Chapter 18

The Starfish trembled, feeling a sense of fear, but before the muzzles of the Imperial Army, they still took steps into the Synaptic Condenser.

They might have thought about what they would face—

perhaps a factory of cruel oppression, perhaps a processing plant where they would be canned...

But the scene before them still exceeded their cognition.

Inside the massive cavity of the Synaptic Condenser were intricate cables hanging in mid-air, resembling nerves.

At short intervals on the cables were synaptic nodes packed with transistors and... and life-support pods.

The life-support pods were filled with orange-red thick liquid, in which were soaked various life forms of different races.

The nervous systems of these life forms were semi-peeled from their bodies and connected to the external cables through the life-support pods.

At a glance, hundreds of millions of sentient beings were suspended in this block.

Just as the sentient beings of the universe were shocked, a line of text appeared on the light screen:

【Disaster Empire Megastructure: Synaptic Condenser】

【The Disaster Empire's second most terrifying megastructure, a massive storage pool computing system.】

【It uses intricate cables, transistors, and life-support pods to link hundreds of millions of sentient, emotional beings together.】

【The population network consciousness formed by it will provide the Empire with computing power for calculation and storage.】

【Intense exploitation of individual processing organs will inevitably lead to brain damage in some networked "wetware".】

26. 【99% New Brain, Only Unsealed】

Formed by countless cables and hanging biological life-support pods, the brain-cortex-like machinery hung in the block.

In the biological life-support pods were all kinds of strange creatures; even silicon-based synthetics were hung among them.

Their nerves or circuits were semi-peeled from their bodies and connected to the cables, just like tiny synapses hanging on nerves.

From time to time, life forms in the life-support pods would wail, roll their eyes, and white smoke would emerge from their facial features.

Imperial Navy soldiers would step forward and drag out the creatures whose brains had been scorched to black charcoal.

【"Consciousness overload units in this batch: 325 million. Please replenish nerve chips in time to ensure the output of the Synaptic Condenser."】

The electronic voice echoed in the block, making the Starfish inside shudder.

It also made everyone across the universe shudder.

"Burning their own value for the Empire... so this 'burning' wasn't a metaphor."

"No wonder the Disaster Empire welcomes all refugees; it turns out they were waiting for them to walk right into the trap."

"The Synaptic Condenser is actually the Disaster Empire's second most terrifying megastructure..."

The Imperial Army in the light screen began to aim their bolters at the Starfish, pushing them one by one into the biological life-support pods.

The mechanical arms inside the pods quickly and concisely semi-peeled the Starfish's nerves and connected them to the cables.

A Starfish mother hugged her child tightly, crying to the Imperial Army that her child was still young and not to do this to it.

【"Only unsealed 99% new brain, child's own use... send to high-pressure calculation area."】

The Imperial Army said this before snatching the child from the mother's arms and sending it to the high-pressure calculation area.

In the mother's desperate eyes, she was also stuffed into a biological life-support pod, her nerves linked to the cables.

Then, massive amounts of data, unsolvable equations, and cumbersome calculations flooded into her brain.

She was forced to start solving these problems, and the nerves in her brain began to fatigue and overclock.

【"Lord Corps Commander."】

An Imperial auxiliary soldier asked while sending the last Starfish into a life-support pod:

【"If it weren't for so many refugees, the supply of nerve chips for the Synaptic Condenser really wouldn't keep up."】

【"Why do you think His Majesty and the administrative matrix let the Contingency invade only one-third of the universe?"】

The Imperial soldier said with a bit of dark humor:

【"We still have to thank the Contingency. Without it, where would the Empire find so many self-delivered nerve chips?"】

Fu Xuan fell into a brief stupor.

She realized her thinking was still too simple.

The Disaster Empire's way of doing things was indeed not constrained by any moral factors, or rather, they had a unique set of moral concepts.

Although she felt horrified, Fu Xuan's professional instincts couldn't help but make her calculate how much massive computing power the Synaptic Condenser could provide.

The Great Expansion Divination Array in front of her was essentially a data processing device.

It was similar to the Disaster Empire's Synaptic Condenser, except that the individual components inside were jade abaci rather than living organisms, and the Great Expansion Divination Array specialized in future prediction.

The original creator of the Great Expansion Divination Array sought inspiration from the "Omniscience" and, supplemented by the unique technology of the Luofu Xianzhou, created this unique prediction system.

But the prediction principle inside was a black box to the Luofu Xianzhou and even the sentient beings of the universe, but its massive computing power was undoubtedly real.

But Fu Xuan only calculated for a moment before she understood:

The computing power generated in one minute by the Synaptic Condenser, which connected the consciousness of hundreds of millions of sentient beings, was an astronomical figure.

Even the most complex Great Expansion Divination Array couldn't compete and could only sigh in admiration.

Fu Xuan looked at the Synaptic Condenser in the light screen, and a strange thought suddenly flashed in her mind.

"If..."

Fu Xuan muttered hesitantly:

"If the brains of Abundance monstrosities were linked together and their consciousness used to assist the Great Expansion Divination Array in calculation..."

Once this thought started, it couldn't be stopped in Fu Xuan's mind.

"Qingque!" Fu Xuan turned her head to look at Qingque, who was slacking off nearby.

"Ah?" Qingque jumped up suddenly: "Master Diviner, I wasn't slacking off!"

Looking at Qingque, who confessed without being asked, Fu Xuan was speechless.

She reached out and dragged Qingque in front of the Great Expansion Divination Array.

"Come, assist me in verifying a new design for the Great Expansion Divination Array."

"Ah?" Qingque blinked and said in disbelief: "A new design for the Great Expansion Divination Array?"

Qingque felt a bit dazed. The design of the Great Expansion Divination Array was based on the inspiration of the "Omniscience."

Although its internal structure was fully known to the Luofu Xianzhou, its principles had never been parsed.

It was a complete black box; no one knew what kind of changes would occur to the Great Expansion Divination Array after improvements were made.

Therefore, no one had ever made major improvements to the Great Expansion Divination Array.

"Master Fu Xuan, absolutely not! The traditions of the ancestors cannot be changed!"

Before Qingque could finish speaking, Fu Xuan punched her on the head: "You didn't learn the tradition of diligence sought by the sages of the Divination Commission, but you learned this set of things."

"What I want to do is not to improve the design of the Great Expansion Divination Array, but to improve its computing units."

Fu Xuan crossed her arms and said:

"I want to try... try using biological brains as computing units."

"Ah?" Qingque looked at Fu Xuan, couldn't help but hug her own head, and said in horror: "Don't, Master Diviner, if my brain is made into a computing unit, wouldn't I have to work overtime forever?"

"I won't use your slacking brain!"

Fu Xuan's eye twitched.

"Go, ask the Alchemy Commission for a few monkeys with some intelligence."

27. 【Xier, you are still young...】

"How did this group of Starfish offend you?"

In the Underworld of Belobog, Xier sat opposite Zhou Xuan and Xiao Hui, supporting her face with her hand and asking.

Zhou Xuan was quite interested in Jarilo-VI, the winter star from his previous life's game.

Sensing this, Bronya said she could arrange a tour for Zhou Xuan.

And Zhou Xuan said there was no need for a big fanfare; sending someone as a guide would suffice.

Thus, Zhou Xuan's guide in the Underworld of Belobog became Xier, the Wildfire girl trusted by Bronya.

"Is it necessary to treat them like this? How much deep hatred is there?"

Zhou Xuan smiled gently, used a fork to dismantle the fried rock crab on the plate, and stuffed the hot crab meat into his mouth.

"Xier, you are still young, and your understanding of the world is not clear enough."

"But that doesn't matter. When our civilization was still young, we also made similar mistakes."

Zhou Xuan said while chewing the crab meat in his mouth. ===== CHAPTER 19 =====