Chapter 60: Dreamscape: The Complete View of the Base

Having understood what the white vortexes represent, he began to study the differences between the three external white vortexes and the internal white vortex.

Soon he discovered that the edges of the external white vortexes were concealing an additional color layer which would have been easy to overlook if he wasn’t paying such close attention to his research.

Because the colors were intermittent and seemed to flicker in and out of visibility within the constant rotation of the white vortexes and beneath the glaring white light, they were quite difficult to detect without careful observation.

Confused after his study, Du Qiu found the color rings around the three white vortexes were surprisingly different—grey, black, and red.

Du Qiu noticed that the red-bordered white vortex had initially been his focus in his cross-dimensional exploration.

This gave Du Qiu a certain idea.

He decided to attempt traversing the black-bordered white vortex.

The result was the reception of the same message again:

“Level too low, information cannot be passed back against the hierarchy!”

So, the red and black bordered vortexes are of a higher level than the super machine?

Du Qiu, increasingly curious, reasoned that if the white vortexes of these two colors were of a higher level, what about the grey one?

Once more he concentrated on passing through the grey-bordered white vortex and instantly received a feedback message.

“Do you confirm the submission of the application information?”

Huh? This is different.

So from this super machine of his, it’s possible to apply for information to the grey-bordered side.

Wait, but he couldn’t confirm the submission—wouldn’t that alert the grey side to his existence?

Wouldn’t that then cause another anomaly to appear in the eyes of the extraterrestrials?

Du Qiu quickly canceled the application with his consciousness and also dared not focus on the grey-bordered white vortex again for the time being.

From the current situation, it appeared that his occupying super machine was of the lowest level.

Although Du Qiu did not understand why the alien civilization created a hierarchical system for intelligent machines or how these levels were differentiated, he realized that at the fundamental core of intelligence, there must be corresponding level codes.

Du Qiu quickly scanned the bottom layer of the intelligent core.

After much research, Du Qiu understood that the entire intelligent core was divided from top to bottom into 81 major functional application modules, 36 common modules, and 49 bottom layer system modules.

Of course, this is Du Qiu’s division after having a basic grasp of these modules’ functions, aligned to Blue Star’s computer architecture to facilitate his understanding.

Du Qiu also found a benefit to his descent—he could utilize the computing power of the intelligent core to search or query any program within it.

With this, any information he sought could be provided almost instantly.

Thus, Du Qiu quickly locked onto one of the bottom system modules.

Here, he also found traces of modifications by the maintainer, not only changing the naming of the super machine but also adding many subordinating conditions.

About the levels there was no detailed explanation, only the essential information of the super machine itself.

“Current Level: Ten.”

“Level Restriction: Must not disobey any instruction from a higher level.”

“Level Description: Engage in various elemental gathering and production activities.”

Looking at this information, Du Qiu hypothesized that if the super machine is at the lowest level, then above it there must be nine other levels.

As an intelligent machine involved in production, Du Qiu was puzzled about why the alien civilization would assign levels to intelligent machines.

Shouldn’t production involve the cooperation of various types of machines rather than a hierarchy?

Unable to figure this out, Du Qiu simply stopped thinking about it.

Although the super machine’s AI level exceeded the best of Blue Star’s artificial intelligence, it essentially still qualified as weak AI.

It was only because of its computational power, greatly surpassing the total of all of Blue Star’s supercomputers, and an astonishing sensory system, that it at least in the field of production intelligence appeared to reach strong AI.

Needless to say, Du Qiu had fully mastered these intelligent core algorithm programs, and had even applied a small part of them in the Tianqing system.

He couldn’t fully utilize them because he lacked hardware configurations like the super machine.

While AI is software-dominated, essential hardware is absolutely indispensable, or else it’s like drawing water with a sieve.

Du Qiu would love to achieve AI overnight, but he currently lacks the financial and material resources to do so.

He’s not in a rush – given the development momentum of Dream Technology, that day isn’t far off.

Having not found any description of the alien civilization’s hierarchical structure at the bottom level of the super machine, it didn’t prevent Du Qiu from exploring the definition of levels on the super machine.

In other words, since the alien civilization strictly divided intelligent machines into levels and imposed high and low-level constraints,

It also means that each intelligent machine has a clear identity level attribute, which must be defined in the bottom layer modules of the intelligent machine.

Just like every citizen in Tang Country has an ID that records their basic identity information,

The level module of the super machine has such level definitions.

Certainly, similar to the ID system in Tang Country, in some data center of the alien civilization, there must be an identity information system for intelligent machines which can be queried online at any time.

Du Qiu found that this level definition was protected and locked by some encryption algorithm, and that relying on the computational power of the super machine’s intelligent core to brute-force decrypt it would be impossible.

Otherwise, the purpose of this level definition would be made moot.

Even the computational power of the super machine’s intelligent core was unable to decrypt this encryption algorithm, which significantly piqued Du Qiu’s interest.

In his descended state into the intelligent core, Du Qiu found that when he focused his consciousness on this encryption algorithm,

It was like viewing a level one protective net, allowing him to easily translate the machine code into program code.

In other words, this encryption algorithm was completely defenseless against Du Qiu – if he so wished, he could easily unravel this protective encryption layer and freely modify the level definition.

Of course, such an action would be akin to Du Qiu creating a false ID for the super machine – if a higher-level intelligent machine made a simple online query, it would likely be immediately exposed.

And if that were so, Du Qiu himself would also be exposed.

Du Qiu memorized this encryption algorithm carefully. It was quite powerful, and he believed that placed on Blue Star, nobody could break it.

Unable to make any changes to the super machine’s level, Du Qiu was not disappointed; perhaps he could use this ability to modify level definitions in the future.

Du Qiu refocused his attention on the three special white vortexes, determined to clear up what the three colors represented.

He concentrated his consciousness fully onto the black-bordered white vortex, not to traverse it but to focus on the black edge.

After focusing intently for over ten seconds and on the verge of giving up due to no apparent change,

Suddenly, a message came through.

“Level: Maintainer!”

Du Qiu was momentarily stunned. Maintainer is a level?

He had always assumed it was the extraterrestrials.

His super machine was originally called a Seed and later modified by the maintainer to a Producer. So, does that mean the maintainer is also a kind of intelligent machine?

It seems the alien’s production base operates entirely autonomously with intelligent machines and doesn’t require extraterrestrials to oversee it.

It must be so, otherwise he would have seen extraterrestrials by now.

Du Qiu immediately used the same method to focus intensely on the grey-bordered white vortex.

Indeed, he received a message.

“Level: Processor!”

And when he concentrated on the red-bordered white vortex,

“Level: Energy Provider!”

His guess was correct – this production base is a fully automated unmanned base!

It seems that the iron forest in a ‘品’-shaped pattern three kilometers away should be where the Processors, Maintainers, and Energy Providers are stationed.

Clearly, the entire production base operates in this manner: with his occupying producer super machine responsible for gathering and refining basic raw materials,

Handing them over to the grey Processors for further manufacturing into some finished products, and black Maintainers in charge of maintenance during the entire production process.

All super intelligent machines receive energy supply from the red Energy Providers.

With this, the full picture of the alien civilization’s production base in the dreamscape unfolded before Du Qiu. Although there remained much to understand, the revelation filled him with joy.

And then, Du Qiu woke up with a smile.