A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 197 This price is too good to pass up.

A computer is simply a computing machine made up of countless simple computing units stacked together.

The more powerful a computer is, the more computing units it has. Therefore, computers that use the same type of computing units are usually larger in size and have stronger computing performance.

However, this path of computer development has a fatal flaw: the speed of light limit.

Computers, which are developed based on matter, are still essentially limited by matter itself, no matter how their structure is changed. The speed of electron movement is limited, and even if photons are used as information carriers, the situation is the same. These information carriers are limited by the speed of light.

Therefore, once a computer's computing units have been stacked to a certain limit, continuing to stack more computing units will not only fail to improve the computer's computing power, but will actually reduce it.

So another approach emerged: shrinking the computing units. In this way, the computer could have more computing units without changing its size, and its computing power could still be improved.

On Earth, humanity's path to computer development is along the latter path.

However, this path also has an end, namely the computing unit, that is, the circuit of the chip. It cannot be shrunk indefinitely. Electrons on one circuit of the chip will travel to a nearby circuit due to quantum tunneling.

The etched lines on the chip become useless, which means that the entire chip becomes an electrically conductive metal plate.

Can an electrically powered metal plate be used as a chip? Obviously not.

When humanity's journey toward Moore's computer comes to an end, only heaven knows what will happen next.

Fortunately, the Babel bee colony does not have to face such a problem.

Although the computer in a bee colony also performs computer calculations by continuously stacking computing units, the bee colony has intelligence and a swarm network that can transmit information instantly.

The Babel Tower bee colony uses a living computer matrix built on a bee colony network. Three microorganisms form a simple computing unit, which is sequentially numbered. Then, by leveraging the characteristics of bee colony organisms transmitting information within the bee colony network, real-time information interaction is achieved.

In other words, the information transmission lines that should exist in the real world have been moved into the swarm network.

Microscopic organisms are extremely small, roughly equivalent to a neutrino. A set of computing units consists of three neutrinos. If these computing units were gathered together to form a large computer called "Tianhe", its volume would be many times smaller than a quark.

Meanwhile, since information is transmitted using a swarm network, the effects of quantum tunneling do not exist.

After intelligent two-dimensional beings voluntarily provide text templates of their civilization, the bee swarm imports these text templates into the living computer matrix.

Each microscopic organism, acting as a computer processing unit, faithfully performed its role in the matrix. Within seconds, the entire language system of the civilization in this two-dimensional space within the vast universe was deciphered by the swarm.

The knowledge gained from the exploration of this two-dimensional civilization was thus fully understood by the swarm.

The physical rules mastered by this two-dimensional civilization are basically two-dimensional. For example, their cannons are only sealed in three directions, and there is a strong magnet at the muzzle to ensure that the cannon will not explode due to the explosive material inside that will explode when it comes into contact with water.

At the same time, there are some physical rules that are interconnected with three-dimensional space. For example, stones are affected by gravity and fall from heights, liquids still have fluidity, molecular chemistry still exists, and so on.

In general, the spacetime environment of the mega-universe simply compresses all molecular matter onto the same plane; apart from that, other physical rules remain unchanged.

This may explain why microscopic organisms do not decay.

Having obtained the intelligence, Lu Shang pondered for a moment and then engaged in dialogue with two relatively cooperative two-dimensional beings in the vast universe who were still bound by the psionic energy of planetary life forms.

"Based on your previous introductions, one of you is named Micah and the other Horn. Are you teacher and student?"

Having grown accustomed to observing everything from a three-dimensional perspective, Micah and his student Horn once again heard a similar voice in their minds.

From the information conveyed in the speech, Micah deduced that the voice was not the one they had spoken to earlier, so he asked, "You're not the one we just met. Who are you?"

"The person you were just talking to was one of my subordinates." Lu Shang had no intention of hiding anything.

Micah was taken aback. He hadn't expected that there would be a superior-subordinate relationship among the 'Witch Demons'. When he realized that the other party was the superior of the Witch Demon who had just saved them, his attitude became respectful.

"Thank you for your help. I just discussed it with that person, and I will take all the blame in place of my student. This matter has nothing to do with my student, Horn."

Micah emphasized this point, fearing that his superior might not know about the agreement he had made with the "Witch Demon" who had saved them.

Looking at this tense two-dimensional creature through the eyes of a microscopic being, Lu Shang couldn't help but chuckle and replied, "Don't be nervous. Why don't you listen to what exactly the price we want you to pay is?"

Micah was convinced of Lu Shang's identity as a witch demon by his magical abilities, so when Lu Shang mentioned the price to be paid, Micah's first thought was of his own soul.

"...What's the price? Selling your soul?" Micah asked tentatively.

Lu Shang was taken aback, not expecting the other party to think in this direction. "The soul doesn't exist, and even if it did, what value would your soul have? Don't think too highly of yourself."

"So what do you want? Money? But all our assets have already been confiscated," Micah said, sounding troubled.

Lu Shang rolled his eyes speechlessly. "Your money is only meaningful to you. It's just a tool for measuring the allocation of social labor resources. Once it's separated from your social role, your money and your property have no value whatsoever."

Micah didn't quite understand what Lu Shang was saying, but he did understand the last sentence: to these "witch demons," the money of ordinary people was like trash on the street, having no value whatsoever.

But then Micah couldn't figure out what price they should pay.

"Well... you don't want the soul, you don't want the money, so what do you want?" Micah asked.

Lu Shang replied, "I want you to develop and strengthen your mother civilization, and lead it to continuously grow and expand in the universe. This is the price we want you to pay."

"Uh..." Micah was stunned.

Not only him, but even his student Horn was stunned.

Paying a price can actually bring such a good thing?

(End of this chapter)