"Take me to see first, but I can't guarantee there's a way to cure this. I hope you're mentally prepared."

————

To further improve issues with the neural regulator, Mewtwo, and cybernetic body design, Lin Miao specifically established a bio-lab at Stone Ridge Mountain. However, equipment is easy to buy, talent is rare, and it's largely idle. ERO couldn't spare any highly educated medical students to participate in the experiments.

Currently, the only subject in this lab is Yoshida Saki.

Although Lucy managed to control the activity level of the digital brain, she couldn't bring it back to normal. The doctors could only monitor Yoshida Saki's neural network day by day to prevent any sudden occurrences.

But today, a professional high player arrived, who quickly drew a conclusion after briefly analyzing the doctors' records from these days.

"Surviving to this day is a miracle. Under normal conditions, she should already be brain dead."

Now, in the room, there are only Anne and Lin Miao. Yoshida Saki sleeps on the sickbed behind a screen wall, unable to hear anything.

"Is it really that serious?"

"Have you used a computer?"

Anne said.

"Yoshida Saki's condition is similar to the CPU and memory of a computer being occupied by some unknown program up to 95%, and she could only utilize the remaining 5%. Even a slightly complicated situation might cause her brain's memory to crash, and the computer would freeze and lag, which explains why she previously experienced transient memory loss, without even realizing it."

"You should be grateful that when you rescued her, only her brain was left, with the rest of the body composed of cybernetics. Otherwise, she would have died from the failure of her native organs upon waking."

Lin Miao was noncommittal, although he thought the modification chamber might be able to restore the brain to normal condition.

"In normal human conditions, the usable brain processing rate is around 5%. The remaining utilization mostly involves uncontrollable self-operation, managing balance through endocrine for multiple body systems, unconscious breathing, sweating for heat dissipation, judging the importance of memories, whether they should be deleted or permanently saved..."

"Now, when she's left with only the brain, all these tasks become redundant. The Human Brain Array aims to maximize the use of this processing rate, meaning her brain has already forgotten how to regulate the work of each organ, losing its function as the overall cells coordinator, left only with the work program we programmed for her."

"The functionality of a body equipped with cybernetics moves because each cybernetic body contains a simplified operation center which calculates automatically upon receiving motion signals. In this process, the brain only serves the role of coordinating and sending motion signals."

"One reason for cyber psychosis - the phantom pain - also stems from this."

It's cruel, but now's not the time to discuss this. Anne Hathaway kept observantly watching Lin Miao's expression, noticing neither curiosity nor aversion, as if everything was unrelated to him.

"Can she be saved?"

"This modification process is almost irreversible. I cannot write a system that controls tens of trillions of cells, especially since everyone's body is different. Even if another person's brain is copied, it cannot run on the original body."

Anne shook her head regrettably, expressing helplessness.

"But as I said, her brain contains the program we previously wrote. I can try deleting those programs and redesigning an entire body cybernetic mobilization program, digital memory archives, ensuring normal daily activities would certainly not be a problem, occupying just about 15% of the total processing rate."

Lin Miao feigned surprise.

"Only that little?"

"Biological brains and bodies are much stronger than you think."

"Although modern people are enamored with the powerful qualities of cybernetic bodies, actually even the most advanced cybernetic bodies today fall far short compared to native flesh in terms of complexity. Just its cellular metabolism is beyond what mechanical cybernetics can compare with—you could essentially regard flesh as a collection of powerful micron machines."

Perhaps the strength and sturdiness of a right-hand prosthetic far exceeds flesh and bone, but it loses the most crucial refined perception. The cold steel cannot feel the warmth of sunlight upon the skin, and a reconstructed tongue and nasal cavity will never smell the aroma wafting from the kitchen. Even sex loses its appeal...

"Therefore... can we use the remaining 85% then... I'm an advocate of thrift, and I can't stand to see resources wasted."

"I said..."

Anne gave Lin Miao a profound look but before she could finish, she was interrupted.

"I can guarantee that each experimental subject is absolutely voluntary, with no coercion or temptation, absolute respect for their personal freedom and political rights, even if they actively beg you to perform similar modifications on their brains. It has nothing to do with me, and anyway they don't have much flesh left on them, being idle while idle."

"If you feel it's inappropriate, you can even directly refuse to perform the modification surgery (just say the NPC affinity isn't high enough)."

"..."

Horizon Mercenaries are much crazier than the Vortex Gang, with modification levels far exceeding them.

This is already the consensus of Night City.

Even Anne never seriously doubted those people's mental states, as only they could pull off a stunt like breaking into Zeta Technology's building with feces.