Chapter 1037: Chapter 41: Cheating

“Oh, you’re asking about the 129,633 points.” After receiving Lu Xuanyu’s call, Xiang Shan nodded and casually admitted, “Yes, that’s right, it was me.”

Lu Xuanyu looked even more astonished. He remembered Xiang Shan had tried it a few times; in the beginning, he was instantly defeated, not even scoring in single digits, and the best he did was score ninety-six points.

That’s what most amateurs would score.

People with basic training should score around three hundred. Professional athletes can easily get over two thousand points.

But beyond that, it gets tough.

A world boxing champion can probably KO several people in a row, getting up to four or five thousand points.

Meanwhile, Chen Feng, who is obsessed with this “game,” often uses some extremely risky swordsmanship techniques that normal people wouldn’t use—techniques that might end up in mutual destruction. If the Olympics included swordplay, it might evolve into this form. This very luck-based route, even if he’s in good form, only gets him just under eight thousand points.

But 129,633 points…

Both Chen Feng and Lu Xuanyu’s best scores were just small fractions of that number…

“How did you do it?” Lu Xuanyu was utterly shocked, “Why? And why did you delete the score records?”

“I cheated.” Xiang Shan’s tone was indifferent.

“Cheat…you mean cheat? This…is it possible to cheat in this training program? Well, if you want to, you can.” Lu Xuanyu scratched his head, accepting the explanation.

Indeed, Xiang Shan himself led this project. If he wanted to use his privileges to cheat, he could.

Xiang Shan said, “I still have a bit of a gamer’s basic ethics. Cheating is nothing unusual. But comparing scores obtained through cheating with those earned through skill is unethical. You can’t compare modded games with unmodded ones. Since I cheated, I wasn’t going to compare with you guys. I took a screenshot for myself and then deleted the records… wait, I remember you shouldn’t know the admin account’s password, right? Chen? Is he still there?”

Lu Xuanyu glanced at Chen Feng, who was sharing the conversation, and nodded.

“Ah… that stubborn guy.” Xiang Shan sighed, “I told him to spend more time with his daughter, but he wouldn’t listen. Well, it’s hard to fault him, but at least he should play fewer games.”

Chen Feng seemed completely unfazed. His fingers twitched as he continued typing on the AR keyboard in front of him, then he frowned and said to Lu Xuanyu, “Ask him what kind of cheat he used.”

Lu Xuanyu widened his eyes, thinking do we really need to ask this? Tuning some parameters, inserting some code—he had heard of that.

But Chen Feng obviously understood Xiang Shan better. Xiang Shan wasn’t the kind to casually cheat in games. Going back twenty years, they were part of the same gaming community, and both liked high-difficulty, Soul-like games. Xiang Shan was the type who liked to find “cheese strategies” (the easiest tactics with the lowest learning curve in tough games). However, Xiang Shan would not use cheats.

For Xiang Shan, finding “cheese strategies” was a mental battle against the game developers, and the process of finding these strategies was even more interesting than defeating difficult bosses. Using cheats was a dull activity for Xiang Shan—unless the game’s design had a flaw.

Moreover, there was no record of the training program itself being modified.

At Xiang Shan’s level, he could indeed make it impossible for anyone to find modification records. But Xiang Shan clearly didn’t put much effort into this. Chen Feng could easily restore Xiang Shan’s deleted score records, proving Xiang Shan didn’t care much.

He was really curious about what Xiang Shan did.

Lu Xuanyu asked nervously, “Boss, if I may ask… what exactly did you cheat with? Infinite health or one-hit kills?”

“Of course not something so basic. What’s the point of that kind of cheat?” Xiang Shan said, “AI assistance.”

“AI?” Lu Xuanyu was stunned. “AI against AI; wouldn’t the win rate be the same? Aren’t the AIs in this training program the results of True Martial’s training? There’s no stronger AI, right?”

“Tsk tsk tsk tsk, you’re wrong there. AI is just assistance; it’s still me playing, it’s just that I’m not responsible for the specifics of the actions. I only set the strategy and envision the goals, and the AI accomplishes the specific actions.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve told you before, right? The idea of ‘movement’ in your brain is not directly transmitted to your body. Your conscious mind proposes a notion, which is sent to the motor areas, then converted into commands that instruct various muscles to contract or relax. Just like a centipede doesn’t think about ‘which foot to move first,’ you don’t think about ‘which muscle to use.'” Xiang Shan said, “‘The thoughts in consciousness’ and ‘the actual motor commands’ have a corresponding relationship, like a function. All I did was use AI to replace part of the original mapping relationship. Anyway, after cyberization, this part of the mapping exists within the machine. If I think ‘use Li’s dodge here,’ the AI will carry out Li’s divine dodge for me.”

Lu Xuanyu was puzzled: “Is that even possible?”

“Of course, it should be this way,” Xiang Shan said, “Of course, it also depends heavily on my predictive power.”

“Predictive power? Can you predict it?” Lu Xuanyu was even more confused.

When battling against people, he could clearly feel he was facing a target with ‘soul.’ The opponent’s emotions, experiences, and skills were all expressed through their punches. He could feel the clash of minds, and based on that, he could make predictions, set traps, and deceive. But against AI, there was no such feeling. AI was just technically strong… but strong to the point where no human could predict it.

“Once, someone told me a story. A top pilot was competing in an air combat game with a frail programmer. The pilot believed his reflexes and eyesight were unbeatable but couldn’t defeat the young programmer no matter what,” Xiang Shan said. “Later, the top pilot asked why he could score so high, and the programmer said he understood the logic of the program.”

“This…”

But Chen Feng frowned, “That’s not realistic. The enemy AI in a game is designed for players to defeat, so it’s easily decipherable, and once understood, easily conquered. But these Martial Artist AIs are akin to those born from deep learning and training, like AlphaZero… Moreover, if programmers could decipher AI and thereby defeat it, then from the late 20th century, chess grandmasters should have all been programmers.”

Lu Xuanyu relayed Chen Feng’s doubts.

At this moment, Xiang Shan was in a good mood. He paused what he was doing and enthusiastically said over the call, “Indeed, that’s the case. But the human brain and computers are still different. I can easily perceive a ‘pattern’ through code, and my brain will abstract it into a ‘style.’ This ‘style’ abstract concept is processed in my brain in a very energy-efficient way to aid in decision-making. AI cannot detect this. They are constantly exploring another AI’s patterns through a process similar to survival of the fittest. So, I understand AI more than AI does. Although my predictions aren’t always correct, I can find a shortcut in calculations.”

“Also, I need to remind you, Old Lu, fighting and chess are different. Chess belongs to a complete information dynamic game, where the actions of participants are in order, and the latter can observe the former’s choices. Each participant has an accurate understanding of the others’ traits, strategy spaces, and payoff functions. In such games, computing power, algorithms, and stability are paramount; humans cannot compete with machines.”

“But as of current technology, it’s challenging for machines to understand the holistic, imagine long-term goals, or establish short-term goals amidst chaos and continuously adjust.”

Lu Xuanyu was bewildered: “What if you make a wrong judgment?”

Chen Feng sighed. He could guess what happened.

“Oh, after I got beaten up by that training program last month, I specifically trained a batch of ‘comeback’ AIs in True Martial. These AIs do nothing but train in ‘comebacks.’ With the same training content, they’re naturally better at it than other Martial Artist AIs.” Xiang Shan’s tone was cheerful.

“It’s like the difference between natural evolution and artificial breeding,” Chen Feng said softly.

“In short, for me, without the interference of ’emotional’ irrational modules, AI is more stable, and predictions are naturally clearer.” Xiang Shan sounded cheerful, “All in all, that’s just cheating, nothing to brag about.”

But even Lu Xuanyu, who was technologically slow, realized something was off.

This whole setup by Xiang Shan…

could actually be used in real life.

The principle is just replacing part of the original consciousness-action mapping with Martial Artist AI.

“If this… if this is applied in the real world… in warfare…”

“Pfft.” Xiang Shan laughed impolitely, “Old Lu, don’t be silly. This is reality, and reality talks about physics. No cybernetically enhanced Martial Artist can beat cannons and missiles, right? Not to mention the cost; geniuses like me, programming day in and day out after benchmarking, are hard to find. And AI training also costs money.”

“This world, after all, belongs to the army, to automated weapons, to the world of beyond visual range attacks.”

“Tell Old Chen to stop being so addicted to games. He has a daughter in the real world. Bye.”