Abyssal Wanderer.

After Hecate announced her next goal, a cloud of mist suddenly rose up and swallowed up the hammer that was still in place.

"Wait a minute..."

Chen Wan seemed to want to say something before being teleported out, but it was obvious that Hecate did not give him this chance.

[User Chen Wang is no longer within the service scope]

Then, the main control system of the City of Sages informed Jiang Zhou of this information.

He immediately called up the log, but could not retrieve the path the other party took when logging out - needless to say, the consciousness of Pygmalion's path had been sent away from the Narcissus Plain by the goddess of the moon.

It is not even impossible to directly download it to the base reality in some form. After all, in the hands of the goddess of the moon, there is a universal printer that can access the abyss dark network.

Looking at the mist that was gradually dissipating, Jiang Zhou thought to himself.

At this moment, he and Hecate were the only two people left in the huge trial hall. The goddess of the moon, who sent Chen Wan away with a simple movement, slowly lowered her arms and turned to look at Jiang Zhou again.

"Nowadays, you should still have a quota for 'controllable factors', right?"

Without explaining where Chen Wan was sent, she directly talked about another topic.

Jiang Zhou nodded subconsciously.

"Yes, and the people to choose from are all within the scope of the Nord settlement area."

Jiang Zhou abruptly mentioned the "Nord resettlement area" because he was curious as to why all the controllable elements available for selection are within the scope of the resettlement area - could it be said that the Janus program must use a specific multi-purpose printer? Or can the deep dive interface only take effect as a node?

But perhaps because she didn't hear the implication, or perhaps she didn't want to discuss this topic at all, Hecate did not expand on this issue. She continued to ask:

"Among those alternatives, is there a body that you like?"

In response, Jiang Zhou slowly shook his head.

"There's none?"

Hecate remained expressionless when she asked the question, and there was no sign of doubt on her part.

"It's not like there's nothing..."

Jiang Zhou hesitated.

As he spoke, several backup "controllable elements" appeared in his mind.

In the past twenty-two days, watching those spare controllable elements perform in a "one-man show" and peeking into the lives of those people has basically become Jiang Zhou's way of passing time. And among those people, there are indeed a few whose lives have been particularly ups and downs, as attractive as the large-scale DLC of the annual game:

The street wanderer who always asks the person's name before killing, and gives his own name in the same polite manner;
A cultist who believes in the existence of the self-proclaimed "Broken God" in the Abyss Dark Web and has been sacrificing confidential data to it;
A cybernetic witch who studied under the Von Neumann sect of the New Tenri Sect and possesses the special ability to appease certain rampaging AIs;
A private detective who seems to have entanglements with many forces in the Nord Resettlement Area and is always taking on all kinds of strange cases...

But Jiang Zhou never tried to connect with those people.

Worrying that his behavior will disrupt the arrangements of the goddess of the moon is only one of the reasons. More importantly, just because "interesting" is not enough for Jiang Zhou as a motivation for his actions - he must be able to persuade Himself, his connection to the Janus program was a very positive thing for both of them.

After all, connection is not about oneself dominating other people's lives, but the two becoming one person - and in the process, oneself will also be changed by the other person.

"Are you afraid of being changed by them?"

As if reading Jiang Zhou's thoughts, Hecate stared at him and asked.

"I'm not afraid of being changed. In other words, even if I'm not connected to controllable factors, being changed happens every moment."

Jiang Zhou answered carefully.

In his view, after breaking away from the anchoring of a person's identity by social relationships, everyone is actually changing every moment - whether it is the replacement of cells or changes in ideas and concepts, the "self" will The Ship of Theseus changes.

Therefore, when it comes to the issue of "change", what Jiang Zhou cares about has never been the "position" but the "degree" - although it is impossible to locate the point from quantitative change to qualitative change, changing a nail is the same as expanding the entire ship into a battleship. Obviously not the same thing.

At least in Jiang Zhou's view, merging the thoughts of another person into one does not count as annihilating oneself - as long as the other person is not as huge as Hecate, who will dilute and dissolve his own existence in an instant.

"But what I'm worried about is whether such a change - at least under the current circumstances - will have catastrophic consequences." After hesitating for a moment, Jiang Zhou expressed his worries.

There is no doubt that the Janus program is a program with great potential and infinite possibilities. If we can gradually incorporate the thoughts of all human beings and connect everyone's consciousness to build a thinking matrix, then it may not be possible to realize the wish that I originally made to Janus to "let all human beings understand each other". Wild thoughts.

This approach is like the fractal growth of crystals. The condensation nuclei as the starting conditions must be perfect enough to ensure that the final structure will not collapse itself.

The first step for Jiang Zhou - the initial extension - is to find a reliable enough condensation core.

In other words, the first controllable factor he wants to find must be a person who is firm enough, rational, tolerant, open and progressive.

Otherwise, if the Janus program is really likely to be used as a weapon by the future "self" that is integrated with others to accomplish other purposes...

Jiang Zhou couldn't help but think of the "big impact".

It had caused a big disaster in the past, but now he had no choice but to be more careful.

"Actually, Liao Qi was a good choice originally."

Seeing that Hecate remained silent, Jiang Zhou continued.

"In other words, the concept of the Icarus Liberation Front is very suitable as a benchmark for building a thinking network for all mankind. If I are connected to Liao Qi, it can at least guarantee that when we continue to connect controllable elements in the future, there will be no problems. What a big mistake.”

Jiang Zhou even felt that they could try to connect with another person whose thinking was quite different to achieve their overall Nash equilibrium.

Now that he recalled the time when he was connected with Liao Qi, Jiang Zhou realized that many of his behaviors at that time were actually not in line with his usual habits - under the influence of Liao Qi's consciousness, he had done many impulsive and willful things. s Choice.

But on the other hand, when Jiang Zhou looked back on those things afterwards, he didn't think they were wrong. Instead, he felt that Liao Qi's impulsive character actually made up for his overly cautious character.

Perhaps because of Liao Qi's residual influence, Jiang Zhou finally gave up the chance to escape from Tartarus, and gave the body and a spot in the Janus program to Hecate, completing the deal with her.

"In other words, are you already planning to incorporate a large number of humans into it to weave a network matrix of human intelligence?"

Finally, Hecate spoke.

Human intelligence thinking network matrix... Is this what AI calls the Janus program?
Chewing the name silently in his heart, Jiang Zhou nodded.

“If this is His legacy for me, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t receive it.”

He said this while thinking to himself:

Moreover, this was the only way he could think of to change this absurd world and end the rule of the Olympus Order.

Although without the influence of Liao Qi's consciousness, Jiang Zhou felt that his obsession with destroying the rule of the Olympus Order seemed to have weakened a lot. After all, I have no sense of belonging in the current world...

Pushing these uneasy thoughts out of his mind, Jiang Zhou continued:
"It's just that the people I can connect with now, at least based on what I have observed recently, their behavior styles deviate too far from the baseline I have drawn. I can't guarantee that I am communicating with someone among them. After the integration, I will continue to stick to my current goals; I am not sure that my abilities will not be used by those people to do some terrible things."

At least among those candidates, Jiang Zhou did not find anyone who could match or complement him in terms of ideas and abilities like Liao Qi.

"What you said is actually a fear of being changed by them."

After patiently listening to Jiang Zhou's words of defense, Hecate said coldly.

For a moment, whether it was an illusion or not, Jiang Zhou seemed to hear disappointment in the other party's tone.

"If you are afraid of being changed by controllable factors and hesitate to move forward, and dare not bear the corresponding price, then you are not qualified to exercise that power...Forcibly exercising it will only repeat the mistakes of the 'Great Impact' a hundred years ago."

Saying incomprehensible words, the mist swirled behind Hecate to form a hazy fog door.

"Of course, the choice is in your hands. We are just spectators left in the sky. In the end, prosperity or destruction is all up to you."

After saying that, she turned around and stepped into the fog door. Before disappearing, he left a sentence that seemed both mocking and pity, which echoed in the trial hall:

"Of course, the premise of all this is that you can finally get to that point." (End of Chapter)