"Sphinx? Are you referring to the Egyptian Sphinx with the body of a lion and the face of a human?" General Liao asked instinctively.
"Yes, but not the statue sitting next to the pyramid, rather the living Sphinx." Sun Hang nodded, "I think everyone must have heard the riddle when they were young: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening... The answer to this riddle is a human, and the entity that poses the riddle is the man-lion monster ’Sphinx.’
"The enigmatic Sphinx?" An executive from Dubhe Tower squinted his eyes, "In the known registry of mysterious entities, there’s no mention of the Sphinx’s name... although many creatures from folklore manifested in the first enigmatic entity war, there are no eyewitness accounts or any evidence to prove the real existence of this Sphinx..."
Sun Hang did not pay attention to the executive but scanned the faces of every person present at the meeting, noticing slight changes in reactions and expressions among a small number of people.
And most of those with altered expressions had graying hair.
"It seems some people indeed know the specifics of the main brain." Sun Hang revealed a satisfied smile.
"Enough, young man, stop speaking." An elderly man wearing an old jacket, who had been silent since the start, suddenly spoke from the corner of the room, "I don’t know why Mr. Pei shared these matters with you, but you shouldn’t relay them to others... haven’t you thought about the consequences of such actions?"
On the glasses worn by Sun Hang, the main brain displayed the speaking elder’s information through AR projection - the elder’s name was Ji Yaohua, the most senior computer engineer currently in Dubhe Tower.
Ji Yaohua’s teacher was part of the group with Pei Zongjun that built the main brain, and as one of the successors, Ji Yaohua took over the maintenance of main brain’s external facilities from his teacher, and also learned its secrets.
His reason for not wanting Sun Hang to continue is simple too, the main brain is now irreplaceable to Dubhe Tower and Xiazhou Federation, revealing that its core is the brain of a mysterious entity would certainly lead to a series of uncontrollable events.
Not everyone would believe in the sphinx’s half brain...
If it was revealed the supercomputer controlling the Federation’s affairs is an enigmatic entity... before the second enigmatic entity war even erupts, humans might first erupt into civil unrest due to internal disagreements.
Even infected individuals struggle to integrate into current human societies, more so for a legitimate super enigmatic entity placed in top management positions.
"Then, how many people are... ’aware’?" Sun Hang asked with a smile.
The crowd exchanged looks with faces full of bewilderment and confusion.
"Those aware can stay, others may leave." Sun Hang remarked.
Indeed, without requiring them to choose, anyone unaware of the main brain’s specifics would receive a notification to leave - the task of identifying and sending such notifications naturally fell to the main brain.
A few minutes later, in the previously full meeting room, only seven members of Dubhe Tower’s top tier remained, apart from Sun Hang and his peers.
"Young man... Mr. Pei organized this expedition for the remaining half of the Sphinx’s brain?" Ji Yaohua took a deep breath and asked.
"Yes." Sun Hang nodded.
"As the engineer responsible for main brain’s external hardware maintenance, I have something I hope you can pass on to Mr. Pei." Ji Yaohua said.
However, as he said this, his gaze wasn’t on Sun Hang but focused on the central projection of the main brain’s virtual image.
The poor old man had no idea that Pei Zongjun’s consciousness had long dissipated - to his eyes, Sun Hang was merely an "executor," while the guiding force was still Pei Zongjun behind the scenes.
"Tell me." Sun Hang said.
"The Sphinx’s prophetic ability requires enormous computational power, and with our current capacity, we can’t support the half brain in full operation... Even if you manage to retrieve the other half, we can’t provide the computational power required for the prophetic ability."
"Why does the Sphinx’s ability consume computer resources?" Sun Hang puzzled. "Before the Sphinx’s half brain was used to build the main brain, did it need to carry a mountain of computers to use its prophetic ability? Don’t tell me the pyramid next to the Sphinx is actually a super computer room?"
"If it were the true Sphinx, naturally it wouldn’t need such support." Ji Yaohua shook his head, "But extracting the Sphinx’s brain to create a super computer is different. In fact, the computing power isn’t expended by the prophetic ability, but needed to interpret the Sphinx’s prophetic results."
"Interpret?"
"Exactly, the Sphinx’s brain outputs information via a unique neural current signal, this info is exceedingly complex, converting it to a human-understandable form requires significant computing power." Ji Yaohua nodded, "The external hardware I maintain for the main brain is technically a super decoder."