Mo Tan’s face was somewhat gloomy as he looked at the progress bar, which hadn’t moved an inch, and the note below it saying ‘Remaining Time: 99 hours+’.
Such an expression was rare for him under his current chaotic neutral personality, indicating the severity of the situation.
His pure black laptop looked like it had seen better days.
Its appearance alone probably wouldn’t fetch more than two hundred yuan on the second-hand market.
Both its thick, rugged exterior and the perpetually buzzing fan sound seemed to tell others how dire the owner’s financial situation was.
In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Compared to the lightweight, ultra-thin laptops popular on the market, this machine was so thick because it was packed with various parts that Mo Tan had Magic Change .
Although the operating system on the surface would show that it was beaten by 99.99% of computers when benchmarked by any master, that was only because the laptop’s performance was almost always suppressed to around 3% under normal circumstances.
It only revealed its terrifying other side when logged in with Mo Tan’s custom-built system.
As he once boasted to a certain Anonymous second-hand dealer, “If this thing is really pushed to its limits, it can replace the national integrated information link for high-intensity work for at least twenty minutes!”
To put it simply, within twenty minutes, this laptop, which looked like a fossil, could simultaneously process and calculate all the basic information of the entire country, from statistical archiving of community hospital cases to the bi-hourly national population census.
And in most cases, in 2049, all such work was handled by a large intelligent matrix called the ‘Integrated Information Link’—a true national machine whose underground main body was even as large as two football fields.
It must be said that this fact was somewhat fantastic.
Although Mo Tan said it could only replace it for about twenty minutes, let alone a sixteen-inch old-fashioned laptop as thick as a brick, even the current market’s highest-performing Baltan Alien Beta-type enthusiast smart computer couldn’t even substitute the ‘matrix’ for a single minute.
Overload, smoke, and then explosion would be instantaneous.
So, at that time, the second-hand dealer just thought Mo Tan was spouting nonsense.
After the transaction, he politely exchanged a few commercial pleasantries with him and then left, not taking it seriously at all.
But in fact... Mo Tan was telling the truth...
He even held back!
His computer, which had been modded countless times and ‘adjusted’ every six months, indeed possessed such powerful capabilities, and the fundamental reason was simply to keep up with the three software programs he had independently designed.
For routine hacking operations and self-disguise: Necronomicon—Book of the Dead system.
For tracking and locking onto SUN: Hunting Angel—Angel Hunting System.
For compatibility with all non-mental simulation type games: High Energy—High Energy System.
All three systems mentioned above were coded by Mo Tan himself.
The first to be completed was the game-specific system.
This guy started earning his first pot of gold in junior high school through cracking due to his interest.
After all, with the development of the times, game console prices became increasingly cheaper, but the software on the platforms was outrageously expensive.
This trend made Mo Tan, who was still in the Zhengtai category at the time, particularly unhappy, so...
So, given that the topic would likely stray further and further, let’s skip it for now.
The Necronomicon system was a representative work when Mo Tan’s computer skills reached a new level.
At that time, he had already been thoroughly diagnosed with multiple personality disorder.
He developed this software while preparing to look up relevant information during a subsequent period, gradually going further down the path of social instability.
As for the Angel Hunting System, it was mentioned before; it was a program developed to track down SUN, who was also part of Black Sun.
After many years of upgrades and improvements, it has now become a very comprehensive inquiry and intelligence gathering system.
During the successive births of these three software programs, Mo Tan gradually found himself unable to keep up in terms of hardware.
Then he went to study...
He succeeded.
Then he started trying to build his own...
He succeeded again.
Then he started modding...
Finally, he ended up with a device that was a little too excessive.
We’ll stop here regarding Mo Tan’s computer issues.
The main reason for explaining so much is because, at this very moment, a situation that was very unexpected for him had occurred!
So unexpected that Mo Tan’s face, at this moment, had rarely turned a little unpleasant...
“Shuang Ye... SUN...” Mo Tan’s fingers flew across the keyboard, simple white pop-up windows constantly flickering and resizing.
After a brief and precise confirmation, Mo Tan finally confirmed that he had been tricked.
He sighed softly after a moment of silence, murmuring, “So I was the one who revealed the flaw first...”
The Angel Hunting System worked extremely efficiently, and the network cable hidden in Mo Tan’s secret compartment had almost no bandwidth restrictions.
Even if the area to be screened was very wide, there was absolutely no possibility of no progress after a day and a night.
The empty frame on the screen indicated that the progress had remained zero since the search began, and theoretically, this possibility was absolutely nonexistent!
It should be known that Mo Tan had already reduced the scope of his search conditions by several times compared to before, so even if significant progress wasn’t possible in a short time, this situation was impossible, unless...
Unless overnight, countless people appeared in this world who simultaneously met all the conditions: female, East Asian, eighteen to twenty-five years old, C-country national, mother alive, had not purchased Wu Zui Company peripheral products, and had not appeared outdoors on December 31, 2048, or tonight.
This, of course, was impossible!
So the conclusion was simple...
“Stop search.” Mo Tan’s lips suddenly curved into a playful arc, and he said softly into the microphone, “Immediately switch to the Necronomicon system, and perform address disguise and trace clearing in advance.”
One second later, the display screen had turned pure white, with numerous red light dots that were constantly disappearing.
“Heh heh, you’re really smart, but unfortunately, it’s just bad timing...” Mo Tan let out a light breath, looked back at the game pod in the center of the living room, and chuckled, “Looks like luck is on my side this time~”
...
Somewhere in C Country.
A dreamlike murmur echoed in the gloomy room.
A few seconds later, a slender figure with disheveled long hair struggled to sit up from the bed, casually put on the dark red headphones placed by the bedside, and slowly shuffled to the chair right next to the bed.
Precisely picking up the soda can at the corner of the table, she popped the Lahuan and drank it all in one gulp.
The girl smacked her lips contentedly, then let out a clear and ethereal laugh.
Although the sunlight was completely blocked by the thick black curtains, keeping the room in perpetual darkness, this did not affect the owner’s vision in the slightest.
This almost night-vision ability was not difficult to develop; most people could achieve it as long as they could endure the confined and dark space for a long time.
With a gentle snap of her fingers, the suddenly lit monitors around her illuminated her figure.
This was a girl who looked seventeen or eighteen, but due to her slightly thin build, her actual age might be a year or two older.
The girl was currently only wearing a pure white camisole and underwear; large areas of exposed skin were very fair, but it was a somewhat sickly pallor.
She had a doll-like face that looked very innocent and pure, and her long black hair was disheveled behind her back.
Her name was Mu You, two months shy of twenty, and she was a shut-in with no schooling, no job, and no parents.
“A strange girl who never greets anyone, probably a bit autistic.”
This was the unified assessment of Mu You by her neighbors, who only occasionally saw her after long intervals.
However, in today’s society, nothing was surprising, and merely a girl with a strange personality was not enough to become a topic of gossip among neighbors.
And no one knew Mu You’s other identities...
The Legend of the hacker world, Black Sun; the human female mage Shuang Ye in Innocent World; the Anonymous genius who obtained over a dozen top-level psychology and computer science qualifications and related doctorates in online exams, and so on.
“Hmph~ As expected, after waking up, a sip of Dr. Pepper makes me happy!” Mu You let out a groan, like a middle-aged office worker chugging a bottle of ice-cold beer after getting off work.
She placed the bottle, known as ‘the drink wise people love to drink,’ on the table, looked up, and surveyed the numerous monitors in the room that were gradually lighting up, then grinned, “Let me see the results, NAVI~”
“Yes.” A pleasant electronic synthesized voice came from all directions.
“Tell me the number of times those fake data sets I arranged earlier have been accessed in the last 24 hours~” Mu You said while gently stretching her body, not caring at all about her exposed skin.
After all, besides her, there was only a highly intelligent AI named NAVI in the bedroom, and this AI’s gender was set to female.
After about two or three seconds of silence, the screen on the wall to Mu You’s left, near the door, suddenly turned emerald green.
Golden characters scrolled rapidly across it, and then the AI calmly stated, “Type I virtual bait was accessed 27 times, Type II 15 times, Types III, IV, and V were all 9 times, and Type VI virtual bait was accessed... 3,254,259 times.”
“They took the bait~” Mu You clapped her hands and squatted directly on the chair, tapping the suspiciously large, oval-shaped device on the table in front of her, her glasses reflecting screens from all angles, covered with countless furiously refreshing data and IP addresses.
She giggled to herself, “Let me see~ Let me see~ You can’t escape this time, can you~ Tsk tsk, more virtual addresses and forced blocking? NAVI, help me tally it!”
...
“NAVI?”
...
“No way?!” Mu You exclaimed, quickly jumping off the chair and scurrying barefoot to the corner of the room.
She lifted a thin crystal panel, peered inside, and then gasped, “Huh? It crashed?!”
The girl rolled her eyes, reached in, and fiddled with it a couple of times to make the AI restart automatically.
She walked back to the table with wide eyes, clenched her small fists tightly, and huffed, “I’ll do it manually, old lady!”
She directly pulled open the top drawers on both sides of the table, then snapped the oval keyboard-like object in front of her into two halves, propping them onto the two pulled-out drawers beside her.
Then, she pulled out a relatively ordinary external keyboard from behind her, plugged it into the main unit directly in front, and placed it before her.
Her hands moved rapidly and gently, as if playing a piano, playing a piece at the level of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’...
The entire room lit up.
That wasn’t the sunlight finally breaking through the sealed space, but rather the nearly dozen monitors throughout the room simultaneously refreshing data streams at a frantic pace...
“You bastard!” Mu You gritted her teeth and said hatefully, while her slender fingers maintained an operation speed of at least 600 AMP, “Your reaction speed is too fast! With over three million access attempts, you managed to perform more than half multi-point disguises and forced blocks.
Did aliens help build your computer?! Forget NAVI... I’m about to crash...!!!”
However, despite saying so, the girl’s eyes gleamed with an almost fanatical light.
Although she looked like a slightly malnourished little girl, Mu You exuded an unusually strong aura at this moment!
Her height, which was just over one meter five, now seemed... like one meter six...
In short, it seemed very impressive!
This girl, who had first encountered Black Vatican in Innocent World, had completely lost her former lazy demeanor.
Her lips were upturned, her light-colored eyes were filled with an unreasonable joy, and her hands almost danced into afterimages around her!
“I will definitely win! After all, the one who exposed the flaw first... was you!”
...
Ten minutes later.
“Hmm?” Accompanied by a wind chime-like notification sound, Mu You’s hands stopped.
From just now until now, with the aid of the logical system and her extremely keen intuition, she had almost instantly eliminated nearly a third of the targets.
However, the remaining ones became increasingly troublesome.
Some of the incredibly deceptive traps could cause irreversible consequences with just a slight investigation, which forced her to slow down.
Perhaps, I won’t catch them this time either...
Just as she was starting to feel a little discouraged, she was suddenly startled by the abrupt ringing sound.
After being stunned for less than a second, she immediately pounced onto the bed, activated a jade-green laptop lying casually on it, and opened the homepage of a certain phishing website.
Below a jumble of miscellaneous and artistically proficient content, a string of dense numbers was rapidly refreshing.
“What’s going on?” Mu You blinked, memorizing the numbers quickly while muttering, “Even if you found out I was looking for you, there’s no need to contact me in advance!
What exactly do you want to say...”
She didn’t go back to continue the ‘pursuit’ that would most likely be futile.
Instead, she rolled over, sat cross-legged on the quilt, closed her eyes, and began to rapidly decipher the string of information in her mind.
Soon, a silhouette of a newspaper that met the criteria appeared in her mind.
The cipher key has been found...
Chapter Thirteen: The End