When condensing the Data Nascent Soul shell, cultivators would involuntarily review their entire lives.
During this process, people re-experience the joy, happiness, sadness, regret, and even guilt and hatred they once had.
They re-experience humanity's five poisons, six desires, seven emotions, and six sufferings.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to achieving the Data Nascent Soul is not technology, nor resources, but rather self-identification.
To achieve the Data Nascent Soul, one must first pass this mortal tribulation and begin a process of self-inquiry.
Only by accepting one's past self, along with all one's mistakes and flaws, can a true Data Nascent Soul be condensed.
Without strong willpower, a cultivator might easily become lost in their memories, unable to extricate themselves, and become permanently trapped, unable to transcend.
At the same time, cultivation emphasizes unimpeded thoughts, but during the self-inquiry process, the most taboo thing is to develop an obsession with a certain matter.
Obsession can lead people into paranoia and madness.
If it cannot be resolved for a long time,
then it will cling to the cultivator like a maggot, constantly eroding their mind, making them sink deeper and deeper into pain and struggle, eventually leading to self-destruction.
Obsession will ultimately become the key reason why one's soul cannot reside within the Data Nascent Soul.
Cultivation emphasizes the dual cultivation of nature and life, as nature and life are the foundation of cultivation.
If one only possesses power but lacks the ability to control their inner self, then they will eventually go astray and become a slave to power.
Only by completely severing the obsession in one's heart, allowing everything to dissipate like fleeting clouds, can one's mental state be elevated so significantly, truly mastering one's own power.
After severing his past lives, Xiao now needed to face the memories after his reincarnation.
The memories of Xiao from various different worlds all surfaced one by one at this moment.
However, for Xiao, these memories all belonged to protagonists from "cool" novels, so there was no obsession whatsoever.
It could be said that their lives were "cool" from beginning to end.
The only unpleasant thing in these memories was that of the other Xiao's that were eliminated by Xiao himself.
Xiao's seemingly immense memory data in this life passed by like a fleeting white horse, posing no obstruction to him.
Xiao easily integrated them into the Data Nascent Soul, further perfecting it.
It is unknown how much time had passed, but when Xiao finally completed the replication of all soul imprints, he immediately began a comprehensive review.
However, at this moment, Xiao suddenly clearly perceived the difference between his own soul imprint and Johnny Silverhand's.
The soul imprint he replicated was merely a very simple database used to record his own emotions and memories.
Moreover, his soul imprint was even inferior to those Data AIs; it was a completely empty data shell without any autonomous cognitive ability.
The manufacturing process for both could be said to be identical, except for the complete excavation of one's own memories.
However, his own soul imprint only occupied a mere 900GB of memory.
In contrast, Johnny Silverhand's soul imprint was as high as 1000GB.
Although the two seem similar, it should be noted that Xiao's own memories already spanned nearly a century.
Adding the memories of the seven other himselves and the emotions carried within those memories, the amount of information was immense, yet it still only occupied 900GB of space.
Conversely, Johnny Silverhand's soul imprint data memory was able to surpass Xiao's own.
Such a huge difference was truly astonishing.
However, this also precisely proved that Xiao's first step was quite successful.
The core key of a soul imprint lies in the soul itself.
If the soul is not residing within it, and the soul imprint can spontaneously generate self-awareness and consciousness, then it would mean that Xiao had merely replicated an intelligent AI.
The so-called soul imprint would not be touching the soul, but merely pure humanoid intelligent AI technology.
In that case, all of Xiao's previous plans would be declared a complete failure at this moment.
Fortunately, the facts proved that the soul imprint is indeed a technology that truly touches the soul, not a so-called intelligent AI.
The replicated soul imprint was a genuine self.
Moreover, after the Data Nascent Soul was initially condensed successfully, Xiao discovered that soul consciousness possesses uniqueness.
In other words, many soul imprints can be created, but consciousness can only awaken in a new imprint after the previous one dies.
This suggests that after Yorinobu Arasaka became Saburo Arasaka, Saburo only appeared at the very end.
Could it be that he didn't appear because he couldn't, not because he didn't want to?
After his body died, Saburo Arasaka needed to reconnect with the soul imprint stored in Mikoshi to complete his resurrection.
And gathering soul consciousness likely requires a certain amount of time to complete.
Therefore, Saburo Arasaka at that time was in the stage of a wandering spirit.
Otherwise, Hanako Arasaka would not have been unaware at first that her father had been killed by Yorinobu Arasaka, needing others to inform her of his death.
After roughly understanding the essence of the soul imprint, Xiao contentedly began to modify it, molding it into his own shape.
First, the modification Xiao needed was to synchronize the Data Nascent Soul and the physical body program, to achieve simultaneous control of both the Data Nascent Soul and the physical body, instead of only one-sided control.
After all, both the Data Nascent Soul and the physical body are equally important and require the ability to fight simultaneously.
On this point, the twin brothers Left and Right from the Cyberpunk 2077 side quest Beat on the Brat gave Xiao inspiration.
The neural wave synchronization device allowed the wills of the two brothers, Left and Right, to eventually merge into one, with two bodies sharing a single will, and even simultaneously controlling their bodies to continue the boxing match.
Neural wave synchronization technology was quickly transplanted by Xiao into the Data Nascent Soul.
The feeling was strange at first, as if one person existed in two worlds simultaneously.
But very quickly, his powerful data-processing capabilities allowed Xiao to adapt to the existence of the Data Nascent Soul and control it as easily as moving an arm.
Next came the most crucial step: programming the composition of the Data Nascent Soul to further increase its computational rate while giving it the ability for self-growth.
Cultivation emphasizes self-optimization and growth, not fixing everything from the start.
If there is no room for future growth, then cultivation becomes meaningless.
Besides, not all cultivators possess Xiao's level of computational power.
The fundamental purpose of the Data Nascent Soul's existence is to better control an increasingly vast body and energy system.
Of course, the most important function must not be forgotten: strengthening the soul.
After all, the Data Nascent Soul is just the beginning of soul evolution.
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