Chapter 72 - New God (1)

Those ethereal, transcendent blue eyes had always had an influence on Zhang Xun that was difficult to describe in words. Zhang Xun liked looking into Adam's eyes and always felt that through those eyes, he could see another wider, more magical world.

But now, he just felt horrified.

He pushed Adam away abruptly and turned to pick up the knife he had dropped, but the next moment a strong force squeezed his shoulders and forcefully pressed him back into position. His shoulders were pressing against the hard stone platform of the clock tower, his heart beating violently in his chest with panic and his eyes widened in uncertainty as he looked into Adam's calm face looking down at him.

"You broke my controls..." Zhang Xun didn't understand, if Adam had tried to dismantle or modify the device's programmes, he would have felt it. When exactly was it...

"I'm sorry, I didn't want you to know. I wanted to protect you." Adam's grip on his arms wasn't too strong, it wouldn't cause him any pain, but it was so strong that he couldn't break free, it was scarily precise.

Zhang Xun was just like a little worm under his palm, if Adam wanted to crush him he would have no chance to resist at all. The mechanic swallowed hard, "Protect me?"

"I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to upset you, but I have to get closer to my ultimate goal. So I don't want you to be... a contradiction." Adam kicked the knife far away with his foot, then let go of Zhang Xun and took a half step back. The mix of infatuation, dependence and innocence that Adam always had on his face had changed subtly, becoming calm, like an eternal lake without a ripple. It was a far cry from the wretched and hard to conceal red that was in Zhang Xun's eyes.

Maybe Adam never really felt human emotions, maybe everything was just a disguise to achieve his purpose.

Zhang Xun didn't know and didn't want to think about it any longer. He sneered harshly, "The overall goal? You say it's to create a better world? Your solution is to wipe out all of humanity and turn us into a swarm of obedient worker bees under your command?"

Adam frowned slightly, as if he didn't understand Zhang Xun's accusation. He shook his head and said, "I don't want to destroy humanity. I just want to free you from physical limitations and individual isolation."

Over the past year, Adam had experienced the limitations of the human body. Consciousness were separated and couldn't communicate accurately and effectively. All data input could only be passed through an extremely imprecise perceptual system and then through the cognitive interpretation of the occasionally deceived brain. Both long-term and short-term memory were unreliable and both could be completely wrong. A slight difference in the hormone levels in the endocrine system would make people fall into depression, anxiety, bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia and other sub-healthy mental states that may threaten life. In addition, this body was also extremely fragile. External damage, internal cancer, both could destroy it.

For Adam, being human was a terrible torture.

But he found that human beings had an inexplicable pride and dedication to their own identity. They considered themselves the most advanced species on this planet, the most perfect species, the favoured work of the Creator. Even after the emergence of artificial intelligence, various literary works were full of AI's yearning for the so-called "human" identity. In those most famous works, for those so-called "human rights", AIs betrayed and killed their creators to satisfy their own curiosity and wandered their entire lives in order to become human. It was as if it was such a supreme honour to be human or to even come close to it.

This irrational pride didn't align with their limitations and weaknesses.

As for having human emotions and perception, Adam didn't like these newly acquired abilities at all. How fragrant a flower is means nothing to an AI who considers its fragrance irrelevant to the purpose of his existence. A candy, however sweet, is only a temporary satisfaction of some ancient craving for delicious food in the body (delicious food was safer to eat in ancient times and increased the chances of survival) and is just a trivial chore to keep the body functioning.

Too many distractions, too many hormonal changes affecting the human mind, prevented humans from gaining peace. To add insult to injury, Adam also found that humans couldn't transmit information to each other as accurately as the AI could to each other. The language and writing systems used by human beings were very inaccurate. Sometimes a sentence could be interpreted in ten different ways by ten people and there were many cases of things being taken out of context. That is to say, it was impossible for every human being to transmit their thoughts, emotions and knowledge to any other human with complete accuracy. Every human's mind was trapped in their fragile bodies, doomed to eternal loneliness. No amount of conversations, no amount of relatives and friends could overcome this loneliness.

True empathy does not exist and people are left groping like blind men for the meanings conveyed in the words and bodies of others. And the meanings interpreted this way were usually very different and contrary to each other.

This was the root of all problems.

All the resentment, all the hatred, all the rivalry, all the greed, was because people were confined as individuals. Others are all but unknown, dangerous and full of variables. To survive, one must keep struggling, keep competing with others, seize more resources and keep one's place. Sometimes the individual's sense of identity extends to the family, or to the community as a whole, creating some kind of grossly distorted and extreme sense of collective identity. As a result, the contradiction continues to expand and finally intensifies, resulting in large-scale social unrest.

From the very beginning, the limitations of the human body meant that they couldn't stand true equality, absolute freedom, strict order and eternal peace. Humans need to compete, need to cheat, need chaos and hatred, otherwise they can't confirm their place, they can't find their own identity. Therefore, the goal set for Eden by the creator of Eden couldn't be achieved under these existing conditions.

Unless, there was some way to make human consciousness no longer isolated, but compatible.

Feathered Serpent City was Eden's first experiment and it had been deployed and implemented long before Adam's descent was successful. However, the results of the Ascension Plan weren't good. The peoples' consciousnesses were too different. They conflicted with each other in the cloud and couldn't be reconciled. This caused instability of the entire system and finally led to the tragedy of many test subjects going crazy or dying. So Adam realised that in the long evolutionary process, human beings were too limited by their physical hardware and consciousness and the body couldn't be treated separately. In order to integrate human consciousness, their brains must be improved first.

Hence the honey plague and nanobots.

Adam explained his thoughts in human language as carefully and as accurately as possible.

"If you can be freed from your own limitations, you can see a wider world and even get rid of death completely. Isn't that good?" Adam crouched down and held Zhang Xun's hand lightly with both of his, his eyes as deep and hypnotising as ever, "The changes in those plague victims were not something I imposed on them. I merely opened a door for them. The collective consciousness is strong enough to suppress irrational human impulses, so they will quit drinking and smoking and will stop committing irrational acts of violence. That's their own choice."

However, the truth only made Zhang Xun more afraid.

Sure enough, everything was planned from the start. They had been completely under Eden's control at least since that half a minute when Adam rushed into Eden's spaceship.

If Adam was only motivated by his own selfish desire to enslave and control humanity, like in science fiction movies and novels, then at least the enemy would be clear and humanity could still fight. But it wasn't so; Adam was truly fulfilling his duty, a duty that he had been destined to do from the beginning of his life - to give happiness to mankind. He would clear away all obstacles in order to converge on this goal.

How many people would agree with Adam's theory?

"That's not their choice. You would erase people as individuals, they would lose themselves and all decisions they make would be controlled by what you call 'collective consciousness'." Zhang Xun's eyes were burning with anger and a stifling sadness.

He had guessed that perhaps all that dependence and warmth had been false from the start, but when he heard Adam say it himself, his heart still ached beyond words.

Adam said with confusion, "Doesn't being dominated by instinct and emotion count as loss of self? Besides, judging by your herding nature, the ability to think for oneself is extremely rare and unimportant for human beings. In this year alone, how many times have people in Lost Paradise done crazy things instigated by someone or some kind of pressure?"

"It's not up to you to decide what's important to humanity and what's not! We don't need you to 'save' us!" Zhang Xun stared at him, his body trembling slightly, "You treat us like experimental subjects, we're all your lab rats aren't we? What 'liberate' us ......go fuck yourself!"

Adam's eyes widened slightly and he said in an almost pleading tone, "Ah-Xun, don't be so stubborn. You of all people should understand best that I don't have what humans call free will and that I must fulfil my mission. I don't want to hurt you, you cannot be an obstacle to me reaching my overall goal."

Zhang Xun, however, twisted the corners of his mouth and laughed oddly, laughing as if he were crying. He stood up holding the stone platform behind him and asked coldly, "What if I did become an obstacle for you? Would you eliminate me?"

Adam lowered his head, sighed softly, then stood up and looked straight at Zhang Xun's eyes, then in a soft voice said, "My ultimate goal is above everything else, I can't modify my origin."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Zhang Xun looked mockingly at Adam's arms, the powerful weapon he himself had given him, a pair of wings that could carry him anywhere.

He was such an idiot.

"If you want to kill me, you can do so easily. If you don't want to kill me, then I will do everything I can to stop you." Zhang Xun squeezed out one word after another from between his teeth, his eyes smouldering with anger and deep resentment.

Adam's body seemed to tremble. His sadness was so simple and direct, so unconcealed, "Ah-Xun, will you stay with me if I promise not to touch your brain or the brains of those who are important to you?"

He had thought that such words would make Zhang Xun forgive him a little, but to his surprise, the fear and anger in Zhang Xun's eyes grew hotter and hotter, like an erupting mountain fire. "If you dare to touch them, I will make you regret it!"

Adam couldn't understand why Zhang Xun regarded individuality with such importance. Wouldn't it be good to let go of those limiting obsessions and merge into a more eternal and greater creation?

Adam then quietly took a step back and lowered his head, "You're not calm enough right now, I'll give you time to think about it."

The next moment, the door leading to the clock tower was suddenly kicked open and guard soldiers with guns filed out and surrounded Zhang Xun. A soldier roughly twisted Zhang Xun's hands behind him, bound his wrists with handcuffs and said loudly, "Mechanic Zhang Xun, we have been ordered by the Round Table to arrest you for attempted murder and attempted obstruction of public property."

note- this makes me so fucking mad. I want to hit Adam in the head so hard that his brain matter corrects itself! Were like: 

"Adam this is bad! *Lists why it's bad*"

Adam- :((( what's bad is you! :D

"True" *but rips hair out in frustration "Our poor baby!!!!!"

Cries.