[https://i.imgur.com/e2Rkwvt.png]

~~~

The scene was jet black.

> You are in front of the Raven's Eye Casino with the rest of the enforcers.

The scene changed to the golden city. A large crowd observed the enforcement spectacle. A line of golden enforcers standed around the casino. I am the first in line to go. I am ready to do my duty.

> What is your mission?

The scene changed to the demonic visage of Euclid.

'To harm the abominable monster that can easily defeat even the best player in the city. I need to hold him back.'

> How do you intend to do that?

The scene changed to the corpse at a table.

'I will start the resolution duel and kill myself. After I am gone, the very long timeouts will wear down his will.'

> How long does the timeout last?

The scene changed to an arrow circling around the world.

'A full year. 365 days.'

> How many chips do you have?

The scene changed to a pile of golden life chips.

'188. 54 years would elapse inside the duel space before he is released.'

> Do all of you have that same amount?

The scene changed back to the outside of the casino. 4 figures behind the line of enforcers had red auras amongst them.

'Yes, except for the Epistemes amongst us. They have tens of thousands.'

> Assuming the monster got out, how many enforcers would he need to face in order to finally win?

The scene changed to an isometric one around the casino, and the enforcers were marked as golden pins.

'Around 600.'

> Is there a need to bring so many people to the casino? If 54 years would elapse per duel then wouldn't that be more than enough to seal him. He isn't the kind of person to run from a challenge.

The scene changed to blocks of ice.

'Due to the rule change the time inside the duel no longer corresponds to the time outside. Each duel against the monster should only last a single minute in the real world. We need to be ready.'

> Who changed the rules?

The scene changed to the visage of a man with sharp features. He was not even middle aged and had a small mustache, and piercing blue eyes looking up at the sky.

'The ruler.'

~~~

(Helix Studio, Skylark Island)

[https://i.imgur.com/QYDRcJt.png]

After the queries, I get a barrage of messages from my other self.

> Are you hearing this?

> 54 year per match in subjective time repeated 600 times. That would be 32,400 years in subjective time.

[https://i.imgur.com/yjk487Y.png]

> This is how they intend to crush our will. It is no different to being placed in solitary confinement for such an amount of time.

> This game is insane.

> Should we quit? You make the call.

I pause everything, including my other fork's process and take the time to think it over.

The other me in the game is mad at the game itself, but I need to consider whether this challenge is worth doing.

First of all, yes, this game design is trash, but at the same time it is weirdly realistic. If this was an ordinary game I'd just be wading through hordes of NPCs in a blaze of glory, but they picked exactly the kind of attack that would crush a person's soul if that person were a human. They are just so smart. Literally nothing could beat me except this and they picked such a move.

I can't help, but appreciate this move at some level even though I am peeved at their cowardice.

Right now my priority is to improve my nanotech skills so I can develop superpowers in the real world, but I do agree with the game's assessment that I haven't mastered all aspects of my will yet.

I ruminate on what I should do about this situation for a while.

I've decided.

If it turned out that 54 years inside the duel would last 54 years outside it then fine, I'd quit the game right there and admit that the Enforcement Division bested me. Not much I can do about that scenario except become a fully fledged Transcendi in order to cross the dimensional boundaries and break out of the dueling space with my own power.

I'd also quit if it turned out the timeout was the regular 5 minutes. If the city's best shot was to just pester me with cannon fodder, then I'd just do something else. It is not like I'd gain anything in the real world for cleaning up the city's trash.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

But this challenge is teasing me whether I can take it or not. A human definitely couldn't, and I couldn't myself right now. But with the right kind of behavioral program I could.

I have to tackle it. It is very similar to the challenge of adapting to high speed thinking. Except this time I can't just use an evolutionary algorithm to evolve my behavior.

Rather I will dial down my mind to regular speed, and have the simulation itself run at vastly increased speed. The core might be nearly limitless, but it still has limitations. The slower the simulation itself, the faster I can think relative to it and vice versa.

What I need to do is make the next step in the evolution of humanity. I've uploaded myself and I've greatly increased my cognitive capacity so far, but deep down I am still an augmented human. And a human no matter how strong cannot challenge eternity. I will.

I will develop the power to challenge it.

The way to do it is easy.

To get vastly better reflexes I didn't need to do any special training apart from crossing the street a few times. Similarly, to become adjusted to the passage of time at regular speed I should also play a game.

I think of what could be a good choice of game.

One option is to just put myself into solitary confinement. Turn off all my senses, and let time elapse. If I am still fine after a million years, and my memories are there, then that is proof that I've conquered that challenge. But even so, just sitting in place for a long time would be easy to evolve for a computer program. I can think of all sorts of ways I could cheat on this task myself.

[Pathos Gain 0.1]

No...rather than challenging myself to sit at the table for an eternity, what I need to become is the kind of person who can fight for such an amount of time without stopping. Forget the immediate challenge of needing to sit still for 34k years.

So I need a training environment. An adversarial game. What game should it be?

I think about some options, but poker really is at the forefront. Chess and go would be too simple and aren't conducive to developing probabilistic thinking. Gambling games are the simplest kind of games that you can use to develop proper memory systems and stochastic policies. They are easy to make and use. They have a large variety as well as state spaces, and don't have redundant actions like more complex ones do. Yeah, poker is perfect. I’ve been trying to get good at it, but instead the game has led me to learn weird projection stuff. Heaven's Key really didn't allow me to scratch my itch when it comes to gambling. So far it has mostly been about improving my ability to cast magic spells with the game itself merely being the backdrop. It is disrespectful in a way.

So I should pay respect to poker. Getting some skills at this would mean I could make money in the real world even without having to cheat if needed.

What algorithm should I use?

Now that I have some understanding of memory systems, instead of outright evolution, why don't I go for a variant of iterated local search?

I am thinking of having the base agent. Then forking it into two identical players that fight each other in a game of poker. What I would have the players do is make the modifications themselves instead of having the evolutionary algorithm do it. I've already gone through the stage of evolving the fundamental memory system components and putting them together. I think it is time to get a handle on programming with them directly without relying on crutches. If needed, I could start by integrating the genetic programming system into my mind directly and use my own memory as a booster.

When the creatures are simple, the evolutionary environment has to do everything on its own. But at some point in their development, you have to trust them to manage their own evolution. Dumb, naive algorithms like the natural ones will only scale so far. In the stories, the Inspired all make their own modification, instead of relying on crutches like I did. It is time to take off the training wheels. I've already vastly exceeded the cognitive limitations of humans so it might be different this time.

I imagine the two agents fighting. The winner's changes are ones which would then get integrated into the base. But I have the memory distiller, so I can have the base receive the memory of both. It is a huge improvement to the regular naive algorithm.

In fact, the memory distiller is key. Without it, I'd have to set everything up myself. But with it, I have a powerful tool for checking the correctness of the self improvement process as an observer.

Forget making the process any specific algorithm.

My fork is a sentient being. I can just tell it to go forth and self improve. Then I can let it do that for a while and while I do other things.

When it is time to check on its progress, I can in fact assimilate the memories gradually and check them over. If it has been fighting itself non-stop in a life and death struggle and having fun, trying out changes, and having fun, then that is fine. That is the kind of story I'll see in its memories. And its memories will be very precise because of all the work I put on memory systems so far. If I like the memories, I can replace my behavioral program with theirs.

Yeah, this is the way to do it!

I am going to have to put some work into developing gradual distillation, but it should be easy. This really gives me a lot of insight, self improvement is all about the memory system after all. I do not need a computer program for evolving sentient beings, I can just have them act out a particular algorithm instead.

Once I develop this kind of system, I'll be able to give it to the observer and the main me who is still a human. That way they'll be able to see the evolutionary path we took as a story. Excellent memories are truly very beneficial. Like this I would be able to guarantee that I am not defrauding them in any way, and guarantee that my own forks are not defrauding me.

Memories are programs, but programs aren't necessarily memories. Proper memory systems can be used as records. Memories of humans are quite vague and inaccessible so it confuses the notion of what memories should really be.

Also my programming skills aren't weak. Even if I can't make behavioral programs myself, if it is a being who understands it, through its memories I should be able to grasp it. It makes sense that it should be like this. The more intelligent the being doing it, the more refined its self improvement process should be. Inferior beings can only compete for mates.

I myself will program my own mind!

(Helix Studio, The Desert Of Eternity)

[https://i.imgur.com/Wo1nquS.png]

> You are myself so you should know what you need to do. I want to see blood at the poker table! Go!

And so I find myself locked in a life and death battle for what will be a very long time. The message is what a demonic god would write, but it is my preference. I wouldn't want it any other way.

I'd rather live in a world ruled by demonic gods than democracy.

The gradual distiller still hasn't been developed, but even its potential existence will act as a deterrent from me straying from the path of power. I could try to cheat by doing nothing for however long it takes, but that would just be defrauding myself in the end. If I make some weird modification that ends up taking me out entirely the controller will know.

So let me get to it.

[https://i.imgur.com/jah83bz.png]

Currently I am situated in a desert environment. As I look around, there are dunes of sand for miles around me. And right in front is a stone stage with a poker table. Trailing footsteps in the sand, I move up the stone steps and take a seat, ready to begin the fight.

(Helix Studio, Skylark Island, Meditation Room)

Once you have a complete memory distiller, which I have in fact, adapting the method so it distills only pieces of memories is a piece of cake. It didn't take too much effort on my end. I've already forked myself and set it in a simulated environment. To make things efficient, I've gone with a neural simulation, not even 3d like last time. That has allowed me to run my fork at the absolute fastest available speed which is 100 billion. I've set the timer to 4 real world hours. By the time the training run finishes it should be 3:30am in the real world.

What I have to do next is my job as the controller. Every 5 minutes I'll copy the state and gradually distill the memories into myself. Since I won't be touching my behavioral coding, that will give me a measure of safety. It won't be too much different from dreaming the life of somebody else.

In this dark stone room, I sit cross legged in the middle of a large magical circle. The purplish candles set in the walls illuminate the glazed, suffocating atmosphere of this room. I ready myself to begin work, and on mental command the runes inscribed in the circle begin to glow bright. I fall into a Dream, and I Dream of them…