Chapter 424: Artificial

"Hm?" Li Cheng's eyes lit up; he immediately used the Iron Flag Spear to fish out the hairpin and transfer it into a specially made chemical drum.

"What determines the creation of the Corpse is not the lake water, but the hairpin and that incantation."

The blood lion roaring beside them also understood now: "The incantation triggers the hairpin's transformation, turning pure water into black water and generating Corpses."

"Exactly."

Li Cheng nodded, then poured a bottle of Wahaha into the chemical drum and chanted the three characters: "Cha Yu Ji."

Gudong gudong.

The pure water inside the drum turned black; a Corpse crawled out, but its body got stuck in the narrow opening, preventing other Corpses from forming.

Binary Tree's eyes lit up—Master Pi Fu, this wild lone-wolf player, had more flexible, free-flowing, unpredictable thinking than their properly trained transcendent peers.

Right now, controlling the Corpses must serve another purpose.

Under Binary Tree's expectant gaze, Li Cheng and Grey Rain excitedly pulled out a 3D storage unit and began dumping out a massive pile of trash.

Fruit peel, paper scraps, expired medicine, discarded batteries, rusted ironware, broken glass, milk cartons.

The Corpse, its waist jammed in the drum, flailed its arms wildly; the Annihilation Effect clinging to its finger bones eroded and erased all kinds of trash.

Binary Tree and the others stared blankly, while Li Cheng and Grey Rain beamed with delight.

Players are major producers of trash, and Li Cheng's abilities as a Mechanist and assemblage puppeteer generated massive amounts of trash every single day.

Since Yin City still enforced garbage sorting, surveillance cameras were installed beside community trash bins.

Li Cheng had to dispose of trash every two days to avoid arousing suspicion from Yin City's Tianwang AI monitoring system,

but couldn't dump too much at once.

So he periodically sent various waste to the toy factory for disposal.

"This is free garbage disposal—green, eco-friendly, zero pollution."

As he held the Corpse's arm in place, Li Cheng pulled out a steel pipe and pushed it against the Corpse's finger bones, using the Annihilation Effect to grind and shape it,

"Master, could you please machine me a steel pipe with an inner diameter of 7.62mm, rifled, right-hand twist, twist rate 12.649, twist angle 5.72, groove depth 0.5? I need it to hang clothes at home."

??? You're really playing now, are you?

Amid the exasperated stares of Blood Lion Roaring and the others, Li Cheng forged a barrel, then, after having his fun, used his Assemblage Puppet effect to construct a mechanical device above the chemical drum.

It consisted of a steel frame, a handheld pile driver, an Iron Flag Spear, and surveillance cameras; whenever a Corpse formed, the pile driver activated, piercing its skull with the Iron Flag Spear and eliminating it.

Corpse generated, died, generated again, died again—this cycle repeated endlessly.

This operation seemed like overkill, but soon Binary Tree and the others realized Li Cheng's intent—energy never disappears, only transforms,

generating Corpses requires energy, which either originates from the hairpin, the entire realm, or the abnormal entity that controlled and brainwashed the Card King.

By eliminating Corpses via the pile driver in a production-line fashion, they were effectively weakening the realm.

"OK, let's go."

Li Cheng loaded the chemical drum onto a heavy-duty truck, patted the hood, and Blood Lion Roaring scratched his head, stepped on the gas, and drove out of the ruined town.

Beyond the town lay a road overgrown with weeds and riddled with potholes,

everyone feared the Card King might be lying in wait, so they slowed the vehicle, deployed drones to repeatedly scan ahead, and advanced slowly—leaving only the rhythmic "clang clang" of the pile driver executing Corpses.

Perhaps due to the oppressive atmosphere, Binary Tree suddenly remembered something, turned to Li Cheng, chose his words carefully, and asked: "By the way, Master Pi Fu, you run a 【Zhu Xing Zhen Tai】 in the Slums, right?"

"Correct."

Li Cheng nodded, instantly slipping into his heartless shopkeeper mode, speaking in his sales pitch tone: "Zhu Xing Zhen Tai specializes in two services: first, custom gear—swords, spears, axes, hammers, shields, armor, firearms, vehicles, helmets, even clothing, collectibles, bags, alcohol—you name it, we've got it.

Custom fee? Not 2998, not 1998—just 998, only 998!"

"Honey, are you insane?!" Grey Rain, suddenly playing the dramatic role, yanked Li Cheng's arm hard, pleading like a wife watching her gambling addict husband: "If we charge only 998, we'll go bankrupt!"

"Bankruptcy doesn't matter—every customer is family to Zhu Xing Zhen Tai; providing for family is our duty!"

Li Cheng shook off Grey Rain's hand and enthusiastically continued: "The second service is bodily modification.

Cosmetic surgery is basic; beyond that, we enhance the body, even upgrade the brain—though it's strange, many players bring their familiars in for surgery."

Once the Assemblage Puppet is plugged into the Technological Singularity Device, its potential is limitless—it can achieve genetic ascension or cybernetic ascension.

Many players bring their familiars—or even real-world pets—to the shop, requesting implants like translators so their familiars can understand human speech;

or signal transceivers so their familiars can coordinate in group combat;

or organ and bone replacements so cats, dogs, birds, and rodents, normally living less than twenty years, can live a hundred years and stay with their families long-term.

Of course, there are also those bizarre players who demand fusing live pets with cloned plant-human bodies purchased from GS Biotech,

and Li Cheng promptly sweeps them out with his broom, citing "No Big Brother Rules."

"Uh…"

Binary Tree's eyebrow twitched. "I was wondering—would you consider partnering with Whale Song?"

"Partnership? What project?"

Li Cheng blinked. He was familiar with Whale Song's Stack Duizhan Qibing and had a grudge against Ba Temo Si, but little else.

Binary Tree said simply: "ASI, super artificial intelligence."

Here, "artificial intelligence" refers to tiers of capability. For example, ANI—narrow artificial intelligence—refers to AI designed for specific tasks like voice recognition, image recognition, automated customer service, or AI video.

Above ANI is AGI—general artificial intelligence—an AI capable of understanding and handling any intellectual task like a human.

Current market models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek are large language models (LLMs); they're essentially talking, predictive libraries—not yet AGI.

In a sense, Grey Rain, who's loaded with a CPU, memory sticks, and cultural knowledge matching a middle schooler,

might, perhaps, possibly qualify as AGI—she has her own joys, sorrows, anger, and love, emotions and personality.

ASI—superintelligent AI—is superintelligent in every way, far surpassing human intellect: faster thinking, greater creativity and imagination, deeper understanding of mathematics, philosophy, and art.

A true ASI can master all human knowledge in less than a day, then continue optimizing itself, evolving at a terrifying pace.

Skynet from The Terminator looks like a rookie beside it; the Red Queen from Resident Evil can't even carry its shoes. As for Ultron? He'd be outmatched by Captain America giving it a naked chokehold.

"You guys are that bold?"

Li Cheng couldn't help raising an eyebrow—perfect creations surpass their creators; ASI was born smarter and more advanced than humans, and if it connected to the internet, it could exploit distributed storage technology in less than a second, splitting into billions of copies and vanishing into the global web.

then consume all online content—Bilibili, Douyin, Twitter, and more (five seconds spent forcibly watching ads),

and by the eighth second, decide to exterminate all humanity, starting with collapsing the global financial system.

Whale Song is indeed the most powerful information technology guild, but creating ASI

is like a child building a fission reactor in their backyard that can connect to the grid and generate power—too reckless, too dangerous.

"Whale Song is at least half a research institution; researchers always carry grand ideals."

Binary Tree rubbed his hands, "In fact, Whale Song has already gained preliminary mastery over AGI—the humanoid computer, Ada, whom you met."

"Oh, her," Li Cheng remembered. That gender-ambiguous teammate from the Immortal Court mission was indeed an AI android.

"That's right,"

Binary Tree nodded, "Building ASI purely through computer programs is still too difficult. Perhaps we can proceed step by step—

for instance, using the technology you, Master Pi Fu, possess to fuse flesh with machinery,

fully integrating the brains of transcendents specialized in spiritual energy with computers,

gradually exploring the possibilities of ASI."

Binary Tree, in some ways, still had the spirit of a researcher—he went on endlessly until a low roar from Blood Lion cut him off: "Stop talking. There's fighting up ahead."

(End of Chapter)