Starting as a Mechanical Hunter-Chapter 348 - 120: Dong Gang

"Whoa, can it really be opened?"

"Nonsense, what part of this game can’t be opened? If you have the skills, you can even break into the women’s bathhouse."

"How do you know about this?"

"Heh, do you think the system warnings I received were for nothing?"

"Impressive, please stay away from me."

Originally, three leaders were chosen to negotiate with the alliance bigwigs, but as soon as the door opened, everyone rushed in, and Baozi couldn’t stop them.

After all, these players had at least committed suicide once, some even several times, to get here, so their desire to cause trouble was quite high.

However, the next moment, as everyone’s vision blurred, the data surged in, and when they came to their senses, a data maze appeared.

Vast streams of data wove into different roads: winding paths, express lanes, hyperlink bridges, or data-layer elevators.

The players seemed to have arrived in an electronic world and were stunned.

...

"As expected, without keeping some tricks up the sleeve, with a player’s husky-like personality, they would turn everything upside down sooner or later."

"Cyber Realm" has no safe zones, and as an NPC with only one life, Gao Gong naturally had to be very cautious.

Yet these players probably had enough of it as well; they couldn’t kill monsters alive, had to wait three days when dead, and if unlucky, they had to be implanted with a chip after resurrecting—a fate simply too pitiable to describe.

This game’s death mechanism is quite interesting. Besides losing experience and equipment, death marks the end of all relationships.

No matter how much favorability you gained with NPCs before, it all disappears if you die even once.

Let them calm down, or rather, hold out for a while longer.

Gao Gong shook his head and walked into a high-end apartment.

Two mechanical body guards immediately blocked his way upon seeing him.

’Virtual Invasion’ initiated.

The data stream in the guards’ prosthetic eyes paused for a moment, and when it resumed, it had already taken Gao Gong’s form.

However, the next moment, the alarm’s red light suddenly shone brightly.

"Installed a hidden alarm program on the security chip? No wonder it was once a high-profile talent apartment, but what a pity, it went bankrupt."

As part of a company’s assets, once bankrupt, some advanced defense equipment gets auctioned off, otherwise, a prosthetic body security team and a laser defense system would serve as the base for executive apartments.

Otherwise, this red light wouldn’t have flashed for so long without a response.

"A bit noisy, isn’t it?"

The next moment, a viscous black liquid dropped from the ceiling, beginning to engulf cameras and alarm facilities one by one.

Generally speaking, viruses only manifest in Cyber Space, but bugs are different; since they’re already bugs, not even the bugs themselves might know what kind of visual marvel they would create.

At this moment, the Black Code, like a black tide, quickly flooded the hall and surged onto the ’magnetic plate’.

’Magnetic plate’ is the evolved version of an elevator, looking like a high-tech skateboard, essentially a ’personal elevator’; once stepped on, artificial glass rapidly forms on all sides, making Gao Gong float upwards as if flying.

And then Gao Gong floated to the thirty-third floor.

This was considered the executive area, where typically one executive occupied an entire floor, lavishly decorated.

Since the ’Life Industry’ went bankrupt, the executive area hasn’t had many people; executives, as part of corporate assets, were the first to be auctioned off.

However, one person was an exception.

Dong Gang, former Chief Scientist of Life Industry, who appeared to be quite the research fanatic studying neural connection prosthetics.

Although he was fired by Life Industry, due to a non-compete agreement, he couldn’t immediately look for another job. Additionally, with Dong Gang’s considerable technical level, Life Industry would rather keep him than let him work for the competition.

After Life Industry went bankrupt, as the only non-executive who enjoyed executive treatment, he was quite lucky to not face ’bankruptcy restructuring’, and as long as this building wasn’t auctioned, he could continue to live there.

This was the person Gao Gong was looking for.

Standing at the door, Gao Gong rang the doorbell.

There was no response, whether from the house owner, the household AI, or the bionic man.

The latter two are understandable; they were likely used to pay off debts. Based on what Gao Gong knew, after being fired, this scientist had not stepped outside at all, so it was impossible for him to be away from home.

Gao Gong grasped the doorknob, and the next moment, the doorknob began to heat and turn red, and the door started to melt away, ferociously consumed by the volcanic fungus species.

A world filled with material blueprints, takeout scraps, and holographic displays appeared.

Then Gao Gong saw a ’headless man’ intently working, although using an old-fashioned keyboard, the opponent’s typing speed, which was almost a continuous blur of clicking, wasn’t slower than neural transmission.

Neural transmission, although incredibly fast, has a disadvantage: it’s hard to modify.

After all, with several gigabytes of data being uploaded per second, ensuring error-free transmission is extremely difficult.

You can fix programming errors, but in scientific experiments where every data point must be accurate, neural input is generally not used.

Of course, this is also because the development of the human brain is not yet powerful enough; once the Electronic Brain Plan is implemented, such errors will be significantly reduced.

"Who are you looking for?"

The headless man continued working without looking up, but a voice rang from behind Gao Gong.

Turning around, Gao Gong saw a small magnetic plate slowly descending; on it, a human head was curiously observing him.

That head was Dong Gang.

A head of an ordinary male, between young and middle-aged.

Gao Gong raised his eyebrows. He had seen heads being detached before, but this mostly happened with mechanical bodies, where after mechanical transformation, the information processing center was no longer the head, so naturally it could be detached.

But judging from the cross-section of the other person’s neck, they were a normal human, at least their head and neck hadn’t undergone body transformation.

Gao Gong had only seen this kind of operation on one person, and that was himself.

"It seems your neuroprosthetic body has broken through the technical barriers," Gao Gong said with intrigue.

"It can already conduct normal human transfers. You are very special!"

Magnetic plates spun around Gao Gong, Dong Gang’s eyes gradually widened, muttering to himself, his expression hesitant as if he had discovered something, but was not certain.

"Is this what you’re looking for?"

Gao Gong extended his palm, the skin rapidly melting into crimson lava, then the lava transformed into sulfuric acid, and countless serrations grew...

Countless nerve lines invisible to the naked eye shot out from his arm, piercing into the machines, whose screens turned into static, with the ’static’ beginning to form Gao Gong’s facial features.

Electronic voices rang out.

"Surprised?"

"Surprised?"

"Surprised?"

"Surprised?"

Dong Gang’s mouth slowly opened, and due to applying too much force with his jaw, his head flipped backward.

This, this is his ideal of the highest level of ’neuroprosthetic body’, completely detached from the shell, forming a transformative neurobiological creature that connects everything, isn’t it!?

[Scientific Research NPC, Dong Gang joins the camp, Alliance Experience +100000, Leader Reputation +1000]

Name: Dong Gang

Race: Neuro Transformer

Level: 37

Professional Knowledge: Level 2 Civilization - Professional Knowledge Chain [Neural Network] (Incomplete)

Skills: Neural Prosthetic Transformation (Expert), Neural Splicing (Expert), Chip Transformation Development (Elite), Life Transformation (Elite)

Personal Blueprint: None

Template: Neuro Wanderer (Incomplete)

Note: A genius-level scientist, albeit only at the Mechanical City level of genius

Compared to Artificial Intelligence Rong Fei, he is clearly a notch lower. After all, one is a Mother City level genius and the other is a Mechanical City level genius.

What makes Gao Gong want to complain the most is that the other person’s personal blueprint is actually zero. Goodness, since joining ’Life Industry’, have you produced no scientific results at all?

Of course, this doesn’t prove he did nothing, just not enough.

In Gao Gong’s opinion, this is clearly not a paper-focused scientist, but a hold-in-type scientist.

He could really come up with an industry-shocking move, or he could stifle himself, with the latter being more likely.

This isn’t to say the other party isn’t competent; one ’professional knowledge chain’ proves everything.

[Neural Network] is the professional knowledge chain of a Level 2 Information Civilization - Virtual World.

The Cyber Space is the product of this civilization technology.

The importance of [Neural Network] goes without saying.

Even an incomplete professional knowledge chain proves the other party’s professional knowledge is at least over five areas.

Similar to Professor Han.

And such a scientific researcher was easily persuaded by Gao Gong to join.

It’s not that Gao Gong is super eloquent, but rather, he proved the possibility of his research direction.

Like Professor Rong, he was very eager to slice Gao Gong for research.

"Boss, when can we study you?" Dong Gang’s eyes were fervent, his headless body seemed ready to pounce at any moment.

"There will be a chance, there will be a chance," Gao Gong smiled, "But first, you need to gather these things."

Dong Gang was taken aback, taking the paper slip from his new boss.

"Cell Tuner, Genetic Union Machine, Biological Culture Medium..."

Dong Gang immediately lost interest, shaking his head, setting the note aside.

"These aren’t equipment for neuro studies; I don’t have them here. You’ll have to look for someone else."

With that, he began to busy himself, completely disregarding Gao Gong.

Goodness, Dr. Rong is a religious-type scientist, and you’re the kind who acknowledges no kin.

If uninterested, you’d completely not participate; no wonder both of your Expert level skills are related to neuroscience, whereas the remaining two ’Elite’ skills are related to the company.

Your dismissal wasn’t without reason!

Gao Gong thought for a moment, then changed his tune, "To conduct large-scale neural research, at least a full set of large-scale research equipment is needed, which only enterprises possess. If I fund you, can you acquire ’Life Industry’ assets?"

Dong Gang’s eyes lit up; if you talk about this, I’m not sleepy anymore!