Chapter 193: The First Real Computer

Xu Ren and Fang Shijing were envisioning the future, while Li Xian was still busy. What was keeping him busy at this moment wasn’t anything else, but the computer’s—display screen!

Now the core of the computer is ready, but it still lacks display and output devices; of course, it also lacks input devices. Without these, it cannot be considered a complete computer.

As for the display device… well, there is something available, that’s the illusion technique. To be precise, it’s the illusion formation within the illusion technique.

But it doesn’t meet the requirements! The display device needed for the computer must be able to accurately output various data. However, the illusion formation in cultivation practices displays randomly, and the formation and display device cannot be confused as one and the same.

To be precise, the illusion formation and the current computer core are completely unrelated. The computer is a new thing, while the illusion formation is an ancient existence.

Right now, not just Li Xian, even Xiao Yuquan is finding it extremely difficult. “Young Master Li, I’m at a loss. This illusion formation and the current computer core have no equivalent relationship. An illusion formation can cover several meters, even several kilometers; but the formation is a self-contained system, completely different from a regular formation.

And our computer core is an entirely new formation design, with no common ground with the illusion formation.”

The surrounding researchers also had pale faces. They had been working for days but couldn’t find a solution.

Li Xian suggested a method, “Can we control the spiritual energy through the computer core and input it into the illusion formation? That way, we could control the changes of the illusion formation.”

“That’s also impossible. The computer and the formation structure of the illusion formation are not compatible, so there’s no way to connect the spiritual energy channels between them. So, this idea is essentially unworkable.”

Li Xian had run out of ideas and was at his wit’s end. No good ideas could be proposed by him, and no one else could come up with anything either. The research had hit an unprecedented bottleneck.

At this point, Xiao Yuquan’s eldest disciple, Zeng Mingshan, suddenly spoke up, “How about we discuss the input devices? Since we can’t discuss output devices for now, let’s talk about input devices. Maybe after discussing the input devices, we will come up with a new strategy.”

Li Xian immediately responded, “Yes, yes, let’s first study the input devices. We need to be able to input data, edit programs, and control the computer through these input devices.”

Xiao Yuquan suddenly got excited, “I just thought of it! Why go through all this trouble? Just directly refine the computer core into a magic treasure, then directly store it in the Purple Palace inside the body. All the problems would be solved!

This way, if we want to input, we can use spiritual consciousness; if we want to output, we can use spiritual consciousness to read. We would essentially refine the computer core into a new jade slip.”

Li Xian froze for a moment, “If that’s the case, could we input cultivation data and so on into the computer, then have people refine the computer? That way, it would help with cultivation, right?”

“Eh?” Xiao Yuquan’s eyes suddenly widened, “This… this is… artificial inheritance! Yes, how come we didn’t think of this before? Demonic beasts, divine beasts, and so on all have bloodline inheritances, but our human race doesn’t have a bloodline inheritance. If we can achieve this, then humans will have inheritance, and it’ll be even better!”

The conversation then shifted away from the main topic.

Li Xian sighed again, “Senior Xiao Yuquan, we’ve gone off track. These are glorious applications for the future, but right now we haven’t even solved the most basic problems. Things need to be done step by step. First, we need to solve the machine language issue.”

Xiao Yuquan rolled his eyes, “Ah, I’ve heard of the language of demonic beasts, the sound of celestial secrets, the sound of wind and rain, the sound of celestial demons, but I’ve never heard of machine language. Can this machine really speak? Don’t we already have the computer core?”

“But this computer core cannot be effectively controlled!” Li Xian explained patiently, “We want to make the computer core stronger, and for that, we need machine language. A language, after all, is a means of communication. And machine language is the language through which we humans control machines.

This requires standardization and a lot more. Listen to me…”

Li Xian explained machine language, programming, software, and related concepts for the thirtieth time. To put it simply, the current computer core is essentially just a central processing unit, but to make this CPU function effectively, many additional tools are needed.

Li Xian put in an enormous amount of effort to slowly get Xiao Yuquan to accept this concept, which was completely different from the principles of cultivation. It must be said, Xiao Yuquan was no fool to have reached the Nascent Soul stage, but this completely different way of thinking took a bit of time for him to understand and accept.

But after all, being a cultivator of the Nascent Soul stage, Xiao Yuquan quickly sorted through these strange concepts and ideas, making sense of them. Another half month passed, and they finally resolved the issues of computer language, pinyin, input, and output.

For the computer language and input, they used pinyin. This was inspired by the music scale notation. Later on, all the characters would need pinyin annotations, which would be a huge task, but it had already begun. The teachers in the schools were the ones implementing this, allowing them to conveniently learn pinyin and teach it to their students.

The pinyin derived from the musical notation went through repeated selection and was eventually standardized into 28 syllables, represented by easily distinguishable radical strokes. Coupled with punctuation marks defined by Li Xian, the first keyboard in the Immortal Domain was finally created.

As for the output devices, they were mainly sound and visuals. Both the sound and visuals were achieved through the illusion formation technique. The difference was that the sound technology was relatively simple, and one illusion formation was enough. However, the visual display required significant effort. To ensure that the screen display was controllable and clear, Xiao Yuquan had to use Nascent Soul level refining techniques to create a magic treasure in the form of an illusion formation: a half-meter screen that used several dozen jin of fine gold, secret silver, red copper, and black iron.

The machine language research process had a bit of a humorous moment, but it ended up with a dramatic solution—the existing cloud script, the characters on talismans, were naturally machine language! Talismans could already manipulate spiritual energy and magic power.

Of course, some necessary changes and reorganization were needed, such as adding punctuation marks, numbers, and equations. These tasks were not easy.

With the guidance of Nascent Soul experts and the hard work of countless Foundation Establishment cultivators, the world’s most primitive computer was finally completed. It used spirit stones as energy, with one spirit stone lasting only a day—its energy consumption was incredibly high. But the first thing this computer did was—math!

At this moment, the computer was still very primitive, with simple functions. It could only perform basic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Yet, even so, after seeing a machine that could truly “think,” the researchers were so excited they lost themselves in the moment. Even someone like Xiao Yuquan, at the final moment, was shouting and cheering like a child.

Later, Li Xian gathered the senior executives of the Brilliant Stars Group to attend the official ceremony of the first computer’s success. This ceremony was highly confidential and only for the senior executives. However, almost all of them didn’t know what the birth of the computer truly meant, including Xiao Yuquan himself.

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