Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 771 - 17 Tumor Xiang Shan

Chapter 771: Chapter 17 Tumor Xiang Shan

Between planets of the Solar System, countless ships were in operation. The terrestrial planets offered minerals and rare earth elements, the gas giants provided nuclear fuel, and every Space City produced technical products—including various resources from the Asteroid Belt such as water...

And of course, there were soldiers, all kinds of soldiers. These soldiers hailed from the more densely populated "inner zones," moving into areas near the Asteroid Belt that interwove with heroic forces.

The government maintained its links across the Solar System in this loose manner.

Yet, these cargo ships did not always return full. Sometimes, the owners of these ships would benevolently hold a lottery, ferrying the lucky winners to their next destination—this was also the primary method of interstellar immigration in this era.

There were also government-operated civilian interstellar flight routes. Anyone who could pay enough resources could use them, yet these flights often took months to years to gather sufficient passengers, making them less expedient than the free lottery cargo ships.

Those seeking adventure would approach the Asteroid Belt or Jupiter’s domain, while those wishing to become workers or Elite Martial Artists headed for Space City.

Those who couldn’t tolerate the first two options would choose the surfaces of terrestrial planets—Earth being the best option.

Of course, having choices often meant an individual could save sufficient resources.

Many others simply had no choice.

Yet for the Heroes and other non-submissive characters, "Earth" was exactly the worst option.

King Aqini was immensely powerful.

King Aqini dominated the entire Earth-Moon system network with his peerless Inner Strength.

Xiang Shan and Jeanne had laid low underground for a long time, only re-emerging to be active several years after the events had calmed down.

By then, the pair, sharing a brain, dared not access the internet, instead directly starting to plan "blending into a flight."

During this time, Jeanne gradually got used to the old coot Xiang Shan. She began to ignore the quirky terminologies he occasionally sprouted and no longer paid attention to his odd nicknames and adjectives.

After arriving on Mars, the two were finally able to communicate normally.

Aside from those nonsensical habits, Xiang Shan was quite like a regular old man.

But this was also odd.

Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan underwent the Benchmark Human Remodeling Surgery sometime between the ’40s and ’50s—he had enjoyed exercising his body in the old days, and thus could be categorized in the "healthy" batch. To ensure the functioning of the Superman Enterprise, he didn’t undergo the surgery until after the Standardization Modification Surgery was fully established—which was considerably risky.

But this was only relatively speaking.

Neither the physique nor the mindset of Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan ever truly aged.

According to historical records, Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan had always looked as if in his prime. He didn’t have the habit of growing a beard, let alone a goatee.

But "Tumor Xiang Shan" didn’t care much about it: "Compared to a little girl like you, I should have this kind of mindset... This might precisely be the attitude I wanted to achieve in history but couldn’t."

"What do you mean?"

"Aging," Tumor Xiang Shan was sitting on a small stool at the time. This image was just a model, he wouldn’t interact with the surrounding wind and sand. Jeanne found this somewhat incongruent.

He flipped through the data captured by the crawler, casually saying, "My... that ’me’ had always wished for that company to be peacefully split into many different enterprises and institutions someday, so that he could hand over everything to the relevant departments, keep a title, receive a pension, and then play games, write novels, travel, fish... When in the mood, he could even conduct some research of his own without crediting his name. He wished to live like that for at least a hundred years, and then to age and die peacefully. When dying, looking back at his life in pride and satisfaction, surrounded by friends and family. Yeah, just like that."

Jeanne shook her head: "I can’t believe you would be such a person."

At this moment, she still genuinely believed that she might have uncovered part of the real truth behind "Martial God Geng Sheng."

Many True Personality Mask Martial Gods were just poor souls killed by brain tumors.

And now, it was her turn.

Regarding this, Xiang Shan neither agreed nor disagreed.

After reaching Mars, the two individuals sharing a brain finally turned the situation around, obtaining help on Mars. Under the guidance of Xiang Shan, Jeanne managed to blend into the Hero community.

And they were lucky enough to get exactly what they needed—a laboratory.

To understand the matters regarding Yawgmoth and others, Xiang Shan had specifically studied related knowledge.

And the tutorials that came with the laboratory could simplify many operations to the degree that even a monkey could perform them.

Tumor Xiang Shan separated some brain cells from his "brain" for observation.

The lower function area of Jeanne’s brain had changed. Not just the neurons, even the parts that were originally neuroglial cells had changed. These cells were not only reactivating the life process; they had even differentiated into something different from all types of neurons recorded.

Furthermore, artificial neurons had been implanted in Jeanne’s brain. According to King Aqini’s side, these artificial neurons could form a virtual circuit, more suitable for executing Martial Studies Battle Formation.

However, Xiang Shan discovered that the artificial neurons in Jeanne’s brain differed significantly from the official information in her memory. They were transferring high-level information into the low-level regions—feeding this to the tumor that thought it was "Xiang Shan."

This tumor had turned into Xiang Shan in this way.

In reality, Xiang Shan had borrowed a significant part of Jeanne’s neural network to process sensory signals.

Within the tumor, the proto-oncogenes of the neurons were partially activated—something that was supposed to be impossible for neurons.

Neurons extending from the brain tumor were invading the high-function areas.

Jeanne’s thinking had long been affected. However, the human brain’s compensatory mechanism is very strong...

Now a portion of Jeanne’s cognitive activity was supported by the neural network within the tumor.

In other words, it was already not a stage where surgery could separate them.

If surgery was insisted upon, the most likely outcome would be two individuals who couldn’t think.

And Tumor Xiang Shan was indeed slowly consuming Jeanne’s life.

But oddly enough, even though the tumor’s cells had differentiated into a form even Xiang Shan couldn’t understand, Restoring Enzyme still worked effectively on them.

All types of Restoring Enzyme commercially available were effective on Tumor Xiang Shan’s neural network. This had been proven countless times during the practice of Inner Strength.

In other words, this was still a problem that Restoring Enzyme could solve.

Theoretically, by injecting a sufficient amount of Restoring Enzyme at once, the brain tumor could be reverted to its original state.