Legend of the Cyber Heroes

Xiang Shan nodded at his work and said solemnly to Yuki, "Disciple, remember this. This chip may be what sets you apart from ordinary people... If, I mean if, one day you and I part ways, and then you encounter someone who wants to inspect your drive chip, then you'd rather format this chip than let it fall into the wrong hands, understand?"

Yuki nodded with a puzzled look, "Is it that serious?"

"If they find out about this, they'll immediately think that you could be someone who has voluntarily given up protection," Xiang Shan patted Yuki on the head, "If one day you no longer wish to follow me, I will also help you reset the chip back to its original state, it's all up to you."

Yuki asked in confusion, "Master, is there some big secret on this chip?"

"It's not time to tell you yet," Xiang Shan shook his head, "Only when you officially embark on the path of heroism with me will I tell you."

——Otherwise, you'll have to live a life of constant fear.

While Yuki was working on his exercises, Xiang Shan not only completed the rewriting of the terminal system but also worked overtime to prioritize the creation of a firewall.

To Cybermen, the "firewall" is what the "dantian" is to inner strength in martial arts novels—it's the origin of all inner strength. And the level of control a hero has over a computer represents the realm of their inner strength.

Xiang Shan could not remember what realm of inner strength he had in the past, but he knew it was probably not low.

The only problem now was that he didn't have a chip powerful enough to unleash such formidable inner strength.

"Master, has the Town Mayor told you anything?" Perhaps a bit bored, Yuki broached the subject.

Xiang Shan opened his eyes and nodded, "In about half a month, there might be something happening?"

He had to regain some fighting ability before that time arrived.

"That time... after the Welfare Officer arrives?" Yuki quickly realized the implication and grew nervous, "The Town Mayor doesn't mean that we might really lose our protection, does he?"

Xiang Shan shook his head. It was really hard to say.

Yuki's biological parts began to tremble.

"In such a situation, what would you want to do?" Xiang Shan asked.

Yuki thought for a moment, "Master, you are a hero, right?"

Xiang Shan looked at Yuki, "Then what?"

Since there might be surveillance, he did not respond directly.

"Then let's go into the wilderness… Take me and mom with you!" Yuki's tone carried a hint of pleading, "A hero must know how to survive in the wilderness, how to avoid the common thugs!"

Xiang Shan thought for a moment, "Hmm, that might be an option. If within this half month, I can organize the relevant knowledge, I will make a copy for you."

"Master?" Yuki was a bit puzzled.

"If you think it's scary, indeed you can hide," Xiang Shan nodded, "It's a very wise decision."

"What about you, Master…"

"If I left directly..." Xiang Shan hesitated for a moment, "I don't know why. I also know that 'leaving' might be the safest action. But my intuition tells me that if I do nothing at this time and just leave, then I won't be myself."

Xiang Shan didn't remember who he was in the past, nor did he remember how strong he had been. Now, all he had was a brain, and the most inferior prosthetic body. Faced with an enemy of unknown strength, "escaping" might indeed be the correct choice.

But...

——Martial arts were created for such situations…

——It's a technique that even if only one person is left… Even facing an unknown force, it can reverse the balance of power in an instant…

——Its underlying design is just like this. It's technology meant to resist the tyrannical power of the strong.

It's technology designed to protect the weak.

This is what he told himself.

Before long, Xiang Shan finished the reconfiguration of Will's prosthetic drive chip.

He handed the chip to Yuki and calmly said, "Yuki, help me connect this chip to my biological brain."

Only with this chip installed would he become a hero once again.

He would become his former self once again.

Yuki was a bit nervous.

Suddenly, a sensation that could only be described as "Possession by a God" took hold of Xiang Shan.

Although Xiang Shan always said that computers were just tools and that computers never did anything beyond human capability,

But the reason humans make tools is that the "efficiency improvement" itself can be seen as a transformation.

What Xiang Shan said about the leap from Turing Machines to above Turing Machines, to above the human brain, it's another level of leap, akin to the process from human to deity.

For example, a common shovel only achieves a slightly higher efficiency than manual digging. Yet, this increase in efficiency when applied to civilization almost marks the levels of civilization—the widespread application of "iron agricultural tools" in any cultural sphere is a significant milestone.

Besides, transferring harm that should be borne by human palms to metallic tools is a liberation of humanity itself.

It is the same with computers. They simply replace human calculation with pen and paper, but humanity has transferred the burden of calculating from the "human brain" to energy—transferring from human metabolic energy to the solar energy stored by plants millions of years ago, to the force of planetary gravity moving water, to the power released by stellar fusion.

The calculations that a computer can complete in one second, if done by humans with pen and paper, might take a day, a month, or even a year?

This is the power of tools.

After the implantation of Will's drive chip, Xiang Shan's work efficiency finally improved.

He could build more intricate design diagrams in his mind and store them directly in the chip. He could use electricity to call upon computational resources to calculate more detailed parameters.

In the following days, Xiang Shan explained the significance of his recent actions to his disciple while reconstructing the prosthetic body.

His time was pressing. He had to complete his new prosthetic body before the Welfare Officer made the announcement.

On the third day, he instructed Yuki to deliver a set of parameters to the Town Mayor.

Then, on the fifth day, something was sent over by the Town Mayor.

Among them was an external armor. This external armor shell closely resembled the natural state of a human torso, about an inch thick and weighing a hundred pounds. There was also a set of scaffolding. This scaffolding could support the external armor so that it would not hinder his movements.

This type of external armor wasn't commonly used by Martial Artists. It greatly restricted the movement of the torso. But up to this point, Xiang Shan still didn't have a mobile spine, and his torso couldn't move anyway. And the power parts dismantled from the canine prosthetic were enough to bear such external armor. That's why he chose this design.

Accompanying the delivery were two brand-new alloy leg bones.

What needed to be reconstructed next was the topological structure of the artificial muscles.

These artificial muscles were certainly not the same as muscle groups in their natural state. The body structures that evolved naturally contain too many impracticalities where "if it works, it's okay." For example, the haphazard neural networks of Cambrian-era creatures are mostly radially symmetrical or even asymmetrical, which is vastly different from the neatly bilateral symmetrical neural networks of modern animals that have been thoroughly shaped by natural selection.

This situation started in the early stages of biological evolution and greatly limited the intelligence development of most species.

The ancestors of vertebrates once, due to competing for ecological niches, degenerated the more ancient ancestors' neural systems inherited from the Cambrian explosion, keeping only one large nerve at the tail. Due to changes in the ecological environment, when these creatures with only one main nerve wanted to occupy other ecological niches, this main nerve evolved into a new neural system capable of adapting to bilaterally symmetrical structures.

This is what is known as the "spinal cord."

But this kind of "breaking before rebuilding, only establishing after destruction" story is a rarity in the history of evolution. In the vast majority of cases, biological evolution follows the trend that "once something degenerates, it will not evolve back."

Of course, a species won't easily degenerate any function. If a trait doesn't affect an individual's survival to the "age of reproducing," then this trait won't be eliminated—in other words, evolutionary forces can never help humans overcome aging diseases because aging diseases don't affect reproduction. Under natural circumstances, organisms can hardly live to old age.

Therefore, a large number of "evolutionary remnants," or "historical issues," which are actually quite useless but also harmless in youth, have accumulated within organisms.

Perhaps, when the environment changes again, they can act as the "fault tolerance of biological evolution" and come back into play.

This is also a reasonably sound "strategy" under the premise of not knowing what the future holds.

But prosthetic bodies are not designed for an unpredictable future; they are designed for "a specific purpose."

It would be foolish from an efficiency standpoint for an artificial body to fully mimic natural flesh that comes with excessive redundancy.

The muscles in this canine prosthetic body allowed for easier exertion than natural muscles and were more compatible with new variants of the Bionic Fist Technique.

But this was not the Martial Studies Xiang Shan was familiar with.

He had to use the existing muscle fibers, electro-dischargers, and new leg bones to design the connection of the muscle fibers to create a prosthetic body suitable for himself.

"It's not difficult," Xiang Shan said to himself: "It's just a problem of topology geometry, nothing more."

Okay, it had to be admitted that this was actually the most difficult part.

This involved millions of artificial muscle fibers, electro-dischargers, and the location and layout of circuits.

And after the calculation was completed, he still faced other challenges.

Lacking professional maintenance equipment, all of these had to be assembled by him and his disciples.

The only consolation was that the artificial muscle fibers themselves were replaceable. Perhaps under high-intensity exercises, these artificial fibers could overheat, age, and fracture. And these man-made objects did not possess the ability to self-repair. They needed to be replaced.

All of the muscle fibers, even those that belonged to one of the three standardized specifications.

As long as the ends of these muscle fibers approached the electro-dischargers, the electro-dischargers would be able to release electromagnetic force, causing the ends of the muscle fibers to connect with the correct circuits.

It was indeed a good design.

At least, Xiang Shan felt that such convenient designs were not so common in the era he was familiar with.

Soon, the two legs began to take shape gradually.

In this process, Xiang Shan also reconstructed his body's framework. He still lacked a spine as a central unit and needed to use up more space to lay out control circuits. In addition, he also needed to consider the heat dissipation of the body.

But no matter what, he had installed the thermal engine and battery that he had pulled from Will's body into his own chest.

At the same time, Xiang Shan didn't waste the remaining parts on Will's body. He gradually replaced the aging components on his prosthetic hand and further optimized it.

— However, the precision limit of these hands is just too poor.

These hands were really an old item, probably not even new when Yuki's grandmother used them.

No matter how much they are patched up, they can't be used as combat prosthetics.

— I must find a way to get a pair of better prosthetic hands.

Xiang Shan added this to his to-do list. While Xiang Shan was tirelessly working on crafting his new prosthetic body, Recycling Station Town was not idle either.

................................................

On the third day after Town Mayor had spoken with Xiang Shan, Enoch came back limping on a broken wheel. With no place to replace the blown tire, he had moved back bit by bit.

This, of course, caused an uproar.

According to Enoch, he was approached by some unknown thugs asking about "the mountain" and the "Martial Artist Prosthesis." In the process, Willy was killed by the thugs.

"It's that prosthetic body!" Enoch insisted: "It's because he didn't sell that prosthetic body... We might have been targeted!"

"What kind of nonsense is this, Enoch!" In response, the Town Mayor just scolded: "If it weren't for Shan, we might not even be able to pay a single tax!"

"If he hadn't been meddling, perhaps there would have been no trouble in the first place." Someone in the crowd said so cowardly.

"Nonsense!" The Town Mayor pulled out his ancestral automatic rifle and fired into the sky: "Is now the time to say such things?"

The vast majority of humans would not intentionally pursue a high cybernetic enhancement ratio. Low-enhancement Cybermen would still be severely injured or even bleed to death when hit by firearms. Even heavy machinery like Enoch could be killed by a direct hit to the biological brain.

However, many Martial Artists have experience in confronting firearms head-on—in the External Martial Arts, there's even a specific focus on mastering firearms called "Firearms Path." Martial Artists must consider situations where they confront firearms directly.

That is why, at that time, the Town Mayor had no intention of going up against Will Grand Duke in a life-and-death struggle. The reaction speed and survival capabilities brought by Cybernetic Limbs could stand against traditional firearms.

— No, it was "Cyber Martial Arts to stand against firearms" first, then "Cyber Martial Arts using firearms."

"Now is not the time for such talk!" the Town Mayor shouted: "We have to find a way to save ourselves!"

While Lords are obligated to kill those thugs who harm Protectors, the Lords have a lot of discretion as to "when" to kill.

Therefore, when a Lord feels that the cost of killing a thug far outweighs the benefit, they will cease the pursuit.

This applies to the Bounty Hunters as well.

It's also applicable to the thugs themselves.

If a temporarily withdrawn settlement has strong enough defenses, the thugs may not attack.

Now, they had to organize a self-defense force.

"They are only coming for a Martial Artist Prosthesis; it won't be a very strong group of thugs!" the Village Chief said aloud: "Large thug organizations also have many strong Martial Artists! A single prosthesis wouldn't draw them here, so as long as we stand united, we have a chance to get through this!"