Star Rank Hunter

“Like you didn’t already know.” Guan Feng grumbled.

Cillin knew that the robot would report this to Guan Feng. Why else would it divulge everything it knew without hesitation? It was because Teacher Guan saw everything.

“How’s the situation now?” Cillin asked. The robot was only here to keep an eye on the nobles of the eleventh star region. There were a lot of important details that it didn’t know.

“The situation isn’t very good.” Guan Feng sighed. “Is it your bad luck, or mine? I can’t believe you had to deal with this right after your takeover.”

Cillin stayed silent and waited for Guan Feng to continue, but this was exactly the reaction Guan Feng didn’t wish to see. He understood how stubborn Cillin could be when his mind was set on one course. If he wished to turn his neck to one side, no one could force him to look the other way.

Although the management of the RAS and the higher-ups of the empire had been keeping a tight lid on things, it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose. If the situation got out of control, and they weren’t able to create a vaccine or even come up with an effective countermeasure by then, it wouldn’t be good.

Although Guan Feng wasn’t affiliated with the Institute of Virology, he was one of the management members of the RAS. A couple of meetings had taken place since the virus outbreak, and Cillin only needed to look at the fatigue on Guan Feng’s face to know that the situation wasn’t looking good.

“Cillin, don’t get involved in this. Just leave the virus to the pros in the RAS and Black Viper. We have the manpower, and you don’t have to get involved in this. Even if you must, you shouldn’t be on the front lines.” Guang Feng didn’t sound worried, but his voice was definitely heavy.

Instead of replying directly, Cillin deflected with another question. “What is that substance?”

Guan Feng wiped his hand over his face. “Man, you’re one stubborn boy.”

Both sides fell silent for a moment. Finally, Guan Feng said, “Just think on it a little longer, will you? The virus hasn’t spread beyond the eleventh star region yet. It’s too early for you to join in. You may as well focus on whatever it is you’re doing right now.”

“Okay.”

Guan Feng looked at Cillin in astonishment. He wasn’t expecting the boy to agree so quickly, and it didn’t look like he was lying to his face. After that, he bid Cillin goodbye after a short conversation. He had another meeting to attend—it was basically the only thing the RAS management knew to do. He had no idea what was the point of it. They weren’t the ones who were practicing, and there hadn’t been any breakthrough so far. It was literal torture to him to pretend that he was busy!

Even his acting skill was slipping as of late. He just couldn’t bear to fake geniality any longer. He might not be a professional in this area, but he wasn’t ignorant to the deadly threat it represented. The meeting yesterday had involved the emperor’s special department and the RAS management. After a lengthy discussion, they had agreed to carry out the termination procedure if the virus were to spread beyond the eleventh star region. Unlike the old Black Viper’s territory, it wouldn’t be a temporary termination. They would wipe out all the infected planets from the surface of the universe.

It wouldn’t just be one planet if it came to that point. There were at least hundreds of planets in the eleventh star region, and some of them possessed ancient civilizations and important cultural heritages. Unless the empire had no other choice, they wouldn’t permit such a thing to happen no matter what.

Cillin stood outside the wedding venue for a moment after ending his call with Guan Feng. The wedding was going greatly, and the middle to upper nobles were doing their best to increase their presence and attract the eyes around them. But if even one of them was infected by the Zebra Virus, the entire planet would become compromised.

For now, catching the Zebra Virus meant catching a date with death. All the medicine and healing technology in the world could only delay the inevitable.

The Zebra Virus was highly infectious, incredibly deadly, and very mutagenic. They were all incredibly difficult hurdles to overcome.

There were already plenty of one-track minded people in the RAS, and Black Viper only doubly so. One only needed to look at Neo to know that. Their chances of catching an infection could only be worse than the RAS.

Thinking, Cillin turned on his communicator and tried to call Neo. Neo had told him all the numbers he possessed, and he was sure that that stubborn mule wouldn’t miss the opportunity to research the Zebra Virus.

“Cillin, look! The bride almost tripped on her dress!” Wheeze stood on its hind legs to share a comedious moment with Cillin.

Wheeze was a half-cyborg. It was no trouble for a walking camera like it to capture and replay the scene.

Cillin pinched Wheeze by the ear when he saw the replay. He asked, “What did you do?”

Wheeze looked away as its whiskers shook nervously. “Nothing.”

“Cut the act. Is it just me, or are you getting naughtier and naughtier lately?”

“I am not!! That is framing!”

“What you’re trying to say is slander. But perfect timing. Help me get Neo on the line, will you? Black Viper would probably try to disrupt my call attempts, so I want you to preserve the signal.”

Wheeze glared at him. “Didn’t you promise Guan Feng not to get involved and focus on your own business? Why are you calling Neo?!”

Although Wheeze had caused a little trouble for the bride and the groom, it was also paying attention to Cillin’s conversation with Guan Feng. So when it heard Cillin promising Guan Feng to focus on his own business, it was so happy that it raised the lift beneath the bride before dropping it back down quickly. That was how the bride nearly tripped on her feet.

“I promised to focus on my own things, but I never said I won’t get involved in this.”

“You liar! All liars reincarnate as feces in their next life!”

Cillin pinched the gray cat’s cheek. “What kind of nonsense are you watching again? Never mind, I can do this myself.”

Although Wheeze was angry, it ultimately helped Cillin to contact Neo. After all, it was faster this way.

Cillin looked around him before finding a secluded place to contact Neo.

Cillin felt his heart sank the moment Neo’s image appeared on the screen. The man was wearing a protective suit, but the transparent face mask couldn’t hide the stripes on the wearer’s face.

Neo was currently working in a lab in an isolated zone belonging to Black Viper.

“Speak quickly if you have anything, Cillin. I still got things to do! This zebra’s a feisty one!”

Neo didn’t sound depressed in the slightest despite having been infected. In fact, he looked like he was brimming with energy.

“When did you catch the Zebra Virus?” Cillin asked.

“Ten days or so. But I found a drug that can relieve the symptoms.”

Relief was just that, relief. It wouldn’t cure the virus. If an effective medicine wasn’t created soon, Neo would die for sure.

“How do you feel right now?” Cillin had read some of the patient reports. He knew that it couldn’t be comfortable.

Neo immediately started rambling understandingly, “Fuck the uncles and aunties, man! I can tell you I feel incredibly uncomfortable. Do you see these stripes?” Neo pointed at the green and gray stripes on his face. It was one of the many variants of the Zebra Virus. “They’re still quite faint, but I can already feel some of my muscle cells cunningly sowing discord inside my body! Some of them are like a couple screaming at each other for a breakup, while the others are like one step away from fucking each other!”

Cillin: “...”

He had no idea what the hell Neo was thinking sometimes. Who talks like this after they were infected by the Zebra Virus? He was as simple and stubborn as a fool sometimes.

Neo was treating this as a different form of battlefield, a battlefield between himself and the virus. Of course, he knew that the price of defeat was death, it was just that his own survival mattered less than researching the virus. Only people like him could maintain such an amazing spirit despite the situation they were in. Had he been recruited into the RAS instead, Cillin didn’t know if he could still maintain his passion for academics.

Cillin asked Neo to tell him everything he knew about at this stage, and Neo did exactly that. He told him everything about his current research progress and also picked Cillin’s brain for ideas. Just like most people who were researching the virus, they agreed that the original virus was where the key to success lay.

“It probably won’t be easy to find one though,” Cillin replied after hearing Neo’s analysis.

“Of course I know that! I made a brief calculation and concluded that, at the rate of this ‘zebra’ is mutating, the chances we’ll find a virus that still maintained its original form is less than one in a billion. In my opinion, the original virus is long gone, and even the first variants won’t exist much longer. Ten more days, and more than half the first variants will undergo a mutation and make the task of obtaining first variant samples much harder.”

“So?”

“So, I’m trying to find the model of the original virus another way!” Neo’s said with a pleased expression and shining eyes. “I’ve already recreated a model tenth of virus’ original structure from the experiment results thus far. Although I can’t verify the model’s accuracy yet, that would change once three-tenth of the model is complete!”

Recreating a virus’ original model took a massive amount of calculation. Even if they had the latest, most powerful calculator in the world, nothing could be calculated without data, which could only be obtained through human observation and deduction. Moreover, some of the parameters could only be obtained through experiments before they were fed into the machines.

“How long will it take to create three-tenth of the model?” Cillin asked.

“At the current rate the experiments are progressing, it’ll be done in roughly 332.16 days.”

Cillin: “...” God would be seeing you by then.

“Didn’t Black Viper send you any assistant? There are also others who can help you research the virus, right? I’m sure there are a lot of people in Black Viper who are doing the same thing.”

“Nah, that won’t work. I don’t trust them, and their brains are totally different from mine. Yesterday, there was a dude who suggested using atomic swap to carry out the bond recovery hypothesis. It was the first time I met someone who took a donkey kick to the head…”

Cillin: “...”

Cillin felt like tearing his hair out as Neo continued with his rant. The problem with Black Viper’s experts was that they were incredibly difficult to deal with. They were as genius as they were stubborn, and most of the time they were completely impervious to other people’s viewpoints. If a slap could snap them to their senses, Cillin would’ve done so already.

Neo went back to his experiments after his talk with Cillin. Judging from his current plans and arrangements, his experiments would continue for a very, very, very long time.

Cillin felt like a rock was sitting inside him after breaking off the call. No matter how many times he exhaled, it just wouldn’t get unstuck from his chest.

“Cillin?” Wheeze poked Cillin once with its paw. “Come back to earth.”

Cillin looked at Wheeze and asked, “Wheeze, can you help me one more time?”

Wheeze scratched Cillin’s pants as its ears pulled backwards. “Please forget about this, okay?” Wheeze just couldn’t not worry after seeing Neo’s face itself.

……

At Black Viper’s heart, Xi Hai was busy working in his own workshop when the data on the main screen started vibrating on their own. The vibration grew more and more rapid as the system blared out an alarm, drawing the attention of Xi Kai and a nearby robot.

“Someone is stealing our data,” The robot said.

If Cillin was nearby, he would notice that this robot was different from all the other robots he had seen. It was similar to Sigma in that it was more aware and human. The frown on its face was the proof of that.

“It’s someone from the inside, or they wouldn’t have access to this system in the first place. They’re stealing everything that’s related to the Zebra Virus.” Xi Kai entered a few commands, but they quickly lost their effectiveness. At this stage, it was impossible to stop the hack unless he shut down all the machines.

One minute later, the data started returning to normal.

“They’re gone. They probably know that we would pick up on such a direct attack. Does that mean they meant for everyone to know about the hack from the beginning?” The robot cocked its head in thought before bringing up a light screen. It hadn’t lifted a finger, but the data on the screen moved in response to the flashes in its eyes.

A while later, the robot stopped working and said in puzzlement, “This person is incredible. No, maybe it’s not even the work of a human.”

“You mean it was a robot who did this?” Xi Kai asked.

“I can’t say. It feels very strange.”

Xi Kai’s communicator rang before he could find out the reason. It was Guan Feng?

“What’s wrong, leader Feng?”

“Just a heads up. I have a feeling that Cillin will try to get what he want by force, so just shut off the machines if you can’t stop him.” Guan Feng sounded quite helpless. He truly didn’t want Cillin to get involved with this mess.

“If you’re talking about the Zebra Virus, then I’m sorry to say that you’re too late. He just openly hacked all the data he wanted from our system.”

Guan Feng: “...”