Legend of the Cyber Heroes-Chapter 65 - Spine and Brain-Machine Barrier
65: Chapter 65 Spine and Brain-Machine Barrier
65 -65 Spine and Brain-Machine Barrier
The teacher and apprentice quickly cleaned up most of the corpses within the Green Forest Stronghold.
Most of this was thanks to Xiang Shan—when he noticed that Yuki and a group of Green Forest Men were moving towards the exit, he decisively stormed into the armory and snatched some firearms.
The Green Forest Men who were crowded at the exit saw him enter without a gun and planned to resist to the end with their “Dense Formation,” which perfectly maximized the lethality of the firearms.
This resulted in a large number of precision parts being completely destroyed due to high temperatures and vibrations.
The only things left to recycle were metal resources.
As for the remaining biological parts, there were very few indeed.
All together, they could only occupy a corner of the storeroom.
“Let’s not bother with the rest.
Come, apprentice, let’s go see the world,” said Xiang Shan as he threw a pile of metal into the furnace and spoke to Yuki.
Yuki nodded, turned around, and, holding the girl who was either unconscious or asleep, followed Xiang Shan.
In the training room of Gleayard and Little Poison Insect, Xiang Shan found a freezer.
He opened the freezer, which messily contained several potions.
There were also about a dozen spines.
The most conspicuous among them were three large cylindrical containers, each 80cm tall and with a radius of about 30cm.
These containers were very strange and divided into three layers.
The outer layer contained an almost colorless transparent liquid, the middle layer contained a semi-transparent milky substance, and the inner layer was unclear.
“Reverse Messenger Soaking Agent…” Xiang Shan took a deep breath, “This is it.”
It was common for the Green Forest Men to suffer spinal cord damage during fierce battles with the government, heroes, or other Green Forest outlaws.
Naturally, there had to be a means of replacement.
The reason a person couldn’t directly use someone else’s spine was that direct contact between the nerves and the inner biological parts of the spine would trigger a certain amount of immune rejection.
And the Reverse Messenger Soaking Agent was a special enzyme.
To be precise, it was the substance from the middle layer of that special three-layer container.
According to the memories Xiang Shan dug up from Little Poison Insect, to use the Reverse Messenger Soaking Agent, one first had to place the spine to be transformed through an opening at the top of the container into the middle layer, then throw the biological tissues of the transformation target through another opening into the outermost layer.
Immediately after, the container should be placed into a thermostatic water bath pot and the water heated to boiling, then cooled down to 70 degrees to sustain the preset organic matter in the outer layer for a chain reaction, amplifying the genetic material of the transformation target.
After this stage ended, the walls of the first and second layers would automatically shatter, and then the first amplified genetic material fragments would come into contact with the special enzymes and viruses of the second layer.
The walls of the shattered container had excellent insulating properties, and until they broke, the second layer would always maintain a temperature close to zero degrees.
The temperature formed by the meeting of the high-temperature liquid from the first layer and the zero-degree liquid from the second layer would reactivate the activity of the viruses and enzymes.
Then, the amplified genetic information fragments from the first layer would be placed into the viruses.
The isolation arms between the second and third layers would also break.
The potion in the third layer included nutrients and hormones.
They would activate the spine soaking within them before the viruses enter.
To be honest, Xiang Shan was quite bewildered when he first learned of this.
Although the technology “to transfer genetic fragments into a virus using enzymes” was born in 1969, and “polymerase chain reaction for amplifying genetic fragments” originated in 1983, and both these techniques were mockingly said by biological friends to be “something anyone off the street could do.”
However, in Xiang Shan’s era, no technology was this foolproof.
Not to mention that it involved the operation of “replacing an individual’s genetic material with that of another individual”…
After all, “inserting specific genetic fragments into a person with a genetic defect to treat genetic diseases” was possible as of 1998, but such technology could never change your biological parents, let alone settle immune rejections.
In the era Xiang Shan remembered, immune rejections had to be dealt with through Anti-immunity medicine.
Compared to other technologies of the Green Forest that Xiang Shan vaguely recognized, the potion in this container was too sci-fi, not at all in the same style.
The training room used by Little Poison Insect and Gleayard for researching the Demon Sect’s secret manual also had a part of it functioning as a biological laboratory, naturally equipped with a thermostatic water bath pot.
Xiang Shan quickly set the parameters, waiting for it to heat up.
Then, he pointed to the door and said, “Apprentice, that little girl is too noisy.
When I get busy later, it might affect me, so you take her somewhere else.”
Yuki was somewhat reluctant, “Can I stay here and watch?”
He was now very curious.
Xiang Shan shook his head and said, “Leaving her alone in this place full of bloodstains is a bit too cruel.
And she’s so young, what if something happens?
Stay with her.
Don’t worry, I’ve also left something for you.”
Saying this, he once again sent several exercises into Yuki’s chip.
“Once you’ve improved your math skills, I’ll teach you more advanced stuff.
For now, go practice on your own.”
After Yuki left, Xiang Shan approached the Maintenance Instrument.
He connected himself to the machine with a data cable and then circulated his Inner Strength, navigating and computing within the device’s main control chip.
He was eliminating potential backdoors in the machine.
For example, the setting of “When it detects the death of the original owner, it uses a malicious bug to kill subsequent users.”
And the real reason Xiang Shan had Yuki leave was similar to this.
Even though Xiang Shan had already checked Yuki’s chip and removed any backdoors, he did not believe it to be entirely safe.
Perhaps before he fell into a deep sleep, his Inner Strength had been profound, but during his slumber, the field of computing had continued to evolve—this had become evident in entities such as the Welfare Officers and other Protectors.
He didn’t believe that what he remembered encompassed the entirety of the Inner Strength realm.
It would be perfectly normal for new Gu that he’d never imagined to emerge in his absence.
These Gu might not even need to “connect to a network” to be activated remotely.
For instance, “When it detects that a Hero is adjusting the brain in front of the infected person,” it could “stimulate the infected person into a frenzy” or something similar.
So, he had to be very careful.
Xiang Shan even rewrote some of the functional modules within the machine.
However, the instrument seemed to have been created late in the timeline, and Xiang Shan was unfamiliar with its design and knew not how its numeral control system achieved its functionalities.
Otherwise, he would even think about rewriting everything that could be rewritten.
But for the most part, it was still usable.
Soon, Xiang Shan connected to the Maintenance Instrument.
Then, six mechanical arms as thin as scalpels extended from above and began to cut along the fracture lines on Xiang Shan’s forehead.
The broken part on Xiang Shan’s head had been scanned by the people of Recycling Station Town, who then cast a skull cap to fit the fracture and sealed it with adhesive before attaching external fixators—a very inconvenient arrangement.
He planned to take this opportunity to make further adjustments.
With the help of the Maintenance Instrument’s camera, Xiang Shan could see the state inside his cranial cavity clearly for the first time.
It was indeed as chaotic as the Town Mayor had said, filled with a large amount of what appeared to be burned and deformed Electronic Components.
Xiang Shan had always been uneasy about others clearing it out, but his Prosthetic Hand, which lacked tactile sensation, was also unsuitable for such delicate work.
Thankfully, the precision of this Maintenance Instrument was sufficient, so he decided to repair his Brain-Machine Barrier.
Quickly, Xiang Shan removed a piece of the burned Electronic Components.
To be honest, the sensation was quite strange.
The brain has no sense of touch, but he could vaguely feel vibrations.
As numerous mechanical arms whirred into action, Xiang Shan gradually cleared away the damaged items, revealing the Brain-Machine Barrier with a faint metallic hue of purple.
The Brain-Machine Barrier is a shell layer formed by a special Metal-based protein.
It exists not only outside the brain but theoretically also between the walls of the capillaries and glial cells—in other words, it’s the result of the abnormal expression of the genes that control the formation of the blood-brain barrier in New Humans.
This layer of protein shell is essentially biological tissue.
But because it possesses the special conductivity of Metal-based proteins, which is different from both metal and biological tissue, and connects directly to the brain’s nerves, the earliest Brain-Machine Interfaces were directly integrated with the Brain-Machine Barrier.
And as one ages, the Brain-Machine Barrier would also slowly grow and change.
Modifying the Brain-Machine Barrier is an important aspect of Cybernetic Transformation technology.
Xiang Shan quickly eradicated most signs of damage.
Of course, Xiang Shan hadn’t forgotten his main objective.
A portion of the freshly scraped biological tissue was placed into a container of Reverse Messenger Soaking Agent.
Additionally, Paulus’s spine was also immersed in it.
Next, there was an estimated forty-hour wait.
As the aged tissue was cleared away, large areas of new tissue were exposed.
Then, new mechanical arms began to inscribe circuits, creating new interfaces.
“Very good, now the speed at which the nerve signals reach the various parts of the Prosthetic Body is faster, and the sensory detection devices related to touch can now perform simple pre-processing before the signals enter the brain.
This should enhance efficiency slightly,” Xiang Shan instinctively wanted to nod, but remembering the high-speed tiny blades still moving above his head, he refrained.
“The brain chips also need to be rearranged, with the cores of Inner Strength and external strength placed in the left and right hemispheres respectively.
Moreover, other chips and storage devices should be organized based on their functions.”
“Additionally, I will need to reserve enough interfaces, as I’ll have to acquire resources from other Green Forest Men in the future.”
“Ah, that reminds me, something important—the Prosthetic Body also needs to be re-planned.
It’s about time to retire this trash heap of a body.”
