Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 342 Transformation Experiment
"Are you announcing the psychic now?"

Bai Quan responded to Chen Ming's question: "You can't say that just yet. The propaganda has already been prepared."

"Not only will the Empire highlight the contributions of psykers, it will also highlight the contributions of ordinary people who have made outstanding contributions in the war."

"Put ordinary people and psychics together for propaganda, and treat psychics as ordinary people with special abilities, just like those officers with excellent command abilities."

"'They're all normal people, just with different abilities'."

"This is a plan that the Empire has been laying out for the past few decades."

"Psychics have existed for a long time. In the beginning, the news was kept strictly secret, but later on, the control over the news about psychics was gradually relaxed."

"Some news about psychics was even leaked by the Empire, which made psychics gradually become like urban legends, and made the people of the Empire gradually adapt to the existence of psychics."

"The abilities of psychics are too far beyond the comprehension of ordinary people, and things beyond comprehension bring fear to people."

"The complete plan is to gradually make people lose their fear of psychics through subtle influence, and then find a suitable time to announce the existence of psychics."

"The right time is now. This is the war between us and the mechanical race that we must win."

"You will also be released with me as a special publicity example."

"Including the things you and I will do in this war, and the last time I cooperated with you to attack Yuhui's giant shipyard, they will all be publicized together."

"The Empire also wants to create more heroes to further divert the attention of the people in the country."

"Minimize the impact of dimensional infection."

Chen Ming listened carefully to what Bai Quan said. All he wanted to say could only be summed up in one sentence: "Good fellow."

It can be said that psychics have always been a troublesome group.

This arrangement of the Empire can be said to have completely integrated the concept of psychics into the people and into the concept of the Empire itself.

The Empire would even have a legitimate reason to seek out psykers hiding among the civilian population, or those who possessed psionic gifts.

No more sneaking around in the dark, no more avoiding the negative effects of a psychic's influence.

Although this operation seems to be about creating a heroic character, in fact the key is not the "hero" but the "character".

This would strip away the "divinity" of psychics, who are people who possess supernatural powers.

Psykers are human.

There are pros and cons to this matter.

But for Chen Ming, the overall situation should be positive.

So he has no objection.

Bai Quan continued, "By the way, some gossip about you might get out, about you and Xing Hai."

"The Empire will leak some of your daily life through some low-level channels, so that more people will know that psykers are just ordinary people."

"You are not the only one. There are many psychics whose daily lives are spread in secret ways when the propaganda department deems it appropriate."

"Further reduce the public's vigilance and fear of psychics."

"Of course, if you mind, I can tell the publicity department about it. If I don't release you, the effect may not be very good, because you are the most outstanding psychic who can be promoted now."

Chen Ming thought about it and said, "As long as it's not too private, I don't mind. I don't usually show up in public anyway. What do you think of Xinghai?"

"I asked her, and she had no objection."

"Okay, then just let me see the final news before it leaks out."

"no problem."

Communication ended.

Chen Ming immediately anticipated what would happen next.

The news will first be spread through Baiquan Mouth.

The Empire will certainly invest some resources in the investigation, and will eventually lead to An Wuping, who has an absolute connection with the Thorn Zerg.

As long as Chen Ming operates well on An Wuping's side, the Zerg will eventually only be connected to An Wuping, and will be separated from Chen Ming himself.

Of course, if the Empire really found some additional intelligence that linked him to the Zerg again, he also had backup means to explain it and separate them.

Chen Ming put away the terminal.

He focused his attention on the mechanical psychic-biological transformation facility that had just been installed after he finished talking to Baiquan.

Next, it’s time to start the experimental process that couldn’t be completed last time due to broken equipment.

Speaking of experiments, Chen Ming subconsciously glanced at sample No. 0 which had been on the spacecraft recently.

This guy was the first Zerg individual to undergo transformation, and he was also the only one who survived all the transformation experiments Chen Ming had conducted in the past few days.

Compared to the previous few days, its condition is much better.

He no longer constantly causes harm to himself due to the mechanized structures within his body.

An existential crisis is no longer a possible reason for Sample Zero's death.

But it can still only be regarded as a disabled individual.

But it did not give up struggling.

The Zerg's natural ability to adapt to the environment and evolve allows it to continuously evolve in the process of fighting against itself, constantly adapting to its body that is a random mixture of mechanical and biological elements.

At least now it can perform some simple activities compared to when it just crawled out of the transformation facility, unlike before when it could only crawl.

This can also be said to be that the Zerg individuals controlling sample zero have a strong sense of consciousness and a strong desire to survive.

Therefore, after being sent into the body of sample zero, there will be changes that other individuals do not have.

So Chen Ming just kept sample zero, and it didn’t consume any extra resources.

Maybe I can bring him some unexpected surprises later.

After reading sample number zero.

Chen Ming still focused his attention on the present, on the complete transformation facility in front of him.

Conduct first full facility use.

This time Chen Ming did not plan to transform the Zerg first, but chose to transform one of his prostheses.

After all, the situation when his prosthesis was transformed was much worse than that of the Zerg. Not only was the average survival time shorter than that of the transformed Zerg individuals, there was not even a single individual that survived for more than an hour.

So this time, he has to start with a "person" like a prosthesis.

After the prosthesis was delivered, Chen Ming began to wait patiently.

The transformation process is exactly the same as before, which is to use nanorobots to transform biological tissue into machinery bit by bit.

Chen Ming can see the entire process.

Just like before, the transformation starts from the organs in the body.

All life-sustaining organs were removed, and only the basic organs that maintained human mobility were retained after being converted into machines.

Also, some cavities within the body are not retained during the transformation.

This makes the entire prosthesis look extremely thin when it is half converted, and it looks more like a mechanized skeleton than a mechanized person.

The human body has simply been transformed into a mechanical individual that is similar to a human form. It looks like it can be modified with various devices at any time. There is nothing special about it.

But it's not over yet.

After the transformation of most organs and body was completed, the transformation facility finally reached the last step, which was the brain part as Chen Ming had guessed last time.

Just as the facility was transforming the brain, something unexpected happened.

Of course, it was not a real accident, but an unexpected situation occurred in the transformation facility that exceeded Chen Ming's expectations.

The prosthetic, mechanized head was suddenly opened during the transformation process, and the brain, which was still in its intact biological state, was extracted individually by the nanorobots.

Those nanorobots gathered on the brain, penetrated deep into it, and gradually transformed the brain into something Chen Ming had seen before.

Something called the secondary core of personality that he had discovered in the Infernal Lord.

The secondary core of personality is different from the personality core of the mechanical queen.

Its appearance is not a sphere like the core of a personality with several columnar structures extending out.

Instead, while barely maintaining the basic shape of the brain, there are more various dense circuit arrangements.

So it is mainly a type of secondary core and has little to do with the personality core.

Secondary cores have different levels and are installed in mechanical units of different levels. The highest level is the personality secondary core.

Chen Ming actually thought the shape was a bit strange before, but he didn't think much about it at the time.

Not only because he did not connect the secondary personality core to the brain, but also because he was unable to produce a secondary personality core then and now.

He obtained all the information related to the secondary core of the mechanical race from the mechanical race.

There is only a manufacturing plan for secondary cores, from basic secondary cores to advanced secondary cores.

The advanced secondary core can just be installed on the Centipede, the backbone combat unit of the mechanical race, but there is no higher-level one.

Of course, the Queen of Machinery should know the manufacturing plan for the secondary core of personality, but Chen Ming did not ask.

Because he did not have many Infernal Cores on hand, and the Zerg were more suitable for ground combat than the Mechs, he had no idea of ​​creating advanced ground units for the Mechs.

Even if you get a more advanced secondary core, you have nowhere to use it.

So he didn't do any research, nor did he rush to ask the queen.

After all, the machine is there, just ask when you need it.

If you ask without needing to, you may end up with a bunch of information that you don't need yet but still need to spend time to organize.

Therefore, Chen Ming never expected that the manufacturing process of the secondary core of personality was actually related to humans.

It can even be converted quite directly through the human brain.

He had previously wondered why the highest-level secondary core would be the personality secondary core, and now he had gotten some explanation.

This also further proves that the extinct Shining Civilization definitely had a very close connection with humans.

There is another point worth noting.

That is, the secondary core of the personality is damaged, it is a broken secondary core of the personality.

It's not functioning.

It was obvious that this device was a complete device obtained by Chen Mingxin, and it had even been repaired, and there was no trace of the destructive psychic energy fluctuations.

Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any problem of converting into a broken device.

But it just happened to produce a damaged secondary core of personality. Why?
Just as Chen Ming was thinking, the Queen of Insects suddenly sent him a message that made him understand what was going on.

That's when the transformation facility transforms to the brain.

The Queen's consciousness, which is residing in the prosthesis, feels as if it is being detached.

The Queen of Worms did not allow her consciousness to be extracted, and because of the transformation process, her consciousness automatically separated, and then it became like this.

Then Chen Ming understood.

It should be that during the transformation, part of the brain's consciousness will be preserved by the nanorobots, and after the brain is completely transformed into the secondary core of the personality, that part of the preserved consciousness will be stuffed in.

The consciousness in the prosthesis was temporarily filled in by the Queen of Insects. There is no consciousness that can be separated independently, which leads to this situation.

Chen Ming immediately conducted a replica experiment to verify his hypothesis.

This time, the prosthesis was filled with the consciousness of an ordinary Zerg unit.

The Zerg individual indicated that it had no objection.

And as the device's transformation process was carried out again, the prosthesis was transformed into a mechanical state, and the individual Zerg consciousness inside the prosthesis was also completely transformed into the consciousness inside the core of the personality.

This time the secondary core was not damaged and it began to operate normally.

The consciousness inside the prosthesis still exists, and what exists is not the hive mind network of the mechanical race that Chen Ming possesses, but the hive mind network of the Zerg race to which it originally belonged.

Just outrageous.

This situation means that as long as Chen Ming installs this secondary core on any Demon King, this Demon King will be equivalent to relying on the Zerg hive thinking network rather than the mechanical hive thinking network.

This situation made Chen Ming subconsciously have a few more thoughts.

And he immediately tried it.

Use psychic energy to tune the consciousness in this secondary core, and utilize the particularities of the mechanical race's hive mind network to balance the thought fluctuations of this individual with those of the mechanical network.

Try to connect this individual, which originally belongs to the Zerg, to the hive mind network of the mechanical race.

The result... actually works.

This individual can even share consciousness communication in two networks at the same time and benefit from the hive mind network.

However, Chen Ming immediately terminated this contact.

Because he was worried that something bad would happen.

Of course, this does not mean that there will be conflicts between the two cellular networks. He will sense the risk of conflict at the first opportunity.

He was referring to other aspects.

The mechanical race's hive mind network is an ability that the mechanical race possesses itself, and it is an ability that Chen Ming can also demonstrate with reasonable reasons after he captures the mechanical race.

Several people had previously provided Chen Ming with ideas for developing psychic powers, but Chen Ming had never shown them.

He wanted to treat this ability as a trump card that he could reveal to others.

The Zerg is another trump card, and it is a trump card that needs to be revealed by An Wuping. It can't connect the two together.

Otherwise, An Wuping, whom he had worked so hard to create, would have lost a large part of his meaning of existence.

Moreover, if the Mechanoids and Zerg are mixed together, the allocation of authority and interference in the functions of the current controllers of the two hive mind networks will be more troublesome.

Although Chen Ming needs an individual with sufficient autonomy and loyalty to him to help manage the mechanical hive mind network, he should not be a pure machine without his own thoughts like the Mechanical Queen. The Insect Queen just meets the requirements.

But the Queen of Insects knows little about mechanization.

The Queen of Insects only understands the operating principles of the machinery and knows how to reproduce it, but she is absolutely unable to innovate in the machinery or manage purely mechanized regional colonies.

Therefore, Chen Ming has no plans to conduct an in-depth study on the mutual transformation between machines and organisms, or even the connection between two hive mind networks.

Maybe there will be a chance in the future.

However, he has to wait until the mechanical race in his hands is fully developed and the existence of half-biological and half-mechanical individuals is truly studied.

At least he understood what the secondary core of personality was.

This result is a little scary.

The secondary core of personality nowadays can be said to be the transformation of dying humans by the Machine Race, but what about the past? What about the Shining Civilization?
What is the situation of the Shining Civilization? What kind of existence are they?
As expected, I have to visit the Shining Civilization Research Institute later.

Chen Ming thought so.

However, for now, let's put this situation aside as it does not affect his work for the time being.

As for the personality transformed from the Zerg consciousness... no, it's the secondary core of the Zerg.

It seems that his ability is inferior to his personality.

But it is better than actually using people to convert.

Some of the top mechanical units themselves need this kind of secondary core. Chen Ming can't go to any prison in the empire and ask for death row prisoners to transform...

Wait, that doesn’t seem to be a problem.

But in any case, it’s good to have one more way to obtain it.

And Chen Ming had another magical idea.

He took out the secondary personality core separately and sent it to the Queen of Insects.

The Queen of Zerg has already devoured the last wave of resources that existed on the Zerg Hive Planet and is preparing to start migrating.

But it still has time to help Chen Ming do some small things.

For example, transforming this mechanical insect cell secondary core back into a biological state.

Although the secondary core is small in size, the difficulty of transformation still exists, even greater than that of transforming the jump engine.

However, it didn't take the Queen of Insects much time to complete the transformation process.

The Queen Insect that evolved by devouring fairy tree seeds is no longer the same as before in terms of transformation capabilities.

And the result of the transformation... is a brain.

The consciousness of that Zerg unit is still stored inside, and the consciousness of this Zerg unit has not changed at all.

The Queen of Zerg thus transformed the consciousness that originally existed at the data level back, and was able to use the transformed consciousness as an ordinary Zerg individual consciousness and put it into the bodies of other Zerg units.

Even after being stuffed into the body of another unit, this Zerg unit can still reconnect to the mechanical hive network.

Of course Chen Ming immediately stopped this operation.

It’s still the same problems as before.

We'll have to leave that for later.

After saving and sealing the relevant information.

Chen Ming prepared to start the next experiment.

It is to transform ordinary Zerg units into machines.

The process went smoothly.

But the result was not ideal.

The effect is too poor.

The mechanized Zerg units that were created did not have any new capabilities, they simply changed from biological Zerg to mechanical Zerg.

And because of their complete mechanization, even after becoming mechanical creatures, these Zerg units still maintain contact with the Zerg hive mind network and can no longer call upon the Queen's psychic powers.

It is impossible to achieve an improvement in organ tissue strength.

Although some of Chen Ming's psychic powers can still be used, compared to using Chen Ming's psychic powers in a biological state which only consumes energy, repairing it in a completely mechanized state will require additional materials, which is completely meaningless.

Even insects like Sample Zero, which are in a semi-mechanized state, can use energy to directly repair mechanical organs and tissues.

This is completely mechanized, and Chen Ming can't see any important meaning or value in it.

Somewhat interesting, but not much.

The most Chen Ming could think of was that it could be used when the Mechanical Race was in urgent need of manpower, to quickly convert the Zerg units into Mechanical units.

But that only applies to the mechanical race alone. The mechanical race can transform other creatures into their own combat power.

Chen Ming doesn't need to transform the Zerg into mechanical ones before going to the battlefield.

As expected, in the end, the spiritual nerves still need to be transformed.

This is the main function of this device.

The black fog awakening nerve that Chen Ming had extracted some time ago has remained intact and can be used in this experiment at any time.

It can only be said that Chen Ming’s time at the Psychic Research Institute and the project were not in vain.

Through what he has learned in the project, he has been able to maintain the Qi Ling Nerves for a long time, and the Qi Ling Nerves will no longer die due to being separated from the human body for too long.

Until today, the Black Mist Spirit-awakening Nerve can finally be used.

Chen Ming used his psychic power to directly take the black mist spiritual awakening nerves stored in a canned device from the cultivation room of the spacecraft and sent them into the conversion device.

The conversion device immediately took in the spiritual awakening nerve and began to operate.

This time the transformation process was quite fast.

It only took a blink of an eye.

The black fog's spiritual nerves disappeared completely.

What was left behind was a ping-pong ball-sized, pitch-black spherical object emitting psychic energy fluctuations.

This is the core of the black fog.

The by-products such as spiritual energy emitted by the Black Mist Spiritual Awakening Nerves during the transformation process were collected by the facility.

It was injected into several mechanical spiritual nerves that Chen Ming had successfully replicated.

Chen Ming has not figured out the purpose of the black fog core yet. After all, the destruction core made by the mechanical clan is used to be installed inside the bow of the Spine Peak Cannon.

He doesn't have a ridge cannon on hand right now.

So for now, just use it as an additional psionic ability trigger.

This thing is somewhat similar to the Source of Chaos, but there is no need to worry about triggering any situation that would lead to the emergence of a mind-wandering entity.

As for the black fog mechanical spiritual nerves.

Chen Ming has already thought of its use.

They will become what Chen Ming had thought of before, and the special Zerg individuals can also be regarded as part of the individual capabilities of the Guards.

(End of this chapter)