substituted by artificial means. No need to breathe, nor a heartbeat; sitting or walking—all are controlled by chips and algorithms. The brain only needs the simplest commands.

It is for this reason that Tao Enhai dared to adopt the approach of "hollowing out the brain, leaving only the cortex"—because in this era, the most important part of the brain is the advanced region that generates self-consciousness; the rest can be handled by the Prosthetic Body.

Naturally, the price to pay is that emotions become more subdued, restrained, lacking in passion.

As one can see, Cybernetically Enhanced People with a high modification rate do have many idle neural cells.

And these neural cells can be stimulated through drugs, meditation, and training to activate the brain’s own compensatory functions, bringing them under the control of Soth Divine Realm.

Many self-suggestions require physical movements and emotions, and this is related to that.

But that is a very profound state. Ordinary practitioners of Internal Skills might not be able to access such deep matters.

In other words, many parts of the Benchmark Man’s brain are indeed difficult for ordinary people to use in their lifetime.

Naturally, the degeneration of these parts would not be so obvious.

At that time, the Phantom of Xiang Shan still pretentiously scrutinized the detailed image, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, from this perspective, it seems that you have rebirthed me—But now, I really am quite ugly."

"Why would this happen..." Jeanne said absentmindedly.

"Let me think... read my memories? Probably not," Xiang Shan analyzed. "The technique of ’inducing cellular cancer transformation by reading specific information’ is just too fantastical. Brain information processing and cellular life responses occur on two levels that are not strongly associated. The most likely possibility is drugs... Someone switched out the drugs you were using while you were reading my memories, causing some cells to lose control. Under the inducement of my memories, this me ultimately appeared."

——Drugs...

Jeanne immediately thought of something.

Practicing Inner Strength requires drugs. Then certain psychological disorders are also treated with drugs. Some drugs can also enhance a person’s focus, accelerating the cultivation of Internal and External Skills...

Her opportunities to use drugs were not few.

But why...?

Jeanne thought carefully and suddenly felt that there was something off about the quartermasters and medics in the training camp.

But she didn’t have time to ponder further.

The current priority was to remove the "Supervising Battle Officer."

To avoid being set off by masters of Internal Skills, the "Supervising Battle Officer" would not be connected to any network. It was an independent device that only detected "hostility towards superiors" in the brain and would release an electrical signal to trigger the apoptosis of brain cells upon detection.

Many elites in the training camp had failed to escape for this reason.

And Jeanne understood why she hadn’t died.

"The consciousness to kill someone" usually happens in the neocortex, so the Supervising Battle Officer would only monitor certain areas of the neocortex.

But the thoughts of this "tumor" Xiang Shan occurred in what used to be the part of Jeanne’s brain that controlled lower-level functions.

As for why King Aqini didn’t kill with a single thought, the reason was even more straightforward.

"I secretly released a patch," Xiang Shan said.

With Xiang Shan’s assistance, Jeanne managed to take down the Supervising Battle Officer. Right after that, she immediately embarked on the path of escape.

It wasn’t until they had been in hiding for ten years that Xiang Shan and Jeanne began to slightly understand the events of that year.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, that reason is just too ridiculous."

At that time, they had just left Earth and arrived on Mars.

In the database of a Scientific Knight Order, Jeanne found records of the incident from that year.

Members with a sense of justice had emerged within the Martial God Special Operations Unit’s training camp. It was assumed that it was due to reading Martial God memories or the illegal use of Restoring Enzyme or similar drugs during training.

As results showed, indeed, some of the trainees in the rebellion displayed a level of martial arts cultivation that didn’t match the records.

And they were all female.

Moon-related experts believed that this could be due to females having stronger empathy and a greater capacity to empathize, which made them more susceptible to being immersed in Xiang Shan’s memories. They suggested that the Martial God Special Operations Unit should only select male trainees in the future.

Regarding this, Xiang Shan’s assessment was...

"What is this, a gender-bent ’Claymore’ setting?" "Xiang Shan" scoffed at it.

Claymore... To be honest, the term only reminded Jeanne of "landmines."

It was probably another two or three years before Jeanne managed to piece together the backstory of that fictional tale through the intermittent revelations from "Xiang Shan."

Simply put, it was about a fictional world where man-eating creatures called "demons" existed. To combat these demons, humans had to implant the flesh of demons into their own bodies, becoming warriors known as ’Claymores’, using demonic power to fight against demons. The original warriors were all male.

But using demonic power in a human body, once surpassed a certain limit, the warrior would turn into a creature more terrifying than a demon. Unleashing that power was accompanied by a kind of physical pleasure. Men could not resist this pleasure and would continue to unleash power, quickly turning into monsters. Women, with their stronger inner tenacity, could hold out fighting for much longer.

Now, this report from the Moon pointed out that in the training programs for the Martial God Special Operations Unit, the high empathy of female trainees might trigger counterproductive effects, and thus they suggested switching all the trainees in the camp to males.

Xiang Shan’s evaluation of this conclusion was: "Stupid. Does Hartman, that idiot, really believe this? Gender is obviously not the main factor. Compared to the records of those historical Martial Gods, it’s clear that individuals with biological male sex are more likely to match the original Xiang Shan’s personality data... hmm, oh, on a closer count, that’s a bit odd?"

Among the known Twelve Martial Gods, the First Martial God — Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan himself — was of course undoubtedly biologically male and psychologically male.

But the identities of the following eleven were not so certain.

The Second Martial God and the Third Martial God were both clearly Pseudo-personality Masks, AIs, and strictly speaking, had no biological sex.

The Fourth Martial God and the Eighth Martial God were biologically male and female, respectively.

Although the Ninth Martial God was presented in public records as a True Personality Mask with a real biological male sex, the members of the Martial God Special Operations Unit were entitled to know the truth — that he was fundamentally also an AI.

The remaining Fifth Martial God, Sixth Martial God, Seventh Martial God, Tenth Martial God, and The Twelfth Martial God’s biological sexes were unclear — the information circulating online couldn’t even confirm whether they were human or AI, let alone their biological sex.

Then there was the Eleventh Martial God... According to information spreading online, it seemed more likely that they were originally female.

This statistical result left Xiang Shan somewhat astonished for a moment.

From then on, Jeanne got a few odd nicknames. Things like "Silver King," "Abyssal One of the North," or "Little North," "Horse," and so on.

Because of this, Jeanne argued with Xiang Shan for several years.