I'm Trapped in the Block

Chapter 302: Chapter 299: Digital Brain

Shadows... were solid.

Tang Su had never expected it himself.

”I had nothing else on me at the time. The demand for materials kept growing, and I had no other options. That’s when I happened to see the shadow on the ground...”

At first, Tang Su only used a shadow to stitch up a small wound. To his surprise, the patched wound healed remarkably well. Though the patch was just a pitch-black blob, it was incredibly hard.

What’s more, by using shadows as patches, he didn’t have to worry about running out of material.

His shadow would vanish as he used it, only to regenerate under the sun. Even when the final patch required a terrifying amount of material, his shadow was able to replenish itself in an instant.

And his most severely injured thigh healed completely thanks to the shadow patches.

Although the shadow patch turned his entire thigh pitch-black, the leg worked just as well as before. There was no difference at all.

Tang Su had never imagined that using something conceptual like a shadow as a patch would actually work.

The reviewer listened to his story, stunned by what he had done. He was speechless for a long while.

”Stand up, please. I need to document this.”

Tang Su did as the reviewer asked and stood up. The reviewer began taking photographs for the record.

Then, the reviewer put on a pair of gloves and tried to touch the patches on Tang Su’s body.

The steel patch felt like metal.

The feather patch was soft to the touch.

But when he touched the shadow patch, the reviewer’s finger passed right through it, meeting no resistance. Tang Su didn’t react at all.

”What do you feel?”

”Just a normal sense of pressure,” Tang Su answered.

Not daring to push any deeper, the reviewer quickly pulled his hand out and returned to his chair to continue his report.

”Do you know what the ’price’ is? Have you felt anything unusual?”

Tang Su shook his head. ”Everything’s normal.”

”We’ll need to keep you under observation for a while. For now, you’ll stay at the monitoring station. Report anything unusual immediately.”

”Alright...”

However, just as the reviewer finished his notes and was about to send Tang Su on his way, he noticed Tang Su standing rigidly in place. He was staring intently at the desk, and even gulped.

”What is it?”

”It’s nothing. I was just looking at this desk. It seems like it would make a good patch.”

Tang Su said, his voice sounding dazed.

Then, he lifted his head and stared directly at the reviewer.

His eyes held the same longing...

In the end, Tang Su was subdued, and the relic was sealed away in an official warehouse.

After extensive research, scientists finally figured out how the relic worked.

...

[Relic: Patch]

[Price: With continued use, the wielder develops an extreme craving for all solid materials, desiring to turn everything into a patch.]

[Ability: Use any material, including conceptual ones, to patch any object.]

[Place of Discovery: First Layer of the Abyss]

[Discovered by: Tang Su]

...

Once a patch is applied, it completely adopts the properties of the object it’s patching. For example, if used to patch a piece of clothing, the patch becomes part of the clothing, regardless of the material used to make it.

This is why the patch can fuse so perfectly with an object.

To anyone else, however, the patches retain the properties of their original material. A stone patch is still a stone, and a steel patch is still steel. They look and feel just like the original material, obeying its physical laws.

This bizarre duality of properties puzzled researchers for a long time.

Once this was understood, many people clamored for the relic. They didn’t want it for its combat potential, but for its incredibly high research value.

”Yuanxin Technology submitted a research proposal to the government back then,” Li Luo said slowly. ”Because the government has limited manpower, they often loan out relics. It’s a way to raise funds and outsource research to the private sector. That’s how the relic ended up in Yuanxin Technology’s hands, to be studied under supervision.”

”But unexpectedly, the first thing Yuanxin Technology did was use the conceptual material of ’data’ to patch the brains of lab mice. And they succeeded.”

”The brains of these ’data’-patched mice were actually able to achieve a ’mouse-computer interface’.”

”By then, the government had already taken notice of Yuanxin Technology’s activities. They warned them not to use the relic on biological subjects and to focus on synthetic materials instead.”

”But the allure of intelligent machinery was too great. Yuanxin Technology drifted further and further off course, eventually developing the ’Digital Brain’ technology and applying it to their sixth-generation intelligent machines.”

”And right on cue, the government’s iron fist came smashing down.”

”To be fair, Yuanxin Technology’s upper management wanted to stick to synthetic material research. But the R&D department just couldn’t let it go. They secretly ran two sets of experiments...” Li Luo added with a sigh of resignation.

”That’s the origin of the Digital Brain. No one ever thought the research department would come up with something like that. Using data to patch a brain... it was a genius idea, in a way.”

”The patches fused completely with the brain. With continuous patching, the data would eventually replace the physical tissue entirely, turning the brain into a purely ’conceptual object’—a gateway between the physical world and the digital one.”

After hearing Li Luo’s explanation, Mo Ling was stunned into silence.

To think that Yuanxin Technology had managed to get a technology derived from a relic banned by the government, rather than the relic itself.

’It just goes to show, there are no useless relics in the Abyss,’ Mo Ling thought. ’It all depends on how deeply you explore their potential.’

’No wonder human technology has advanced so rapidly. The knowledge and technology from the Abyss are simply too vast.’ 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

”I just don’t know how the people on Paradise Island obtained a technology that was supposedly destroyed,” Li Luo said, puzzled. ”Or maybe... they never obtained it at all.”

”But even if it’s not the Digital Brain, they must have found some other way to serve as a database, something to give these machines their advanced intelligence.”

After speaking, Li Luo stood in place for a long time, lost in thought, until a cleaning robot slowly approached from a distance.

”Hello, could you please move to another area? This spot needs to be cleaned,” the robot’s gentle voice emanated.

Its four mechanical arms held various cleaning tools, while bottles of cleaner and cloths hung neatly from its chassis. It looked very professional.

”Do you only know how to clean? Nothing else?” Li Luo didn’t move aside. Instead, he looked up at the tall robot and asked.

”Correct. I only know how to clean,” the robot replied, not rushing him, showing no signs of impatience.

”Did you only know how to clean from the moment you were created, or did you learn it later?” Li Luo pressed.

”When I was created, I was a blank slate. It was Teacher who taught me how to clean.”

”Teacher?” Li Luo noted the strange form of address.

”Yes, Teacher.”