After we had placed a few friends in high places, like the Han court, everything seemed easier. Our three guilds became the main contractor for the Han Army, transporting and supplying them with all sorts of food, weapons, and equipment. Consequently, most of our members were free from conscription, with only a few whom we intentionally placed in important positions.
With our help, the desertion rate dropped and the economy stabilized. Zhang Liang, who failed to establish his ancestral Haan state, returned to Hanzhong as the Master Strategist in the winter just before the attack. With Xiao He as the Chancellor managing all the supplies and Han Xin as the Grand Marshal controlling the whole army, the Three Heroes of the Han Dynasty had finally come together.
They openly rebuilt the main Gallery Roads while Han Xin secretly fixed and marched the main army to Chencang, near modern-day Baoji. Before they launched their surprise attack on Zhang Han, one of the Three Qin Kings who were former Qin generals that had received their own kingdoms, they then defeated Sima Xin and Dong Yi, the other two Qin Kings, took over all of Guanzhong, and began the contention between Chu and Han.
Now we can secretly trade with both sides to make even more profit based on the information and analysis reports we have. I also made the Lower Form Badge Holders into a round-table board that can give direction to the whole Xia Xing Men, in case there is no Great Deity around. Their cause will not change, only the direction of how they will protect people and which way they will expand that will change.
The Chu-Han Contention continues to move according to the history we know. Our organization seems to run smoothly and will grow stably from this contention, but we still have one last problem, the Analysis Team. The two mechanics might get back to the Two Emperors after the mining goes well. So, I thought about the promise I gave to Michelle that I would let her design one creature. This might be the right time for new experiments.
When I brought that up, it seemed like she wanted me to create a beast that resembled the Red Phoenix of the Four Symbols that she saw through my eyes. The Red Phoenix is an energy-based creature that is almost like an ethereal burning flame. But if I build our new Spiritual Beast like that, it would likely consume its own energy and die before we could blink our eyes. With the resources we have, I'm using energy-rich gold to replicate the basketball-sized core of the Control Module and make a walnut-sized golden spherical core to contain the Beast's Spiritual Core, which will protect its very existence and help it stabilize energy consumption, similar to the Red Porcelain Armors that Huang Yi gave to us.
About its outlook, I am trying to stick to the original feather pattern in ancient arts as much as possible, but I am thinking about redesign it by using the Secretarybird's body. A slender frame, very long legs and the robust physical strength of a raptor. I adjusted this body a little to make its neck longer and to shorten its legs a bit, so they are almost the same length as its neck. Then I combine a forked tail feather with a graduated tail design to create a trident tail before adding a flowing version of the Peacock tail on it, which is actually its upper tail covert that cannot be spread like an actual one. As for the color of its energy, it will be fiery red with shimmering rainbow shades. But after I look at the overall design, the Peacock eye patterns are so captivating, so I am also adding them to the rim of the wing feathers. I think it's okay because it doesn't always fully fly physically; it can float in energy form and adjust its direction using its heat-based power.
Then I adjusted its size, making its wingspan reach fifteen meters, large enough to carry very heavy prey. Before pouring my energy into the Golden Core that floated in the middle of this creation blueprint until it was full, I was thinking about how it should be flapping its wings. At that moment, it came into life, the Beasts started to spread its wings. Michelle was disappointed that I made it a little bit scary but was satisfied with its overall beauty, then suggested the name "Seraph" for it, which I agreed to.
The reason why this is working is that if you want to build a computer that's powered by Spiritual Energy, it needs to be some kind of Spiritual Being. It seems like Jiang Xu used his Inner Power, "Theoenergetics" to write sophisticated command code scripts in the energy at its Core, making it a Spiritual Artificial Intelligence that is close to Lin Long's Artificial Soul. The Spiritual AI can do what is asked or ordered to a certain degree and still hasn't developed into something more, like having a consciousness. Lin Long's body hasn't grown up one bit from the moment I created him, he was basically my own desire and imagination, so every inch of him will always stay the same. But he had some kind of consciousness and personality, so I think he might still be able to develop further.
All of my creations from my Inner Power will at least be the beings at the level of Spirits because they use my Divine Energy. In Kara Yulduz's case, even though Cynthia first explained to me that she was a demigod, but she actually is a temporary low-level Spiritual Being. Just like the Elemental or Tree Spirits that just got consciousness, the Animals that just become Spiritual Beasts, or the Mortals that just become Immortals, they are at the level of Spirits and need a lot more energy to develop into Great Spirits. Then they needed to have enough energy from Believers and Worshippers to become low-level Deities that are a god of something or have some roles. The Great Deities are something else, they need to have some important or special roles in large enough belief systems to generate a great amount of energy from Belief and Faith to become one.
In Lin Long's and Seraph's cases, they were just born at the level of Great Spirits because I used a lot of my Divine Energy to create them. Just like when the Great Deities created some items, those items will have an energy level really high, almost at the divine level.
With all of this information, I am thinking about creating a Spiritual AI or some kind of Spirit with an Artificial Soul that can calculate and analyze for us. I am worried that I might create something terrifying instead, but we really need this Analysis Team. I could teach the Scholars to use the computer, but it might not be enough for financial mathematics or modern data analysis method for trading.
I needed time to explore more possibilities. So, I immediately started studying all mining operations. That's when I found out that all the robot units also have a smaller Core that operates the robots. This Core also acts as an order receiver, which receives commands from the Control Module. When sending out commands, the Control Module also gathers the information and statistics from every unit, analyzes them, and makes decisions for the whole operation. This deep analytical process and the self-correcting nature of the resulting decisions, led me to suspect that they are using this entire operation as a learning method for their AI.
They almost function like a single living organism, similar to an ant or bee colony. Every unit acts as an information node connected by one single network, yet I didn't find any dedicated communication hardware on any unit. My theory is that they might tap into a higher-dimensional realm, using Spiritual Energy itself as the network fabric. If this is true, they would need specific encryption protocols to establish a private network and robust security countermeasures to protect this network's integrity. It seems like an opportunity, but it also carries the risk of being hacked due to the network's openness. It's almost like we're in the open sea.
To prove my theory, I tried to connect my energy with the Control Module and dived into the Core to look at the actual energetic source code. I was astonished by what I saw inside the Core, numerous micro-geometric Mobius energy cycle patterns were arranged into multiple layers of unending spherical circuitry. Each Mobius Rune pattern represents a one concept, or more accurately an emotion which is the fundamental coding language of the Core. This is essentially a recursive algorithm loop for problem solving and decision making. It's a completely new, never before seen architecture, but I can feel it somehow.
Theoenergetics might be closer to my Innate Power than I thought. Actually, all Divine Powers are fundamentally intent-based, just like mine. The power that focused purely on desire and not long after I realized that, I renamed it—"Desirer." The reason I think Jiang Xu's power is really close to mine is because of the emotion-based coding language, I can even code without any knowledge of it.
It took a while before I really understood this energetic language. When the Control Module's Core receives the raw data, situations, or problems from the units' information nodes, the input will look something like, "gold-120-request," reporting and waiting for a command. After the Core weighs the problem's main conflict to set the priority between "Efficiency" and "Preserve," then calculates the optimal solution before sending out an order like, "harvest-speed-0.5," to maintain an optimal speed to save energy while harvesting.
The Spiritual AI of the Two Emperors is actually an imitation of the mind. The Heart of the Core constantly observes the changing emotions on the Outer Layers to receive the input data from outside in the form of a complicated energetic sentence composed of a series of simple emotional runes. The closer it is to the center, the simpler the emotions become. The closest layer contains only the simplest emotions, exist and non-exist.
After studying it for a while, I noticed many interesting characteristics of the language. The Operational Units only send out the Outer-Centric version of the code to report and request a command, while the Control Module would calculate and command with Inner-Centric code, validating and confirming the calculated results and actions. The language also lacks the coordinate and locate aspects, because the nature of the energetic network makes each node already aware of the others' coordination.
One day, while I studied the behavior of Seraph and Lin Long inside my Divine Realm, I realized that the language and network are actually being used unconsciously in my own network that connects me to my Divine Beasts, Asena, Kara Yulduz and even other Believers and Worshippers. It's basically the language of the universe. The whole Mining Squad are also a part of my network due to my signature energy connection, and this is also the security that makes the network private. It uses energetic biometric signature!