Traveler of the River of Time and Space

Chapter 648 18: The Beginning of Mechanical Ascension

Southern Cross. Fifty meters underground.

This once-abandoned laboratory has been reactivated by the Academy, becoming a significant stronghold for the Academy Mechanical Faction after extensive renovations.

Currently, more than a dozen researchers in lab coats are busy in front of a set of precise instruments within the laboratory. At the center of their workspace stands a sealed glass instrument over five meters in diameter, containing a bionic human entirely made of metal, filled with numerous precision bionic components, but its outer skeletal muscle fibers have yet to be coated with synthetic skin.

A Doctor, who had not appeared for a long time, has arrived at this secret base.

His expression shows a mix of tension and excitement as he stares intently at the display screen, observing various scan data.

For a long time.

A Doctor took a deep breath, moved to the center of the console, and said sternly, "Prepare for consciousness upload!"

Following his command, the entire laboratory quickly busied itself, with numerous technicians ready at their respective operation instruments, as intricate mechanical arms stretched out, first opening a completely sealed box immersed in a strange liquid, and then carefully extracting an intact human brain from it.

Next, silver-white needle tubes were inserted into the brain, accompanied by bioelectrical stimulation, causing the brain to immediately produce some slight thought waves.

"Prepare for consciousness upload."

"Open brain structure."

"Implant artificial brain."

Within the over five-meter diameter sealed glass instrument, three intricate mechanical arms extended, gently opened the central bionic human's head, revealing the ultra-alloy skull opened, exposing an internal cavity filled with dense sensors, as a bionic brain made entirely of unknown crystalline material was extracted by the mechanical arms and carefully placed inside the bionic human's head.

"Consciousness upload begins!"

As a progress bar appeared on the instrument, everyone couldn't help but hold their breath, their eyes fixed on the instrument in front of them.

The Academy Mechanical Faction started researching bionic humans very early on; their mastery of bionics technology is ahead of the Wasteland by hundreds of years. Early bionic humans controlled by artificial intelligence can already act like ordinary people, but what they pursue is not just creating a smart robot; it's about completely replacing the human body with bionics technology.

This leads to a very advanced field known as 'consciousness upload.'

The Academy Mechanical Faction devoted most of their manpower and resources to overcoming this hurdle. They achieved some results twenty years ago, but the ultimate outcome was unsatisfactory. It wasn't until A Doctor cleared the Academy's internal issues and consolidated its resources that they made some key breakthroughs in this field.

They discovered a special silicon crystal synthetic material and created the first truly meaningful bionic brain.

Directly uploading consciousness onto a chip is quite unrealistic, as the intricate complex structure of the human brain cannot be replaced by a small chip, and ordinary artificial brains also don't work, because human consciousness quickly disappears after upload, soon completely assimilated into part of an artificial intelligence.

From a mystical standpoint, this means the soul disappears after consciousness upload, leaving only a basic 'human' intelligent program within the artificial brain, lacking the ability to think.

You could understand it as becoming an intelligent bionic human possessing pre-death behavioral habits.

They would perform tasks based on previous habits, maintaining pre-death actions, but without thinking, acting only according to the instinctively generated intelligent action instinct left in the brain's memories.

This is not what the Mechanical Faction wants.

They seek not a bionic human but further advancement to a synthetic human, using bionics to synthesize bodies while retaining human wisdom and thought.

The progress bar began to slowly increase.

A Doctor fixed his eyes on the thought waves in the display screen, realizing this consciousness upload experiment opportunity was exceptionally valuable because Leon ranked among the few high-tier bionic humans in this world, and his brain was inherently more adaptable to bionics technology than others.

Leon had died less than 24 hours ago, making him the most likely successful experiment material currently available.

Thoughts are the key to consciousness upload.

The human brain is essentially a carrier for consciousness, and the Academy Mechanical Faction could extract memories from the brain early on, even reading some stored memory images from the brain using instruments. But memory is not the key to creating a synthetic human; thought is the fundamental basis of synthetic human existence.

Without preserving human thought, they are essentially using human brains as chips to create machines.

Of course.

This is also a developmental approach.

Because the oldest version of the STC Modular System that Su Ziyu acquired, also the most advanced and realistic version, had its STC Modular System matrix created using a human brain as the core computing unit. It was the top advanced technology of the Ancient Lost Empire, with the central core components of the STC matrix being complete human brain components, the most important construct of the whole matrix.

Of course, this technology eventually became lost.

Using human brains as tools to build the STC matrix necessitates involving Spiritual Energy Domains, and only during the Ancient Lost Empire's most flourishing period did they possess the ability to use human brains for creating the STC Modular System.

Su Ziyu later acquired technology employing artificial intelligence as a substitute.

Progress bar inching to completion.

Just as Leon's brain uploads the last bit of consciousness, the thought wave signal on the display screen abruptly interrupts.

A Doctor stood up almost instantly.

He stared nervously at the instrument in front of him, his face flushed red, expression extremely complex, his eyes locked onto the sealed glass instrument ahead.

One minute, two minutes.

The entire laboratory was deathly silent, everyone holding their breath, as if even a pin drop would be heard clearly.

"Did it fail?..." someone murmured.

But at that moment, the eyelids of the cyborg inside the glass instrument trembled, followed by the re-emergence of active thought waves, exceptionally intense as if struggling before death. The thoughts surged dozens of times in an instant, and then the cyborg inside the instrument opened his eyes. His mechanical eyes, emitting a faint glow, showed no emotion, but the superfine bionic muscles of his face formed a puzzled expression.

Leon looked down at his alloy arm, flexed his metal fingers, and murmured, "Am I still alive?..."

It succeeded!

In an instant, the entire laboratory erupted in excitement, with many staff members shedding tears of joy, for it represented their entry into a new era, the era of a synthetic human.

"You are still alive." Dr. A stood up nervously, looking at Leon in front of him, speaking in a deep voice, "When we found you, your brain was still intact."

"So we brought you back."

"We uploaded your consciousness, and now you are truly a synthetic human."

"How do you feel now?"

Upon hearing this, Leon fell silent, closing his eyes as if recalling something, but his expression gradually showed a trace of pain, causing many to become tense.

"I..." Leon moved his new body, as if feeling something, murmuring, "I don't know..."

"I seem to have forgotten many things."

"I only remember some scenes of previous battles..."

Memory loss?

This revelation left many with expressions of astonishment and disappointment. A complete consciousness upload should replicate an entire life's experiences into the artificial brain, including those forgotten memories buried deep.

A complete cyborg is almost comparable to a supercomputer, capable of easily retrieving all memories stored deep within the brain.

However, Leon's current state was not good.

He seemed to have lost a large portion of his memory, although he still retained pre-life cognitive awareness, the missing memories left his current behavior in a state of confusion.

"Calm down first." Dr. A said nervously, "At least you're alive now."

"Aren't you?"

Upon hearing his words, Leon paused, then smiled, a rather poor smile, as his facial superfine muscles squeezed out a bitter grin, then said, "I suppose so."

"But could you spray a layer of artificial skin on me first?"

"In my current state."

"Honestly, it's very uncomfortable."

Leon's words brought a smile back to Dr. A's face, because Leon's current thinking and desires undoubtedly showed that their consciousness upload experiment was successful, at least largely successful.

This was normal human thinking.

Having needs, desires, emotions, and preferences.

Although the physical desires of a synthetic human will eventually diminish with mechanical evolution, synthetic humans are not emotionless robots; in fact, their spiritual needs will become more intense.

"No problem." Dr. A said hastily, "We will now apply the bionic skin for you."

"What skin tone do you prefer?"

"Do you have any requirements regarding appearance? We can accommodate all!"

Upon hearing this, Leon displayed a thoughtful expression, looked at his lower body, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I think you should attach that first."

The laboratory returned to silence.

Dr. A's expression was somewhat surprised, as a pure researcher, he hadn't expected Leon to care so much about "that." Even in Leon's expression, he saw a trace of unobvious anger, so he quickly said, "That was our oversight."

"The timeline was too tight."

"Originally, this body was gender-neutral; specific gender traits are custom-modified after consciousness upload."

"We can install it for you immediately."

"The latest bionic attachments can already transmit most limb sensations, with sensor efficiency reaching about 75% of human tactile perception."

"What model do you want?"

"We can arrange it here."

.........