Chapter 59: Dreamscape: Level Constraint

Du Qiu looked at the screen and found himself caught between laughing and crying.

On the screen, large crystal cubes were neatly arrayed within a gigantic metallic cube.

There were dozens of such metallic cubes.

At this moment, Du Qiu finally understood that the cubes he had seen disappearing in the steel forest in his dream that night must be the same kind.

He hadn’t guessed wrong; they were similar to the sea-freight containers on Blue Star.

It turned out that the perception system had helped him find the warehouse for crystal materials at first notice.

After the super machine finished producing the crystal materials, they were supposed to be stored here, waiting to be transported away.

Clearly, this extraterrestrial production base was operating normally.

He summoned the perception system to observe the distant steel jungle again, which remained devoid of any moving objects, as quiet as always.

To tell the truth, he still couldn’t understand why every time he spent at least eight hours in the dreamscape, it was so tranquil here.

Couldn’t be that these intelligent machines also needed rest, could it?

Considering the last time he alerted the maintainer, the entity had appeared almost instantaneously, shut down, and restarted the super machine. Where exactly could they be?

Du Qiu grew more vigilant, deciding to minimize his operations on the super machine and to learn as much as he could from the included programs first.

Suddenly, another thought occurred to him: this planet had no atmosphere, so sound couldn’t travel.

Perhaps three kilometers away, the steel jungle in the shape of a pin was operating at full steam; it’s just that he couldn’t hear it.

As for seeing it, Du Qiu could imagine that maybe all the work was enclosed within those metal structures.

After thinking this through, Du Qiu could understand; as to why the extraterrestrial maintainers also coincidentally did not appear during this time, there might be another reason for that.

However, Du Qiu believed that as he came to understand this place better, the answers to these questions would eventually present themselves before him.

Since he hadn’t found a second place containing crystal material around the super machine, Du Qiu began to doubt his hypothesis that crystal materials were the raw materials for chips.

Since he could not study crystal materials further, he could only plan to buy a scanning tunneling microscope and, once he produced crystal materials in reality, attempt the carving of those patterns.

Next, Du Qiu started studying the white vortex he had discovered last night.

He deduced that the white vortex is the connection port between the super machine’s intelligence core and other intelligent machines, akin to a computer’s network interface on Blue Star.

Now, he was prepared to try and see if that was indeed the case through the white vortex.

He focused his consciousness on one of the three protected white vortices.

Du Qiu chose this one intuitively; it was located right in the middle of the other two white vortices, which is to say, right at the center of the protection net.

After focusing his attention for ten seconds, a stream of information suddenly came through.

“Level too low, information cannot be sent back up the chain!”

This message left Du Qiu momentarily baffled.

Level too low?

For such a super machine to be of too low a level, could extraterrestrial civilizations be too showy!

Immediately after, Du Qiu noticed the words “sent back up the chain.”

Could it be that in the extraterrestrial civilization, this intelligent machine is set with levels, and it’s normal for higher levels to send messages to lower levels, but for lower levels to send messages to higher levels is “sent back up the chain”?

Moreover, lower levels are not allowed to send messages to higher levels, as this would be “overstepping.”

What kind of rule is this?

Du Qiu looked at the white vortex somewhat frustratedly; was he only to look on longingly?

Considering Du Qiu’s understanding of artificial intelligence, the cerebral capabilities demonstrated by the super machine’s intelligence core seemed comparable to the current level on Blue Star.

Since he hadn’t interacted with the super machine from the outside, he couldn’t determine how the super machine would react in various situations.

But, judging from the super machine’s intelligence core’s multi-threading computational power, incredible storage capacity, and the perception system built from various sensory methods, it definitely surpassed Blue Star’s AlphaGo.

Just the computing power alone would probably crush the supercomputer housing AlphaGo.

If such a super intelligent machine is considered low level, then what would even higher-level intelligent machines look like?

Just thinking about it got Du Qiu a little excited.

If he could break through the level constraint and get in touch with higher-level intelligent machines, he could turn “small” into “big.”

Human desires are endless; once fed, one starts wanting meat.

Although Du Qiu has not yet fully understood the super machine, the sudden discovery of something potentially better than the super machine has shifted his focus entirely onto this prospect.

Du Qiu decided to first try the white vortices without protection nets to understand the use of white vortices and then find a way to break through the level constraint for a counterattack.

Why wasn’t Du Qiu worried that higher-level intelligent machines would detect his recent attempt to send information “sent back up the chain”?

It’s precisely because of the maintainer’s action of adding protection nets.

The maintainer installed the protection nets probably because it was concerned about virus-like information streams ignoring level constraints and passing through there.

It appears that the information stream restricted by level constraints should not attract the maintainer’s attention.

Moreover, considering the maintainer’s rapid response to the last anomaly, and given that no situation has arisen now, it is clear that the recent touch of his information does not bring the maintainer running.

Du Qiu still wanted to understand the white vortices and discover an information stream that is not limited by level constraints to cross through there.

He found a white vortex near the three protection-net-covered white vortices to focus his consciousness on.

After Du Qiu focused on it for a while, he felt his consciousness arrive in a small space in an instant.

Du Qiu looked around the small space and saw a small cluster of stars.

Without hesitation, he fully focused and just like when he first compromised the super machine’s intelligence core, he rapidly took over the place.

A flood of information poured in, and Du Qiu processed it swiftly.

He quickly understood what this place was for and its relationship with the super machine.

It turned out to be the processing center for basic purification programs!

All basic purification program instructions processed by the super machine’s intelligence core were to be executed here.

Du Qiu immediately realized that the super machine must consist of a top-tier intelligence core and dozens of sub-intelligence cores, forming the super machine’s intelligent control system.

Du Qiu had already figured out that the super machine was divided into 81 functional modules, whereas there were 84 white vortices.

Evidently, those three white vortices protected by the protection net must be outside the super machine.

Understanding this, Du Qiu became even more excited.

Because by understanding this sub-intelligent center, he found out that the basic purification programs he previously understood were too rudimentary; this place showed all the details.

No wonder he felt like he was partially understanding the programs before because many areas lacked detailed descriptions, but the conceptual descriptions were quite complete.

Du Qiu was relieved to have found this spot; if he had followed the previous programs to imitate the corresponding material purification production program in reality, it would surely fail.

Now, he was fully confident in succeeding.

Next, he would study and understand these sub-intelligence centers one by one, so as to completely master the scientific knowledge involved in the functionality of the super machine.

At that moment, Du Qiu simply memorized the basic separation and purification program in its entirety since he would soon apply this knowledge in the real world.

After memorizing it, he exited the place and returned to the super machine’s intelligence core.

After some thought, Du Qiu quickly searched for the sub-intelligence center where the purification and synthesis program for crystal materials was located, and indeed he found even more detailed creation specifics there.