Advent of Corona

In the outskirts of Haizhou at midnight, cars were zipping past a desolate-looking warehouse that was built at the side of the highway that no one took much notice of. Leaves were blown up in the air as the cars zipped past, which were then captured and scanned by the high-tech cameras installed at the corners of that warehouse. The images were then sent to the central hub and were deemed that nothing was out of place.

Zhang Heng was seen working hard in front of that large computer screen before him yet again, entering strings of code that no computer science engineer would have been able to fathom into a supercomputer just to do minute adjustments to the supercomputer's programming.

There was an unnamed complex piece of machinery found at the end of the massive 30-meter-long array of supercomputers that had its wiring exposed. Parts and components were put together here and there without any consideration for aesthetics. Anyone in the know would definitely be able to tell that it was something that was cobbled together from random, unrelated parts.

That piece of complex yet crude and ugly-looking equipment continued to hum as it ran. One end of its wiring was connected somewhere on the side of the supercomputer cabinets, with the other end being connected to something looking like a laser cannon, sending pulses of laser signals to the 20-meter-tall black sculpture.

That nameless equipment was a photon exchanger—the most crucial piece of equipment for modifying the programming of the Marker. Due to the Marker not having sockets of any kind, data transmissions could only be done using photons.

Groups of red spots flickered on that Marker at the moment, making it obvious that it was being rebooted, yet it was not emitting any kind of radiation capable of affecting the human psyche. It looked like a huge neon lighting construct that shone with a dark, crimson color with complex, mystical runes lighting up one after another, emitting an eerie blood-red color.

"Initializing Marker programming…"

The messages from the Marker were also received by the supercomputer through that photon exchanger as well, which was then converted into a voice and broadcasted through that Edifier S5000 audio equipment placed to the side.

Zhang Heng took a deep breath after being busy at work for one whole night, as he slowly rose and straightened himself. He looked at that humming Black Marker that was placed not far away excitedly, with passion clearly seen in his eyes.

"Initialization of the Marker's program complete. Please name the Marker's AI program." A deadpan, mechanical voice was heard once more.

"Corona," Zhang Heng blurted the word without giving it any thought. That was what the Black Marker was called before, and he thought that it was apt to name the AI of the Marker with that word.

"Naming complete. Please set up commander recognition access," the mechanical voice said.

"Use gene recognition program, brainwave recognition program, and voice recognition program." Zhang Heng had learned how the Marker operated from the Dimensional Star a long time ago, and so he continued casually, "As for access, give me the highest access and shut off meme function at the same time. No one shall have access to meme function without my orders."

"Setup complete. Highest access for the commander initiated. Gene confirmed, brainwave confirmed, voice confirmed. Highest access initiated per the commander's request. Meme function shut down."

"Well done, Corona." Zhang Heng couldn't help but snapped his finger. "Now set up your virtual image according to what I'm picturing in my mind now."

"Acknowledged, Commander." The Black Marker read the information in Zhang Heng's mind right away, which was sent to the supercomputer via the photon exchanger, before being simulated within milliseconds by the processing program in the supercomputer and shown on that huge LCD at the southern wall of the warehouse.

A figure that looked like a Japanese girl wearing sailor attire was seen being shown on that huge LCD.

It was someone who existed in real life—a member of a very popular idol group in Japan called AK47, who went by some name that Zhang Heng was unable to recall, probably Acchan or Rena or whatever. However, none of that was of any importance, as he only wanted to evaluate the extent of the Black Marker's abilities.

The result proved very satisfying. The Japanese girl that was shown on the screen looked lifelike and he knew just how impossibly capable the Marker was. The Tianhe-2, which was currently known to be the world's most powerful supercomputer, was laughably crude when compared to the Marker.

"Corona. What is the range of your ability to affect the human psyche and how far could you take such influence?" he asked, continuing the test.

The mouth of that girl shown on the screen moved and answered in a deadpan, emotionless manner, "My range of mental influence could mimic thought patterns of highly intelligent beings at 100-percent highest access. The realism of illusions created would be significantly boosted and I could even create virtual realities. As for range, my current lowest field of mental influence could effectively affect the human psyche within a radius of one kilometer, when converted to human measurement units. When Level Two is initiated, the field could reach a radius of 10 kilometers. When Level Three is initiated, the field could reach a radius of 100 kilometers. Level Four is the highest access, which gave access to linear scanning that would allow all targets within 1000 kilometers to fall within my influence."

"So, you're saying that you were not at the highest access when you met back then?" Zhang Heng nodded when he realized that. He thought that it was not surprising that he found the previous illusions looked rather fake. While such a level of illusion was already deemed unbelievable, it was not quite living up to the Black Marker's reputation.

"By the way, Corona. Could you behave in a manner that is more human-like?" Zhang Heng recalled that Yurianne had said that the Marker possessed a level of AI that was every bit on par with that of human intelligence, as long as he asked in a probing manner.

"Hi!" That girl shown on the screen was rendered dazed for a little bit when Zhang Heng said that, before nodding his head solemnly. Her jet-black hair shifted as if the image had a soul. She was then seen smiling, with the corner of her lips turned up and her eyes curved.

The image was so moving that Zhang Heng felt his heart skipping a beat. It was able to mimic living beings so well that the image looked no different from a real human. He was thoroughly impressed by this legendary quantum supercomputer.

"What about power consumption?" Zhang Heng changed the subject right away. "How long could you last if Level Four is activated?"

"Power consumption?" The girl on the screen titled her head and frowned when she heard that, playing with her hair as she answered, "Hmm… according to calculations of my internal memory, Level Four is currently inaccessible due to damage to the power source. As for Level Three, it would be three days; Level Two, six months; and Level One, which is what I am currently running on, 18 years."

"How do you recharge?" Zhang Heng frowned. It seemed that most of its internal energy reserves were depleted after activating the Blood Moon.

"Solar, electric, radiation, any power source would do, so long as a conversion is possible," the girl on the screen grinned as she answered.

Zhang Heng nodded, noting that he would need to find ways to recharge the Marker from then on out. Due to the rate at which Corona consumed power, the power generated by even the likes of the Three Gorges Dam would only be able to break even with Corona's power consumption at Level Four access. It was definitely not something that could be replenished with just several power generators.

He put all those problems to the side and went on with testing its functions. Zhang Heng pondered for a bit and asked, "How far could you affect a regular person's mental state as you are right now?"

"The mental influence field would require Commander's orders. The extent and number of people under control could be achieved are dependent on available power, with the highest number of people that could be affected being 100 million people, theoretically speaking."

"That's more than enough." Zhang Heng nodded, "To what degree could you control humans?"

The girl on the screen then frowned for a bit and pondered before answering, "I'm incapable of controlling human thoughts directly. The greatest extent of my influence would be to confuse and to deceive, as well as to read memories of my targets. I could make their thought patterns haywire or make them hallucinate."

Zhang Heng frowned again. "How likely is it that your mental control could be broken? I mean as in just like how I saw through your illusions back then."

"The reason why it was possible to break my mental control before was because I wasn't able to use my functions to the fullest. When I'm allowed to use my fullest functions, the chance of a human being able to see through my illusions would be one percent."

A bold thought came to Zhang Heng's suddenly. He wondered that if the Black Marker was capable of causing hallucinations, could it then construct a virtual setting that would only exist in one's mind, applying a person's consciousness into the virtual setting, enabling that person to learn, work, and even communicate.

"It is possible, but doing so would consume a lot of power. The more complex the virtual setting created is, the higher the number of consciousness housed within, the higher the energy consumption resulted."

Hell, so you could do such a thing after all!

Zhang Heng was excited right away, "Well then, could you accelerate a person's consciousness and thought patterns without causing any side effects?"

"That would depend on the mental strength of the human affected. The thought patterns of regular humans could only be accelerated somewhere 10 to 20 times at most, and be guaranteed that no damage would be caused to the brain."

"Well then, try pulling me in and accelerate my thoughts." Zhang Heng took a deep breath and checked his watch, before seating himself on a chair.