Chapter 717: Chapter 242: Research
’I can’t believe this game can AFK, 666!’
After completing the task, Brother Glasses immediately went to the forum to post.
In short, he triggered a powerful ’hacker NPC’, extremely terrifying strength, a military base, thousands of cameras, were all hacked by him in an instant.
And this Tier 2 invasion mission was also completed very smoothly under the light micro-operation of this NPC boss.
Brother Glasses was basically just a bystander all the way.
Following his post, there were also a series of posts related to ’hiring hackers.’
However, the tone was not entirely appreciative.
’Damn, the hacker I hired actually implanted over 20 kinds of electronic viruses into my body and then threw me into a pile of enemies, real human virus transmission!’
’666, my boss directly ignored me, went off to complete the mission by himself, and then—I freeloaded a mission reward?’
’Crap, I got killed by this NPC just because of one sentence, @GM, there’s a bug in this game!’
’I was taken as a disciple by a hacker, but the cost is I have to kill my parents, wife, and children to complete personality advancement, this guy is kind of crazy.’
’Where did you get parents, wife, and children from?’
’Yeah, so I’m sincerely recruiting companions to play dad, mom, wife, son, 10,000 Mechanical Points each!’
’I don’t want 10,000 points, give me 8,000, and I’ll play your dad for free.’
’Upstairs, playing daddy requires being sacrificed.’
’No worries, I’ve already died once, my gear exploded, so dying again doesn’t matter.’
’Someone save me, the hacker I hired somehow created my second personality, third personality, now there are three "me"s fighting in my head every day!’
’Which personality are you?’
’Duh, I’m posting offline, what do you think I am?’
’I think you’re the fifth personality.’
Most players are excited about easily hiring advanced NPCs, considering it an alliance benefit.
A considerable number of players, though, didn’t die in the mission but were directly done in by these hackers, causing an immediate mental breakdown and a forum rant.
Of course, there are also some players who believe this is normal, that being able to easily recruit advanced NPCs is against game balance, so it’s like opening a mystery box.
If you’re unlucky and get a grumpy elder brother, you can’t blame anyone.
Despite the forum uproar, the 200 hacker slots were still completely emptied the next day.
...
Meanwhile, a few old acquaintances gathered under Baozi’s call, arrived at the previous ’Prosthetic Repair Branch’.
"Our Baozi is really getting rich, I even saw his ads on the Other Shore of Freedom, he must be loaded now."
A female player wearing a hood joked, inside her robe, it seemed something was flowing.
"Sister Ji, we haven’t seen each other in a long time!" PP-head was full of excitement.
Sister Ji skillfully patted the cheek of PP-head, making the other’s face red, chuckling, "Long time no see, little girl is still as cute as ever, I heard you reached the Second Transformation, now in Mother City?"
"Yeah! I’m in the Ghost in the Shell Mobile Division of Mother City, completed a really tough mission chain to get into that official department, finally shook off 007."
"What’s your department do?" Sister Ji asked curiously.
"Investigate 007!" PP-head showed a face of sweet revenge.
"That Baozi, he’s supposedly the one in charge, why isn’t he here yet?"
Sister Ji glanced at the clock, seeing it’s been over ten minutes, with dissatisfaction, then lifted her hood.
What PP-head was about to say suddenly got stuck, eyes widening, stammering, "Sister Ji, what, what’s your current state?"
Presented in front of her was a face made of silk thread, not only that, the curvaceous body was also composed of thousands of threads, feeling both sexy, dangerous, and eerie.
The eyes crafted from silk threads were smiling at the round-faced girl, about to tease her when another voice interrupted.
"Human experiment, forbidden transformation, a form of life change."
The voice continued:
"If I’m not wrong, in your body’s eight systems, a few should be missing, but there should also be some new ones."
"Sister Ji, what are you missing?" PP-head blinked and asked.
"Well, the Reproductive System can’t be missing, my dream of sleeping with hunks from across the universe hasn’t been achieved yet."
Sister Ji turned, looking at the sullen man sitting in the corner, scanning him up and down, sensing a familiar twisted vibe from him.
"You look kind of familiar, what’s your name?"
"’I Always Love Zhang Aiping,’ former Business Investigator, now a member of the Memory Supervision Department in the Six Ministries," ’Zhang’ looked at PP-head.
"Consider me half a colleague of yours."
"Huh?"
PP-head was taken aback, then out of nowhere asked: "Who’s Zhang Aiping?"
"A dear friend of mine."
"Interesting, I didn’t expect there to be two Mother City employees among us players," Sister Ji rubbed her chin with a peculiar smile, ambiguously meaningful.
"Don’t worry, handling forbidden experiments belongs to the Humanity Experiment Department, nothing to do with my department of Memory Supervision."
Zhang said flatly.
The three people present were all considered high-end players, and they took completely different routes to get there.
This also seemed to hint at a trend.
After Tier 2, to get more advanced transformations and equipment, either you follow the route of the Mother City, or you take the route of being wanted by the Mother City.
"Everyone’s here!"
The door was pushed open, and "I Love Eating Buns" entered with a big smile, not sure what good thing happened, but his face was full of joyful creases.
"Baozi, you’re late!" Sister Ji said dissatisfied.
Although they were scattered far and wide, the original small group of players never broke contact, and every day many counterfeits were busy goofing off in the group chat rather than playing the game.
Especially Sister Ji’s "NSFW group chat," which was always bustling due to its daily spread of uplifting content.
"Sorry, sorry, I was doing a hidden mission and earned a very special ’weapon’, which took some time."
Baozi clasped his hands in apology.
"Then please continue."
Sister Ji didn’t hold back and casually sat in the boss chair of the opposite side, her lower body’s silk threads leaving scars on the ’High-grade Leather’, which made Baozi’s eye twitch hard.
"Sister Ji, you... never mind, let’s get straight to the point."
Baozi paused for a moment and said:
"The content of this mission, as I’ve mentioned before, is simply to infiltrate the ’Assassination Alliance Headquarters’, disrupt that Destiny Weaving Machine, and break Brother Umbrella out of his current weird state."
"And the reason for inviting you, apart from us being old acquaintances, is a very important one—you all count as half ’Information System’ members."
pp hesitated for a moment: "What’s the ’Information System’?"
Baozi coughed dryly and explained:
"According to the news I’ve gathered, this game universe will be extremely large, with many professions, but however many there are, they will all divide into four systems: Carbon-based, Mechanical, Information, and Energy."
"On the Mechanical Split Star, ninety-nine percent of the professions are Carbon-Based and Mechanical, like Transformers, Biological Experimenters, Corporate Knights, they’re more or less the same."
"But when it comes to the ’Information Level’, these people are basically as good as useless."
"Only Information System members can fight against the Information System. I suspect Brother Umbrella became like that due to some kind of ’Advanced Information’ contamination."
"Then how do you confirm we are part of the Information System?" pp asked curiously.
"It’s simple, when you undergo Second Transformation, an option box will pop up, Civilization + Profession."
Baozi explained:
"If your certain civilization is Transformer Civilization, then there’s no hope; if it’s Artificial Data Space, then yes; if it’s Brain Domain Civilization, there’s a small chance."
"Brother Baozi, you know a lot," pp admired.
"Being a businessman, I have to be well-informed."
"Artificial Data Space, how come I’ve never heard of such a term?" Sister Ji asked.
"That’s because such professions are very, very rare, they basically only existed in ’Cyber Space’, and now that Cyber Space is gone, I suspect part of the reason is that such ’professions’ were too strong, and the system intentionally adjusted for balance," Baozi said mysteriously.
"Our last teammate is a genuine ’AI’. I spent quite a bit to invite her; she has some matters to attend to, and will join us once the mission starts."
"What should we do now?" Sister Ji asked, "How about we go see Little Umbrella? I haven’t seen that guy in a long time."
Baozi rolled his eyes:
"Did you even listen to what I said earlier? Brother Umbrella can’t log in during the day, alright."
"Then should we go shopping?" pp suggested.
"Forget shopping, I’ll get you guys some equipment," Baozi’s eyes flashed a look of pain, "The alliance I’m in recently got a batch of new gear, I’ll gear you guys up."
Sister Ji was instantly impressed:
"Three days without seeing you, and you surprise me with your generosity, Baozi!"
"I’m very magnanimous, alright," Baozi rolled his eyes again, quickly adding, "But just so you know, it’s just a loan during the mission, you’ll have to return it after."
The two women immediately rolled their eyes back.
Baozi is still Baozi, after all.
...
"Looks like this trick is working pretty well."
In the Research Association, after seeing the report from his subordinates, Gao Gong nodded with satisfaction.
Letting these hackers mess around outside is certainly better than having their energy bottled up with nowhere to vent.
Ahong and Paradise Bird both let out a sigh of relief.
Among hackers, the most-wanted rankings may certainly be a reflection of strength, but to say the top-ranked can always hack those ranked lower, that’s just not the case at all.
They’re all just ticking time bombs.
Beside Gao Gong, Gao Yuanyuan was massaging his shoulder, curiously asking: "Brother, you called me over for something?"
"There is something I need you major hackers to take a look at."
Gao Gong flicked his wrist, revealing a ’plaque’; on the cover, it was a sheet of pure white snowflake spots.
The so-called ’Avalanche’ ’Pleasure Software’.
