Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"As I just mentioned, we established his genetic information database and reconstructed the genetic replication errors of cells. You can understand it as us identifying a 20-year-old human as a sample, and then referring to this sample, reconstructing and repairing his cells so that the replication error rate of his somatic cells is kept under ideal conditions." This prevents the accumulation of replication errors and cellular coordination errors, which is human aging.

"Then comes what we call the first disconnection, the disconnect between the nerves and the body..."

"Tell me about it..."

"The nervous system has a lifespan far longer than most body tissues and cells. If we don't adjust our nervous system from the beginning, the gradually aging and error-accumulating nervous system will become misaligned with the still-peak-of-body system, just like an old engine that can't drive a brand-new car..."

"Moreover, human past experiences and lives have left indelible marks on the nervous system and body, such as muscle memory. Our reconstructive surgery means completely destroying muscle memory, and the accumulated neural and procedural memories begin to disconnect from the body tissues that have no muscle memory..."

"The consequences would likely include problems such as spasms, hand tremors, and loss of control of the body."

“Yes, and then we calibrated the nervous system…” That wasn’t difficult; the Covenant had a lot of technical expertise in this area. “Then something even more terrifying happened.”

"You know that the parts of your personality and memories cannot be altered arbitrarily. If you do, there's no guarantee you'll still be yourself. However, once your nervous system and body are calibrated, they'll be in sync, and then your entire nervous system will become incompatible with your personality..."

Human aging is a biochemical process, as well as a psychological one. Past experiences, along with the gradual changes in the endocrine and neuro-memory systems that occur with age, collectively shape an elderly person's psychology and mindset. In other words, their personality—the "software"—is adapted to their "hardware."

Then now if you keep restoring the hardware to the new version, the software will be unsuitable. The new endocrine and nervous systems will change your mindset and cognition from the hardware perspective, which will conflict with your past cognition.

Because young people's ability to accept and understand things is very different from that of the elderly, this is not only a psychological issue, but also includes physiological reasons.

This leads to hardware and software conflicts. When these errors accumulate to the point that they exceed the processing limits of the brain's personality structure, the brain simply shuts down.

“Of course, this can be achieved by blocking it from the beginning, so that he won’t have this cognitive change,” Kal’tsit suggested as a solution.

"It's possible, but memories and experiences can indeed change some physiological characteristics. In that case, it would turn into a state like rosemary, repeatedly overwriting and reconstructing memories, and then that person would become confused, go completely insane, and it's hard to say whether he's still alive now."

Although experiments and advancements like those by the Covenant continue, no one is willing to accept this imperfect longevity technology anymore. Therefore, Old Xia is very curious about how someone like Kal'tsit, who achieves immortality, manages to do so.

“I have a guess, I don’t know if it’s accurate or not, but you can take it into consideration…” Kal’tsit thought for a moment, “You may not realize that the long-lived and the short-lived are not the same thing. Or rather, you realized it from the beginning, but you insisted on stuffing the consciousness or cognition of a short-lived person into the body of a long-lived person.”

"It's like stuffing a mayfly that can only live for one day into a human body. The long duration would be a terrifying shock for it. What you need to do is not to make the mayfly and the human body more integrated—but to make the mayfly no longer a mayfly..."

"Hmm, that makes sense, but the solution you proposed is impossible..." In terms of ideology, the Star Alliance humans are probably pure; simply put, they insist on their human nature.

Moreover, Kal'tsit's words make a lot of sense: the way immortal beings perceive and understand the world.

In particular, their perception of time is very different from that of short-lived species. Forcing the cognition and consciousness of short-lived species into the body of long-lived people can only accumulate conflicts and cause them to die faster than normal people.

"So, as an immortal being, then..."

“Don’t overthink it…” Kal’tsit retorted. “I do have significant differences in time and some of my senses compared to ordinary Terrans, which is also a characteristic of those ‘gods,’ but the rest of me is the same.”

"How did you do that?"

"It's probably a periodic hibernation?"

"Hibernation?" Old Xia didn't quite understand.

"Well, let me give you an example. How long would it take for a person to go crazy if they never sleep?"

"About a week, if they're still alive."

"Well, for humans, it is necessary to ensure at least 4 hours of sleep, which is one-sixth of their life. But you have created an immortal species. What is its hibernation time?"

His day is your year, which means he needs at least two months of long sleep each year to allow his body, consciousness, and mind to reconnect and repair their links…

"Your approach is like making someone rest for 10 seconds every minute and then not sleep all year round. I think it's no wonder there are problems."

Kal'tsit retorted, "Of course, it's just a metaphor; you get the idea."

"Never mind, I'm not in charge of this project, and we've basically decided to abandon it."

The main problem is that too many requirements lead to many mutually exclusive results, so let's just forget about it.

The absurd result, in particular, that the longevity experiment subject actually lived shorter than normal people, was enough to cause investors to collectively withdraw their funds.

"My method won't work either?"

“No way, if you wake up, Terra civilization will be in ruins. If we wake up, the effect will be about the same, or even worse,” Old Xia complained, and then gave Kal'tsit and all the Terrans who survived the beginning a powerful psychic blast. Old Cat’s face immediately darkened.

Chapter 77: How come it's only 70% complete?

Chapter 77

In autumn, two major events occurred. The first was the autumn harvest, which resulted in a large number of laborers being conscripted. The front lines were almost entirely consumed without any output, and the country had to rely on exporting agricultural products and raw materials to earn Lungmen dollars to purchase necessary supplies and parts to alleviate the labor shortage.

In this context, we must also consider the losses incurred in transporting supplies and the damage inflicted on the front lines by small-scale enemy counterattacks.

In fact, New Kazdel's food reserves are declining rapidly, and the autumn harvest can well make up for this deficit.

Besides that, Xia's daughter finally developed to the age where she could be "born" in the artificial womb. To be honest, this method of reproduction really opened the eyes of the Terrans, including Kal'tsit.

The first thing to do for a newborn is to adjust their symbiont. Although the symbiont can be inherited from the parents, to avoid the accumulation of errors during repeated replication and iteration, which could eventually lead to serious accidents, the first thing to do before the birth of each newborn is to adjust their symbiont.

Correcting and calibrating any anomalous variants and copying errors that have occurred according to the standard copy. This also includes iterative and upgrade work.

The newborn wasn't pretty; it was all wrinkled and looked like a little monkey. "So ugly—"

Yelena poked the little girl's cheek, and the girl moved her mouth and blew a bubble, looking very well-behaved.

"Put it in the calibration incubator..." Old Xia instructed Little Tiger to put the newborn into the incubator. The constant temperature incubator is more suitable for the newborn's life. Then, the robotic arm pierced her arm and injected about 15 milliliters of calibration fluid into her blood vessels before she cried out.

"Alright, now it's time for a name. Do you have any good ideas?" Old Xia looked at the little tiger, who looked at him with the same blank expression. Clearly, neither of them had decided on a name.

"Yelena, do you have an idea?"

"Huh? Why are you asking me?" The white rabbit lying beside the incubator looked confused. "How about we keep it simple and name it Qiu? It's born in autumn, after all—"

"Summer and autumn? Then where are spring and winter?" That was Old Xia's first reaction. "Okay, that sounds pretty good. Do you have a better idea?"

Choosing a name is truly the biggest challenge for all new parents. Most names that sound good and have a good meaning have already been overused, while unique names may become a lifelong psychological shadow for the child. It's enough to make you want to wear out the dictionary.

"I think it's alright, after all, it symbolizes a harvest, and since you're in agriculture, it seems like a good omen..."

"Huh? You're asking me? I have no objection." The orca was engrossed in poking her face, while being glared at by the child's mother. "Call me whatever you want, a name is just a label."

"How about we call it Dala Beng... Ouch." Ghost Shark was knocked down and dragged away. "If you can't talk, then don't talk!"

"I also think Yelena's idea is good; a simpler name makes it easier to raise a child..."

"Why are you so superstitious?" Kal'tsit asked the Doctor.

"There's no way around it. If you had to look up every day and see a giant bomb hanging over your head that could explode at any moment, you'd start to become superstitious too," the doctor shrugged. "In situations like this, I have to say, metaphysics and superstition do have some use. At least you can muster the courage to get through the new day instead of finding a gun and shooting yourself..."

"Then let's call her Xia Qiu..." Old Xia registered the name for Xiao Qiu in PNIS. Her genetic symbiote will use the names registered by her parents as electronic signatures, making it much more troublesome to change.

"By the way, does she drink milk?" Yelena asked a crucial question, which made the shy little tiger blush instantly.

"Generally speaking, breastfeeding is recommended," Kal'tsit said, glancing at the little tiger with a critical and scrutinizing look. "It shouldn't be a big problem. Just pay more attention to its diet. Although it doesn't require postpartum confinement because it's developing outside the body, some bacteria and specific antibodies will still enter the newborn's body through breast milk..."

"That's not an important issue; she has a symbiote. However, it is indeed a good way to improve the mother-infant relationship," the doctor added earnestly.

"All of you, get out!"

"Huh? Me too?" The baby orca, engrossed in sucking on a young human cub, looked completely bewildered.

"Yes, you should too. Don't keep poking my face, or I'll drool!"

"Oh," the little orca said, leaving somewhat disappointed.

Meanwhile, in Kazdel in the south, Theresis arrived at his new headquarters. The good news was that the troublesome nobles were gone, but the bad news was that it also meant that his power was unbalanced. The power of the southern farmers and factory owners was completely unchecked, and they were showing a tendency to coerce Theresis's regime.

If it weren't for the ever-increasing pressure from the Northerners, which would immediately plunge them into serious infighting, even so, internal strife would have become extremely frequent.

With such frequent political infighting, various government affairs naturally became chaotic and corrupt, and all kinds of exorbitant taxes and levies increased day by day.

After all, the southern army was maintained by money. With sufficient military pay, it could at least maintain basic morale and fighting will.

Once the money runs out, the collapse can happen even faster than that of a nobleman's retainers and private army. As a result, they have to keep raising taxes and using various forms of exploitation. Coupled with the dumping of grain from the north, the situation in the entire southern countryside has deteriorated to the point where survival is almost impossible.

"Dad, we need a solution!" The young people in the village surrounded the elderly village chief. "At this rate, we won't even have enough to grow crops next year!"

The new tax has been issued. Compared to collecting grain, it is more cost-effective to collect money to buy grain from the Northerners to support the army. The key issue is that the Northerners' dumping of grain has caused the market purchase price to plummet.

Of course, the selling price didn't change. Those grain merchants joined forces to monopolize the business. War is war, and business is business, isn't it?

While towns and cities in the south were struggling to survive on half-starvation, and the price of agricultural products was dropping again and again due to the influx of cheap grain from the north, grain stores still used the excuse of limited sales to drive prices sky-high.

"That much money isn't enough even if we sell all our grain. Why don't we go and beg the grain collector?"

"It's no use, I've already gone..." The village chief looked exhausted. "Right now, we can only try to get through this. Anyway, this year's harvest was pretty good. If we can borrow some more money, maybe next year..."

"It's not easy to lend money at exorbitant interest rates..."

"How about we try to transport the goods into the city to sell? I heard the prices there are pretty good, and we might even have some money left over after selling them?"

Another middle-aged man spoke up, saying that he had a child working in the city, and he had heard that the price of grain there was quite high.

"That's great! What are we waiting for? I'll go hitch up the car right now!"

"Stop right there! What do you know?!" The village chief hurriedly grabbed the impetuous young man. "Let's not even talk about how much the gatekeepers charge to get into the city. Do you know how many bandits there are along the way? Last month, the village by the river was completely looted. Have you forgotten? Carrying such a huge pile of stuff, you'll be robbed clean before you even reach the city gate!"

"We can hire..."

"Bullshit, where would we get the money? Besides, those mercenaries aren't the same as before."

Those who were trustworthy and had good fighting skills in the past have all gone to join the army, or at the very least, to work for the Northerners and get high salaries. Who would still care about the meager income from this small village?

"Well... how about we give it a try? Let's take a little something with us first and see if it sells... with fewer people and less stuff, it shouldn't be too conspicuous."

"Let's do it this way..." However, things weren't that simple. These "bandits" weren't all just bandits. If they were allowed to freely transport goods into the city for retail, bypassing the exploitation by the large grain merchants, it would be tantamount to cutting off their source of income. Therefore, even a small amount of supplies was quickly reported by bribed informants, and then...

Everything was looted and people were killed, plunging the village into chaos and despair.

However, while both involve cutting off someone's livelihood, some people ultimately go to greater lengths.

"Listen to me!" The thin, middle-aged man climbed onto a pile of wooden crates, surrounded by emaciated villagers whose faces were filled with despair and numbness. "The lords in the city have doubled this year's taxes and are going to collect next year's taxes in advance, a full 6 silver coins, 6!! They'll take every single grain of food from our village and still owe us money!"

The reason there are so many is that a large amount of land is not in the hands of the villagers, but in the hands of those large landowners. However, the land deeds, which have not been updated for a long time, still bear the names of these people. In other words—

The output was irrelevant to them, yet the taxes were levied on them and they had to pay them; the big landowners did not pay taxes.

"The only thing we can do right now is to fight them. We won't pay a single penny of tax this year. If they come to collect taxes, we'll kick them out!"

However, most of the villagers below remained unmoved, simply staring blankly at him, while those who were slightly tempted were pulled back by others.

These statements don't resonate with middle-aged people. Or rather, it's not that they haven't tried to resist taxes, and those people became martyrs, even having their villages burned down.

Moreover, people always have a sense of wishful thinking. As long as the tax officials haven't come to confiscate their property with their henchmen, they hope that nothing like this has happened, or that the officials will take pity on them when things come to a head.

"Those people are nothing to be afraid of. Just think about those people in the north. I've heard that they only pay 30% in taxes, and the remaining 70% is all theirs. They can drink porridge to their heart's content every day, and they even have meat to eat every month!"

For these people who had long suffered from hunger and thirst, the word quickly evoked a strong reaction, and the throats of the crowd below began to move.

"Besides, the northerners drove these lords back from the other side of the mountain. They're just a bunch of peasants. If they can do it, so can we."