Hidden moth

Chapter 346 Why Seek Cultivation Elsewhere?

Go do something?
For the next period of time, He Kao kept thinking about this question: what should he do? He couldn't just make trouble for no reason, could he? That day, he sat at his desk, took out a pen and paper, and made a list.

Tengxin Group has long since achieved paperless office operations, and almost all paperwork can be completed online. In many cases, it is not even necessary to type everything out by hand; just input the command and AI will complete the task.

But at this moment, He Kao still used the most primitive paper and pen. His messy handwriting was like some kind of shorthand, and only he himself could understand it.

The first and foremost task is to complete the mission of the Clan Court, which involves making contact with Mr. Mi from the Xiaomeng Alliance.

Mr. Mi's identity has been verified. His name is Hu Weidong, of East Asian descent. After graduating from university, he went to the United States and recently started a training institution.

Because Mr. Mi wanted to arrange for his two children to study in Dongguo, and now that He Kao already knew the children's identities, their father's identity was no longer a secret to him.

Hu Weidong's daughter, Hu Yuanzhen, will be pursuing a master's degree at Xijing Institute of Technology, the same school Mei Guyu attended.

Hu Weidong's son is named Hu Hengli, which sounds like a Western name, but it actually has more of an Eastern flavor. He just turned eighteen and is about to study at Qiyuan University, and has become He Kao's classmate.

The situation of these two people is a secret within the sect. Apart from a few elders of the Ancestral Law Hall and He Kao, only a few core high-ranking members know about it.

Next month, or more precisely, a week from now, Hu Weidong will personally come to Dongguo, ostensibly to send his children to school and visit relatives, but he must have received a special mission from the Xiaomeng.

He Kao did not know the specifics of the task.

Because Hu Weidong only has a cooperative relationship with the Zongfa Hall and is not a subordinate of the Zongfa Hall, he would not break his oath to disclose internal secrets that the Xiaomeng strictly prohibits from being spread outside, and he has no obligation to report to anyone.

However, the Zongfa Hall judged that Hu Weidong could not have come simply to send his child to school; there must be something else going on, whether it was a mission from the Xiaomeng or some other purpose of his own.

The task of liaising with Mr. Mi was of a very special nature. He Kao could only passively wait for instructions from the Clan Court and could not take the initiative to add his own drama.

On the surface, Hu Weidong had no direct contact with the Shumen sect. All activities involving offline handover had to be completed through the middleman "Huoqing," an alias used by He Kao.

Hu Weidong has requested to meet with his contact in Dongguo a week later; any matters can only be discussed at the meeting.

The second and most important thing right now is, of course, his own cultivation. He Kao has already reached a certain limit, especially in the fundamental realm of his Hidden Moth Technique, which is close to perfection but he feels that he can never quite achieve it.

He Kao asked Mei Guyu for advice, but Mei Guyu only told him one thing—go do things.

That's why He Kao listed these matters on paper. As for other matters that belong to him personally, there are two more: one is the construction of the Yin'e Sect, and the other is his daily job.

The construction of the Hidden Moth Sect is in full swing. Although there are only a few people, everyone is doing their job with great enthusiasm.

He Kao also frequently participates in construction projects and takes time to explain the essentials of magical cultivation. This is his daily practice and also his responsibility as the sect leader.

As for his daily work, that's the task of the Digital Life project team. Don't let He Kao's young age fool you; he's already considered a core, long-serving employee in the department.

He has always been a junior programmer, without any official position, and that was his intention. He has another role and many other things to manage, and if he were in a leadership position, he might not be able to handle them all.

Although he didn't get a promotion, his employee level is quite high. He will be promoted to level 5 next month, which is equivalent to the rank and benefits of a deputy department head.

Don't assume that He Kao doesn't want a promotion and just slacks off at work. On the contrary, he is an excellent programmer with extraordinary efficiency and meticulousness at work, and he always completes tasks quickly and well.

Any leader would like an employee like that.

He Kao wouldn't take on any miscellaneous tasks outside his job duties, because that's the right work attitude and workplace principle, and he has enough confidence to stick to his principles.

This is completely different from what he experienced when he first started working.

When He Kao first joined the company, he was very well-behaved and clever. He was too embarrassed to refuse anyone who asked him for help, giving the impression of a typical people-pleasing personality.

But he is no longer like that now. It wasn't intentional; it just happened naturally... How did this change happen? He Kao himself can't even remember clearly. Perhaps it was unintentional.

Listing the items meant organizing his thoughts. He Kao folded the paper and put it away, then left his workstation and went into the testing room, where he put on his full-body sensory equipment and VR glasses.

Today, his job was still testing virtual scenarios, which involved accompanying a popular celebrity to an amusement park.

The core of the Digital Life project is to create virtual humans. It has two main business directions: one is to develop various application scenarios, and the other is to meet the customized needs of different customers.

Tengxin Group has an entertainment division, which selects five male and five female celebrities from its signed stars to focus on developing them into digital stars.

Modern artificial intelligence relies on computing power and algorithms to feed various data. However, He Kao's project team uses a natural simulation method to feed data. Specifically, they create models based on real human images, make modifications and optimizations, and then the individual logs into the account, wears the necessary equipment, enters the virtual world, and communicates with testers in various ways.

The intelligent model records a person's voice, tone, language habits, behavior patterns, way of thinking, and other characteristic data, and appropriately inputs their past experiences and other memory data.

Once the real human "body" goes offline, a digital version remains in the virtual world. The longer the testing process and the more comprehensive the data recorded, the higher the realism of the digital human.

The digital person He Kao is testing today is actually a popular celebrity named Liu Xiaoran, who has starred in several hit TV dramas. He is in his twenties, has a handsome appearance, and has many fans.

Today's test task is to "go to the amusement park with Liu Xiaoran".

The Digital Life Project team took over the original Virtual City project. Huang Si, He Kao, and others had previously created a virtual town based on the landscape of their hometown, Pugang Town.

The Happy Valley amusement park outside Pugang Town had long been abandoned, but the project team rebuilt it in the virtual world, and it appeared very lively, with many tourists coming and going.

These NPCs are also digital humans, whose real-world counterparts are company employees and volunteers recruited from outside. Even after their real-world counterparts go offline, the digital humans can still automatically execute specific intelligent commands.

Some amusement rides, such as Ferris wheels and carousels, can be experienced in a virtual world. He Kao accepted Liu Xiaoran's invitation to play these rides as a "tourist".

He Kao engaged in various exchanges with the digital human according to the teleprompter, occasionally interspersing some improvisational topics to observe the digital human's reactions and see if it behaved realistically enough in the virtual world.
Today's tasks are twofold: first, to observe whether the collected data is sufficient and what aspects need to be supplemented and optimized; and second, to determine whether the intelligent model algorithm is reasonable and what aspects need to be modified.

The test went very well. He Kao knew very well that the person in front of him was a digital person, not the real celebrity. However, there were no obstacles in their daily communication, and there were no instances of incoherent speech.

If you weren't very familiar with him, you would almost certainly think you were facing the celebrity Liu Xiaoran himself. His image and demeanor perfectly match the expectations of his fans, meaning they align with his established public persona.

Once this project passes testing, we can try opening it to the public, and I believe it will be very popular.

For external publicity, you can create a gimmick, such as claiming that Liu Xiaoran himself will also go online from time to time to replace the digital human and personally travel with the invitees in the virtual world, but without making a prior announcement, which can be considered a surprise Easter egg.

If He Kao wasn't an internal tester, but a die-hard fan, he'd probably be screaming in surprise.

After the test was completed, He Kao gave a professional assessment, stating that the supplementary data collection should be handled by Project Team Two, while the optimization of the model kernel would be the task of his team... and then he sighed slightly.

The digital human we just saw was incredibly realistic; interacting with it felt almost like facing a real person. But He Kao knew that it wasn't an accurate model of the celebrity himself.

This digital person maintains an elegant demeanor, meticulous patience, and humorous conversation at all times, presenting a virtually flawless appearance and physique—something a real person cannot achieve.

It doesn't present the real celebrity, but rather the image that fans and management companies want them to project.

Such digital humans were classified as Group B during development. These were digital lives created according to certain requirements rather than based on real-world conditions. Internal developers also referred to them as "Liu Xiaoyi".

Just as there is Group B, there is also Group A. The digital life forms known as Group A are virtual humans created by collecting their real data. They embody not only technological simulation but also a philosophical sense of reality.

The authenticity of the digital life in Group A lies primarily in its core; as for its appearance, data such as age and weight can be adjusted.

After finishing a round of testing, it was already time to leave work, but He Kao was in no hurry to log off. He brought up "Huang Sijia," which was Xiao Pang's digital human in this virtual world.

The internal staff were the earliest testers, and whether out of work needs or interest, they almost all created their own digital avatars.

Huang Sijia was the first digital human created based on real-person data in the project, but in He Kao's eyes, he was somewhat like Huang Siyi because his appearance was a bit too handsome.

The chubby boy back then was definitely not this handsome. At least when they first started creating the digital human, his physique wasn't this good, and even his facial features weren't this sharp.

Little Fatty digitally beautified himself, showcasing the image he aspired to become. However, as Little Fatty's cultivation level increased, he actually became closer and closer to that image.

The chubby boy is no longer fat. He is now strong, upright, and even his facial features have become handsome and angular. He looks almost exactly like the digital man he created for himself.

Aside from that, Xiaopang didn't make any other modifications to his digital avatar. The language and thought patterns he presented were exactly like his real self, or rather, they were derived from real data collection.

He Kao chatted with the virtual chubby boy for a while, and found it more and more interesting. Then he deliberately made things difficult for him, asking him about some interesting things that happened when he was a child, and how far his relationship with Meng Ya had progressed.

The digital human couldn't answer these questions, so it started rambling on... and as it rambled on, Huang Sijia suddenly disappeared from He Kao's sight!

It was obvious that someone had taken over the permissions and interrupted He Kao's access to Huang Sijia's data. Of course, only Huang Sijia himself could do that... Little Fatty happened to be online and discovered what He Kao was doing.

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(End of this chapter)