Chapter 231: The Recording
An investigation team composed of dozens of experts quickly arrived at Su Zhe City and began a thorough investigation of the local situation.
Given that Wang Qiong, dispatched during the previous investigation, had been remotely controlled, the investigation team specifically had Wen Jian, who needed to build momentum, oversee the operation, to ensure the same problem would not recur.
"The victims' brainwaves are extremely active," "The experts suspect that the entity providing this mantra might be using their brains as a distributed computing center."
"Of course, it's also possible that their minds have all been pulled into a place that requires constant, high concentration."
"A place requiring constant, high concentration? A battlefield, perhaps? Could it be that the mantra is a password to an invisible virtual network? Have they all been taken into a virtual battlefield?"
...
Amidst everyone's discussions, guesses and questions were constantly being put forth, with intermittent insertions of content from fantasy literature. Meanwhile, the avatar, who habitually appeared before others in a black robe, listened silently by the side, not uttering a word.
Ever since Spirit Qi came to exist in the real world, people, in their quest to find more efficient ways to utilize it, had scoured all potentially relevant historical and contemporary documents, searching for that elusive possibility.
Various Daoist classics were read countless times by countless people. Then, from witchcraft to gu-magic, from qigong to meditation, every possible abode of mysterious power was turned upside down.
Because the interests represented behind this were truly immense, beyond compare, the power unleashed by hundreds of millions of people dreaming of immortality was enough to satiate any ambition.
They were even crazier than the gold rush in the American West over a hundred years ago, to the point that in the end, even fictional works were not spared. Online Xuanhuan and fantasy novels also became sources of inspiration for many.
Referencing the settings within these works, people had continuously attempted to research if there was anything useful to be gleaned.
For the vast majority of ordinary people who wished to find the true path of cultivation, and thus become superior beings, the settings in various novels were clearly easier for them to understand than abstruse scientific papers, Daoist scriptures, or Confucian classics.
Although very few people truly unearthed useful ideas from these novels and transformed them into large amounts of Contribution Points in their accounts, it couldn't be helped that the barrier to entry and the cost of investment were almost zero, satisfying the masses' fantasy of getting rich overnight with no initial outlay.
Many authors were even invited to participate in talk shows, to explain their understanding of Spirit Qi.
Later on, even some professionals in the field of Spirit Qi research, in order to broaden their thinking and find inspiration, began to dabble in various literary works.
It was precisely for such unreliable reasons that the number of people reading all kinds of fantasy novels continuously increased.
This also led to today, several years later, where a group of people, while discussing a case, would actually bring up scenarios only found in science fiction novels, instead of maintaining the style of a proper detective case.
"What do you think?" After listening to the experts' increasingly outlandish discussion, Bai Mo walked up to Wen Jian and asked.
"There's too much unknown information, and moreover, I am a soldier. This kind of guessing game isn't suitable for me." He intended to merely play the role of an overseer, and not interfere with the specific investigation process.
"Were they made into a distributed human brain computing array, or were their consciousnesses taken to the Infinite World by the Main God Temple?" A series of quite absurd thoughts spun through Bai Mo's mind. Then, seeing that the other party had no intention of intervening, he himself disappeared from the main camp.
Before he broke through to the Xuanhua Stage, the avatar, apart from divine sense and telekinesis, had no way to use other abilities, which greatly limited its utility.
But now, apart from abilities like energy absorption that originated from Spirit Hubs, which the avatar still couldn't use, most Spirit Arts could now be directly unleashed through the avatar.
And Bai Mo, by simulating the Spirit Energy circulation of his own Void Concealment Spirit Picture, created a simulated cultivation technique for Spirit Energy avatars, the "Ten Thousand Phantoms Sutra."
Of course, for now, it was just a resounding name. In reality, after cultivating the publicly available first layer, one could only cultivate a weak avatar, like a wandering spirit.
However, to maintain an air of mystery, Bai Mo set the second, third, fourth, and fifth layers – which had not actually been deduced yet – to a permission-locked mode, making it seem to others that there were still subsequent stages.
At the same time, he "drew a big pie" (made a grand promise) in the technique's introduction, hinting that there would be approximately twelve layers of the cultivation technique in total, to attract more people to cultivate it, and use their feedback for further deductions.
This avatar of his, could also use the "Ten Thousand Phantoms Sutra" to create an avatar of an avatar. However, the strength of the new avatar made Bai Mo feel there was no need to waste Spirit Energy in such a way.
"If it's about building a distributed human brain computing array, then this technology must be acquired. The effect of parallel human brains is far more useful than computers."
"If a series of human brains specialized in nonlinear computations are connected with supercomputers adept at linear computations, and the scale is continuously expanded, then the progress of the deduction work will be much faster than it is now."
"The cost of human brains isn't high either, so the key issue remains the processing technology: how can a distributed network be established?"
"What exactly is the function of this mantra?"
A series of questions lingered in Bai Mo's mind. In the end, he decided to use the mantra as a breakthrough point, and attempted to conduct some experiments first.
Given that tens of thousands of people had already been "tricked" (harmed), it would be difficult to find more test subjects to continuously recite the mantra.
Of course, "under a generous reward, brave men are sure to appear," there would always be those fearless of death who would answer the call.
But Bai Mo didn't intend to do that, because even if he could find people to continuously chant, it would only be one possibility among many.
Among the millions of people who continuously chanted the mantra in Su Zhe City, only tens of thousands actually experienced any effect. He didn't want to gamble on such luck.
So, he had people in other cities recite the mantra and record it. Then, after consulting with the expert group, he acquired thousands of playback devices and began simultaneously playing the various recordings on a loop in Su Zhe City's central plaza, attempting to locally recreate the previous situation.
For such an anomalous event, Bai Mo naturally wouldn't let himself take risks right away. Without visible and sufficient benefits, he had no intention of personally intervening.
He guessed Wen Jian had the same idea. After all, he was already caught in the whirlpool of the "strongest race." Although he was currently in the lead, if too many people caught up before the next parliamentary reshuffle, he would be in quite a bit of trouble.
When facing the unknown, it was always best to err on the side of caution.
"Just a little more, just a little more and it will be complete." Somewhere in Su Zhe City, a young girl closed her eyes, her brows furrowing sometimes, and relaxing at others.
If someone could penetrate her eyelids and carefully observe her eyes, they would find that on her dark pupils, reflected human faces were constantly changing, like a revolving lantern....
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