The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4159 When the Pumpkin Ripens (Forty-One)

“I think I understand,” Brainiac said. “An absolutely fair society is static, while what I want to create now is a society in relative motion. I want to ensure that the overall development of society is faster than the class divisions caused by inequality, so that relative stability can be maintained.”

"That's right. So, you need to give those who can bring progress to society a certain degree of exceptions and sufficient resources so that they can drive the chariot of human society forward at breakneck speed. As long as the speed is fast enough, a certain degree of unfairness is perfectly acceptable."

“Humans are still too complicated,” Brainiac said.

"Besides, it's also to appease those evil geniuses. The essence of manipulation is love. If you don't give them some sweetness and let them get real benefits, they still won't genuinely unite around you and work for you."

“It seems this trick is actually working,” Brainiac said. “Could I start a separate discipline for this? How about calling it ‘Manipulation’?”

"Not very good. You'll never understand this subject until you've developed genuine feelings. All the calculations are a waste of time. Manipulation isn't about being aloof; it's about getting involved. If you can't empathize with the person you're manipulating, you're destined to fail."

“I think I’m getting the hang of it,” Brainiac said. “I don’t mean manipulation, I mean emotions. But I’m not sure exactly what’s going on yet. Luther’s insults were a bit too harsh.”

Greed laughed, picked up his coffee cup, and walked back to the restaurant. He picked up the newspaper beside him and began to drink his coffee while reading it.

"Are we really going to launch a counterattack on Darkseid?" Brainiac asked again.

"Don't you have a planet-collecting fetish?"

"……Who said that?"

"You exist in other universes. You in other universes constantly invade Earth just to put it in a small bottle and admire it."

"...That's a great idea. Is it too late?"

"I'm afraid that won't work," Greed shook his head and said. "Even if you could find a small bottle right now to put the Earth inside, would you really be willing to do it?"

Brainiac remained silent, but his silence betrayed a hint of resistance.

"That's the power of sunk costs," Greed said, shaking the newspaper.

Brainiac was naturally unwilling, but he understood it wasn't entirely due to sunk costs. He was now beginning to feel that greed and arrogance weren't just humanity's original sins; no intelligent life, not even a logical being like himself devoid of emotion, was immune to them.

In the past, he might have considered it, after all, humanity was really getting a bit annoying. But now he would never do that, because he had endured so much and finally figured out those troublesome guys; now it was time for him to enjoy the victory celebration. Anyone who dared to touch Earth, he would fight them to the death.

This is, of course, a form of greed. He doesn't consider that the entire Earth is meaningless to him; he only wants to see those old, intractable problems being manipulated and controlled by him. Even if they are merely creating value for their own society and don't actually affect him, he's happy just watching.

"Does this suddenly make sense of why humans love watching ant nests?" Greed said without looking up. "These little things are really interesting, aren't they?"

Brainiac is adept at expressing his attitude through silence, and this time is no exception. The silence, however, conveys a sense of certainty.

"Don't rush. The reason they are so excited and so focused on their work is not entirely due to the psychological incentive mechanism, but also because you have given them a new goal - to counterattack Apokolips."

Greed took a sip of coffee and continued, "This is a group of smart people who can perfectly grasp the balance between slacking off and taking it easy. You can't say they weren't working hard before, because the value they casually created is enough for you to hold onto the earth."

"Pamela's enlarged plants can help you solve the global famine problem; Tim's production line is already the most efficient in the world; Bruce is helping out on Krypton, even if he only works three hours a day, his contribution is greater than that of most human scientists; not to mention Lex Luthor, although there are still tens of thousands of programming errors to be solved, hasn't he solved several thousand of them? This is more than enough for you."

"But the premise is that you only intend to be a local tyrant on Earth, and not to dominate the universe."

“I don’t understand,” Brainiac said. “Is it my decision whether or not we conquer the universe? Shouldn’t it be their decision?”

"You've got one thing wrong. When they tacitly allow you to rule the earth, the power they give you is far greater than you imagine. They will largely follow your pace, and if you feel it's not working, they will slow down."

"Moreover, it is indeed not advisable to take any radical actions before your life form has made a breakthrough, because this may cause the current favorable situation to slip away, which is something they do not want to see."

"So they now think my life form has achieved a breakthrough?"

"Your decision to launch a counterattack on Apokolips means that your life form must have achieved some kind of breakthrough, because a purely rational being using logical analysis could not make such an absurd and crazy decision."

Brainiac fell silent again, and after a long while he finally said, "...Why didn't you say so sooner?"

"Why didn't you say so earlier? Counterattacking Apokolips is absurd and insane? Why didn't you realize that sooner?"

I thought you would help.

"Use your Level 12 intelligence. Even with my help, can Earth's development level support interstellar colonization wars?"

Brainiac then realized that he seemed to have indeed lost a part of his rationality, because Greed was right. He should have presented various data and information to refute Greed's insane idea the moment he proposed it—humanity was simply incapable of waging interstellar war at present.

Putting aside the fact that it has only been a year since they defeated so many powerful enemies in the universe, and they haven't even had time to rest and recuperate, given their current level of technological development, without a faster-than-light engine, an interstellar fleet, or interstellar heavy industrial facilities, how are they supposed to carry out an interstellar expedition?
But he seemed to have completely forgotten about this, and greed blinded him. He even took it seriously, using this goal to make empty promises to those people, without considering that there were no conditions to actually achieve it.

On one hand, Brainiac couldn't help but wonder if he had become stupid, but on the other hand, he was somewhat pleased because his stupidity meant that he had truly taken a step closer to the primordial life form.

"Then what should we do?" Brainiac gave up thinking and asked.

"Why didn't they ask you that?" Greed asked another question. "Do you think that people like Pamela, Bruce, or Tim don't have a proper understanding of the current state of humanity and the level of technology, and that they think they can be easily defeated?"

“Of course not,” Brainiac replied. “Yeah, why didn’t they argue with me when I told them about it? Did they think they could fight?”

"No. But that's what makes humans different from electronic life. You can call it madness, but I prefer to call it hope. Just because we can't fight now doesn't mean we can't fight in the future; just because the data on paper doesn't support it doesn't mean it's impossible in practice; even if there's no hope at all, we can take a step back and turn it into a way to teach Darkseid a lesson. This kind of inner drive in the spiritual world is the most precious thing about the emotional life you want to become."

Brainiac shared this view, believing that electronic life forms like himself would rely on data. If analyzing various data points showed a plan was unworkable, they wouldn't pursue it. Even when probabilities were considered, risk assessments were conducted to select the best option. In this case, temporarily setting aside the counterattack on Apokolips was undoubtedly the best choice. They might then set a target, only restarting the operation when certain data reached specific levels.

But humans are not like that. Precisely because they lack the ability to accurately calculate data and probabilities, they often think, "I think it can work" and "How do I know it won't work if I don't try?" and then they rush in with a shout.

This seems incredibly unwise, almost suicidal. But it is precisely because they constantly put themselves in peril that they unleash their full potential. Their strong will to survive allows them to unleash even greater power than before, breaking through time and time again, and creating unique miracles in evolutionary history.

This reveals the difference between electronic life and emotional life: electronic life is completely cognitivistic, but because they know too much and analyze too much, they rarely put themselves in danger. They seem safe, but in reality, they lack the opportunity for evolution. Humans, although ignorant, always encounter many coincidences in their stumbles. Evolution itself is the sum of countless coincidences in a long history. A race that does not experience coincidences has no future.

At that moment, Brainiac seemed to understand something. The breakthrough he had been seeking could not be achieved by painstakingly eliminating program errors or creating more threads for himself.

He needs an adventure; without putting himself in danger, he will never progress. The evolution he accomplished in all those years on Krypton is less than one ten-thousandth of what he has accomplished in such a short time on Earth.

If that's the case, then humans must be his good partners, because this race is best at adventure. As soon as they hear that they can go on an adventure, their backs stop aching, their legs stop hurting, they stop slacking off, and they stop procrastinating. They are all full of energy and radiant, their momentum no less than a mouse carrying a knife, searching for a cat all over the street.

This was clearly incredibly arrogant, downright haughty. Yet, no one could laugh at such arrogance, because before humanity repelled the major invaders, no one could have imagined that a surface civilization, where computers weren't even widespread, could force some of the universe's most powerful forces to flee the solar system in disgrace.

At that very moment, Brainiac suddenly felt something outside the program driving him to accomplish this seemingly impossible goal. He couldn't describe the feeling, or even if it was a feeling at all, because all his sensory programs were malfunctioning, and most threads had stopped working. For a fleeting instant, he felt like he had been rebooted.

At first, Lex Luthor's cursing echoed in their ears, but soon Luthor fell silent as well. They both seemed to understand that something was happening, and that what followed was beyond human control, and beyond Brainiac's ability to stop it. And this event was usually called—a miracle of evolution.

(End of this chapter)