allonlinenovel Chapter 218 Holy Mark Terminal
Chapter 218 Holy Mark Terminal
What exactly is memory?
From a scientific perspective, memory is the cognitive process by which the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information about objective things.
What about from a subjective perspective?
■■ is considered a scientific definition of human self-awareness.
So what is self-awareness?
It seems that science can also provide an answer.
As some believe that self-awareness can be exploited, a project concerning human self-awareness was put on the agenda.
This project is the Consciousness Transfer Project, and its creation is thanks to the Stigmata System invented by ■■.
The intention is to transfer human consciousness to the Stigmata Terminal through the Stigmata System in order to achieve human immortality.
In this way, even if humanity fails to defeat the Honkai, they can still be reborn using the Stigmata thousands or tens of thousands of years after the Honkai has wiped out humanity.
However, this plan has a fatal flaw.
"Dr. ■■, we unanimously agree that your proposed consciousness transfer plan is too inhumane and therefore will not be approved."
"Oh? The notoriously inhumane World Federation actually thinks my proposed plan is inhumane? Did I wake up one day and travel to another world, or did you suddenly have a change of heart?"
"We will absolutely not allow the uploading and storage of human consciousness, treating the human body as a consumable resource, no matter what. Besides, who knows what will happen to the consciousness after it's been uploaded..."
The leaders of the World Federation did not continue speaking, but ■■ already understood their unspoken meaning.
Ultimately, they were worried about whether their status would be affected. After all, if their consciousness was uploaded to the Stigmata Terminal, ■■ could indeed change a person's consciousness at will, just as they thought.
But is it necessary for her to change their consciousness?
Or what value do they possess that necessitates modifying their consciousness?
She could remove these people from power at any time if she wanted to, but she would still need public support.
After all, the world isn't so bad that it needs a scientist to control the situation. Arbitrarily removing someone from office would only damage one's own reputation, and there's no reason for one to create trouble for oneself.
Therefore, seeing that the plan was rejected, he simply turned around and left. Anyway, because the World Federation had allocated him enough funds for the previous plan, it would be enough to take out a little of them for the consciousness transfer plan.
I also owe a lot to my father; without his data, I really wouldn't have been able to do this with the least amount of money.
"■■■■, you attempted to transfer your consciousness into your daughter's body to achieve immortality. Although you ultimately failed, you did a great favor. Rest assured, I will definitely offer the most precious gift at your grave in the future."
"!"
In the dead of night, Mei suddenly opened her eyes, sat up, and gasped for breath.
Looking around, I realized I was still in my own room and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
Several days have passed since that exploration of the ruins, and during this time Mei has often had strange dreams.
She even experiences sleepwalking. Once, when Mei regained consciousness, she found herself standing in Dr. Tesla's laboratory.
A progress bar is displayed on the screen.
As the progress bar finally finished, Mei finally understood what it meant.
That's a progress bar to completely erase all traces of use.
Strangely, even though erasing traces of use is a serious violation of Tesla's lab regulations, Mei's instinctive decision was to leave the scene.
Instead of reporting to Tesla immediately, Mei didn't realize that Fu Hua was secretly observing everything from a corner she couldn't see.
Back to the present, Mei looked at her pale face in the mirror and sighed softly.
She didn't know what was wrong with her; she had been absent-minded these past few days.
Every time she came to her senses, she was always in places she would never normally go. Einstein had also suggested to Mei more than once that she get a proper medical check-up.
But Mei always subconsciously rejected Einstein's suggestions.
Perhaps I really should get my body checked out.
Recalling how much her companions cared for her these past few days, Mei finally made up her mind to get a proper check-up tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in Fu Hua's room.
Fu Hua is communicating with the captain and Durandal, reporting on Mei's situation over the past few days.
Recalling the captain's speculation from a few days ago, and considering Mei's strange behavior recently.
Fu Hua was also filled with unease.
"These are Mei's unusual behaviors so far. Just now, she woke up from her dream again."
"Thank you for your hard work, Senior Fu Hua," Durandal said. "These past few days, Changguang and I have been secretly studying Mei's situation together, without Bishop Otto's knowledge, but the progress is not optimistic."
"After all, relevant data is essential, and it would be difficult for me to make a judgment."
Suddenly, Changguang's communication was interrupted by everyone's voice; this time, she had come with Otto's instructions.
"Yulandel, let's put Mei aside for now. Bishop Otto has a new experiment that requires our participation. Here are his exact words."
"Yulandel, although I don't know exactly what you and Changguang are busy with, the upcoming experiment is very important. I don't have time for you and the people from Anti-Entropy and World Serpent to secretly plan anything. If you don't want to be questioned by me, hurry up and come over."
"I'm sorry, it seems that Bishop Otto already discovered my contact with you. I'm afraid that Changguang and I will not be able to keep in touch with you for some time to come."
After saying that, Yulandal and Changguang cut off the communication.
It looks like they're heading to Alto's place.
"So, Captain, what should we do now?"
"I do not know."
The captain's voice revealed a deep sense of exhaustion.
Ever since he finalized the plan with Fu Hua and Durandal that day, he had been searching for a solution. Although the group chat was muted, thankfully the captain could still use the reward redemption function normally.
So the captain used all the reward attempts he had accumulated to exchange for knowledge related to memory and consciousness. Through the reports sent by Fu Hua over the past few days, the captain finally confirmed Mei's situation.
Just as the captain predicted, the seals on Mei's body used to seal the stigmata have become completely ineffective since Mei became a Herrscher.
After the seal was broken, the true function of Mei's awakened stigma began to appear. The scenes Mei saw that day were actually the memories of someone sealed inside her stigma.
The captain believed that Mei's stigma contained more than just these memories, if this stigma was indeed the same as the one in Honkai Impact 2, as he suspected.
Therefore, Mei's memories are very likely those of Dr. Raiden Mei from the Zero Era, and her purpose is quite simple.
That is to use the power of the Stigmata to revive Mei in the future. In more specific terms, it means replacing Mei's memories with one's own.
In terms of self-awareness, she transformed Mei from the future into her own self-awareness, thus achieving a certain degree of reincarnation.
After that, she can fully activate her consciousness through the Stigmata Terminal, thus completing her reincarnation.
Looking back now, the coordinates that were last displayed on the screen inside the ruins were very likely the coordinates of the Stigmata Terminal. These past few days, the Herrscher of Knowledge had been secretly replacing those memories back within Mei's body and disguising them as dreams.
In this way, Mei could easily forget about it, but as time went on, the Herrscher of Knowledge indicated that those memories appeared more and more frequently.
There were even instances of Dr. Mei's consciousness rising to the surface. In order to prevent themselves from being discovered and thus exposing the plans here, the Herrscher of Knowledge could not swagger in front of Dr. Mei.
The good news is that the captain wasn't actually focusing all his attention on Mei at the time.
He still remembered the coordinates on the screen, even though it was deep in the ocean within Australian territory.
Unfortunately, World Serpent's influence there isn't significant, making it quite difficult for them to infiltrate the ocean undetected by the other two organizations.
Therefore, the captain has been studying relevant knowledge day and night for the past few days in order to find a solution that can bypass the Stigmata Terminal.
Unfortunately, they couldn't find it, so the captain had no choice but to head to those coordinates to check the situation.
However, this might mean missing out on the incident Alto caused in Klossen, since that place is in the deep sea.
Moreover, there are unknown risks inside that the captain is completely unaware of, so thorough preparations must be made.
Fortunately, he had revealed some information, and the jackal, like a shark that had caught a whiff of something delicious, came to the captain and offered to provide technical support and help him resolve the submarine issue.
The price was that whatever the captain found inside had to be handed over to the Jackal for research, and considering the urgency of the situation, the captain didn't haggle.
Anyway, after he revealed that there was a possible pre-civilization ruin deep in the Australian seabed, the captain never thought that he could have the ruin to himself.
Kevin was also interested in the ruins where the Stigmata Terminal was stored, because in his memory, the Firemoth had not established a base on the seabed off Australia.
The ruins the captain mentioned are very likely the same ruins that Mei told him about, and the Stigmata Project was also a plan that Mei proposed based on the information within those ruins.
Moreover, Mei's personality has changed drastically since she went into that ruin, although she is still the Mei that Kevin knows.
But Kevin always had a feeling he couldn't quite put his finger on, a feeling that sometimes Mei wasn't Mei at all, but some other person.
The origin of everything was that ruin, but Mei had never taken him inside, and she had avoided talking about it ever since.
Therefore, Kevin had no way to investigate. Now, the information brought by the captain revealed that the ruins he found were very likely the same ruins that Mei had entered.
Finally unable to sit still any longer, Kevin decided that this time he and the captain would go down to explore together, so the preparation of the submarine was much faster than the captain had expected.
After a series of preparations, the captain and Kevin arrived at an unnamed island.
This is the island closest to the coordinates of the Stigmata Terminal, but Kevin realized something was wrong the moment they stepped onto the island.
First of all, it was too quiet. There wasn't a sound of large animals around, not even the chirping of insects. But the island wasn't lacking in forests, so this was clearly very unusual.
Moreover, Kevin could vaguely sense that the earth beneath his feet contained astonishing Honkai energy, as if a powerful Honkai beast was slumbering deep beneath the island.
Clearly, the captain had also noticed these things, and now he just hoped that things wouldn't actually develop the way he expected.
The world can no longer handle an enemy at the level of the End.
However, there's no use thinking about it now, so the captain and Kevin decided to proceed with the original plan for the time being.
After a brief rest, the two boarded the submarine that Gray Serpent had prepared in advance and arrived at the outside of the ruins.
Now a very real problem is facing the captain and Kevin: how do they get in?
After all, they were completely clueless about this ruin, and after thinking it over, it seemed that forcibly breaking through was the only option.
After finding the entrance, Kevin first used Parvati's freezing ability to completely freeze the nearby sea, and then used the high temperature of the Judgment of Heavenly Fire to forcibly create a passage that people could walk through.
However, considering that a submarine would be needed for the subsequent ascent, Kevin pushed the submarine to the entrance.
What's amazing is that even after more than 250,000 years, the equipment here is still functioning.
The scanning device on the door was activated the instant the submarine was pushed to the entrance.
After a simple scan confirmed there was no threat, the door was opened.
"..."
So what was the purpose of what he did before?
But whatever, as long as I can get in, everything is negotiable.
The submarine was docked in the port, and the captain emerged from the submarine.
"Welcome, future generations who possess the Stigmata."
A projection appeared in front of the two of them. Clearly, the words they had just spoken came from this projection, only the image projected was different…
"Kiana? No, you are not her," the captain denied.
“My name is Alaya-vijnana, and I am indeed not the Kiana you all know.”
The projection, which bears a striking resemblance to Kiana and claims to be the Alaya-vijnana, stated this.
“Although I can sense the presence of the Holy Mark on you, it does not seem to be the form of the Holy Mark she envisioned. Where did you obtain this Holy Mark from?”
“Indeed, this is the place Mei said could unravel all the mysteries.” As he spoke, Kevin stepped forward, and the Heavenly Fire Judgment in his hand began to blaze fiercely. “Alaya Consciousness, I ask you, what exactly is this so-called Holy Mark?”
However, Alaya consciousness did not answer Kevin's question, but instead became interested in the Mei that Kevin mentioned.
"Mei? Are you referring to Mei from the previous civilization? If so, it's not surprising."
"So you do know Mei. Tell me what happened to Mei here? Why did her personality change so drastically after she came out of here? And what made her come up with the Stigmata Project?"
"...I understand. If you want to know the truth, please come in first."
After speaking, Alaya-vijnana opened the door leading to the depths of the ruins, and Kevin and the captain followed Alaya-vijnana's guidance to the room where her core was located.
There they finally saw the device called the Stigmata Terminal, or rather, the Alaya consciousness in human form before them was the Stigmata Terminal.
"Where should we begin?" Alaya-vijnana pondered for a moment and said, "Let's start with the origin of the Stigmata Terminal."