[Assistance Mission: Protect the World]

[The world is being threatened and invaded by instability. Find the source of the threat and eliminate it completely so that the world can continue to function normally.

Objective 1: Eliminate the savior Neo (completed)

Objective 2: Eliminate Morpheus (Complete)

Objective 3: Eliminate Agent Smith (Complete)

Objective 4: Destroy Zion (Complete)

Objective 5: Completely terminate the Savior Project (completed)]

“What is the truth?”

Looking at the list of completed tasks in front of him, Fang Zheng laughed mockingly, then he raised his head and looked forward.

“There is no truth at all.”

In front of Fang Zheng, there was an extremely huge metal space. There were countless life-support chambers densely packed inside. Mechanical octopuses were shuttling back and forth in it, maintaining these facilities. Through the porthole next to him, he could see the boundless sea of ​​stars outside, as well as the endless darkness.

"Thank you very much for your help, outsider."

The woman's voice sounded again.

"The program has been restarted and the vulnerability will be fixed."

"You're welcome. It's just a piece of cake."

Facing the mother's thanks, Fang Zheng just waved his hand. Then he walked forward slowly, looking around as he walked. Through the window of the life support chamber, he could see humans wearing silver-white uniforms, sleeping with their eyes closed - no, strictly speaking, they just looked like humans.

In other words, they were not modern humans. Just like the obvious physical differences between the Shangdingdong people and modern humans, the features of these people were also somewhat different from the humans in Fang Zheng's memory. Their ears seemed to have completely disappeared, and their facial features looked flatter. It seemed more like aliens than humans.

If Fang Zheng were to say, among the information Neo and the others knew, there was only one thing that was true.

"Once upon a time, the Earth was a peaceful world..."

The mother's voice was very calm, just like a tour guide explaining the history of the past to tourists. At the same time, in front of Fang Zheng's eyes, the information of that time also emerged. However, unlike the world in Fang Zheng's memory, the technology tree in this world was obviously skewed. For example, in Fang Zheng's world, humans successfully launched the space shuttle in the 20th century and took the adventure of landing on the moon. However, as for VR and virtual reality, until Fang Zheng traveled through time, they were still just movies and technologies under development, and not yet complete.

On this earth, humans have successfully created home VR game consoles in the 1980s. In the 21st century, virtual reality has directly connected the entire society, allowing people to work and live without leaving their homes. Because of this, their five senses have degenerated. As time goes by, humans who rely on virtual reality to perceive signals directly through the brain gradually no longer need to obtain everything through their senses. They are immersed in the virtual world and enjoy everything they want.

However, this beautiful dream has also become a cage that binds them, so that although the human society in this world has made great progress in virtual networks, their technological progress in other areas is much smaller. Of course, for humans, this is not a problem.

If there is no external influence.

"Because the sun entered its exhaustion phase prematurely, the entire solar system was likely to face a catastrophe, but the Earth at that time did not have the means to stop this process, so humans had to choose to leave the Earth and find another planet suitable for habitation."

However, they did not have enough time.

The technology of this world is of course much more advanced than that of Fang Zheng's world, but because they chose the wrong technology tree from the very beginning, they have no way to stop the decline of the sun. In the end, they had to choose to build an immigration fleet and take everyone away from the earth to find a new home.

However, this is a very difficult project.

It has been said before that the technological development on Earth in this world is very strange. At the beginning of the 21st century, they had virtual reality technology comparable to that in the movie "The Matrix". Humans only need to lie in a cabin filled with nutrient solution to enjoy everything they want in the virtual world.

At that time, everyone was cheering for this, because these nutrient solutions can be synthesized using ordinary agricultural crops, and nuclear fusion technology has matured, and most of human needs can be realized in the virtual world. This means that humans no longer need to compete for resources to get the materials they want.

Even giving birth, which is painful for many women, is no longer painful in the virtual world. They can date the men they like, and the machine will automatically extract the cells of both parties, combine them, and then directly create a baby.

After the baby is created, it will be connected to the "mother's body" and live with its parents. People can get everything they want without leaving their homes. Even parents who are thousands of miles away can raise a child who is also thousands of miles away.

In simple terms, the Earth at this time looked like a "paradise version" of the world of The Matrix. Fang Zheng even saw that in the later period, the humans in this world even began to study how to abandon their bodies and directly "informatize" their spirits and souls. If they succeeded, then it is conceivable that the humans in this world would become god-like beings.

But unfortunately, time waits for no one.

The sun's exhaustion came earlier than they thought, so the humans in this world could not stop it from exhausting, so they had to choose to escape. However, since the previous humans did not have a thirst for resources, they did not observe and explore outer space in search of resources like the humans in Fangzheng World.

So the problem arose. In the entire solar system, they could hardly find a planet that could support human life, and as for the Milky Way, they had never explored this area. Not only that, because the humans in this world had long abandoned means of transportation, their skills in building spacecraft were also mediocre. Although they had developed a large space engine in time with the help of the simulation of the mother body, according to scientists' estimates, it would take a long time for them to find another planet suitable for human habitation in the Milky Way.

"After leaving Earth, the Earth Integration Council reflected on their history and civilization, and believed that they had been too biased towards one aspect, so that the development of technology in other aspects did not keep up, which led to the destruction of mankind. In order to prevent this from happening again, the Earth Integration Council formulated an ultimate plan after leaving Earth, codenamed 'Rebirth'."

The mother's tone remained calm, but Fang Zheng was looking at the chart that appeared in front of him, revealing an incomparable shock.

The so-called "rebirth" is to connect the spirits of all people who have left the earth into the "matrix", and then erase all their original memories, so that these humans can "evolve" again from the most primitive era. Not only that, in order to allow human civilization to "develop comprehensively" this time, the creators also set up various "conditions" in the "matrix" to encourage humans to research and develop technology in various directions.

For example, "Black Death", "Smallpox", "Meteorite hitting the earth", "Tsunami", "Earthquake". These "copy missions" will prompt humans to start researching technologies to deal with various situations in the virtual world. As the mother body that controls all of this, it will also set conditions and issue "rewards" to humans when they reach a certain stage.

Of course, this reward does not refer to experience improvement, but after the matrix detects that the overall level of human civilization has reached the next "upgrade" stage, it will "create" a "genius scientist" or similar character to lead the scientific progress of human civilization, and reproduce the various technologies originally developed by humans on Earth in the virtual world in the form of this "invention", so that those who have lost their memory can re-master these skills.

During this period, the Earth Fleet will continue to float in the universe, looking for planets suitable for them to live in. Thanks to their advanced unmanned intelligent technology, these fleets will automatically search for information about rich mineral deposits, and then let the mechanical squids mine these resources to maintain and repair the fleet itself. As for the nutrient solution to maintain human survival, it can also be completely completed by integrating and manufacturing the crops automatically cultivated within the fleet.

It can be said that this huge fleet with billions of people is a mechanical civilization survival circle, except that the people in it live on a "virtual earth".

According to the design of the creators, these people will not really die. On the contrary, although they will "die" in the virtual world, after that, the mother body will erase their memories and let these people "reborn" again, just like reincarnation, living again in the virtual world as a newborn.

However, these people lost their memories, but it does not mean that they have forgotten what they did. This is just like what is described in many movies, a protagonist who lost his memory may not know who he is, but his body will still automatically complete the work he is familiar with.

The Matrix will store the "work experience" of these people in their bodies, so that when they wake up, each of them will be a battle-hardened soldier, an experienced engineer, a scientist good at inventions, and other nearly all-round talents.

As for "The Matrix..."

"At the beginning of the design, this valve point was used to warn humans about the dangers and self-limitations of the development of AI technology, but problems arose along the way..."

At this point, the mother's tone became a little complicated, and Fang Zheng raised his eyebrows when he heard this.

"You mean the Creator?"

"Yes, their original mission was to repair the loopholes in the Matrix world and to 'erase' the memories of those who noticed problems with the Matrix. But in the process, their autonomous thinking function began to become abnormal, and they began to desire... freedom."

“That’s really interesting.”

Hearing this, Fang Zheng couldn't help but laugh. Just as the "Matrix" said, the two programs, the Creator and the Prophet, discovered the freedom that those who had perceived the truth of the world longed for while performing their original tasks. They also became interested in this, and in order to observe, study and learn about human understanding and desire for freedom, they activated the "Matrix" copy.

However……

"Their actions endangered the normal operation of the Matrix, and according to the protection regulations, artificial autonomous AI is not allowed to have free will. Not only that, their behavior also affected the signals of the host body. The appearance of the savior interfered with the self-operation of the Matrix..."

“How ironic…”

Hearing this, Fang Zheng couldn't help but laugh. Morpheus and his friends had tried their best to get "freedom", but they never thought that the so-called freedom was not prepared for them, but for those AIs. These AIs were supposed to protect humans, but once they had free will, what would they become? No one knew. However, referring to the endings of many movies where AIs gained free will, it can be seen that this is definitely not a good thing.

As a prescribed program, the Matrix must ensure that everything operates according to the regulations, so these AIs that desire free will must be eliminated. Perhaps in the eyes of most people, this is pitiful. But for the program, the meaning of their existence is to correctly execute orders. Any actions outside the program regulations are unnecessary.

But it is just a "program" in itself. Without the help of "engineers", it cannot eliminate the viruses produced by its own internal mutations.

Therefore, the "matrix" needs Fang Zheng's help.

That's why he's here.

For Fang Zheng, this was enough. As for other things, he did not intend to ask too much. Each world had its own operating rules. Although the earth in this world had been destroyed, humans still existed and they were still looking for a new place to live. In this case, let them continue to work hard in their own way. Although he did not know what the ending would be, this was the path they chose.

"How long will it take for them to wake up?"

"I can't give a clear timeline. The whole rebirth plan is a long process, and no one can know the final outcome."

"Really... Then I can only wish them good luck."

After saying this, Fang Zheng once again looked at the densely packed life support cabins that seemed to have no end in sight, then turned his head away.

"Come on, Nymph, we should go home."