Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 447 The Main Brain
Practice makes perfect. This time, Sun Hang was already very familiar with the internal structure and routes of the Tian Shu Tower. In addition, he had higher privileges than most researchers working in the Tian Shu Tower, so the security checkpoints and various verification procedures could not stop him. In just a few minutes, Sun Hang had already boarded the mobile pod leading to the "Primordial Palace" with ease.

The mobile capsule descended rapidly along the track and soon passed through the "back soil layer".

"We have reached our destination, the Primordial Palace," the AI ​​girl's voice rang out. "Is there anything else we can do for you?"

"The snacks in the freezer need to be restocked," Sun Hang said.

"Feedback received and is being checked... According to the logistics and maintenance records, this mobile cabin was replenished with supplies two hours ago. Do you have any other needs?"

"I remember there was a spicy snack that tasted pretty good when I came last time. Why is it gone this time?" Sun Hang asked.

"Hello, the spicy snack manufacturer has been penalized by regulatory authorities for hygiene issues and has been removed from the Tian Shu Tower's procurement list. If you need it, you can place an order with me, and I will send a drone to a nearby supermarket to purchase it for you."

"Uh, then no need."

The hatch of the mobile cabin opened, and Sun Hang stepped out.

This was Sun Hang's second visit to the Origin Palace. The appearance here was exactly the same as when he first came. The surface of the "Energy Gathering Rock" was flashing with orange-red "breathing lights", and the top of the stone chamber was inlaid with cool-toned light pillars. The two light sources, one warm and one cold, formed a wonderful balance, just like the constant temperature of 24 degrees Celsius that the stone chamber maintained all year round.

At the end of the stone chamber was a corridor leading to a brightly lit hall... It was in this hall that Sun Hang had his last undecided duel with Tie Bi.

"If it were me now, I should be able to take down the Iron Wall in twenty seconds, maybe even fifteen?" Sun Hang thought to himself. "I just don't know if his metallic body is actually insulated..."

Sun Hang walked through the corridor and entered the hall.

Iron Wall wasn't there. Instead, a woman dressed in black stood guard at the door of the room, her back to Sun Hang, standing ramrod straight.

"You changed bodyguards?" Sun Hang asked, puzzled.

“Intruder.” The woman in black didn’t turn around. “You should know the consequences of invading this place, shouldn’t you?”

"Intrusion? This doesn't count as intrusion, does it?" Sun Hang shrugged. "I just told the AI ​​in the mobile pod where I wanted to go, and it brought me here... If this counts as intrusion, are you trying to bait me?"

The woman in black didn't reply. Instead, she swiftly drew two guns from their holsters, turned around, and pulled the trigger on Sun Hang.

"gun?"

Sun Hang glanced at the weapon in the other person's hand with some contempt. The bullets stopped when they were half a meter away from Sun Hang. Then, they melted into liquid while suspended in the air and reformed into bullet shapes. However, these reshaped bullets changed direction and shot towards the black-clad woman who had fired the shot.

The woman in black dodged almost instantly. The bullets grazed her body, with only one bullet that struck her forehead leaving a bloody gash on her cheek, barely causing any damage.

"I'm sorry, I'm disfigured," Sun Hang said.

The woman in black was very beautiful, but she always had a poker face, which reminded Sun Hang of his first meeting with Yang Lian.

The contrast between how cold they were when they first met and how crazy they became after their relationship progressed is quite exciting.

Unfortunately, Sun Hang had absolutely no interest in the woman in front of him.

More than 75 percent of her body structure is made up of mechanical prosthetics. Strictly speaking, apart from her appearance, she can hardly be considered a woman.

Sun Hang doesn't have a homosexual XP.

The woman in black wiped the blood seeping from the wound on her cheek with the back of her hand, then decisively threw away her pistol and pounced on Sun Hang like a nimble cheetah.

At the same time, the surrounding temperature dropped sharply, and Sun Hang felt as if his body was frozen, his reactions became sluggish... even the speed at which his brain could think was affected.

Is this woman in black a superhuman?
Sun Hang did not sense any strange meme aura from her, but the source of this ability was clearly the woman in black in front of him—if her meme was not highly concealed, then the only explanation was that she was a superhuman.

Moreover, the opponent's ability does not seem to be cooling down in the strict sense—but rather more like the ability of a rule-based monster.

This rule is called "slowing down".

The temperature drops because the speed of molecular motion is affected by this ability, while Sun Hang's physical and mental abilities become sluggish because this ability is directly applied to him.

The ability to affect both the body and consciousness simultaneously—no wonder this woman was able to become Pei Zongjun's watchdog. Judging by this ability alone, she would rank among the top ten strongest hunters of that rank.

Unfortunately, she had far too many prosthetic parts on her body.

Before the woman in black could even reach Sun Hang, her prosthetic body began to disintegrate rapidly—her trousers, now without the support of her legs, turned into limp fabric, causing her upper body to lose its balance and crash heavily to the ground, sliding to one side.

She tried to grab the ground with her hands to counteract the inertia, but soon, her hands no longer belonged to her—as if all the screws and fasteners had disappeared all at once, her prosthetic bones became fragmented, turning into a pile of scattered parts wrapped under silicone skin... Sharp gears even cut through the silicone skin and rolled to Sun Hang's feet.

"Knowing full well that I have the ability to control metal, why did you still charge at me?" Sun Hang looked at the woman in black lying on the ground like a "human pig." "Your behavior is like a grunt in an anime who shouts 'Melee is my advantage' and then rushes in to die."

The woman in black didn't speak, but turned her head and glared fiercely at Sun Hang.

Sun Hang actually held back, not completely dismantling the other party's prosthetic body—at least preserving her artificial heart and lungs and the circulatory system connecting the heart and lungs to the brain... If Sun Hang had removed all of these parts, her brain would have died from lack of oxygen in no time.

"Come in." Pei Zongjun's voice rang out in the hall, and the door opened silently.

Sun Hang glanced at the woman in black lying on the ground, unable to move, and then walked into the "reception room".

The furnishings in the reception room remained unchanged; the spotless sofa and coffee table looked as if they had just been cleaned. Pei Zongjun's holographic projection stood in front of the roaring fireplace, smiling as he watched Sun Hang enter. "Like last time? Sugary Coca-Cola?" Pei Zongjun asked.

"I'd like some iced tea today." Sun Hang sat down on the sofa without any hesitation. "I just dismantled your bodyguard, he should be alright, right?"

“It’s alright. Her prosthetic body was due for an upgrade a long time ago, but she’s too attached to the old one, so she’s been reluctant to switch… I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you for a favor.” Pei Zongjun said with a smile, as the robotic arm beside him brought a glass of iced tea with ice to Sun Hang’s side.

"Oh, so you've used me again?" Sun Hang picked up his glass and downed it in one gulp. "Refill, thanks. By the way, aren't you afraid I'll just kill her? That way, I can save myself the trouble of getting a new prosthetic body."

“I don’t sense any killing intent from you.” Pei Zongjun’s holographic projection picked up a virtual cup of tea and gently swirled it.

"Killing intent? How did you sense it?"

“To be precise, it’s not perception, but calculation,” Pei Zongjun said. “When the data sample is sufficient and the computing power is powerful enough, it is possible to calculate whether a person’s emotions contain murderous intent.”

"Then you should try to figure out what I'm thinking right now," Sun Hang asked after finishing his second glass of iced tea.

"This doesn't need to be calculated."

"why?"

"Because when you boarded that plane, I already knew why you came to see me?"

"Wang Xiyi told you?"

“No, it was what I saw. My eyes are everywhere,” Pei Zongjun said. “The cameras in the plane’s cabin were also part of my field of vision.”

“You don’t look like a decrepit old man on his deathbed at all,” Sun Hang said in a deep voice. “So… what exactly are you?”

Sun Hang tried to use his mind-reading ability on Pei Zongjun's holographic projection, but he only read a bunch of binary data. Mind-reading ability can only work on living things or things with the ability to think, while the holographic image in front of him is just a way of outputting data. It has neither self-awareness nor the ability to think.

“You’re right. Actually, I’m already dead… or rather, Pei Zongjun is already dead.” The holographic image gestured to Sun Hang, and the flames in the fireplace instantly went out, splitting the entire wall in two.

A world dominated by silver-white colors appeared before Sun Hang's eyes.

Inside an enormous glass tank, brain tissue, the size of an entire main battle tank, was submerged. Countless electrode pads were attached to it, and a dense network of tubes extended from the inside of the brain tissue, connecting to interfaces at the bottom of the glass tank.

The surrounding walls were directly "built" with a large number of precision devices. Sun Hang could even feel the surging information flow inside those optical fibers, converging from all directions into the glass tank, and then being transmitted from the glass tank to various places.

Next to the glass jar was a transparent coffin, inside which lay a withered old man.

The old man's facial features bore a resemblance to Pei Zongjun's holographic projection.

"As you can see, the real Pei Zongjun is already dead." Pei Zongjun's holographic projection walked to the coffin and calmly gazed at the old man's corpse inside.

"So what are you now?"

“You can think of me as a continuation of Pei Zongjun’s consciousness, or you can call me the ‘main brain’—the core supercomputer ‘main brain’ of the Tian Shu Tower,” said Pei Zongjun’s holographic projection.

Sun Hang noticed that on Pei Zongjun's body, there were cut marks along the skull. These marks formed a circle along his head, as if the entire top of his head had been opened.

“When my bodily functions were nearing their limit and life support equipment could no longer sustain my life, I underwent a craniotomy,” Pei Zongjun’s holographic projection said. “I removed my brain and fused it with the ‘main brain,’ and I myself became a completely new life form—you can think of me as a digital life form, or you can think of me as a new kind of monster.”

The massive brain tissue inside the glass tank was unabashedly exuding the aura of a bizarre meme.

"This 'supercomputer'... wasn't made by humans, was it?"

"It was made by humans, but the raw materials used came from strange creatures," said Pei Zongjun's holographic projection.

"Tell me about it," Sun Hang asked as he walked around the glass tank.

"Have you ever heard of the Sphinx?" Pei Zongjun's holographic projection—or rather, the "mastermind"—asked.

"The Sphinx of Egypt?"

“Yes, the Sphinx is the prototype of the Sphinx,” the mastermind said. “The Sphinx is real, and according to the existing classification of monsters, it should belong to the same category as the Chimera Seventeen that you just destroyed.”

"go on."

"The Sphinx is a rare creature of great intelligence, and it is not hostile to humans... Just as described in ancient Greek mythology, it enjoys having other intelligent beings solve riddles—it kills those who solve them incorrectly, while those who solve them correctly can make a request of it."

"I thought it would be like in the myths, where the Sphinx jumps off a cliff to commit suicide after the riddle is solved correctly," Sun Hang said. "It seems the Sphinx in the real world is quite rational after all."

"The 'Mastermind' is based on the Sphinx—before Egypt fell, a hunter found the Sphinx and successfully solved its riddle," the Mastermind said. "And his condition was half of the Sphinx's brain."

"Why only half? Can't we just take it all?" Sun Hang asked, puzzled.

"No one knows how the hunter communicated with the Sphinx; in any case, he only brought back half of the Sphinx's brain."

The main brain continued, "And the ability that the Sphinx's half of the brain possesses... is 'precognition'."

(End of this chapter)