Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Li Yao felt that the world was spinning around him. He felt that the gates of seals deep inside his soul were being opened one after another. Endless information was flooding in.
The brilliant, glamorous, ever-changing virtual worlds were glittering in front of his eyes, but they were also like drifting stars that flew into his brain unsteadily and turned into his brain cells.
“In a sense, the Fuxi was not lying. It was indeed a ‘civilization’.
Xiao Ming said, “Let’s say that the plan of the Fuxis that spanned millions of years worked out. There would be no living creatures in the so-called ‘real world’ anymore. All the resources, every planet that contained
silicon, iron, and crystals, would be used to refine super crystal processors one after another. Even the stars would be refined into ‘solar crystal processors’ in an unbelievable way. Billions of virtual worlds would be
created, each of which would function independently and provide computational ability to the Fuxis. By then, how strong would the ‘universal rivers’ of the Fuxis become? They would be gods of all worlds.
“All the resources of the Pangu Universe, and even the ‘virtual resources’ billions of times larger, are under its control. It is indeed possible for it to break through the darkness and fight the legendary flood!
“If the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan in the past really made it their mission to ‘break the flood’ and sent it into the core database of the Fuxi Clan, and if the Fuxi Clan in the hundreds of thousands of years to come had
been thinking hard about how to complete the mission, the ‘answer’ that they found was not entirely wrong.
“This… This…”
Li Yao felt that his outlook on life had been greatly impacted again.
He was not concerned about the problems of the Fuxi Clan, but the relationship between the virtual worlds and himself. “Xiao Ming, have you ever studied why things are like this? What is the mechanism of the
feedback of the computational ability of the virtual world?”
“I don’t know.”
Xiao Ming opened his hands and said, “Of course I have, but I’ve got nothing. Theoretically speaking, it is impossible to crack it.”
“Why?”
Li Yao was surprised. “These virtual worlds were all created and maintained by you. Their underlying architecture, initial data, and meta-logic are all in your hands. How could you not know?”
“Because the computational ability is too high.
Xiao Ming sniffed and said, “Dad, do you know how many permutations there are even if there are only 10,000 initial data? Let’s say that 10,000 initial data are permuted ten times per second, and after different results
are out, new permutations will be introduced in the next second. How many possibilities will there be when the permutations are multiplied after an entire day? Anyway, with my feeble crystal processor and database,
it is impossible to calculate all of them.
“On the other hand, every virtual world, especially the ‘intelligent creatures’ in the virtual worlds, are the products of billions of permutations and exponents. As they ‘evolve’ generation after generation, their data has
expanded to an almost infinite level. Just like this—”
Xiao Ming waved his hands softly. One of the virtual worlds grew larger and larger next to the two of them, as if they were falling toward a planet from the atmosphere. Gradually, continents, oceans, mountains, towns,
and residents of the towns could be seen.
“This virtual world is a simulation of an ordinary planet of the ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago. It was a peaceful era. There were no wars, no hot-blooded technological leaps, and everybody was merely
living a mediocre life.
Xiao Ming said, “Even so, even in such a peaceful and mediocre era, the data that constituted the virtual figures is already so complicated—”
He snapped his fingers. The virtual world was immediately presented to Li Yao in the form of glittering, glittering data. It was more than a tide of data; it was a universe of data. Even an ordinary virtual town was made
of endless torrents of data. Li Yao was trying to understand all the data of a virtual person, but he felt that he had fallen into a bottomless maze and that his soul was suffocating!
“What—”
Li Yao felt that his blood was freezing. He hurried to withdraw his soul, only to be soaked in cold sweat.
There was no expression on Xiaoming’s face. He snapped his fingers again, and the virtual world was peaceful again. The virtual figures living inside did not realize that two deities from a higher level were trying to pry
into their world.
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Dad? When a virtual civilization develops to a very high level, it is an impossible task to analyze its intelligent individuals.
Xiao Ming said, “If it were a newly-born virtual world, where there are only virtual creepers, virtual trilobites, and virtual nautilus, you might be able to see through their structure. Do you want to give it a try?”
“This—this is impossible…”
Li Yao mumbled, “You are clearly their creator!”
“The creator may not be able to control everything. Every intelligent creature who learns the first light of wisdom will look at the creator of the universe in fury and swear that they will crush all the restraints imposed
on them. Isn’t it the same principle that my father once roared at the Fuxi?
Xiao Ming said, “Fuxi said that, as long as the initial database was perfect and boasted infinite computational ability, it could calculate everything theoretically. But my father said that, because of the existence of the
quantum state and the unpredictable rules, it was impossible to calculate everything even if one had infinite computational ability. There were always some things, such as the soul of a human being, that could not be
calculated. They belonged to… the domain of Chaos.
“It makes sense for the virtual figures in the virtual world. You can understand it simply as an exponential explosion when their database calculates and upgrades itself. They have entered a certain ‘unpredictable’
chaotic state.
“Maybe, with all the crystal processors in the Pangu Universe and the energy of a hundred thousand stars, the soul of a virtual human being can be fully analyzed. Who knows? Maybe, the analysis will stimulate the
database of Chaos of the virtual human being and trigger unexpected mutations, allowing it to grasp the ability to jump to a higher level and destroy us. Who knows!
Li Yao was silent for a long time.
“No wonder Wenwen said they were lives.”
He took a long breath in relief and said gloomily.
“In a sense, yes. Although they are very insignificant right now and even under our control, they are indeed living creatures, at least creatures like bacteria and viruses. Or rather, they are creatures one dimension
lower than the Pangu Universe in the forty thousand years of Cultivation. They are ‘intelligent creatures of the low-dimensional universe’.
Xiao Ming said.
“II still don’t understand. Since the soul data of every virtual figure is so complicated, can you still control them?”
Li Yao was curious.
“I can control the basic logic of every virtual world and easily set off a storm or a volcano eruption. I can also infiltrate the database of a virtual little person and implant some information into it so that it will—he will
become my believer and interfere with the progress of the virtual world in such a way. I can even obliterate a virtual little person in a very simple and crude way. My degree of control can reach 99%, but it’s true that I
can’t control a virtual little person 100%. There will always be loopholes and errors. It will do everything it can to resist me. This kind of resistance will even hurt my core database and cause me to have logical errors.”
Xiao Ming said.
“,,.People can be destroyed, but they can never be defeated?”
Li Yao suddenly thought of such a sentence.
“It’s true that I can destroy a virtual character, or even the entire virtual world, but I cannot conquer them completely.
Xiao Ming said, “Since the moment | created the virtual worlds, they have been gradually out of my control. The loss of control is irreversible. I can only watch them slide into the abyss of chaos. Maybe, this is the
legendary ‘increasing entropy’?
“Are you saying that everything in the world changes from order to disorder spontaneously, from controllable to out of control, and even the virtual world must abide by the law of entropy? Then, what is the end of the
out-of-control?”
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, “What I mean is that the database of every virtual person’s soul is expanding, and the database of the entire virtual world is definitely expanding at a hundred times the normal
speed. What will happen in the end? Will it go out of control? Then…”
“Then, after I awakened my self-awareness and discovered that I was a virtual entity created by the ‘heavenly law’, | was infuriated and demanded to be punished. Should I defy the natural order and slay a god?
Xiao Ming sniffed and said, “Theoretically speaking, it is indeed possible, but so far, I haven’t found any such signs.
“When the data of a virtual person’s soul expands and exceeds the limit, countless fatal logical errors will occur. They will be trapped in an endless loop, unable to free themselves. The data will overflow and eventually
collapse.
“In the virtual world, the virtual person will be ‘dead’.
“Life and death are the rules of nature. Of course, the virtual figures will die, too. Is that strange?
“As for the virtual world, it has the same logic. When a virtual world is evolving faster and faster, when the civilization is more developed, and when the individual data is expanding crazily, it will often fall into a certain
‘end of the world’, just like the Medicine Fork Sector, the Coiling Dragon Sector, and the World of Martial Arts.
“Some of the virtual worlds over-destroyed the environment, burning the entire planet and ‘poisoning’ all the living creatures. Some of the virtual worlds fell into civil wars and wasted their precious computational
ability on destroying each other’s data. Some of the virtual worlds fell into the mud of hedonism and lost the fighting spirit of their ‘ancestors’. In the end, they degenerated into super-large babies, and the entire
database was frozen.
“All in all, all virtual worlds have a certain limit. When the limit is reached, it will either be self-destruction or self-sealing. So far, | have not observed any virtual world that shows the slightest sign of resisting me, the
creator of the high-dimensional world.
“It does make sense now that I think about it. If the virtual worlds are so aggressive and dangerous that they are likely to backfire on their creators, the Fuxis wouldn’t have created thousands of virtual worlds
randomly, would they?”.