The Programmer Cultivator

”But that’s still quite a distance from here. There’s no way the margin of error could be this large.”

At that moment, Li Shifan spoke with a knowing look. ”If I’m not mistaken, that’s not it. The place we came out of was Water Attribute in style. Mission Point One, built entirely of Fire-Warming Rock, is clearly Fire Attribute.

”Considering our previous experience, if I’m right, the two locations marked for this mission were likely the outer bridgeheads of the Five Elements Blessed Land back in the day.

”It’s just that their structure is different from our Sect. Unlike our Sect, where all the peaks are clustered together, theirs was divided into five regions, each led by one of the five Noble Families or something similar, and they were all spread out.”

Tong Hou and Feng Mingyou both nodded in unison. ”Painted Sword’s guess is highly probable. After all, the mission prompt also mentions exploring the ruins of the Five Elements Remnants.”

Nangong Cheng’s brow furrowed. Although he had made many preparations, he still knew little about the Five Elements Blessed Land.

After all, Huayue City was a new power that had only risen in the last few hundred years, not even reaching the threshold of a thousand-year-old Noble Family. It was inevitable that their intelligence would be lacking.

”Let’s go. By the looks of it, this location, if there are no surprises, is on one of the surrounding mountain peaks. Based on what happened before, there’s probably a massive but not particularly strong Hidden Breath Array here.

”It would be easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention, but knowing this beforehand actually makes finding it a bit simpler,” Zhang Deming said, looking at the others.

Everyone nodded. Knowing there was a weak Hidden Breath Array made it much easier to specifically search the mountain range for anomalies in Spiritual Power.

Thus, Spiritual Light flickered in the eyes of the five as they fanned out and began to search the surroundings. A moment later, Li Shifan stopped and called out, ”Everyone, over here!”

Hearing his call, the others all moved toward Li Shifan.

When they reached him, they found themselves before a huge mountain peak that looked no different from the ones around it.

But under the scrutiny of their Spiritual Eyes, the Spiritual Power here was clearly abnormal—or rather, it was operating with a distinct pattern. In a place like this, a pattern often signified an anomaly, a sign of artificial traces.

The group drew closer. Li Shifan had already stopped in front of the Hidden Breath Array, planning to pass through and take a look.

”BEEP BEEP...”

As Zhang Deming arrived, he paused, slightly stunned. In the sky of his Spirit Nurturing Space, Surveillance Elf 1.3, which had been completely quiet, suddenly started beeping, its red light flashing incessantly.

Zhang Deming instantly focused his Heart Spirit inward and saw the scene, momentarily dazed. ’Is this... a notification?’

’The initial framework for the Surveillance Elf wasn’t something I coded from scratch, bit by bit.’

’Without any tools or a pre-existing framework, building one from the ground up would be like creating an entire network from nothing. My skills in my past life were decent, but I was definitely not some god-tier programmer who could code an OS from scratch while running naked.’

’The initial framework for this Surveillance Elf was one I scavenged from an AI’s auxiliary module that I had picked up back then.’

’Although I ended up modifying it so heavily that it became a completely different thing, it’s true that the original skeleton was from that module.’

’It’s like building a house. The style and construction might be different, but I didn’t start by firing the bricks and tiles from scratch myself.’

’The bricks and tiles were things I had scrounged from others, or picked up, or bought—you get the idea.’

’I didn’t reinvent the entire discipline of architecture from some primitive society.’

’I simply used existing materials and knowledge within a ready-made industrial system to build a new house myself.’

’Overall, the two houses might be completely different things—say, a Western-style mansion versus a traditional courtyard home—but the fundamental components haven’t changed.’

’This analogy might not be perfect, but that’s the core idea.’

’Back when I was scavenging this framework, I specifically noticed a line of core operational code. A simplified version went something like this:’

’{

if (disconnected from host)

{then, call recursive_connection_module_api, begin connection loop;}

else {then, run under host control;}

}’

’This piece of code originally ensured that the AI’s subordinate modules could only function under the main AI, thereby guaranteeing the AI’s absolute authority.’

’But after I saw this, I didn’t just snip it out. Instead, I modified it, turning it into a real-time monitoring function.’

’It still constantly checks for the host, but instead of trying to connect, it alerts me the moment it detects one.’

’In other words, I had used this connection interface and reverse-engineered it into a constant monitor.’

’After I finished, I put that little sphere in a storage room, but the Surveillance Elf in the Spirit Nurturing Space was built from this blueprint.’

’So, besides the functions I designed, the Surveillance Elf also had this constant monitoring feature.’

’Originally, seeing an interface like that, I had casually created a backdoor out of sheer professional habit as a programmer.’

’After all, for a senior programmer who has access to an interface, failing to leave a backdoor in the system would make one an unqualified programmer. Or at least, not an ’excellent’ software engineer—the kind of person who would probably remain a code monkey for life.’

’Hmm... since it was just a monitoring interface, it only counted as half a backdoor. To think that this half-a-backdoor, which I had almost forgotten about, would suddenly sound an alarm today.’