125: Chapter 45: Climbing the Tower 125: Chapter 45: Climbing the Tower Masters of Internal Strength from the Soth Divine Realm and ordinary Benchmark Men who have not undergone secondary brain modification are entirely different concepts.

For those who have succeeded in the Soth Divine Realm, their understanding of “mathematics” and “programming language” completely differs from that of Natural Persons.

Because the Soth Divine Realm is not just a “language hub,” but also integrates a vast neural system responsible for logical thinking.

It’s like the human temporal lobe, which can effortlessly recognize, aggregate, and process hundreds of features on human faces “axes,” and store, analyze, and reconstruct countless human faces in a high-dimensional feature space.

But this does not require a human to deliberately calculate the geometric problems of a multidimensional Hilbert Space.

For masters who have achieved success in the Soth Divine Realm, some higher mathematics and programming are as simple as “1+1,” which can be completed subconsciously.

And it includes a change—for Internal Strength Masters, both “QR codes” and “barcodes” are readable.

The symbol engraved by Cui Hai, in Xiang Shan’s eyes, is like hundreds of randomly composed strange characters—it’s definitely a word, but it has no meaning within any public domain.

Even if you were to scan or analyze it, you would not get any result because it is a meaningless QR code.

But those who recognize it can naturally understand it.

It’s like a correct and meaningful character mixed among dozens of obviously meaningless made-up characters.

To those who know it, it stands out significantly.

Yuki was a bit worried, “Doesn’t Deborah know about this?”

Cui Hai shook his head, “She only knows part of it, not all.

This is the one she doesn’t recognize.”

As they spoke, they had already entered the building.

Although the “Pine Eagle Building” is the core structure of Pine Eagle City and the location of the City Lord’s Official Residence, the first floor doesn’t have an imposing main entrance but rather doorways the size of those in an apartment building.

Dozens of doors are uniformly arranged at the entrance of the building, directly connected to the staircases.

The vast majority of residential buildings are adjacent to the outer walls.

Only in this part of the residential area are there natural lighting and ventilation options.

Not to mention, just “having the chance to install solar panels” is enough to cause competition among residents for these locations.

And the area closer to the interior is closed off.

Old Master Zhao did not add partitions when he opened these floor levels.

The partitions inside were added by residents afterward.

As long as they do not damage the original structure of the building, residents are not restricted in what they can do inside.

The air is damp and heavy, carrying a faint stench.

The little one wrinkled his face and pursed his lips as soon as he entered the building, appearing on the verge of tears.

They ascended the stairs.

There are surveillance cameras in the stairwells.

Since all of them momentarily did not want to expose their Martial Arts, they did not use their movement techniques to rush up.

Many people live in the stairwell.

Some forcefully set up small shelters within partitions, and others, having no beds, simply sat on the steps.

Xiang Shan’s Prosthetic Leg still had relatively sensitive touch.

He felt the ground was unexplainably slick.

Soon, they had reached above the tenth floor.

At this moment, Cui Hai finally said in the team channel, “Junior Brother Yuki, I forgot to remind you earlier.

Remember, unless a senior permits it, do not casually look outside, understand?”

Yuki instinctively wanted to look out the stairwell window, but quickly withdrew his gaze and asked in the channel, “Why?”

“Isn’t it the map?” Xiang Shan responded, “The positions of those five buildings, along with the city’s main roads and the ground’s Electromagnetic gun arrays, when combined, look like several QR codes.

If you clearly see one or a few of them, it might activate a certain backdoor, thereafter subjecting you to close scrutiny.”

Cui Hai added, “The senior’s estimations are spot on.”

All the prosthetic bodies in this world have backdoors.

Xiang Shan continued, “This tactic is meaningless for those who have mastered Internal Strength.

Could it be aimed to guard against self-taught youths or secret assemblies of resistance forces who are oblivious to these secrets?

Just by standing high or inspecting the map, a backdoor could be activated, followed by a reallocation of resources for close surveillance?”

“If you also consider the shadows of the five buildings…it’s likely that there’s more than one corresponding backdoor.

Depending on the activated backdoor, the government’s Houndhawks could even determine when exactly and from which perspective someone was observing the terrain?”

Yuki was surprised, “How many people would that need…”

“People?

Don’t joke.” Xiang Shan said, “This process can be handled by weak AI.

Most of it is automated.

That’s the kind of resources the powerful have.”

Yuki was stunned, “But wouldn’t that cause a lot of collateral damage?

What if someone just carelessly looked outside…”

Xiang Shan did not reply.

Because that’s the kind of resources the powerful have.

Even if a hundred are wrongly investigated, capturing just one target is enough.

Someone who organizes resistance without looking at the map poses no threat—they probably don’t understand the principle of “aiming the blade at the target.”

But those who study the map will likely be caught.

Cui Hai then patted Yuki’s shoulder, “Junior Brother Yuki, look at the ground around us.”

Yuki looked down.

They were on the thirteenth floor, which was much more spacious than below ten, and it wasn’t as crowded as before.

This was partly due to the fact that living here meant spending considerable time and energy going up and down the stairs every day.

Most of the residents here were poor; not all could endure such a thing.

Yuki saw people sitting emotionlessly on the stairs—of course, this only applies to those “who still had cheeks”—some leaned against the walls, mainly those whose spine muscles had not been replaced with prosthetic bodies, lost in their own worlds.

[Since this place was near the base of the Gene Bank’s defense forces, there was a public network.

It was probably for easier surveillance, but they could also use some of its functions.

Despite their desiccated appearances as they sat there, their spirits might have been interacting with people from other planets, entertaining themselves.]

A few individuals glanced up at Xiang Shan and his companions as they passed by, but quickly looked down again with indifference.

[Most people actually don’t care much about what’s outside the windows.] Cui Hai said; [The data is probably much less than you imagine.]

The group continued upward, soon reaching around the thirtieth floor.

There were hardly any people sitting in the stairwells here.

After all, those with a lower degree of cyberization couldn’t possibly expend so much energy climbing such high floors, and those with a higher degree of cyberization didn’t have as much desire for housing.

Instead, the stairwells were littered with garbage and feces.

In the stairwell, Yuki curiously peered into the living areas of the residents.

The inhabitants of these higher floors apparently didn’t use materials like stone, soil, or metal to construct barriers—like those below the twentieth floor—as transporting building materials cost more the higher up one went.

They seemed to be using items like metal wires and plastic sheets instead.

Higher up, the dividers turned into curtains of plastic hung by wires.

When Yuki looked inside a door, he noticed a pair of eyes intently staring back at him from the residential area.

Startled, he averted his gaze.

Further on, there were residents in disarray lying on the floor.

Originally, some people lived here just to have a place to keep their personal belongings.

For most, this was not an easy task.

To live here was to face the issue of “inconvenient living.” Just going up and down the stairs every day exhausted a tremendous amount of energy, so how could one work properly?

Those who ended up here were basically people with nowhere else to go with low rates of cyberization.

They either offended someone or encountered some trouble, having no choice but to reside here.

Xiang Shan could glean a bit from Old Hammer’s memories.

These people only went out every few days.

When they did go out, they worked for several days, then returned with loads of supplies, climbing the stairwells for at least a day, then loafing around on some floor for another week or so before going out again, cycling through it all over and over.

They were the people on the very margins of the city.

In this area, garbage and feces were almost everywhere in the stairwells.

But after passing through this area, the path became much easier to walk.

At least the stench suddenly diminished.

Organic residues piled up in the corners of the floor even formed what looked like soil.

Xiang Shan indeed saw fungi growing above it.

Yuki was still absorbed in the act of “reading the map,” when he suddenly bumped into the back of his master.

[Master, why…]

That’s when Cui Hai suddenly stepped in front of him, saying, “You might want to brace yourself before looking…”

Curious, Yuki peered ahead and saw something…

How to put it?

A mass of organic soil that still vaguely resembled a human outline.

Fungi had grown and died there several times, moss—no, it was a kind of lichen that blended black and green, camouflage-like, covering the area.

Sunlight fell through the stairwell windows, illuminating the mound of soil.

A delicate plant was growing on it, even bearing seeds.

Yuki had never seen such a thing.

He truly didn’t know that plants could produce such pure white…fuzzy balls?

Huang Ouguang said, “This used to be a person, didn’t it…”

No one knew why this person, with very low rates of cyberization, had come to this place and then died here.

Were they being hunted?

Or had they hidden here for some reason?

Or perhaps they came to this place waiting to die because of irreversible damage to their body?

Of course, none of this mattered anymore.

Xiang Shan brought his hands together forcefully.

A gust stirred.

Seeds were blown off the plant.

Dandelion seeds danced in the sunlight.

Xiang Shan said, “Yuki…I just knew it.

Indeed, metal-based species can’t dominate in every domain of the biosphere over Earth’s native species.

You see, there are indeed still green plants in the world.”