Chapter 1168 — Intelligentization

She saw a finely partitioned "rune palette" mounted on an internal frame, but the ends of the rune units were connected to dark red biological tissue. That tissue grew out from a pipe buried deep within the machine, branching into nerve lines that merged with the whole "palette" apparatus like vines creeping and spreading through soil. And deeper still, among those runes, nerves, and pipes, she saw another conduit carrying nutrients, a thin biomass flowing slowly through it, nourishing the neural nodes inside the machine.

Just then, in Selena's sight, one of the nerve lines seemed suddenly to receive a signal from above; the rune connected to it lit up, a low hum came from within the machine, and a few seconds later all fell quiet again.

The Viscountess Ropney's voice came from beside her: "The system is running a self-check—the neural network in the workshop does this at intervals, much as a workshop supervisor makes his rounds of the machines. But human eyes are nothing like so keen as these nerves; they can sense the condition of every machine as clearly as a person feels his own fingers, and every fault and potential fault is discovered and uploaded at the first instant."

Selena nodded and rose from beside the machine's "neural control unit." She lifted her head and saw a neural conduit running out from above, joining and merging with several others before vanishing into a great beam on a higher level.

"There are several kilometers of neural system here, along with the biomass conduits that go with it. They communicate and connect among the machines, exchange data between neural nodes, draw nourishment from the circulation pumps and fission pools below ground, and have external interfaces reserved for the other workshops—though to transmit data farther still, it must be relayed through a magic-net hub," the Viscountess Ropney explained at her side, raising a hand toward a facility deep within the hall. "Next we go to this workshop's 'brain.' Hmm... its brain in the truest sense."

Led by Ropney and the workshop manager, Selena came to the depths of the hall. At the end of the connecting passage she saw a great tower-like structure—it looked somewhat like the large distillation towers in alchemical factories, its lower half sunk into a great opening in the workshop floor, its upper half running all the way up to the dome, where a great mass of pipes and neural cables gathered above it and poured into the tower like vessels feeding a heart. A connecting bridge controlled by mechanical apparatus linked the middle of the tower to the workshop's main thoroughfare.

Before this tower, Selena closed her eyes slightly, and another field of vision opened in turn—a sight ordinary people could not perceive with the naked eye, a thing only Eternal Sleepers like her could see.

Rivers of thought formed from neural impulses flowed quietly through this cold steel-forged workshop, weaving into a net.

In her vision, within a field of darkness, all the machines gradually surfaced in light. Fine motes of light appeared within them and gathered and flowed along the paths custom-made for them; they met in the air and underground, swelling like rivers of life, and at last connected to that common source—the source was there before her eyes, an artificial brain giving off intense pulses of thought, formed from countless neural nodes gathered together... and it seemed there was more than one brain?

She opened her eyes, and the picture formed by her transcendent perception was replaced by reality. She saw the Viscountess Ropney step forward, and the tower that bore the factory's consciousness was opening its doors.

The tower was brightly lit within. Three tubular devices, each fully two or three meters in diameter, were fixed to the floor at the center of the room, several meters apart from one another, and countless pipes ran neatly down from above to connect to their tops. And at the center of these three tubular devices, arranged in a triangular formation, Selena saw something half-buried in the floor: it resembled the carapace of some insect, its upper half curved in smooth arcs, its lower half an alloy base—and it was from within it that the strongest thought pulses were emitted.

"This is the workshop's primary brain—once it passes acceptance it will become the primary brain of the entire industrial zone as well. Beside it are the backup and servo brains. Each has its own distinct function, and any one of them can swiftly take over the system should another develop a problem," said the workshop's technical director as he stepped forward—a veteran druid whose thinning hair and sunken eye sockets bespoke his professional reliability. "In theory, unless all the brains die at once, the system will not halt so long as one of them still runs normally; at worst efficiency will decline somewhat..."

The Viscountess Ropney stepped forward, curled her fingers, and tapped lightly on the shell of the "primary brain." With a crisp sound, the shell slowly opened, revealing the crystal vessel within, filled with biomass solution, and the artificial brain soaking in the vessel.

At once the three tubular devices around them opened their shells as well. As the alloy protective casings slowly lowered, the interiors of those devices revealed crystal tubes full of biomass solution—and the brains floating in the liquid.

Great numbers of artificial neural cables, metal needles, and fiber conduits were connected to those brains. Had an ordinary person seen this scene, they would likely have found it... very stimulating.

But those who had long worked here were plainly no strangers to any of it—just as druids and physicians grow used to the look of corpses.

"These are the neural interface units, which include the monitoring poles as well. Through these interface units the wetware mainframe issues its orders to the neural network in the workshop, sensing and controlling all the machines, while the monitoring poles let our master control center keep constant track of each servo brain's condition, and are also used to issue commands to those servo brains," the technical director explained, gesturing at this complex and advanced system. "By their deepest directives, the servo brains will only release commands outward when they receive a signal from the monitoring poles and identify an operator's authority. If any part of the whole chain shows an anomaly, they will cut the neural network and use the broadcast system to prompt the workers in the workshop to take manual control of the machines."

"This is to prevent anyone from seizing command of the factory," the Viscountess Ropney added from beside them. "As His Majesty put it, once a system achieves a high degree of integration and centralized command, it also acquires the risk of its authority being stolen. In the near future, seizing control of a factory may require no more than a single wrongly authorized command—and that is a risk we have no choice but to guard against."

"Ah... His Majesty truly is skilled at that sort of network-level infiltration and authority manipulation..." Perhaps recalling something that had made her break into a cold sweat, Selena's expression turned strange for a moment. Then her gaze fell on a manual control console in a corner of the room, where a large bright red button stood out conspicuously. "What is that thing?"

"The one-touch overclock button, used to boost the system's operating efficiency for a short time—usually when overtime production is needed or the system must be reset quickly," the technical director answered at once. "Its main working mechanism is that when the button is pressed, syrup is automatically injected into the biomass conduits..."

(End of this chapter)