Chapter 472: Chapter 460: Data
The seventh day since the launch of *Sword Art Online*.
Aincrad, First Floor, Town of Origin.
The wide Central Square was bustling with activity, with tens of thousands of players crisscrossing the stone-paved streets.
The ringing of hammers from the corner blacksmith, the hawking of wares from the potion shops, and the shouts of players forming parties to grind mobs in the fields all mingled together, creating a lively and vibrant atmosphere.
In the very center of the square stood a ten-meter-tall black crystal monument.
Several large leaderboards scrolled across its surface, but the ones that drew the most attention were the Level Rankings and the Life Skill Rankings.
A player named "Mad Blade" squeezed his way to the front of the crowd.
He was a blacksmith’s apprentice in real life, but he had chosen to focus on combat after entering the game. He looked up at the Level Rankings on the left.
The name at the top was still the same.
[First Place: Yak.]
[Class: Swordsman, Level: 14.]
Low murmurs spread through the crowd.
"The martial arts tournament champion is really in a league of his own. I hear he’s already led his team deep into the first floor’s labyrinth area."
"He’s online twenty hours a day. The guy’s a total madman."
Mad Blade curled his lip.
His gaze shifted to the Life Skill Rankings on the right.
[First Place: Ghost, Class: None. Alchemy: Intermediate. Rune Enchantment: Intermediate.]
[Second Place: Carl, Class: Scholar. Alchemy: Beginner.]
[Third Place: Copper Hammer, Class: Blacksmith. Forging: Beginner.]
A completely different league.
Mad Blade’s eye twitched as he stared at the glaring word "Intermediate."
’What kind of monster is this guy?’
A player next to him with a greatsword on his back couldn’t help but speak up. "Everyone else is out here whacking Slimes with wooden sticks, but this guy’s only Level 5 and he’s already gotten two life skills to Intermediate?"
"It’s not just that they’re Intermediate."
Another player in mage robes chimed in, pulling an iron sword glowing with a faint blue light from his pack. "This is a ’Ghost Original’ I bought from a street stall for thirty silver coins. Take a look at the stats."
He displayed the longsword’s stat panel.
[Ghost’s Standard Longsword. Physical Attack +15. Additional Attributes: Sharp (Ignores 5% of target’s armor), Durability (Wear rate halved).]
A series of sharp intakes of breath came from the surrounding crowd.
The most expensive refined steel sword sold in the system shop only had 12 attack power, no additional attributes, and needed repairs after killing just a few dozen mobs.
"Aren’t these stats totally broken?" Mad Blade’s eyes widened. "This isn’t gear we should be seeing at this stage. Doesn’t the system have any limits?"
The player in mage robes said, "Nope. I heard he completely ignores the system’s assisted Forging templates. He hammers everything out himself, one strike at a time, and carves the Enchantments manually with raw materials."
Mad Blade swallowed hard.
Ghost, ID number A73514.
In just seven short days, that name had become the greatest legend in the Town of Origin.
No one had ever seen his face. He only ever listed his finished equipment on the anonymous auction house.
...
In the deepest reaches of Cybertron, Allen sat upon his gold throne.
His eyes were closed, the [Allen Network] running at full capacity.
His consciousness soared to infinite heights, and from a god’s-eye view, he looked down upon the entire Aiselan Kingdom.
One million shallow consciousnesses were connected to him.
He "saw" the retired veteran Cole standing on the plains of the first floor, teaching a group of new players the basics of swordsmanship.
With every swing of the sword, his once-crippled legs stood firmly planted on the ground, a smile of satisfaction on his face.
He "heard" a girl who was mute in the real world singing her heart out on the stage of a virtual tavern. Her pitch was off and her rhythm was chaotic, but the audience below gave her sincere applause, and the girl’s eyes shone.
He "felt" a couple, separated by thousands of miles in reality, embracing at the top of the first floor’s highest clock tower. The virtual starry sky reflected in their eyes as their heart rates synchronized, accelerating to one hundred and twelve beats per minute.
Joy, gratitude, peace, belonging, creation.
Unlike the extreme emotions of combat, this data was gentle and layered, like a vast ocean carrying the most mundane and authentic spectrum of human feeling.
This was exactly what he needed.
There was even an unexpected bonus: [Current Humanity Value: 65%].
"Jarvis, this week’s total data volume."
[To date, ’Second World’ has accumulated a total of 1.7 PB of multi-dimensional human sample data.]
[Data type distribution: Positive emotions 61.2%, neutral cognitive activity 27.4%, negative emotions 11.4%.]
[Compared to the pure combat data from the ’Flesh and Blood Great Wall’ instance, this batch of samples shows over a four-hundred-fold increase in coverage across the three dimensions of ’creativity,’ ’sociality,’ and ’aesthetic perception.’]
Allen opened his eyes.
His gaze passed through layers of data light-screens, landing on the spherical structure suspended in the center of the main control room.
"The Seed."
The runic neural model of an artificial soul.
The entire spherical network was now pulsing, alternating uniformly between light and dark at a frequency of once every three seconds.
Countless circuits surged within it. With every "breath," thousands of new connections lit up, and hundreds of old ones were autonomously pruned.
It was growing. Self-optimizing.
And in the network’s core, the self-referential feedback mechanism of the special Rune group responsible for "observation and feedback" was operating stably.
It continuously read its own state, encoded the information into a state vector, and then fed it back into the network.
Over and over again.
Growing stronger in an endless loop.
"Jarvis, current status of the Seed."
[Self-referential Spiritual Power oscillation: Stable and continuous.]
[Current amplitude: 0.74 Hz, a 673-fold increase from one week ago.]
[Rune neural network complexity: Third threshold surpassed.]
[Third stage ’self-referential feedback mechanism’... Assessment: Complete.]
Allen’s fingers tightened slightly.
From theoretical concept to empirical confirmation today.
The third step in artificial intelligence technology had finally been achieved.
The Seed was now able to perceive its own existence and adjust its output accordingly.
It was no longer a passive vessel for data infusion.
It had begun... to think spontaneously.
"Estimated time for stage four."
[Based on current data-feeding rates and the model’s evolutionary curve—]
[Estimated time for the Seed to reach the critical point for stage four, ’Learning and Evolution’: 18 months.]
[At that time, the model will begin to autonomously adjust its internal connection weights based on external feedback.]
[Warning: Once stage four is initiated, the model’s behavior will become unpredictable. It is recommended to deploy isolation protocols in advance.]
It would still take a long time for the Seed to cross the chasm between "self-awareness" and "self-learning."
But with this first success, future iterations would be much faster.
Allen could also see, deep within it, the fledgling form of a "Will Rune"—tiny, chaotic, yet holding infinite potential—struggling to coalesce.
Its shape constantly shifted, like a wisp of smoke scattered and gathered by the wind, never settling, but it was undeniably there.
This meant it was no longer just a cold collection of algorithms. It was beginning to possess... the very veins of life.
Allen watched all of this, sitting on his throne, his ten fingers interlaced and pressed against his chin.
In the depths of his eyes, the reflection of that gestating "soul" was mirrored.
Using the joys and sorrows of all living beings to forge his own eternity.
"The algorithm of humanity..."
He murmured to himself, his voice holding a hint of a creator’s indifference.
"...Begin compilation."
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