123: Chapter 123 Six Hours! It's not learning to speak, it's creating its own language!
Bunker No. 3, 8:14 AM.
Su Che had been writing code continuously for two hours.
The screen was covered with the complete architecture of the Yi Ren Intelligence General Cognitive Kernel. Compared to the rushed minimal version from before, this thing was on a completely different scale.
The multidimensional parallel decision tree was the foundation, with three pillars growing out of it: the Cross-Domain Autonomous Learning Module, the Complex System Coordination Module, and the Self-Verification and Evolution Interface.
He had already finished the foundation, simply porting the code from the rushed version and modifying a dozen interfaces for adaptation.
Now he was working on the first pillar: Cross-Domain Autonomous Learning.
The core of this module wasn't "feeding data," but "finding patterns."
Traditional AI learned like force-feeding; you had to feed it ten thousand pictures of cats before it recognized a cat.
This system was different.
You give it a picture of a cat, it doesn't recognize a cat.
You give it a picture of a dog, it doesn't recognize a dog.
But it would find a mathematical correlation between "cat" and "dog" that humans couldn't see, and then use that correlation to deduce the common parameters of all four-legged mammals.
It wasn't learning; it was enlightenment.
Su Che gnawed on his pen cap, translating the core algorithm of the learning module into quantum chip instructions. By the time he typed the 372nd line, he bit the cap in half.
He spat out the plastic fragments, grabbed a pencil, and continued chewing.
"Beep."
The intercom next to the console lit up.
Zhou Qihang.
"Chief Engineer Su, President Liu Qianghua called to say that the physical equipment for the thirty-six nodes of the Sky-Breaking Bow has begun relocation, and the first batch of twelve nodes is expected to arrive at the new site before 2:00 PM."
"Received."
The relocation was a job coordinated by Lieutenant General Peng and the troops; Su Che didn't need to worry about that. What he had to worry about was the new key.
The pairing keys for thirty-six sets of quantum entangled particle pairs, each set containing a 2048-bit quantum random number.
Calculated with a traditional computer, one set would take four hours.
Thirty-six sets in series? Six days.
Using quantum chip parallel processing? One hour.
Using the multidimensional decision tree of the complete Yiren AI Core?
He didn't know.
But his intuition told him it would be ridiculously fast.
Build it first, then worry about it.
...
10:07 AM.
The Cross-Domain Autonomous Learning Module compiled successfully.
Su Che got up to go to the restroom. On the way back, he passed the bunker entrance. He didn't go out, but he glanced at the sky outside.
A bright sun.
High noon in the Taklamakan was approaching. In the distance, the solar panel array of the Shennong Base reflected the light, looking like a sea of golden rice waves.
He returned to the console and picked up his enamel mug, shaking it—it was empty.
He put it down and went to check the insulated lunch box.
Lin Waner had stuffed two steamed buns and a boiled egg inside at some point.
On the eggshell, a crooked sun was drawn with a marker, and two words were written next to it: "Go for it."
Su Che peeled the egg and finished it in two bites. He didn't throw the shell away; he placed it on the top right corner of the console, in a row with the inverted enamel mug.
He started writing the second pillar: Complex System Coordination Module.
This module solved the problem of how a hundred drones could organize themselves, divide tasks, and fight without central command.
It wasn't a swarm algorithm.
The essence of swarm algorithms was still "every bee acts according to the same rules," which would cause collisions in complex battlefields.
The coordination logic of the Yiren AI was "each individual thinks independently, but shares the same underlying mathematical intuition."
It was like a group of jazz musicians who had never rehearsed, playing on stage together for the first time, yet each could precisely fill their own notes into the gaps of others.
No conductor was needed.
Because they were all hearing the same piece of music.
Su Che's typing speed slowed down significantly while writing this code.
It wasn't stuck.
It was because the mathematical description of this coordination logic was too precise; every line involved a dozen upstream and downstream function calls. If one symbol was wrong, the whole logic would collapse.
He wrote a segment, checked it, then wrote the next.
The intercom rang again.
"Chief Engineer Su, Lieutenant General Peng has forwarded a situation update from the Western Theater Command Joint Operations Center."
"Read it."
"The Golden Dome array has been running for over six hours. Power fluctuations have been detected in eleven of the seventy-two nodes, assessed as thermal throttling due to insufficient cooling."
"The projected window for a full shutdown of the Golden Dome for cooling is between 3:00 PM and 4:00 PM."
Su Che glanced at the clock in the corner of the bunker: 10:41 AM.
In four to five hours, the Golden Dome would give out.
Once the Golden Dome shut down, conventional communications would be restored, and the Sky-Breaking Bow quantum network would revert from "sole channel" to "encrypted backup," halving the pressure on relocating the nodes.
But once relocated, the old coordinates in the hands of the Eagles would be worthless.
The new key had to be calculated before the Golden Dome shut down.
Su Che increased his typing speed.
...
The Pentagon.
Adam stood in front of the situation terminal, his face expressionless.
The red markers on the map were turning gray one by one.
Ame-no-Murakumo—four units, all destroyed.
Strings of Eve—three units, all destroyed.
Saturation strike—1,134 missiles, all intercepted.
From 4:00 AM until now, all the follow-up measures of "Judgment Day" had been neutralized.
And they didn't even know what was attacking them.
There were no signals on radar, no infrared signals, and the electromagnetic spectrum was completely clean.
There was only a beam of light, coming down from the sky, cutting off their equipment one by one like a scalpel.
Austin sat at the other end of the conference table, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"Adam, I need an explanation."
"I need one too." Adam put his hands into his suit pockets. "But I can't give it to you right now."
"The power consumption of the Golden Dome won't last long..."
"I know."
Adam turned around and walked to the window.
Through the bulletproof glass, he could see the morning mist over the Potomac River.
"Send word to Guam, tell the 'Bird Hunter' team to cease operations."
Austin stood up from his chair. "Are you giving up?"
"It's not giving up." Adam's voice was flat.
"It's that we need to figure one thing out."
"What thing?"
"What... exactly that light is."
...
Bunker No. 3, 11:52 AM.
The Complex System Coordination Module compiled successfully.
Su Che pulled his fingers away from the keyboard, spread them out, and clenched them in the air, exercising them three times.
The last pillar.
Self-Verification and Evolution Interface.
This was the weirdest part of the entire Yiren AI.
In the architecture diagram provided by the system, this interface had only one function: to allow the kernel to check itself and correct itself during operation.
It wasn't bug fixing.
It was cognitive iteration.
Every time it processed a task, it would look back at its own decision chain, find nodes that could be optimized, and then change them.
No human intervention needed.
No retraining needed.
It grew on its own.
While writing this code, Su Che vaguely felt something was wrong.
This logic was "alive."
Traditional programs were dead; they were what they were written as, and running them ten thousand times yielded the same result.
This thing changed every time it ran.
Because every time it ran, it changed a little bit.
Su Che stared at the code on the screen, lost in thought for a few seconds.
Then, he added a line of code at the very bottom of the evolution interface—a lock.
Evolution rate limit: no more than 0.1% of the original architecture every 24 hours.
It wasn't that he didn't trust it.
It was the rules.
No matter how smart something was, it had to have reins.
12:19 PM.
The final function call was linked up.
The compiler started running.
Su Che leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out, military boots pressing against the beam under the console.
Compilation progress: 12%... 34%... 67%...
12:31 PM.
[Compilation complete, errors: 0, warnings: 0.]
Su Che sat up straight.
He fed in 217 sets of combat data and 3 sets of precision strike data.
The training model started.
The military supercomputer's quantum chip cluster began running the training, the core temperature climbed, and the bunker's air conditioning automatically switched to maximum power.
The progress bar wasn't fast.
11%, 17%, 29%.
Because this wasn't "learning."
It was digestion.
After the 220 sets of data went in, the kernel wasn't memorizing; it was using its own inhuman logic to dismantle every decision on the battlefield into mathematical elements, and then using those elements to build its own framework of understanding.
40%, 58%, 71%.
Su Che stared at the screen, one hand unconsciously touching the eggshell with the crooked sun drawn on it in the top right corner of the console. He squeezed it, but it didn't break.
83%, 94%.
12:47 PM.
100%.
A line of text popped up on the screen.
It wasn't a prompt written by Su Che.
It was generated by the kernel itself, with a format different from the previous rushed version—more concise.
[Ready.]
Only two words.
Su Che entered the first test command on the terminal.
[Calculate 36 sets of quantum entangled particle pairing keys, 2048-bit quantum random numbers/set.]
Three seconds.
The screen outputted 36 sets of keys.
Three seconds.
Su Che's estimate for the quantum chip parallel processing was one hour; it took three seconds.
He spot-checked three sets of keys; all were compliant, and the randomness test passed.
"..."
Su Che leaned back in his chair and sent the packaged keys to President Liu Qianghua.
Then, in his mind, the blue-white panel lit up.
[Ding! Detected that the main R&D task [Yi Ren Intelligence General Cognitive Kernel] has been completed!]
[Non-human logical reasoning + cross-domain autonomous learning + complex system autonomous decision-making, all verified by actual combat + full version training!]
[Task reward: 6000 skill points!]
[Current host has accumulated a total of 11500 skill points.]
Su Che hadn't even had time to digest this number when another self-test report popped up on the kernel's terminal.
He scanned it.
The previous parts were all standard system status, computing power allocation, and evolution interface lock confirmation.
The last line.
Su Che took his hand off the keyboard.
[Self-test appendix: During the training process, 1 abnormal correlation was detected in the 220 sets of combat data.]
[The infrared attenuation characteristics of the ballistic trajectory of missile interception sample No. 183 are isomorphic in mathematical structure to the energy attenuation curve of a non-Earth orbit signal source recorded in the Sky-Breaking Bow quantum state scanning network.]
[Signal source location: Earth-Moon Lagrange point L2.]
Su Che's back left the chair back.
While it was finishing the calculation of the 36 sets of keys in three seconds, it had effortlessly scanned through the tens of TBs of data from the Sky-Breaking Bow network.
And it had found something in there that humans had never paid attention to.
L2.
L2 again.
Su Che gripped the eggshell, and this time, it shattered.
The broken shell fell onto the console, and the crooked sun and the words "Go for it" split into several pieces.
The intercom exploded with sound.
Lieutenant General Peng.
"Su Che, new information. Nine more of the seventy-two nodes in the Golden Dome array have overheated and throttled."
"The projected shutdown time has been moved up to 2:00 PM."
"What happens after the shutdown?" Su Che asked.
"After the shutdown..." Lieutenant General Peng's voice dropped a beat.
"'Judgment Day' enters the third phase."
"What third phase?"
"I don't know. All communications on Adam's side have suddenly gone silent; we can't intercept anything."
Su Che stared at the self-test appendix about L2 on the terminal.
A silent enemy is more dangerous than a screaming one.
"General, the new keys have been sent to President Liu. Once the nodes are moved, they can be enabled immediately."
"So fast?"
"Three seconds."
"...What did you say?"
"I said the thing I built finished the calculation in three seconds."
Lieutenant General Peng was silenced on the other end.
Su Che gathered the broken eggshells and pushed them to the corner of the console.
He looked down at the two quiet words on the terminal screen.
[Ready.]
"Are you ready?" He asked the screen.
No one answered.
It wasn't a human.
But Su Che vaguely felt that it was listening.