Chapter 622: Volume Finale: The Torrent of the Era

This experiment was conducted with the consent of the subject and her husband. No brainwashing or coercive methods were used. To restore her memory and partial cognitive functions, spiritual means were employed to temporarily enhance her mental state, thereby obtaining a legally binding consent form.

Step one.

Inject nanomachines to temporarily connect to the neural ganglia, assisting in the transfer of memories into the Soul Body. This step is irreversible. After connection, the nanomachines will remain within the brain, triggering an immune system response and numerous unpredictable changes. Ultimately, the biological brain will die completely.

Failure to complete a single, full memory transfer will result in the partial and irretrievable loss of memories and personality.

Step one concluded perfectly. The patient’s brain degeneration was extremely severe, but her memory regions remained undamaged; they were merely difficult to access.

Step two.

Reconstruct the Soul Body and establish its sense of self. This step requires an exceptionally strong will. Without it, the subject can easily become lost in past memories, causing their personality to collapse and reducing them to a pure information entity.

The test subject possessed an extremely strong will to live. This step was successfully completed.

Step three.

Digitize the Soul Body and integrate it into the Netherworld Server. This step requires a sufficient concentration of Spiritual Qi to support the conversion. More than a decade ago, this might have led to complications, but in the current era, it is no longer difficult.

The test subject’s conversion is complete.

————September 29, 2016, 17:49:37. The soul digitization experiment is concluded. Subject: Li Xiaoxin. Conversion successful.

Netherworld Server operating normally. Matrix generation in progress... Interaction system online.

On a vast, blank plain of data.

"Hello, Ms. Li Xiaoxin."

The middle-aged man smiled at the bewildered, black-haired woman, whose form was still unrefined, glitching and dropping frames. "Welcome to the new Netherworld."

After a moment of silence, the black-haired woman said, a little confused, "Uh... Did the experiment fail? Am I dead?"

"No, it was a great success."

the Artifice Sage said, raising his head to look at the virtual sun simulated by the server. "You’re still alive."

"And you will live eternally, together with the server."

——And this was only the first step.

Having proven that ’soul digitization’ was entirely feasible, the Artifice Sage was filled with immense joy. Yet he also knew that, compared to his true goal, this was but the first step on a long march.

For the Electronic Netherworld to truly take shape, a chip would have to be injected into every infant born in Zhengguo. This chip would serve as a second cognitive organ outside the brain, aiding in the Soul’s formation, strengthening it, and recording the person’s every memory and thought pattern.

Then, before that person’s natural death, they would undergo the soul digitization process and, via the chip, be directly integrated into the Netherworld Server to become an ’Electronic Soul’.

If a person were to die unexpectedly or for other reasons, the data from their chip could at least be imported into the Electronic Netherworld. This would create a soulless electronic consciousness that still possessed all the deceased’s memories, wisdom, and thought patterns. There is no evidence to suggest such a consciousness would be any different from the original person.

To put it bluntly, human beings are just complex machines composed of carbon-based organic macromolecules. How much nobler can a mere physical body be than any other lump of clay and flesh? In the Spiritless Age, humans without Souls could still think, and no one could deny that the thinking being was, in fact, human.

What matters most is wisdom and memory.

And the Netherworld Server can preserve them.

In fact, if one were to discard certain theoretical hang-ups about the Soul, the Netherworld Server could preserve the memories of everyone in the world without any need for Extraordinary Power, allowing all people to achieve ’immortality’ with the server after death.

In this way, at least all of human wisdom and memory—humanity’s most precious treasure, its victory over nature, everything that makes it human—would no longer be stolen by death.

And so, humanity could conquer death—or at least, prove it had the potential to do so.

After 3.8 billion years of evolution, life on Earth had finally found another path to ’Eternity,’ separate from the immortality offered by Spiritual Qi.

[So? How did it go?]

From a distant electronic torrent, the young voice of an old friend echoed: [I’ve been monitoring patient data across the globe. Took some doing, but I finally found a candidate who met your requirements.]

[My thanks.]

The Artifice Sage offered his sincere thanks for the Plague Saint’s words.

Then he turned, leaving Li Xiaoxin to explore the vast matrix world, and stepped into the stream of electronic information himself.

’What are life and death, really?’

’Now that I have a Soul, my brain is just a physical database. I could even create a third computational component based on Spiritual Power.’

’But if I have an external, mechanical cognitive device, is the Soul still necessary? Is it just another database, a spiritual one?’

’The Soul, the brain, a mechanical brain, and any other cognitive organs that might appear in the future... which of them is truly me?’

’My physical body is just my weapon, my tool. I can replace it, just as I’d replace my car or my clothes.’

’Viewed this way, so-called death is merely a form of engineering failure caused by oxidation—a chronic, corrosive affliction no different from rust. It can be easily conquered, rewritten, reshaped, and even eliminated and prevented.’