Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 818: The Body in the Coffin
"What is this?" Thirty-three stared at the projection screen with his eyes wide open. "Is it your... clone?"
"It should be something like the prophet's 'stand-in', right?" Ke Lan whispered, "I feel like I can control it."
As Ke Lan's mind moved, the young man in the picture who looked exactly like Ke Lan raised his right hand and sucked an assault rifle that had fallen on the ground into his palm.
"Is this a spatial ability?" After experiencing so many things that could not be explained by common sense, Sanshisan was not surprised by any bizarre scene. He turned around and glanced at Ze Luo, "This guy seems to be the same kind as you?"
"No." Unexpectedly, Ze Luo shook his head, and a trace of fear appeared on his face, which was rarely expressionless. "That's not my kind."
"Huh?" Seeing Ze Luo's expression, Sanshisan was even more surprised than when he saw Ke Lan's "copy" walk out of the black coffin. "You seem to be very... well, how should I describe it... very afraid of this thing? Is he your natural enemy?"
Ze Luo still shook his head: "I don't know. I just think he is very dangerous."
Thirty-three: "But Ke Lan said he can control this thing, so it should be on our side. No matter how dangerous it is, we should be worried about the enemy."
"What makes him dangerous is that he is difficult to control. Although Ke Lan is controlling him now, as long as he absorbs enough fragments of consciousness, he will be able to awaken his own self-awareness and become the master." Ze Luo spoke clearly and his sentences were fluent. Sanshisan recognized every word in his words... but when these words were connected together, he was a little confused.
"What? What about absorbing consciousness fragments? Turning the tables?" Thirty-three asked in confusion.
"You can think of him as a new artificial intelligence, and the soldiers he killed are equivalent to the complex data streams on the Internet... Artificial intelligence with self-learning ability can evolve to a more advanced level by absorbing, screening, and analyzing large amounts of data. When the redundant data reaches a qualitative change point, the artificial intelligence may give birth to its own individual consciousness, which is the 'machine crisis' often mentioned in science fiction works." Ze Luo explained.
The first of the three philosophical questions is "Who am I?" As intelligent organisms, everyone, whether a toddler or an octogenarian, has had this question in their mind to a greater or lesser extent.
There are many answers to this question: name, identity, occupation, status, species... These answers are all correct, but they are also one-sided. It is for this reason that this question has become an eternal problem that philosophers have studied for countless years.
Of course, what we are discussing now is not philosophy - when an artificial intelligence is asked this question, its standard answer is most likely its own model and software version, or the serial number of the core processing chip... but this is just a procedural question and answer. But when an artificial intelligence starts to think about this question without any external inducement, its creator should consider two options:
Should we format this artificial intelligence before it fully awakens, or take the huge risk and watch the birth of a completely new life form.
"I roughly understand..." Sanshisan said, "You mean this thing is just a puppet now, so Ke Lan can easily control it. But he will continue to absorb things from other people's brains - knowledge, memory, thinking methods and other things, and then transform himself from a puppet into a complete 'person' with an independent personality, right?"
"almost."
"What does it mean to turn the tables? Could it be that after this thing awakens its self-awareness, it can control Ke Lan in turn? But Ke Lan is not a puppet—"
"Because he is much stronger than Ke Lan." Ze Luo said.
Thirty-three's eyes twitched and he said, "That is to say, if this guy wakes up, Ke Lan won't have any chance to resist?"
"The moment he awakens, Ke Lan and his self-consciousness will be absorbed and assimilated by him... just like what the god believed in by the Alpha people did to the Eclipse." Ze Luo paused for half a second and continued, "Moreover, this outcome is inevitable... because the connection between Ke Lan's consciousness and that body cannot be broken."
When the puppet is stronger than the puppeteer, the silk thread connecting the two will become a rope that entangles the puppeteer in.
"Is there really no solution at all?"
"Yes, destroy this body... but it will cause great trauma to Ke Lan's mind, and he might just turn into a fool... There is another way, which is to make Ke Lan stronger than him before he awakens."
…
Ark, core area, secret room.
The few voices that were originally calm and composed now had a hint of nervousness, and the previously confident voice became furious: "What's going on? What on earth is going on?! Everything is going according to plan, what link has gone wrong?"
"The most urgent thing is to find out what came out of the 'Black Coffin'." said another voice that had been pouring cold water on them. At this time, he no longer had the mood or time to mock his companions. This plan was originally a risky move and could not afford to make any mistakes.
According to the original idea, as long as every step can be done without any error, even if it is a risky move, the final outcome will be a safe outcome... His body, which has been stored in the "White Coffin" for decades, will be awakened in a "semi-deified" state, and human civilization will enter a new stage...
But now, the development of things has gone beyond the control of these people... It's like a train derailed on the edge of a cliff, falling towards an unknown abyss.
"I'll try to find out - ah!" said the mechanical voices, and stopped talking halfway through his words, followed by a short scream.
…
The Ark, core area, an unnamed room.
In this room, there are a lot of mysterious devices, most of which are from the remains of Alpha civilization. Even the most knowledgeable professors in the institute can hardly tell the names and uses of more than one-tenth of the devices. These devices are connected to each other, and the crystals used as indicator lights are flashing brilliant colorful lights... In the center of the room, there is a strangely shaped medical cabin with the hatch open. On the side of the medical cabin, there is an inscription in the language of Alpha civilization: "Coffin of Eternal Life Sequence: Nine".
Inside this medical cabin , there was a person lying... or rather, a monster that barely retained a human shape.
Hundreds of tubes and wires are connected to the body of this humanoid monster, and even its head is covered with densely packed electrodes - these electrodes penetrate directly through the scalp and skull, reaching deep into the brain .
Suddenly, the crystalline indicator lights of all the equipment in the room lit up with extremely dazzling light, and then exploded one after another. The humanoid monster lying in the medical cabin sat up as if it had been electrocuted, with its mouth wide open, as if it was making a silent cry.
The next second, red-gold flames spurted out from its eyes and spread to its entire body in just half a second... Soon, the body of this humanoid monster was burned to ashes, without even a trace of residue left.
However, there were no signs of burning on the inner wall of the medical cabin. Even the tubes and electrodes that were originally connected to the humanoid monster were intact. Even the blood stains on them were "burned" clean.
It was as if the person just lying in this medical cabin was just a realistic illusion simulated by a holographic projection.
…
Ark, core area, secret room.
"Just now, the news has been confirmed... The ninth member, 'Hermit' Kronos, has lost all signs of life."
Kronos, the king of Titans in ancient Greek mythology, the second generation king of Olympus, is the ninth "Hermit" in the Major Arcana, which means exploration and knowledge.
Kronos is the most severely corroded member of the Undead Crew, so he can only stay in the room specially made for him, relying on the equipment excavated from the Alpha ruins to suppress the progress of the erosion... But while the erosion takes away the body and soul of an individual organism, it also gives the individual a part of "His" power, although it is only a very insignificant part, but for humans, this power is already equivalent to a miracle.
What Kronos gained was the ability to "see".
There are one hundred and twenty-eight eyes on his face, and each eye corresponds to an ability related to "seeing". His vision is not blocked by space and time to a certain extent. He can not only see the past, but can even peek into the future to some extent.
But until everything happened before his death, he still couldn't see through the fog shrouding Ke Lan.
Kronos never told this to other members of the Undead Crew.
His code name is "Hermit", and this room is the "retreat" arranged for him by other members of the Undead Crew... but to put it nicely, it's a "retreat", to put it bluntly, it's a prison.
The coffin of eternal life is the shackles on his body, and the room outside filled with equipment is the prison where he is imprisoned.
In fact, only a small part of these devices are used to suppress the progress of erosion, and the vast majority are used to "amplify" his ability... In layman's terms, they are like telescopes and signal receivers.
The other members of the Undead Crew have been exploiting him... not just him, every member of the Undead Crew is the same... they are both chess players and chess pieces... in order to achieve a seemingly impossible goal, they sold their souls and made deals with the devil.
No, to be precise, it should be a transaction with the "God".
But not everyone is willing to do so. The seeds of hatred and resentment had taken root in his heart many years ago.
He has been hiding one thing from the other members of the Undead Crew: he has never seen clearly Ke Lan's past and future... From his perspective, Ke Lan is like a wormhole hidden in the corner of the universe, sucking in all the approaching light, making it impossible to observe.
This chess piece was a variable, but he never mentioned it.
Only Kronos knew that the so-called perfect plan was actually a joke from the very beginning.
It's just that he was tired and fed up with living for such a long time, and he felt that it was time to end it all.
How could they possibly accomplish something that even the Alpha civilization couldn't accomplish?
Rather than meeting the end in despair, it is better to give up from the beginning.
…
"Kronos is dead?" The angry voice turned into astonishment, "Where is the surveillance video of that room?"
"I've seen it," another voice replied. "He was burned to death."
"Burn to death? How is that possible? There's no way a fire could have happened in that room!"
"The fire that burned him to death was not the kind of fire you imagined." The second voice was silent for a few seconds, and then chanted in a pious tone: "Any blasphemer who attempts to touch His domain will be punished by Him. If you try to spy on God with mortal eyes, God's fire will burn his eyes blind; if you try to describe God with mortal words, God's arrows will pierce his throat; if you try to touch God with your hands and feet stained by the mortal world, God's sword will cut off his limbs..."
"What is this?" asked the first voice.
"A prayer left by the Alphas to praise the power and inviolable sanctity of the great gods they believe in." Another voice replied, "If I remember correctly, this stone tablet should be kept in cabinet No. 94 on the fourth floor of the secret vault."
“You mean, Kronos was burned to death because he spied on something related to Him? But it was just a body. Even if it was half-deified, it couldn’t have such power!”
"Zeus! I know you already have the answer in your heart, but you just don't want to say it out loud." Another voice said, revealing the other party's true identity.
The fourth seat of the Undead Crew is "King" Zeus.
"Complete deification... Impossible, absolutely impossible!" Zeus shouted hysterically, "You and I both know that it is just a body without a soul. A body without a soul can never meet the conditions for complete deification. It can only be semi-deified at best. That's why we were so confident in giving the White Coffin..."
At this point, Zeus seemed to have remembered something and suddenly stopped. After several seconds, he muttered to himself: "No, this is not the White Coffin... The things inside are not the body we put in there at the beginning..."
