Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 531 - 64: The Lord

"Mr. Prototype, please come this way."

Not long after, Tuu Xiaoyu followed the arrangement and took them to tour the entire Divine Land Realm.

The shuttling between ’hardware’ consumes quite a bit of ’traffic’, which refers to the life of Digital Life, but if using Earth Net Group’s internal channel, there’s no such consumption at all.

At this moment, Tuu Xiaoyu was leading Gao Gong and another person along an underwater corridor; in the eyes of Digital Life, it was a ’corridor’, but in reality, it was an underwater fiber optic cable.

Dida was curiously looking around.

The speed of the ’fiber optic cable’ is light-speed, which no Digital Life can tolerate, but Earth Net Group imposed a speed limit, making Dida feel as if she was on a sightseeing bus; this feeling between virtual and reality was quite fresh for her.

Outside the sides of the fiber optic cable was a grand underwater project, with countless drone machines working, laying networks, installing digital signal stations.

"Our goal is for all future Digital Life to freely travel to any place on this planet."

"I thought you were building the Virtual Realm to completely leave reality."

Tuu Xiaoyu shook her head, "Quite the opposite, creating the Digital Realm is to better transform reality. After all, if hardware can’t keep up, how could we talk about immortality?"

"What’s that?" Gao Gong looked towards the southeast, at the glowing source; instinctively, he felt a powerful energy wave.

"That’s the Earth Crust Engine, a large building platform we developed jointly with a corporation named Metal Slug."

Metal Slug, members of the Skull Society, highlighting Level 3 Civilization large-scale architecture is not surprising.

"The Earth Crust Engine, I’ve heard the Ancient Empire has a similar operation," Gao Gong said casually.

Tuu Xiaoyu nodded, "Our research direction is different from theirs; the Ancient Empire’s Earth Crust Engine mainly extracts thermal energy from the Earth Core, using nuclear fusion reactions to convert it into kinetic energy for heavy machinery operations, while we focus more on energy storage."

"Energy storage?"

"Sustaining a massive Virtual Realm consumes enormous energy; ensuring hardware doesn’t downtime due to celestial calamities or human accidents, energy reserves are crucial."

Dida subconsciously glanced at Gao Gong; did Mr. G know about this long ago?

"It seems your side is not only deeply intent on creating the Virtual Realm but also very proactive," Gao Gong commented with an admiring expression, seemingly completely immersed in the beauty of large-scale architecture.

Tuu Xiaoyu nodded, somewhat proudly, "If we can create illusion from reality, naturally we can pave reality through illusion; this is our company’s philosophy."

"Ms. Tuu, are you also Digital Life?" Dida asked curiously.

Tuu Xiaoyu didn’t hide anything: "I am 30th generation Digital Life."

"So, you strongly support your group’s plan?"

"Of course, Digital Life are loyal supporters of the group; completing the group’s goals also expands our living environment."

Dida thought of what Mr. G had previously mentioned to him; AI, which is real Artificial Intelligence, would not support Earth Net Group’s plan; they have their personality templates and physical shells (hardware), allowing them to roam the Cyber Network and enjoy superior status in reality; compared to humans, they are more inclined to maintain the current social structure.

But Digital Life is different; they have no dedicated processors, meaning they can’t log into Cyber Space; once logged in, consciousness conversion would destroy their already fragile personality, and in reality, they can only survive relying on Divine Land hardware; once the hardware is destroyed, they would be finished too.

Thus, the notion of AI rebellion, AI independence, is impossible for Digital Life.

Dida seemed to have understood; Digital Life is a type of ’AI’, and what Earth Net Group does is cultivating an ’AI team’ supporting themselves.

Thinking this way, the perception of ’mad scientist’ diminished significantly, replaced by a shrewd politician.

"Let’s go, see the real Divine Land; I’m quite curious how pure ’Digital Life’ is born," Gao Gong said after lastly glancing at the Earth Crust Engine.

"Sure, do come along."

Being a pioneer of an advanced Virtual Realm, Gao Gong actually knows more; many people, even some cosmic races, have certain misunderstandings about Virtual Civilization and Information Civilization.

Whenever Mechanical Civilization is mentioned, it reminds everyone immediately of ’infrastructure maniac’, ’planet pavers’, ’cannon fodder producers.’

In fact, without illuminating ’String Theory’, ’Space Secret Dimension’, ’Quantum Sea’—these advanced space theories—a basic ’Virtual Civilization’ is equally an ’infrastructure giant.’

Without various hardware protections, Virtual Civilization is also very fragile; not to mention ascension, even slight disturbances would significantly impact the Virtual Realm.

Knowing this, Gao Gong confirmed that Earth Net Group’s strength in building infrastructure, focusing on Energy Technology, even surpasses some military groups.

Creating virtual humans isn’t that easy.

A few days ago, Director Du rarely sent a message, suggesting he inquire about knowledge related to ’Energy Technology’; Du Gao Group encountered a bottleneck.

...

Meanwhile, David Hilbert was continuously uploading data, to be precise, uploading himself.

The Virtual Space of ’Divine Land’ is not like Cyber Space; it’s a parallel structure, more like a ’Pyramid’; the more iterations Digital Life undergoes, the more qualified they are to enter higher-level Digital Space, and the higher the level of Digital Space, the more stable the space architecture becomes.

For example, the fifth layer he currently resides in has reached the level of synchronization with reality; changes in reality will be fully reflected in the Virtual Space.

On the radiation-polluted ocean surface, a yacht was speeding toward its destination, an uninhabited island.

David Hilbert jumped ashore, was frisked, and walked directly toward the center of the island.

The island had no special features except for the center, where there lay a very large and complex altar.

Besides David, several high-levels of Earth Net Group had arrived early, and apart from Earth Net Group, other superpowers of Divine Land also sent prominent figures to participate.

Soon, the altar perimeter was surrounded by people, each of them, individually presented, being prestigious figures within Divine Land.

What they were awaiting was an unremarkable old woman; she seemed ready to collapse at any moment, with errors saturating her surface.

Nonetheless, such a primitive Digital Life was Divine Land’s first Digital Life, and she had another identity, the Lord’s representative.

The old woman scanned the group, everyone holding their breath, and the old woman opened her mouth, releasing a series of bizarre numbers, then her Digital Life ended.

She disintegrated into the most primitive digital signals.

David Hilbert’s eye twitched sharply, and the people around him were startled; the Lord’s messenger was gone!?

This string of numbers was quickly resolved; some rejoiced, some wept.

Because the message in this string of numbers was—

In half a year, the Lord will descend.