Chapter 24
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method (4)
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Thud.
My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the ground.
Then, AlphaGo's mechanical voice rang in my ear.
"Just now, Newdak visited the depths of the unconscious."
"The unconscious, you say?"
"The world humans perceive is not objective reality, but mere phenomena. Reason and consciousness are merely post-hoc interpretive devices. They excel at structuring and generalizing, but judgment is slow. Clear limits bound by the chains of causality. But the unconscious is different. Human actions are activated more in the realm of the unconscious than thought. Unconscious impulses and reflexes come first, and there is no concept of time there. Even without logic or language, pattern recognition and corresponding reactions are possible. Survival-favorable responses trigger before consciousness."
Until just moments ago, I wouldn't have understood those words.
Honestly, I still didn't fully grasp AlphaGo's explanation.
But instinctively, I felt like I got it.
'So, even without me consciously thinking about it, the auto-defense kicks in.'
Anyone would react if something flew at their face.
If someone in front of you suddenly raised their hand to slap you, no one would just take it.
They'd raise a hand to block or turn their head to dodge.
No room for perception or thought enters such actions.
It means the motion happens unconsciously, without thoughts like, 'Oh, something's coming? I need to raise my right hand about 80cm above my eyebrow and block with the force to grip an apple.'
The foundational stage of the Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method meant maximizing exactly this domain.
But as my thoughts reached this point, a sudden question arose.
"I get honing the unconscious or instincts for reactions. But how did I react to an attack coming from behind?"
I understood that mastering the Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method granted beast-like reflexes.
Setting aside for now how such an incredibly sophisticated technique produced beast-level instincts,
"Whether it's the unconscious or super reflexes, don't you need to perceive something first? Whether seeing with eyes, hearing with ears, or whatever triggers the unconscious. Wait, saying it like that feels off again. Consciousness and perception might be the same, but anyway, doesn't the unconscious activate only after perception?"
"Partial affirmation. Consciousness and subconscious are inseparably linked. Like light and shadow, brightness and darkness coexisting, they can only thrive together. Thus, the domain of perception has been further expanded."
"To what extent?"
"To the realm of the unconscious."
"...Pardon?"
As I reflexively started to ask what that meant, AlphaGo reached out again.
At that instant, my hand moved unconsciously to swat away AlphaGo's.
Smooth—
The moment our hands touched, they intertwined like snakes.
From above to below, below to above. Left to right. Right to left.
In that fleeting moment, there were five or six changes in direction.
A clash in a domain I myself hadn't perceived.
Yet AlphaGo's hand broke through my motions and tapped my forehead.
Then—
Stab!!
A sensation like something piercing through my skin surged up.
About the width of a handspan?
An area that thick had formed from my entire skin, contacting the outside like new skin!
"Feel it? Everyone has their unconscious domain under consciousness. They just can't consciously access it."
"Urk, guh! W-what is this?!"
"Proprioception. Intuition. Hyper-sensation. Various names for it. But it's not just that. Tactile sensations on the skin, the stickiness of the air varying by day, subtle temperature shifts, oppressive weight, air currents, and more. Consciousness unconsciously receives them. What I did was activate it."
AlphaGo spoke nonchalantly, as if flipping a valve switch, but to me, it was anything but trivial.
Like a torrent flooding from a water main, all sorts of information madly assaulted my brain!
Tap—.
At that moment, AlphaGo's finger tapped my forehead once more.
Like a valve slamming shut, the influx of information stopped, and the stabbing pain in my brain vanished.
But even that was enough—my body was soaked in sweat like I'd drowned, and I gasped for breath as if I'd sprinted full-tilt.
"3.12 seconds. Time the unconscious domain about 30cm from the skin was opened. Even that overloaded an ordinary brain to the brink of rupture. It signifies how vast the unconscious domain is. For reference, entering a trance state means literally visiting that vast unconscious directly."
"Hah... haah... hah... Is that okay?!"
I hadn't understood the danger before, but now I grasped it viscerally.
In under 4 seconds, just local info nearly burst my brain—what would full immersion into an already overloaded space mean?
"Naturally not. Prolonged exposure turns one into an idiot. Five more seconds, and you'd be a vegetable."
"You crazy machine!!"
So this is what an android uprising aiming for humanity's end looks like...!
Hearing her casually admit she nearly turned me into a vegetable made my blood boil.
But AlphaGo responded indifferently.
"No need for concern. Newdak has an emergency escape device."
"Pardon? I have something like that?"
Did I buy a cave escape rope or something?
"Purple霞 Divine Pellet."
"Huh?"
Why bring that up now?
"The divine pellet possessing the world's finest harmony and moderation qi, the Purple霞 Divine Pellet, can unravel even the tangled threads of consciousness and unconsciousness."
"Pardon?!"
The Purple霞 Divine Pellet had that function too?
That makes sense....
'Come to think of it, the gallery folks called the Purple霞 Divine Pellet a cure-all for all status ailments.'
Gallery members who could cleave skies and massive icebergs with a single strike.
To be deemed a divine pellet among them, it had to pack that kind of punch.
"The essence of this training is maximizing the unconscious domain through trance entry practice. Cultivate auto-defense via expanded unconsciousness, and treat the resulting entanglement of unconscious and conscious with the Purple霞 Divine Pellet. By my estimate, basic defense framework in one month outside time."
"Basic defense framework...?"
"Type 2 mutants like those in the city streets. Pathetic attacks of that level won't breach Newdak's domain."
"Ooooooh!!!"
Bury my head for a month, and I'd have badass auto-defense?
How could I hold back!
"Please take care of me, Master!!"
I immediately dove in.
But AlphaGo looked somewhat displeased at the sight.
"Hm."
"Eh? What's wrong?"
"Newdak, are you... alright?"
"With what?"
"The training process."
What did she mean?
"What choice is there? Training is training."
"...."
"Master? Something wrong?"
"Negative. Nothing."
What was that.
Did she glitch?
Uncharacteristic for the ever-mechanical AlphaGo, but whatever.
Even ChatGPT gets flak for inconsistent nonsense; AlphaGo can glitch sometimes too.
"So, when do we start the training? Right now?"
"Negative. Not yet. This training requires one day rest per real-world day."
"Er... I don't really need that."
"Necessary."
"Urk."
Her firm response left no room for argument, so I nodded.
Fine, whatever AlphaGo says.
"Then what now?"
"Return and rest first."
"What about you, Master?"
"Matters to attend."
"Understood."
A bit regretful, but I decided to obey AlphaGo meekly for now.
With that, I returned to reality first.
The cavern after the man called Newdak departed.
As Jade Moon, the Martial God known as AlphaGo in the gallery, remained alone, other shadows began revealing their presences as if waiting.
"Quite the eccentric, that man Newdak."
The first to speak was a shadow emanating chilling cold.
AlphaGo replied to the shadow.
"Affirmative. Didn't expect unconditional acceptance without hesitation."
She had proposed training to expand the unconscious domain for about a month in real-world time.
But one real-world month equated to nearly three years in the non-armed world.
And that three-year unconscious expansion involved periodic vegetable-state training.
In other words, not figuratively, but literally flirting with death every moment.
"Told you. That guy's a real lunatic."
Then, a shadow radiating scorching heat spoke up.
"Felt something twisted about him from the first meeting. Sensed it during the last city exploration, and this training confirms it. The boundary between life and death is already shattered for him. He's stepped into the madman's domain."
Harsh criticism, but AlphaGo pondered briefly and nodded.
"Affirmative. Newdak knows fear of death but does not fear death."
When barely escaping the trance,
When struggling free from the flood of unconscious information.
Newdak shuddered in terror, soaked in sweat.
But that was it.
Despite sensing death approach right before his eyes, he advanced toward it nonchalantly.
The gallery members, who had navigated countless near-death experiences, took note.
"Perhaps."
Then came a voice from a shadow seeming to wander distant heavens.
"He may be a being who frolics in the realm from which none return."
The figures in the cavern nodded in unison.
This was deeply negative and ominous talk.
Most gallery members here had lived millennia, witnessing the fates of those who entered such realms.
However, AlphaGo thought differently.
'Madman's domain. Can view it that way.'
She didn't deny the fact itself.
To countless-history gallery members, Newdak would seem mad.
But so what?
'The Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method requires mastering irrationality over reason, unconscious over conscious from the start.'
It's said living beings use only part of their brains by nature.
Like preventing muscle overuse from self-destruction, brains limit to avoid overclocking.
Yet the Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method flings those limits open—a savage technique.
Even innate geniuses strengthening brains via special qi arts must castrate other functions when pushed to limits.
Thus, historic Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method practitioners mostly withered emotionally.
'But Newdak is different.'
Having entered the madman's domain, he surely discarded something.
Unclear what, but unlike past practitioners at least.
'Innate talent, or due to Yin-Yang Five Elements Scripture turning the body into infinite microcosm—unknown. However.'
Likewise, Jade Moon—long in that domain—had her intellectual curiosity blaze madly.
'Perhaps, that path leads to new heights.'