Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 309: Chapter 82: Paradise Bird

One by one, projections appeared, and one by one, incredibly beautiful men and women appeared on the screen, nodding and smiling at the audience in front of the screen.

Some of them were as beautiful as angels with long white hair, some had handsome features and a demeanor like ancient art sculptures, and some looked like ’Gandalf’, smiling kindly at the audience.

[You were hit by ’Captive Aura’, determining willpower—]

[You were hit by ’Love Vision’, determining willpower—]

[You were hit by ’Advanced Gene Subduing’, determining willpower—]

[You were hit by ’Bloodline Dominance’, determining willpower—]

Goodness, over a dozen Cloud Nobility gave Gao Gong more than twenty negative statuses, but fortunately, as long as your willpower is over 50, all those negative statuses would fail.

These people waved their hands below, and the scene immediately erupted in waves of cheers.

Gao Gong raised an eyebrow and looked at Ahong and Aidolu on the sofa, ”You guys sure arrived uninvited.”

”Master, Little A was bound by the source code with chains by several idol sisters, unable to stop intruders.”

Little A’s voice carried a tinge of grievance.

”Hey, you haven’t even established your basic AI framework, is it that you haven’t thought it through or you’re just not competent? I can give you a few unused plans of mine, but of course, it’ll cost extra!”

Ahong’s voice was filled with arrogance.

A silver-white illusory handgun appeared in Gao Gong’s palm, with a flick of his hand, a programming bullet penetrated layers of data streams, hitting the execution program of a certain locking software, right as it was generating code, instantly liberating Little A.

The next moment, dozens of hidden gun barrels emerged from the walls, floor, and ceiling, with some even emitting radiant energy beams.

As Gao Gong’s temporary stronghold, it was impossible for him not to make thorough preparations.

Seeing the glowing gun barrels, Ahong could no longer keep his arrogance, jumping up and shouting, ”Hey, hey, hey, are you kidding me, you still owe me a million from last time, and now you’re using me as free labor, and even pointing a gun at me, threatening me, not even PUA players are this ruthless!”

”Isn’t this how idols develop fans? Do you doubt, just ask the one next to you.”

Aidolu nodded in agreement: ”Inducing obsession with malware, using mind-relieving viruses, embedding false self-identity software into handshake rolls, that’s how the company operated when I was an underground idol.”

”Those underground idols who don’t do this are either selling their bodies or selling their blood now.”

Ahong’s mouth gaped open, so when we first met, you were already brainwashing me?

I am a Cyber Hacker, after all!

”Back to business, what are you here for exactly, and let me clarify, if you want me to develop pretty girl servers, I don’t have time recently.”

Seeing Aidolu’s suspicious gaze and the crackling electric sparks, Ahong quickly changed the topic.

”Two things, first, the ’Decipherer Community’ invites you to become one of us.”

”Decipherer Community?”

Gao Gong snapped his fingers, and the gun barrels retracted into the walls, while a household mechanical arm reached out, grabbed a wine bottle, a shaker, and an ice hammer from the wall cabinet, and started making him a drink.

According to Ahong, hacker organizations on the Dark Net generally fall into two categories, one is the troublemaker type, with a typical example being the Holy City Organization, the other is the open-source or forum type organizations, which explore and exchange cutting-edge hacking technology.

And it’s the existence of such organizations that serve as the keystones ensuring the continual advancement and iteration of hacker technology.

’Decipherer Community’ is such a virtual community, where they focus their research direction on programming technology.

”The old man was the founder of this forum, he created it with several experts, then the old man committed suicide, Senior Sister established her own, as for Second Senior Brother, don’t even mention him, so the founder account ended up with me.”

”And only founders can invite others.”

Ahong was being so courteous to Gao Gong not because he was facing dozens of gun barrels, nor did he fear Gao Gong would report him.

The main reason was, he suspected that Gao Gong was a reincarnated code monster, and such monsters are each a treasure trove, even a little spill between the fingers is enough to feed ordinary hackers well.

That’s the true reason he was so accommodating.

”A hacker organization, huh? Sure,” Gao Gong agreed without hesitation, in the future, he would rely on these hackers to search the world for professional knowledge for him.

”Then it’s settled, but every new member of the ’Decipherer Forum’ must be vetted by other founders, I believe it’ll be no problem for you.”

”Of course!”

Not just this planet, but throughout this star system, no one could match him in coding skills, and Gao Gong was absolutely confident about this.

”What’s the other matter?”

Ahong raised his chin toward the holographic TV, his tone becoming more serious: ”I received information that my Senior Sister will be appearing in this round of ’Escapee Game’.

”Your Senior Sister, Paradise Bird, right.”

He had dealings with this second senior brother, a Level 40 King of Hackers, capable of calculating the official power of the ’Big Data Monster’.

And since this is the senior sister, her level must be no less, not to mention Paradise Bird, one of the ’11 Arhats’ who brought down Arasaka Tower. While not the main character of the planet, she is still an important plot character in a certain major version.

Gao Gong was quite interested in her actions.

So Gao Gong gave up on going online and instead picked up a glass of whiskey, focusing on the show with the two of them.

Facts proved that as a globally popular tournament show, this ’Escapee Game’ was popular for a reason.

Each colony sent a strong contestant; super genetic slaves, mechanical rebels, bloodline natives, and even mutated monsters.

Every participant was at Level 30, each representing a different professional system.

Putting these strong participants in a dangerous environment, with intrigue and bloodshed, was more thrilling than watching a holographic 3D blockbuster.

The revival of this ancient entertainment form owes much to these strong individuals.

Gao Gong’s focus was on two points: one was the previous champion, a Body Knight named ’Kui’, who was fully mechanically transformed, reaching five meters in height, with energy vents reaching three-digit numbers, even more exaggerated than Demon Mountain.

The other was an ordinary Gene Guy, who looked out of place among a group of fierce strong participants.

This number 3 clone was the one who smuggled over with Gao Gong back then, and as the final winner of the ’Rivalry of the Aristocratic Families’, obtained a ticket to this global show.

The current number 3 was different from the one in Gao Gong’s memory. From the perspective of the Prosthetic Doctor, there were over a dozen hidden transformations on his body: poison needles, finger guns, invisibility skin, and an insightful prosthetic eye.

His entire demeanor had changed too, with an uncomfortable fake smile on his face and eyes like a venomous snake lurking in the dark. It’s said that in the later stages of the previous season, participants had to unknowingly eliminate their ’biological parents’, the ’sister’ they grew up with, and the ’uncle’ who treated them like their own, in order to reach the top. There were also said to be hidden adult-themed programs.

Upon learning that it was all just a performance for an audience of millions, the winners’ expressions would be quite spectacular.

Many victors had a mental breakdown at this stage.

And those who didn’t, their humanity was nearly twisted beyond recognition.

Number 3 was the second kind.

The preliminary round was in a Genetic Beast Arena, where the genetic clone beasts were all mutants, deformed through countless biochemical experiments.

Participants not only had to deal with them but also find antidotes in various biochemical laboratories, because if they didn’t find them in time, they would mutate themselves.

Correspondingly, each mutation granted them tremendous power. From Gao Gong’s perspective, these biochemical reagents were all products of Level 6 and above biochemical blueprints, though they were all deficient versions.

How to kill monsters, prevent oneself from becoming a monster, stop opponents from becoming monsters, prevent opponents from turning oneself into a monster...

It truly was a very interesting game—from a spectator’s perspective.

For Ahong, however, his focus was not on the Escapee Game itself but on finding his senior sister.

The female contestants he was paying attention to had no trace of his senior sister.

He understood his senior sister’s habits very well.

Other cyber hackers would want to be as far away from the crime scene as possible, preferably not on the same continent, or even on the other side of the planet.

But the senior sister was an exception.

She loved to personally ’hack into the scene’, according to her, it allowed her to fully enjoy her creations.

If the senior sister’s personality hadn’t changed drastically, if she really planned to cause trouble in the ’Escapee Game’,

then playing as a female contestant was quite a possibility.

...

Seeing Gao Gong and Aidolu seriously discussing who would win, Ahong was quite helpless.

Hackers are lone wolves; it’s hard to meet a peer-level expert. More difficult is the other’s willingness to help rather than secretly plant a backdoor in your head.

The few experts who ran forums were all old foxes. If they knew senior sister was opposing Mother City, they would flee as far as they could.

So Ahong could only seek help from someone like Gao Gong, who seemed like an old monster.

The show lasted a full three hours, with 24 contestants, only 12 successfully advancing to the next round where the number would become six.

As the opening ceremony of the 11th ’Escapee Game’, the preliminary winners would have an award ceremony, presented by big figures. This time, the guest of honor was Mr. Chuang, a top artificial intelligence, a super player in the financial world, capable of operating a million accounts simultaneously, with various leverages and hedges, one of the few who could suppress monopolistic companies’ stocks and thrive among major corporations.

”If I were your senior sister, now would be the time to make a move,” Gao Gong said suddenly.

Ahong froze, his consciousness instantly focusing. In the holographic projection, Mr. Chuang was awarding number 3, who was missing a leg, with strange red spots all over his face, arms, and neck.

After patting number 3 on the shoulder, Mr. Chuang revealed a peculiar smile, his head suddenly rotating 180 degrees to face the screen.

The next moment, both Gao Gong and Ahong felt a special type of virus crawling through the holographic projection, invading their human brains.