Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

The vast tide of data began to recede, and the waves made of 0s and 1s repeatedly crashed on the beach. The binary numbers embedded in the sand flickered continuously. Eventually, two figures sat up on the beach.

”This is my virtual machine in Cyber Space. It can track the IPs of most data nodes, you—what the hell!!!”

Ahong turned his head and saw an Unparalleled Shota lazily watching the sun on the beach, with thin lips, a high nose bridge, inviting apple cheeks, and eyes as clear as spring water.

Ahong’s heart pounded twice intensely.

’You’re already a married person, and the other person is a man!’

Ahong forcefully turned his gaze away, his face slightly flushed, saying, ”Your appearance has changed so much!”

When normal people log into the Cyber Network, due to the decomposition and reorganization of Consciousness, both appearance and personality undergo significant changes. But to transform from a hunk to a Shota in one go, this was indeed the first time Ahong had seen it.

Gao Gong ignored him and said, ”Find the Data Concept Body, and you can take your pink-haired girl and run away, so stop with all the questions and get to work.”

Ahong rolled his eyes, moved a virtual command, and the next moment, the beach vanished, replaced by a ’cyber cafe.’

In front of every computer in the ’cyber cafe,’ there sat an ’Ahong,’ fingers frantically tapping on the keyboards.

”To think it’s establishing a backdoor account, it’s been so long since I saw such an ancient hacker technique. Your master must be an old-school hacker.”

Today’s hackers prefer direct brain intrusion.

”If you’re bored, you can find a computer to start up. My master stored at least 100TB of ancient games and tens of thousands of ancient movies.”

”Where’s your master now?”

”I don’t know.”

”You don’t know?”

”The old man disappeared ever since he started rambling about some kind of ’Electronic Ascension.’ We, my senior sister, senior brother, and I, all think either the old man got his personality messed up by a virtual virus, or he failed to build a Local Area Network and got lost in data turbulence.”

”Electronic Ascension?”

Electronic Ascension is surely not an essential Civilization Ascension, probably some method of mastering Big Data.

”You also have a senior brother and sister?”

”The senior sister, the second senior brother, and I make three.”

”That’s truly unique.”

Typically, hackers pass down their skills singularly, rarely taking on three apprentices. Many old hackers even directly copy part of their personality to create an Artificial Intelligence.

’Where are your senior brother and sister?’

”Senior brother went to the Mother City, and senior sister—” Ahong hesitated, ”joined the Rebel Army.”

”Tsk, mutually Deadly Enemies, a melodramatic plot,” Gao Gong said lazily, suddenly making a slight sound.

”Your senior sister’s hacker codename isn’t Paradise Bird, by any chance, is it?”

This time it was Ahong’s turn to be astonished, as the entire cyber cafe, hundreds of Ahongs simultaneously raised their heads.

”How do you know!?”

”Not telling you.”

Gao Gong shrugged. As one of the 11 most renowned hackers of the future, who caused the fall of Arasaka Tower and severely damaged the Deep Net, how could he not have heard of it?

The fall of Arasaka Tower was a signature event in the mid-phase of Mechanical Split Star, representing the Mother City losing control over Cyber Space.

To be honest, a significant part of his decision to switch careers to Cyber Hacker was to participate in this storyline.

The Mother City and the Cyber Tide, resembling two gigantic entities on a collision course.

Only by precisely jumping onto each wave could one avoid being crushed to pieces by the enormous wave.

’Who knew there’d be unexpected delights.’

The Unparalleled Shota chuckled, appearing super cute and adorable.

”Introduce your senior sister to me sometime.”

Ahong rolled his eyes, ”Wishful thinking, senior sister hasn’t contacted me for nearly ten years.”

The passage of time in the virtual machine can be adjusted, related to a Cyber Hacker’s technical level, and is also limited by the Neural System.

According to Ahong, the time ratio of this virtual machine to real time is 10:1, meaning 10 hours in the virtual machine equates to just one in reality.

After watching ten full ancient movies, Gao Gong didn’t even fast-forward, when Ahong’s voice finally sounded again, with some hesitation in his tone.

”Found one, but it’s not a safe data node.”

”Not safe, how so?”

”It’s a Virus City.”

In the Cyber Network, data nodes are like islands on the ocean, used for hosting AI, hackers, and Cyber Race.

But not every data node is safe.

The safest are naturally the data havens of large corporations.

However, large corporations’ territories are often not open to the public.

Publicly accessible data nodes are sometimes a cloud server, a real-world Local Area Network, or a virtual network community.

None of them are particularly safe.

After all, truly secure places are impenetrable even by Cyber Hackers.

But data nodes truly considered dangerous are ventures even hackers dare not tread lightly.

For they are filled with all kinds of network viruses.

These viruses are ancient computer viruses, erroneous codes in brain servers, AI with shattered personalities, or even destructive Neural Signals.

In short, a wild dance of grotesque figures.

These red data nodes are known by a nickname—Virus City.

”Are you sure there’s a Big Data Monster there?”

”Confirmed; the underlying framework of that data node has changed.”

”Then that’s it.”

The Data Concept Body, Big Data Monster, is something difficult for people to understand.

Simply put, it’s like Google, like Baidu, like a matured Penguin.

Because the Cyber Network doesn’t use binary data but Sensory Data, the immense data flow entering and exiting through network portals year after year naturally anthropomorphize these search engines and chat tools, becoming super monsters somewhere between AI and viruses.

Why can Big Data Monsters achieve ’Data Enlightenment’? Because they themselves are existences born from countless Data Enlightenments.

”Let’s go.”

”You sure?”

”Of course.”

Ahong shrugged without further comment.

In the Cyber Hacker community, there are withdrawn children, madmen, freaks, anti-humanists, but there are certainly no cowards.

The hundreds of Ahongs fused into one, the cyber cafe vanished, and a white door appeared.

The door opened; a massive data flow covered the virtual machine, the screen switched, and the virtual machine disappeared.

Their foothold vanished. They plummeted directly from the atmosphere, turbulent data clouds swirling around them, the data redundancy forming a fierce whistling wind.

”Damn, the system virus has corrupted the underlying structure of this data node!” Ahong exclaimed.

”Knew you weren’t reliable!”

Gao Gong grabbed with both hands, where he caught, large amounts of 0s and 1s emerged.

[User data lost]

[User data lost]

[User data lost]

[User data lost]