Chapter Fifty-Seven: I Am Not Myself, a Thing Human in Form but Not in Nature-Modo Criativo do MC: Máquina Perpétua de Todos os Mundos em Atacado(De vez em quando, relaxo um pouco no trabalho.)

"Yet..." Fang Zheng suddenly felt a sense of perplexity. "Are you saying you possess souls?"

"Are your souls composed of entities smaller than the Planck scale?"

"Then do I possess such a thing?"

"A soul?"

"Wait!"

Fang Zheng suddenly realized something.

"My current body is that of a blocky person, so where did my original body go?"

"Did a soul truly exist within my original body?"

"If I originally had a soul, where on earth is it now?"

Previously, Fang Zheng had not seriously considered this question, but prompted by Taiyin, he suddenly began to doubt.

According to Taiyin, they were capable of perceiving dimensions smaller than the Planck scale.

This implied that the fundamental units of time and space in this Immortal Cultivation world were likely smaller than the Planck scale of the universe in his homeland.

Consequently, they possessed souls—entities potentially constructed from structures at even smaller scales.

Then, what about Fang Zheng in his homeland before crossing over, inhabiting a world seemingly governed by a larger Planck scale? Did he himself actually possess a soul?

His present body was certainly not his original flesh and blood. How, then, had he managed to cross over?

Having read a fair share of web novels, he was quite familiar with the various eccentric tropes of transmigration.

Soul transmigration, memory awakening, physical travel, information duplication...

Bizarre web novels had practically exhausted every conceivable method of transmigration the human imagination could conjure.

So, was Fang Zheng's current state a soul transmigration into this Minecraft blocky character Steve, or something else entirely?

Beneath the expressionless blocky face, a tempest of thought began to churn within Fang Zheng.

"Where is my soul?"

"Has it been locked inside this blocky vessel?"

Muttering to himself, he began to ponder deeply.

Yet, as he thought, under the bewildered gazes of Taiyin and the other, the blocky character's tone suddenly shifted, turning somewhat panicked and fearful:

"Wait!"

"Something seems terribly wrong!"

Fang Zheng struggled to recall all his knowledge as he contemplated.

He remembered some trivia from gaming videos he used to watch regarding the mechanics of Minecraft.

At the level of Minecraft's game code, the smallest cycle of program execution is called a game tick.

There are 20 game ticks in a second, with each tick lasting 0.05 seconds. To maintain a steady and uniform execution rate of 20 ticks per second, the thread rests after each tick, waiting for the next execution.

As for the frame rate of the mobile version of Minecraft, it conventionally maxes out at 120 frames per second, with each frame approximately equal to 0.0083 seconds.

Essentially, the frame rate merely represents the number of images displayed by the monitor, not the minimum time unit of the game itself. The game tick is the true minimum time unit of Minecraft.

Attempting to wave his hand and looking at those sharp, angular blocky fingers, Fang Zheng realized a profound wrongness:

"Yet, after crossing over into the Minecraft world, the smallest time unit I can perceive is not the single execution process of the program known as a game tick, but the frame rate acting as the image refresh rate, where each frame lasts 0.0083 seconds."

Pausing for a moment, Fang Zheng tried to count carefully within his memory.

Ever since he became a blocky person, he had discovered that he possessed absolute memory, capable of retaining everything that happened to him.

Down to the minutest pixel, every single grain of sand visible on the ground in this Immortal Cultivation world, every speck of dust floating in the air, and every frame of change from his own perspective.

This was how he knew he experienced only 120 frozen actions per second.

He grew increasingly terrified.

He had discovered a horrifying reality.

Suppressing his panic, he forced out a single sentence: "My thoughts are similarly locked at 120 frames per second!"

One hundred and twenty frozen fragments of thought per second, constantly shifting with no intermediate processes.

This was wrong!

This was profoundly wrong!

Recalling the trivia he had seen in videos—

In the brain of an ordinary person, the foundational thinking process relies on neuronal firing as its basic unit, with the action potential of a single neuron lasting between 1 to 2 milliseconds.

At least according to the videos, human thought is a vast network constructed from such neuronal firings as basic units.

However, those were humans!

No matter how good their memory was, constrained by physiological limitations, humans could not possibly possess Fang Zheng's absolute memory.

No matter how strong their memory, the absolute limit was photographic memory, and even then, only for things captured within their visual focus, often accompanied by the distress of hyperthymesia.

Fang Zheng, on the other hand, had realized he possessed absolute memory—far surpassing the scope of mere photographic memory—while remaining entirely free from the afflictions of hyperthymesia. This was what confirmed to him that he had truly transmigrated.

Not only did he have photographic memory, but he could also clearly recall the detailed information of every single thought he had, down to every minute fragment of cognition.

"Wait!"

The terrified cries of the youth named Fang Zheng rang out.

Hearing these frightened screams, Taiyin's expression suddenly darkened.

In ages past, having once been weak and a slave himself, he was all too familiar with this type of cry.

In that powerless past, within the breeding grounds where Taiyin was kept, such wails were by no means uncommon.

Those of his kin who were torn apart and devoured alive during the demonic beasts' hunting games, driving them mad and insane from pain and terror, emitted this exact same hair-raising sound.

A cry of terror reaching this magnitude meant that the person's emotions had plunged into a critical threshold bordering on madness.

It meant that Fang Zheng had been fine just a moment ago, yet suddenly, he seemed on the verge of going mad?

Not knowing what had suddenly crossed Fang Zheng's mind, Taiyin let out a sharp shout, attempting to interrupt whatever Fang Zheng was contemplating: "Fang Zheng! Stop thinking, calm down immediately!"

Yet, the blocky figure continued to emit hysterical screams: "It's wrong! It's wrong! It's wrong..."

With furrowed brows, Taiyin immediately chanted a calming incantation, attempting to soothe Fang Zheng's madness-gripped emotions.

Yet even Taiyin, who had lived through four lifetimes, found that his chanting—which instantly plunged the entire small world into a pristine serenity, casting rare beasts, Jiang Wen and Jiang Tingting sleeping and undergoing transformation, and even the silent Jiang Yifei into a state akin to sudden enlightenment—had zero effect on Fang Zheng.

Fang Zheng remained entirely unresponsive.

"Damn it!" Taiyin's expression turned ugly.

He realized that not only was Fang Zheng's body immune to any form of attack or harm, but even external attempts to heal or rescue him were utterly useless!

Yet Fang Zheng cared not a whit about what Taiyin and the others were chanting.

Over and over, he counted, carefully reviewing his memories, tallying the number of his thought fragments, and examining the most fundamental units of information within those fragments.

A bewildered murmur escaped the blocky person: "Where has my thinking process gone?"

"Why has my thinking process vanished?"

"Why! Why are my thoughts composed of frozen fragments?"

"Where is the process in between the 120 frozen thought fragments per second?!"

Wrong!

He tried to perform a round of calculation within his thoughts and inspect all the fragments of his calculation process.

Yet, in the previous thought fragment, he wanted to solve a complex math problem, and in the very next fragment, the calculation result was already outputted.

Where were the information input process and the intermediate calculation process that should have existed?

Gone!

That stuff simply didn't exist!

The era of the internet information explosion had left Fang Zheng with a fair understanding of various trivia.

He knew that the human brain, much like a computer, is a massive computational machine constantly processing various data.

A person frozen in place cannot truly be considered a person; they are merely a corpse.

Only when countless frozen, complex dynamic thoughts are continuous across numerous neural activities can one truly be called a person.

By strict definition, a human being should be regarded as a dynamic systemic whole.

Even though a human's basic thinking process requires the slow scale of milliseconds, even though thought relies on electrical signals, and electrical signals rely on chemical transmitters to pass along.

Long as the time might be, behind the entire thinking process lay a collection of immensely vast neural network transformations.

Yet what on earth was Fang Zheng now?

One hundred and twenty frozen physical states per second, along with frozen thought fragments, constituted the current Fang Zheng.

He discovered that his thoughts were similarly composed of 120 frozen fragments, each possessing a sustained frozen duration of 0.0083 seconds.

Once the duration elapsed, without any intermediate process, it directly switched to the next fragment.

Crucially, when Fang Zheng used his absolute memory to review his thinking memories, he could not find a single trace of the complex thinking processes that ought to have been there.

Every single thought fragment...

No!

That stuff could hardly be called thinking at all; rather, it should be termed information fragments, each containing only extremely simply recorded information.

Amidst the 120 frozen frames per second, there were only answers! Answers! Answers!

If a normal human thinking process were likened to solving a problem,

then the succession of each basic thought fragment would be the complete process of reading the question, thinking through it, and subsequently writing down the answers one by one.

If human thought were compared to a computer, it would comprise three stages: input, processing, and output.

Yet Fang Zheng inexplicably discovered that ever since his transmigration, all his experiences, all his memory fragments...

Contain only answers, answers, answers, answers, answers...

They were all damn answers!

There was no input of problem information, no process of pondering the problem.

There were only answers! Answers! Answers!

Much like...

The entity laboriously spat out a line of text:

"Much like a blank sheet of paper filled with answers in sequential order from the very beginning..."

Even the sentence the blocky person was currently struggling to spit out was an instantaneous answer given without any process whatsoever...

An interface devoid of input, devoid of processing, possessing only output, output, output...

He thought...

No!

This could not even be called thinking, but merely a sequential output of some possible pre-existing answers.

The answers were:

(What on earth am I?)

(Did I really transmigrate?)

(Was I ever truly human?)

(Is my name really Fang Zheng?)

He, or rather It, or perhaps That...

This entity, neither human nor beast, suddenly stalled, remaining motionless like a statue.

Just as it had suddenly stalled after a burst of activity back in the Minecraft world.

This inexplicable entity suddenly abandoned thought—or rather, temporarily ceased continuously outputting answers outwardly.

After all, whether even this stagnation was itself a form of answer was hard to say...

At this moment, Taiyin—who had been continuously chanting various calming incantations alongside the Sun Holy Emperor and employing all sorts of methods in a vain attempt to restore awareness, all to no avail—finally saw the endless, frantic raving on the opposite side come to a halt.

With furrowed brows, he stepped forward and attempted to offer soothing words: "Fang Zheng, are you alright? If there's something you can't figure out, you can discuss it with us."

"If you don't wish to speak of it, that's fine too. If a problem escapes you, simply stop thinking about it for now, and let time slowly provide the answer."

He, or It, this inexplicable entity remained motionless.

...

Taiyin furrowed his brows, persistently attempting communication.

Perhaps external information triggered a new answer, or perhaps the duration of the answer known as "stagnation" had expired, and the entity once more began outputting answers outwardly.

The answer was: (Fang Zheng tried hard to take a deep breath in his heart, attempting to ignore that inexplicable fear.)

(He said this: "I'm fine, just suddenly thought of some things, couldn't figure them out for a moment, and felt a bit stifled.")

Suddenly, the answer was outputted:

(Hahahahaha...)

That was an audio clip with a fundamental frequency fluctuating between 200Hz and 1000Hz, sounding exceedingly cheerful, resembling the laughter of a teenage human.

The blocky human figure sprang into action, opening his inventory and continuously pulling out chests, filling them with Splash Potions of Instant Healing, Enchanted Golden Apples, Potions of Swiftness, and Potions of Slowness.

Aside from the splash healing potions used to supplement fixed health, the enchanted golden apples and swiftness potions could both provide percentage-based boosts to resistance and speed, while the slowness potion would result in a percentage-based reduction in speed.

The audio continued to play: ("Hahaha, Taiyin, since we're going to protect the universe, let's hurry up. Let's go and revive the rest of our revivable allies.")

("Then, all of you can use my items and beat those people-eating monsters to death with those overpowered percentage-based effects!")

Taiyin and the Sun Holy Emperor exchanged glances; amidst that youthful, cheerful laughter, a bizarre sensation welled up in their hearts.

It was as if what stood before them was not that kind-hearted youth trapped within a terrifying, blocky, frozen exterior.

Instead, it was some strange, inexplicable existence, neither human nor beast...

After a moment of silence, Taiyin smoothed his brow and said softly, "Fang Zheng? Are you alright? Would you like to rest a bit longer and take in the scenery?"

(Hahaha) The blocky person emitted a hearty audio clip.

Bouncing up and down without bending his knees, he answered with full vitality: "I'm fine, I'm fine! I just suddenly figured things out. I just need to do what I want to do right now."

"Right now, all I want to do is save the universe and be a great hero!"

"As for the rest..."

The audio outputted with a hint of melancholy: (We'll leave that for later...)