Similar to what Shuang Ye had said earlier, Mo Tan, who logged in around 9 PM, found that it was indeed midday in the game.
He had respawned in an alley not far from where he had disconnected, only about two minutes away from the barracks.
Mo Tan quickly returned to the outpost with practiced ease.
Since the guard on duty today was still the same balding Dwarf warrior from last night, he was allowed to pass directly without even taking out his military ID.
“Hey ~ Black Vatican.” The members of the Fenrir Squad seemed to be gathered, chatting about something.
Ned immediately waved when he saw Mo Tan approaching: “Over here ~”
Shuang Ye was also there; it seemed she had logged in a bit earlier and was currently sitting in a corner, spacing out.
Mo Tan ran over and greeted everyone individually, then smiled at Ned: “I’m here to report.
What are you all chatting about?”
“Uh, the current topic is, which is more beautiful: an Ogre girl or a Goblin girl?” Ned patted Mo Tan’s shoulder and chuckled dryly: “Krab and Salazar have different opinions on this.”
Mo Tan stiffly turned his head to look at the two beside him…
“You Lizard will never understand how sexy those fangs are!” Krab, the black-skinned Orc warrior, roared, spewing saliva.
“Yes, I’m glad I can’t understand the world through your eyes.” The Lizardmen Monk sneered, arms crossed: “But can you truly not realize how charming those miniature figures and big ears are?”
Mo Tan: “……”
“Just so you know, we didn’t participate in this low-level debate ~” Yinna walked over, leading Shuang Ye.
She first glanced disdainfully at the two 'enlightened' individuals, then mischievously smiled at Mo Tan and said: “But perhaps you could share your opinion ~”
Mo Tan replied almost without thinking: “I think Elf and Human girls are prettier, yes, that’s it.”
“Hoh ~ A pleasing fellow!” Yinna winked at him.
Shuang Ye, on the other hand, yawned listlessly and said leisurely: “Anyway, don’t expect me to be very happy.”
A moment later, when the bizarre debate finally ended (Salazar had beaten Krab into submission), Ned explained the squad rules to Mo Tan in more detail, and then everyone started chatting aimlessly again.
Through a casual conversation with them in his identity as a wandering priest, Mo Tan also gained some basic understanding of the world’s lore.
During this process, Shuang Ye, also a player, barely spoke, but she secretly sent a friend request and expressed her admiration for his eloquence in the message.
“Your skill at extracting information is quite high ~ It’s a real waste for you not to be a spy.”
That’s what Shuang Ye said in the message, and Mo Tan just took it as the girl complimenting him.
According to Ned, the Autonomous Army they were currently in was essentially the private army of the Marshall Family; of course, its existence was lawful.
Lord Buffy Marshall is the current patriarch of this ancient family, and also one of the nine Grand Dukes in the Violet Empire, the overlord of the southeastern continent of the Innocent World.
He rules a territory encompassing over thirty cities, with the family’s foundation, Mercury City, as its central hub.
The Autonomous Army is the lowest and most motley part of his armed forces.
Compared to the Mercury Guard, Buffy's Sword Knights, and Ice Curtain Mage Corps, which are fewer in number but extremely powerful in combat, the members of the Autonomous Army are almost similar in nature to militiamen.
However, their responsibilities are also numerous, mainly maintaining basic public order within the territory and serving as cannon fodder in large-scale battles—these two 'important' tasks.
“In short, it’s just to make a living ~” Ned shrugged: “At least the pay here is more stable, and the risk is much lower than being a mercenary or an adventurer.”
Mo Tan nodded.
He didn’t feel uncomfortable staying in this 'cannon fodder camp.' On the contrary, he thought it was a good thing to start at a lower point and progress gradually in the early stages of the game.
After all, the official website for Wu Zui Zhi Jie was basically for fooling people; the information provided there was even less than what any random NPC here could offer.
So, it’s still the same saying ~ just go with the flow.
“Alright, chat time should be over soon.” The Lizardmen Monk, Salazar, glanced at the ancient pocket watch on his neck and turned to walk towards the camp exit: “We have to go on patrol outside the city tomorrow, so let’s dismiss early today.”
Yinna shook her head helplessly, watching his retreating figure: “That guy is always like that.
Well, I’ll go back to my room to read too ~”
With that, she nimbly climbed a towering, unknown giant tree nearby and quickly disappeared into its dense yellow leaves.
“She built a wooden house in the tree; she said she couldn’t stand our smelly male dorms.” Ned spread his hands at Mo Tan, then said: “You’re dismissed ~ We’ll gather at 7 AM tomorrow, and then we’ll all go for our routine patrols outside the city.”
Mo Tan smiled at him: “Alright, Captain ~”
Then Ned and Krab, who had just gotten up from the ground, also ambled away, leaving only Mo Tan and Shuang Ye on the warm open ground beside the outpost.
“Come sit over here.” The female mage with waist-length orange hair lazily called out.
“It’s an honor.” Mo Tan readily agreed; he felt that the other party must have a lot of information to share with him.
But he didn’t expect that his gains later would far exceed his expectations.
“This world has its own set of operating rules.” Shuang Ye leaned closer and whispered to Mo Tan: “The twelve hours you can log in each day (7 PM to 7 AM) are doubled here, meaning twenty-four hours.
And when you can’t log into the game during the day, this world pauses its operation until 7 PM in real time, which is when players can log in.”
Mo Tan was greatly startled; he had truly never heard of such a thing.
Not only from Wu Zui Company’s official channels, but no one on the forums had expressed such a view either.
If this theory was indeed true, then this piece of information was incredibly valuable.
The most obvious benefit was in interacting with NPCs; at the very least, Mo Tan now knew when he should report to the barracks tomorrow.
“How did you…” Mo Tan looked at Shuang Ye curiously, but she gently raised a hand to interrupt him.
“I’m just returning a favor.
I also got a lot of useful information when you were extracting info from those few earlier, so it’s a matter of reciprocity.” Shuang Ye chuckled: “Besides, even if I didn’t tell you, someone would soon discover this.
As for how I knew it immediately ~”
Shuang Ye blinked and said playfully: “Because I’m a two-dimensional tech geek, and I occasionally dabble in hacking.
That’s also why I play this game.”
“Planning to steal some data or trying to break into the game company’s system?” Mo Tan looked at her with slight surprise and said casually: “Didn’t they say Wu Zui Company’s firewall is ridiculously strong, even the legendary ‘Black Sun’ failed?”
Black Sun, a Legend, a living Legend.
This existence, hailed as the contemporary King of Hackers, had almost infiltrated the servers of all well-known private organizations globally.
According to rough estimates, the direct or indirect losses he/she caused had already reached an astronomical figure, and he/she remains at large to this day.
Some say Black Sun is an organization, some say Black Sun is a duo, some say Black Sun is an alien, some say Black Sun is actually a special agency of a certain national government, and some say Black Sun is from H Nation…
In short, this name was revered as a godfather-like figure by all contemporary hackers; his/her hacking methods and style of operation remained a mystery to this day, and his/her chosen targets were utterly random.
Perhaps Black Sun would simultaneously hack into hundreds of private ATMs across the globe, making them spew out cash like crazy; perhaps Black Sun would suddenly infiltrate a family business and spread nude photos of its core members wildly across the local network; or perhaps Black Sun would burrow into a famous movie star's personal computer, digging up interesting videos or images and enthusiastically sharing them on major forums.
He/She might also suddenly invade a school and, before an exam, publish the answers to all subjects on the campus network homepage, and these answers might even be wrong…
Just like a genius psychopath with a wicked sense of humor.
Suddenly, Shuang Ye chuckled, scratched her hair, and then spread her hands, saying, “Yeah, it’s precisely because I failed that I came to play this game myself~ I accidentally got a bit too engrossed.”
“What!?” Mo Tan’s pupils suddenly constricted, and he stared at Shuang Ye, “You said you are Black Sun!”
“Yeah~” Shuang Ye replied nonchalantly, then looked up at the sun hanging in the sky, “It’s so hot…”
Pop~
A small ice ball appeared on her raised index finger, emitting a slight coolness.
Shuang Ye nodded contentedly, “Much better now.”
“Skills can be used like that?” Mo Tan looked at the ice ball on her fingertip and asked curiously, “Or is it because you are Black Sun that you can do this?”
As he asked, he stared intently at Shuang Ye’s bright brown eyes, as if trying to see through her.
“Don’t be so nervous…” Shuang Ye shook her head helplessly, “If your intelligence attribute is more than twice the minimum requirement for a spell, you can achieve a certain degree of variation, but this also proves that the data model in this Wu Zui Zhi Jie is incredibly flexible, almost cheating.
I’ve been working on it for days, and besides making a cheap simulation pod compatible with this game, I’ve made no progress at all.
I almost gave up.”
Mo Tan didn’t see any trace of lying in the girl’s eyes; instead, he noticed a lingering sense of frustration and couldn’t help but ask, “If you really are Black Sun, then why would you…”
“Why would I tell you?” Shuang Ye glanced at him, pouting indignantly, “It doesn’t matter anyway!
I can’t even hack a single byte of this thing’s server, let alone my appearance, which I’ve molded so much my own mother wouldn’t recognize me.
Are you really going to use this character named Shuang Ye to dig out my true identity? If you go spreading it on forums or anything, no one will believe you, so it doesn’t matter… Ugh… What a piece of junk… Does it think it’s the CIA…? The CIA isn’t even like this… Ah~ I might as well die~ Wu Zui Company can die, and I can die too~~~”
A feeling of giving up…
Seeing the girl with round-rimmed glasses muttering to herself, Mo Tan couldn’t help but find it a bit amusing, and then…
“You have been emergency disconnected.
Please choose whether to reconnect.”
“No.”
“Execute wake-up procedure?”
“Yes~ I need this~”
“Received.
It is January 2, 2049, 00:40.
You will awaken in two minutes.”
…
Two minutes later, Mo Tan sat up from the game pod, and after adjusting to the groggy feeling of just waking up, a mischievous smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
He stood up, walked to his computer, turned it on, and with lightning-fast hands, terminated the program just before it loaded the system, quickly switching to another pure black interface.
At the same time, he nudged the computer desk slightly askew, pulling out a black network cable from a hidden compartment underneath and connecting it to the computer.
“Heh heh~ This is truly surprising~” Mo Tan murmured, narrowing his eyes, “I didn’t expect that after searching for so long and being evaded by you, I would find a trace in that place.
You’re still too careless, Sun~”
Upon reading this, you must have already realized something…
Indeed, Black Sun is not an organization, nor is it from Country H, but rather a pair of partners composed of two individuals who are almost unconstrained by morality, and Mo Tan is one half of them, codenamed: Black.
And the true identity of the other person has also begun to gradually surface…
“Open the Hunting Angel system,” Mo Tan quietly said to the microphone in front of him, “On the existing basis, exclude all males and change the sub-classification conditions to East Asian, height between 155cm and 175cm; add glasses, eighteen to twenty-five years old, Country C citizen, has not purchased Wu Zui Company peripheral products, and mother is alive to the fuzzy conditions… Oh, and one more thing, has not appeared outdoors on December 31, 2048, and tonight.
Begin.”
After a brief flicker of static, a progress bar suddenly appeared on the computer screen, and a mechanical voice came through the headphones Mo Tan had just put on: “Searching, remaining time 99 hours+, hide search panel?”
“Of course~” Mo Tan rolled his eyes, tossed the headphones aside, and looked at the computer desktop, which had quickly switched back to the official system, smiling slightly: “If I can expose you with irrefutable evidence, and then, after your arrest, play a few more tricks under the name of Black Sun, it should become very interesting, right~ Haha~ Hahahaha~~~”
He laughed wildly for a long time, then turned his gaze back to the game pod and whispered, “Suddenly, I’ve thought of another great idea…”
…
Black and Sun, these two hackers, met by accident.
At the time, Mo Tan was searching for psychiatric data from a hospital in Country F, but in the process, he discovered another set of data that happened to be invading the same place—it was pretty much two thieves reaching into the same pocket.
So, for fun, Mo Tan deliberately triggered the institution’s firewall and, faster than the automatic alarm system, called the police, while also destroying a large amount of valuable research data, then went into Stealth.
However, the other party was no easy target.
When Mo Tan deliberately triggered the firewall, the other thief immediately intercepted Mo Tan’s virtual IP and disguised it as their own, attempting to play a trick of substituting one thing for another.
Then, the competition of hacking skills between the two began.
Although neither of them nor the police managed to get any useful information about the other afterwards, the police who experienced this incident were almost driven mad.
They continuously deployed forces within France, mobilized countless resources to deal with this ‘extremely malicious’ incident, checked water meters in house after house, and delivered warmth community after community.
After a night of frantic activity, they almost arrested their own superior…
It was simply a commendable and moving history of blood and tears, full of dedication!
It’s worth noting that, although they never caught the two culprits in the end, they indirectly sparked a hint of curiosity and a subtle sense of recognition between Mo Tan, who was in a playful mood, and the hacker codenamed ‘Sun’ while they were toying with these civil servants.
A week later, they met in a bank’s database and together completed their first highly impressive and practical feat: making every ATM of this global, black-hearted private bank simultaneously spew out large amounts of cash, and very kindly deleting their serial numbers…
One hour after the incident erupted, an entity calling itself ‘Black Sun’ claimed responsibility and exposed nude photos of a certain black-hearted bank president on a gay social networking site, incidentally also exposing the five-star hotel that had installed pinhole cameras in its rooms…
And from then on, the two individuals, now accomplices, never gave up on their first game: to expose each other and then dump all the accumulated dirt of so many years onto the other’s head.
“This is the greatest fun~”
Mo Tan, lying back in the game pod, chuckled softly to the air before closing his eyes, “Don’t disappoint me~~~”
“Your mental connection has been detected.
Synchronizing personal information…”
“Connection complete.
Reading character information.”
“Welcome back, chaotic neutral Tan Mo.
Loading Innocent World.
Good night.”
…
Chapter Eight: End