Weapon System 63: The Whole Universe Is Leveling Up (2)

An hour and a half later, Transcendence and Ascension finally arrived at the site two thousand kilometers away where the monsters had begun to mutate. The six lizard creatures had already grown to a meter and a half, but had not yet entered the stage of accelerated mutation.

The two pets were now only seventy or eighty meters from the monsters. Transcendence was stretching its hind legs, clearly preparing to use its bizarre Light-powered Dog Leg technique—its strongest move. Though its kicking motions were far from elegant, its preparatory stretches resembled a yoga routine, oddly professional and quite amusing.

Ascension, meanwhile, was licking its two front paws, then flashed a sly smile, signaling it too was ready to unleash its ultimate attack—Light-powered Cat Claws.

Three minutes later, the two pets finished their preparations and charged at the lizard monsters at full speed. When they were a dozen meters away, Transcendence leapt up and, mid-air, unleashed dozens of kicks, all landing squarely on a monster’s crown, killing it instantly.

Ascension, closing to within three meters of the nearest lizard, pounced and slashed its head with its Light-powered Cat Claws, scoring fifty or sixty cuts and finally causing its brain to spill out.

Caught off guard by the sudden assault, the lizard monsters had to halt their mutation and retaliated swiftly with claws and venomous fangs. But the two pets clearly held the upper hand, taking out another in just ten seconds.

Just as they prepared to finish off the remaining three, the lizards abruptly dropped their tails and fled. The two pets, having never witnessed such a phenomenon, stood dumbfounded—their feelings summed up in just two words: "Oh my!"

Despite Zhang Mingjing’s repeated orders to pursue the escaping monsters, the pets stared at the three writhing tails on the ground, faces stricken with terror, refusing to step over them. They gazed at the twitching tails for over ten seconds, their psychological trauma growing exponentially.

No matter how Zhang Mingjing commanded, they were unresponsive, utterly overwhelmed and paralyzed by the sight of the lizard tails.

Suddenly, Defender fired ten laser beams at the fleeing monsters, but all were deftly dodged. The three lizards managed to escape into the river.

"It seems Transcendence and Ascension’s software must be upgraded," muttered the Five-dimensional Space Cognitive Model.

"Indeed," Zhang Mingjing sighed.

Transcendence and Ascension had been terrified by the lizard tails; the monsters had hidden themselves in the river, and even the satellites were unable to track them for the moment. Zhang Mingjing had no choice but to go himself.

An hour and a half later, Zhang Mingjing arrived at the scene. The pets were still staring blankly at the now motionless lizard tails.

He first had the Avatar show them videos about lizards, to help upgrade their software, while he set off alone in pursuit of the monsters.

"I must go into the river to search, and it’s best to find them before their mutation is complete," said the Five-dimensional Space Cognitive Model. "From the genetic information in those three tails, I deduce these lizard monsters will be optimized to become extremely fierce—unlike anything before. And this time, they’ll even develop wings."

"Damn! You said lizard monsters, but now they’re turning into dragons!" Zhang Mingjing grumbled, then added, "I’ve been thinking about developing a new weapon lately."

"You mean one that, upon hitting a monster, automatically absorbs its energy?"

"How did you know?" Zhang Mingjing said, plunging into the river.

"When you watched that martial arts film 'The Great Star-absorbing Technique' last time, I sensed your idea. To master such a weapon, your computational power must exceed that of the Spacetime Monster Cognitive Model’s code, or you’ll never wrest energy from it."

"Can’t your computational power manage that?"

"Mine… cannot."

"Why not?"

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"If it were a single segment of code, I’d have no trouble. But don’t forget, those code fragments now exploit their entangled relationships, so their computational power is additive. I fall behind, and besides, I’m weak—my energy pales in comparison to even a single segment of the Spacetime Monster Cognitive Model code."

"Oh, what a pity!"

"Still, don’t lose heart. If you continue to refine yourself, eventually your cognitive model will reach the fifth dimension. When we’re in sync, we can combine forces to create many weapons that will devastate them."

"When will that ever happen?"

"So you shouldn’t hope for this Star-absorbing Technique anytime soon!"

"Damn… I’ll have to figure something out myself!"

…

Just then, the elders of the fifth dimension read some information from the future along the timeline.

"Damn! I can’t believe it’s possible—looks like we need to reassess the creative abilities of the Spacetime Monster Cognitive Model code," an elder remarked.

"You sound just like Zhang Mingjing," Elder A retorted.

"The information is vague, but we can’t ignore it."

"Yes, I feel uneasy too."

"We should notify the Five-dimensional Space Cognitive Model."

"Agreed!"

…

Zhang Mingjing swam two kilometers along the river, finally picking up a trace of the lizard monsters’ information.

"They’ve entered accelerated mutation," he muttered. "I missed the best moment to eliminate them—this is troublesome."

"Though they deliberately dropped their tails, it seems they won’t regenerate them," said the Five-dimensional Space Cognitive Model, now more uneasy.

"It appears the Spacetime Monster code judged the tail’s combat value as too low, so it rewrote the lizard’s genetic code, channeling energy to what it deemed more valuable."

"Yes. From what we’ve analyzed, it’s made major modifications to the host—its decision-making has advanced, so we must be more cautious."

"Uh, what do you mean by ‘advancement in decision-making’?"

"Think about it—the Spacetime Monster Cognitive Model code was originally composed of greedy information clusters. When it acquired a host, it would greedily retain all the host’s advantages. But these hosts had evolved over millions of years, removing many traits detrimental to survival—near perfection. Now, the code is drastically reselecting and modifying these advantages, indicating an increase in wisdom."

"Wisdom! Wasn’t it wise before?"

"Previously, the code’s cognitive model had a higher dimension and great computational power, but its wisdom was suppressed by greed, unable to blossom. Today is different—we must be vigilant. I suggest you summon Catherine and Jemily."

"Transcendence and Ascension will soon be ready to fight. Is it really necessary for Catherine and Jemily to travel such a distance?"

"Better safe than sorry," the Five-dimensional Space Cognitive Model said gravely, just as it received a risk warning from the fifth-dimensional elders.

At that moment, Zhang Mingjing paused—not only because he’d detected more monster information, but also because this was the first time he’d seen the Five-dimensional Space Cognitive Model so anxious.

"Are you sure we should call them?"

"Do you sense any hint of jest?"

"Do you know the future?"

"A little," the Model replied.

"Damn!" Zhang Mingjing immediately ordered the Avatar to notify Catherine and Jemily to come.

…

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Following the trail of information left by the monsters, Zhang Mingjing proceeded with heightened caution in light of the Model’s warning.

Fifteen minutes later, he read a more complete data strand, and broke out in a cold sweat.

"What’s this? Only one left, and in this state?" he asked the Model.

"The Spacetime Monster code has fused the three monsters into one, and in such a short time! Its creativity, post-enlightenment, is astonishing. It seems it’s reverting to the approach of creating a single monster, not a horde."

"But surely it’s not just corrupting a single host now?"

"Correct. It’s likely that several code segments have combined to fuse their hosts into a single monster—not our previous assumption of code segments creating a group."

"I don’t understand the purpose of this."

"There’s a clear logic: multiple brains on one body means computational power, defense, and offense are all upgraded."

"Damn… this code is truly monstrous!"

…

Zhang Mingjing pressed on, closing in on the monster. The information he gleaned from the river showed this mutation was proceeding at an unprecedented speed.

"About two hours to completion! Did I read that right? What’s going on?"

"This time, the Spacetime Monster Cognitive Model code rewrote the host’s genome, deleting much hereditary information it deemed unnecessary. This enabled highly targeted energy use, concentrating on the required mutation traits, so the mutation speed was optimized beyond imagination. The monster created will be a more pure weapon."

"It seems its enlightenment really did spark innovation!"

"Yes. From today, these codes may have entered a new tier of life."

"What tier?"

"In essence, they were just giant animals of the fifth dimension. But from now on, they may gradually evolve from animals to intelligent life."

"So we humans have been fighting a kind of animal from the fifth dimension all along?"

"Exactly."

"Damn, our three-dimensional intelligent life has been bullied so badly by one of your animals!"

"Why be discouraged? Its dimension is two levels higher than yours."

Hearing this, Zhang Mingjing felt a chill run down his spine.

The Model continued, "Previously, these codes altered and upgraded hosts quite clumsily. Now, with creativity, who knows what terrifying monsters they’ll produce? I’m also concerned this will spur further evolution among the Spacetime Monsters in the fifth dimension."

Zhang Mingjing remained silent for a while before sighing, "How did the situation suddenly get so damn dire today?"

"It’s always been dire—today it just got even more so," the Model replied. "All because of this tail-dropping escape, which triggered an epiphany in the Spacetime Monster code. It may have instantly altered its code sequence, activating its conscious intelligence."

"So… this isn’t just a monster upgrade, but an upgrade of the Spacetime Monster Cognitive Model code itself?"

"Exactly."

"Wow, this is truly wickedly bizarre!"

…