Embers Ad Infinitum

Shang Jianyao was stunned for a moment and said:

"What's the use of this?"

He himself couldn't figure out what use he had.

Du Heng pointed to the ground:

"look."

"I don't want to look!" Shang Jianyao responded reflexively while looking down at the soles of his feet.

Those floor tiles had disappeared at some point, revealing the situation on the next floor.

There and this floor are just upside down, with the ceiling being the ground and the ground being the ceiling.

There was another version of himself below Shang Jianyao. He was like a shadow, with his legs extending out from under Shang Jianyao's feet. His whole body hung upside down but there was no sign of cerebral congestion.

Shang Jianyao held the small speaker that appeared, looked at Xiao Chong who was playing a game not far away, and said happily:

"I won't lose to you at this game now."

Xiao Chong muttered and replied:

"Try it later."

The Shang Jianyao in front of Du Heng looked around again.

Every wall here is completely blurred, with scenes of different Shang Jianyao and different Du Heng meeting.

There are the reckless Shang Jianyao exchanging experiences with the rebellious high school student Du Shaochong, and the calm and rational Shang Jianyao asking the scientist Du Heng about his awakening. There are nine scenes in total.

After withdrawing his gaze from himself who was comforting the experimental subject Du Shaochong who was focusing on his feelings, Shang Jianyao lowered his head again and glanced at himself below.

"Ten..." He was confused and shocked.

He then looked at Du Heng opposite and blurted out:

"I only have ten personalities, why do eleven of me appear now?

"Who am I?"

This "I" refers to him in the current room.

Du Heng smiled:

"You and I are a collective state."

"Oh..." Shang Jianyao had an expression of "I see, but I still don't understand."

His mind jumped and turned to another thing uncontrollably:

"When did you find Xiao Chong?"

Du Heng smiled and replied:

"Thanks to you.

"You opened the liquid nitrogen tank at the Holm Reproductive Medical Center, and when the white gas was released into the Sea of ​​Origin, and the gap between it and Xiao Chong solidified, he returned."

As soon as Du Heng finished speaking, the lights of the machines in the room brightened at the same time, flashing faster and faster.

"What is this?" Shang Jianyao's face was illuminated by interlaced lights, red, yellow and blue.

Du Heng sighed slightly and said:

"'Si Ming' they started."

Shang Jianyao thought for a while and said:

“What are they doing and what role do I play?”

He was obsessed with the latter question.

Du Heng replied quite calmly:

“What they need is you to open that door, and they need multiple yous and multiple mes to be in contact at the same time.

"Only in this way can they accurately locate the room where our two collective states are located, and then bypass the barriers from multiple entrances and invade here, making it difficult for me to defend."

"I don't understand." Shang Jianyao shook his head honestly.

Then, he suggested kindly:

"How about you guys get busy first and explain in detail later."

Du Heng glanced at the machine lights that flashed rapidly, sometimes brightly and sometimes dimly, and smiled:

"There is still some time, just in time to communicate."

"Okay, okay." Shang Jianyao was not polite.

…………

In the whirlpool-shaped building, there is an experimental area filled with instruments that looks like a high-end computer room.

Jiang Baimian retracted his thoughts and planned to take the time to study what was going on with that "host" and whether the surrounding "space capsules" could still be used.

At this moment, she saw the signal lights on the "host" light up and flash rapidly, as if something important was happening.

Jiang Baimian pondered for a moment, turned around without hesitation, and ran towards the place where he came in.

Something was unusual, and she had to quickly communicate with Shang Jianyao "outside".

Fortunately for her, there was no other exit, just one way.

…………

In the "maze", that room is full of machines and all the walls are blurred.

Du Heng showed a recalling expression and sighed sadly:

"This matter has to start when humans begin to study consciousness and study those born with superpowers."

"If it's a long story, let's make it short." Shang Jianyao still understood that the current scene was time-critical.

Du Heng pointed at him and laughed:

"You, none of the students I taught before dared to speak to me like this. Even Wu Meng, who has the best scientific research talent, would only imitate me and read books like "Tao Te Ching" and "Three Mysteries Brief Commentary". But I don’t ask for a clear explanation.”

"Wu Meng is your student?" Shang Jianyao was shocked.

"I gave him the earthy name Wu Meng." Du Heng shook his head, "That's another matter. Let's get back to the topic."

Wu Meng himself is from Honghe.

"Yeah." Shang Jianyao closed his mouth tightly and nodded frequently.

Du Heng once again showed an expression of reminiscence:

“I have shown something special since I was a child. I was observed and studied while studying. This also caused me to be autistic and rebellious in high school for a period of time, so that my ability never became stronger.

“Later I figured out that instead of letting others study me, I should study myself, so I studied hard and became a famous brain scientist and superpower researcher.

"When various countries established nine future-oriented research institutes, I was invited to become the chief scientist and president of the eighth institute."

"No wonder Olei knows you." Shang Jianyao finally couldn't help but interrupt.

They are both chief scientists in their respective fields.

"We have met several times. Maximian has encountered a bottleneck in artificial intelligence and wants to find some inspiration from us and the Sixth Academy." Du Heng simply replied, "I won't say much about the research. Anyway, you can I don’t understand, your companion named Jiang Baimian is still around."

His eyes were dazed for a moment and he said:

"That day, Oak, Richard, Lin Sui, Mono, Daftir, and Sylvie and I brought two experimental volunteers into the core area, intending to try out our research results."

"Those two volunteers are Li Hui and Jiang Xiaoyue?" Shang Jianyao asked.

"Yes." Du Heng nodded, "Half of the machine we built came from our own research, and half came from the results of the exchanges between the Sixth Academy. Well, the Sixth Academy is the 'Eternal Life Man' project team.

“That machine can create a virtual reality space, like a large-scale holographic projection game.

"We connected the brains of Li Hui and Jiang Xiaoyue, intending to use special methods to stimulate their claustrum and thalamus, and awaken their remaining consciousness in an awakening way. If that doesn't work, we will consider whether we can use this method to make them based on The current body and the machine create a new consciousness and live in a virtual world.

"In order to prevent sudden death of the body, we have prepared a lot of biochips and memories, and the structure of those biochips will be affected by the corresponding amplified brain waves, and will be changed to a certain extent to adapt to different humans.

"The level of those people in the Sixth Academy is really good."

Shang Jianyao asked with great interest and worry at the same time:

"Is it really too late?"

The machines all over the room were flashing more and more intensely, and "Si Ming" and Zhi Sui seemed to be calling in at any time.

"I'm old, and I can't stop thinking about the past." Du Heng laughed at himself, "Don't worry, I have split into more than ten personalities, and I have been operating here for a long time. There is no problem in blocking them for a while."

Shang Jianyao put his worries behind him:

"The experiment failed?"

"In a sense, it is actually a success, and it is a success beyond expectations." Du Heng said with a slight sigh, "We first used Li Hui as the experimental subject, but we can see that his brain waves gradually returned to normal, and he began to move towards the awakened person. The direction changed, but his thalamus area suddenly disappeared and disappeared.

“The corresponding place became a strange black hole, pulling our consciousness out of the body and sucking it in like a whirlpool.

"Most of the people in the second research area died in this storm, and only a few survived in special forms. Several cities related to us also suffered the same disaster, some of which were more serious, and all of them were completely destroyed in an instant. The cities died, some were relatively okay, only partially, but the remaining humans basically became 'heartless'."

"Taicheng." Shang Jianyao pointed out the place where the previous situation occurred.

Du Heng's expression changed slightly, he sighed and said:

"Although I was rebellious in high school, my study experience in Taicheng is still a very good memory for me."

He did not talk much about this topic and continued to recall:

“I was the first person to wake up and found that although I had lost my body, my consciousness was still there, floating in the ‘darkness’.

"After spending a little time checking and researching, I have a preliminary guess:

"The mystery of human consciousness involves higher-level things, or this model must be established in a higher dimension. Our research results are lacking. Although Li Hui's consciousness was successfully awakened, it also opened the door to higher dimensions. The 'door' produced a series of chain reactions, causing the disaster that destroyed the old world.

"I don't know if that 'door' sucked in billions of human consciousnesses and obtained enough energy, or for some other reason, it dragged the virtual reality created by our machine to a higher dimension, forming a A 'dark world' overlapping with dust.

"And our consciousness relies on the biochip attached to that machine to live in this world and survive."

"An advanced version of the 'Immortal Man' plan?" Shang Jianyao has always been obsessed with the mechanical monks.

Du Heng nodded:

"So be it.

"Then I was surprised to find that with the help of this 'dark world', I can project my power to every place in the earth, as long as I can locate it...

“Here, we are like the gods in legend.

"At this time, Li Hui, Jiang Xiaoyue, Zhao Danlin, Oak, Lin Sui, Yu Huatong, Winster, and Brian also woke up.

"Because I am the dean and the chief scientist, and I know more about 'darkness' than they do, so they all chose to follow my orders at that time and use the machine and our power to build such a second research institute. They call the city based on the district the 'New World'.

“The main body of the ‘new world’ is our spiritual power, which is essentially a space of consciousness higher than reality.

"In the process of building the 'new world', I took over the authority of that machine and gave them the corresponding power."

PS: I won’t take a break this weekend and will still update twice. After all, we have reached this point. Let’s work hard and finish it in one go.