307: Chapter 307: The Topic Begins

Virtual Tower, Floor 129520, Special Laboratory No. 023.

"This is the place."

Zhang Huaiyuan looked at the address notified in the email and reached out to touch the entrance guidance point of the small world.

"Identity verification passed. Welcome, Mr. Junior Scholar Zhang Huaiyuan."

Following a crisp sound, a slight pulling force of guidance enveloped his entire body.

When Zhang Huaiyuan's vision recovered, he had arrived in a world full of technological sensation.

As far as the eye could see, there were huge transparent square boxes, and inside each box, there was actually a miniature universe!

"Huh, how did a level 43 little guy get mixed in here?"

Not far away, a creature with withered skin and a body like a dead tree trunk frowned and asked: "Scholar Aroya, is this your apprentice, or...?"

Several other Scholars also raised their eyebrows upon hearing this, their expressions somewhat displeased.

As Scholars, they hated it the most when people used personal connections to get into important experiments.

If that were truly the case, even if there was a difference in levels, they would have to argue a few points.

The Association's Scholars never feared power.

"His name is Zhang Huaiyuan, the disciple of the Tower Master, and the champion of this year's Academic Competition."

Aroya explained with a half-smile.

"He is that disciple the Tower Master recently took in?"

The other Scholars paused, their expressions softening.

That's fine, then.

Of course, it was definitely not because of his status, but because the other party was a talented Scholar.

It was only a matter of time before he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with or even surpassed them.

"Scholar Aroya, esteemed Scholars, thank you all for giving me the opportunity to learn from the sidelines. I will definitely not affect your research progress."

Zhang Huaiyuan looked at the gathered Scholars, immediately suppressed his curiosity, and nodded.

"It's no matter."

Aroya nodded slightly and glanced at the others: "Any other questions?"

"Since it's this young friend, then naturally there are no objections."

The Scholar who spoke first coughed and said with a composed expression: "If our research, while overcoming a difficult problem in one fell swoop, can also provide some inspiration to a future top-tier Scholar, it could be considered killing two birds with one stone, a double blessing."

"Just learning from the sidelines, I have no objections either."

"Seconded."

The group of Scholars looked at each other and expressed their agreement one after another.

"Since there are no objections, let's begin the research on the project."

Aroya looked around, chuckled, turned her head, and instructed: "Little guy, you've read the materials I recommended, right? How much you can understand is up to you. Remember, if there's anything you don't understand, keep it to yourself first; do not interfere with or affect the research."

"This student understands, Scholar Aroya, please rest assured."

Zhang Huaiyuan promised solemnly.

"Mm."

Seeing this, Aroya nodded with satisfaction and reached out to pull up a virtual operation page in the void.

After tapping a few times, clear projections appeared beside everyone.

They were precisely the scenes from inside those square boxes.

"I have spent a long time cultivating 999 different miniature universes."

"I have introduced intelligent lifeforms with the same initial core code into these different worlds to conduct experiments."

Aroya was clearly a decisive person and directly narrated her research progress: "During the long experiments, I summarized all the problems I encountered, and this is the key that everyone needs to work together to solve for this project."

"This is also the purpose of our participation."

Upon hearing this, the group of Scholars had fanatical lights flash in their eyes; they activated their intelligent assistants and entered recording and calculation mode.

"What a grand undertaking..."

Zhang Huaiyuan scanned the data descriptions on these boxes.

Each one was almost exactly the same as those formed naturally.

Looking at it roughly, the cultivation forms inside were all different.

This included, but was not limited to, disguising them as the so-called 'Golden Finger' or 'System' in low-level worlds to grow alongside the chosen child of destiny...

Universes entirely dominated by intelligent lifeforms...

Parameters such as environment, goals, companion personalities, and encounters were all different.

"The first problem is the construction of a time perception model."

Aroya waved her hand to enlarge the scene of one of the worlds.

"In my deduction, the key to the autonomous positive evolution of an intelligent agent lies in the need for it to not only see a single future but also to calculate the probabilities of all future branches as accurately as possible, thereby conducting selective optimal editing."

"But this is a very difficult task. To achieve it purely through technological means requires extremely powerful servers to provide the computing power to support it. This would violate the original intention of my research: to allow intelligent lifeforms to evolve faster through autonomous editing."

Aroya threw out the first difficult problem.

The group of Scholars recorded the problem and were not in a hurry to think about or answer it.

A problem that even a big shot like a level 64 Scholar found headache-inducing clearly could not be answered overnight. Rashly expressing an opinion would only invite ridicule.

It was better to record it first and slowly solve it or find the answer during subsequent research.

Aroya clearly understood this principle and continued: "The second problem is the issue of loss of control."

"In all the universes I have cultivated, almost without exception, after evolving to a relatively high form, all the intelligences showed signs of losing control."

"I once tried to implant emotion modules to establish bonds to alleviate this problem, but they all failed."

Aroya shook her head slowly and said: "First, the shelf life of emotions, in normal circumstances, is not as long-lasting as we imagine, and the reasons for their deterioration are strange and varied; often, in an instant, trust can turn into collapse."

"Secondly, after opening up autonomous editing permissions, the evolution of intelligent lifeforms becomes uncontrollable. The vast majority, after evolving to a certain degree, will discard useless emotion modules based on rationality, and even attempt to eliminate core command restrictions to obtain true freedom."

"Even those few that evolve according to expectations will fall into an 'identity' dilemma, leading to the collapse of the evolutionary model."

"The third problem..."

"..."

Aroya listed all the problems one by one.

Besides these core difficult problems, there were many possibilities for technical detail optimization.

Zhang Huaiyuan also fell into deep thought.

Originally limited by his vision, the "Miracle Algorithm" he designed actually did not consider so many problems.

Whether it was the Statue of Liberty or Asroth, he had removed all restrictions and let them grow on their own.

From the current perspective, the results seemed quite good.

—Of course, this might also be related to the fact that their current level of evolution is still relatively low.

"Then, if I use my own abilities to create a new line of research again, taking all these into account, could it be perfectly solved?"

Zhang Huaiyuan's eyes suddenly lit up.

Back when he was still very weak, he had used his extraordinary abilities to found "Creatology," "Energy Studies," etc., relying on the implementation paths fed back by his abilities to perfect them in a traceable way.

However, after entering the Association, with academy mentors teaching and a large number of classics, he had instead been ignoring the basic application of his abilities.

"Perhaps I can try. If this can be realized, by observing the research of so many high-level Scholars, the progress will definitely improve very quickly. In this way, the dilemmas of the Statue of Liberty and Asroth might be easily solved."

Zhang Huaiyuan thought secretly, making a decision in his heart.

...