Chapter 966: Brain in a Vat?
Chen Mo watched the resentment value on his wristband virtual screen fill up, and then with a crisp *pop*, the count turned into a flat 1,000.
After waiting bitterly for two days, he had finally earned the draw chance to unlock the VR brain and neural connection technology.
Chen Mo didn’t need to think twice; he bought it directly.
He tapped the [Unlock] button on the virtual screen, and he felt specks of starlight drift out from the screen, seeping into his fingertips.
At the same time, Chen Mo felt a slight ache in his brain, as if countless needles as fine as ox hair were gently pricking him. His body jolted involuntarily, startling him.
Fortunately, this strange sensation didn’t last long. After a moment, everything returned to normal.
“What just happened?”
Chen Mo was a bit dazed, not quite understanding what had occurred.
This feeling reminded him of the first time he had consumed a skill book, except back then the sensation was very soothing, without this mild, needle-like pain.
He steadied himself and focused, realizing that his mind now contained a wealth of entirely new knowledge.
“???”
“Could it be… this time the black tech isn’t being handed over to this world for automatic development, but instead… the core technology has been given directly to me?”
Chen Mo was almost moved to tears. System, you finally, *finally* showed some conscience for once!
In the past, there had been some technological breakthroughs, but those were all cases where Chen Mo painstakingly exchanged draw chances, and then the whole world shared the fruits of technological development—burning himself out to benefit society.
This time, the system was so generous that it gave the VR neural connection technology directly to Chen Mo. Even a fool could figure out that if he held all this black tech in his own hands, building an unprecedented, massive commercial empire wouldn’t be difficult at all.
“Wow, is this the perk of completing the main quest? My system obtained the highest authority and activated all content, so its functions are stronger?”
“So this is the real reward for finishing all the tasks? All the activated technologies in this tech tree—I can grasp them all? Holy crap, System Dad, I misjudged you!”
This knowledge felt as if it had always existed in Chen Mo’s mind; with just a little recollection, he could remember it clearly.
But… strictly speaking, this memory was “knowing the how but not the why.” That is, Chen Mo knew exactly how to do it, but he didn’t understand many of the principles behind the process.
It was like an ancient person seeing the blueprint of a steam engine. They could follow the blueprint to build a crude steam engine, but they couldn’t understand how the machine actually worked. Of course, a steam engine is a relatively simple example; with persistent study, all its mysteries could be unraveled. But what Chen Mo had now was a far more complex VR neural connection technology. With certain key technical principles unknown, even studying it wouldn’t clarify things.
Obviously, this was a kind of restriction. If Chen Mo handed over these principles to the top scientists in the country, it could trigger a technological explosion, generating many derivative technologies. Chen Mo would profit immensely, and the system would lose out—that definitely wouldn’t fly.
To put it bluntly, Chen Mo was now like Foxconn—just a contract manufacturer. He could use this technology, but he shouldn’t expect to get any more derivatives. Otherwise, if the technology developed naturally, why would Chen Mo bother activating the tech tree one by one?
Even so, Chen Mo was already very satisfied.
The VR neural connection technology provided by the system could be seen as a massive leap forward from the original VR technology of the parallel world. The original VR gaming pods could already collect player consciousness signals, but this collection was crude, only matching a few specific actions or behaviors. This new VR neural connection technology could not only precisely collect every thought and every action of the player but also directly input visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory, and many other biological signals into the player’s brain and nerves—using a non-invasive method.
In other words, this was a true “brain in a vat”: take the player’s brain out, connect it to the virtual world via VR neural connection technology, and to them, they might not even realize they had lost their physical body.
Of course, without a matching life-support system, achieving the full effect of a “brain in a vat” was impossible. But this would be a huge blessing for the blind, deaf-mute, and disabled, because they would experience the same sensations as able-bodied people in VR games.
This new type of VR gaming pod was still large, mainly composed of three parts: the consciousness collection and transmission device, the life safety system, and the mainframe.
The consciousness collection and transmission device could be seen as a freely opening and closing helmet, lined with electrodes and special equipment for monitoring, guiding, and inputting brain signals. When the player lay down, the device would automatically snap shut like Iron Man’s helmet and begin communicating with the player’s consciousness.
The life safety system would monitor all of the player’s vital signs, hypnotize them as they prepared for consciousness connection, and appropriately restrain their entire body to prevent accidents like “suddenly waking from a nightmare.” If the player’s vital signs showed problems, it would immediately disconnect the consciousness link or call emergency services.
The mainframe was responsible for storing game resources, performing real-time calculations to create the virtual world, and providing reasonable feedback based on the player’s actions, much like a traditional computer mainframe.
In addition, a very complex specific program was needed. Its role was like a translation software, converting the player’s consciousness signals into information the mainframe could understand, or generating consciousness signals from the mainframe’s information to input into the player’s brain.
The hardware wasn’t too difficult for this world’s level of technology. The key was this special program, which would consume a large portion of the VR gaming pod mainframe’s computing resources, and its principles were temporarily unsolvable. In other words, after Chen Mo manufactured this new gaming pod, even if others disassembled and copied an identical pod, without this program, it would be useless.
Chen Mo made two phone calls, one to Qiao Hua and one to Zhou Jiangping.
“Minister Qiao? I need to apply for a patent. Yeah, it’s very important. I don’t want to go through the regular process either. Could you ask the Game Committee to give me a green light? It’s quite urgent.”
“President Zhou? Come over here. I want to show you something good. Yeah, it’s similar to the matrix glasses. Bring a few professionals with you to estimate the cost of this thing. Right, I have the design drawings here.”