Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 722: Chapter 247: Brain Mine Hacker

If a battlefield gains one more troublemaker, it becomes extremely disgusting.

Gao Gong, as he said, did not intervene in the war.

He just casually burned several data processing centers when others attacked the ’Research Association’.

Or, when the enemy used some dangerous methods, a few great hackers descended from the sky to chat with the war commanders.

Even when the ’Research Association’ gained the upper hand.

Those supporting super hackers would suddenly go on strike for no apparent reason.

So, not only did the enemy hate him to the teeth, even his own people wanted to push their Chairman into a dung bucket.

The only one who could make both sides despise him, and even make the third party in the Northern Hemisphere want to kick him in the groin, might be Gao Gong.

At this moment, however, Gao Gong wasn’t at the Research Association headquarters, nor did he go to the battlefield to stir up trouble, but appeared in Kowloon Walled City.

This was the Old Town District of New Mechanical City, also where ’I Love Eating Buns’ met ’Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella’.

Beside Gao Gong was a plain-looking woman with a scar on her right cheek.

Paradise Bird.

Not every hacker is a shut-in.

At least this one is an athlete, especially fond of climbing, long-distance running, and ball games.

Among natural persons, her attributes are quite good.

So she has a well-proportioned and fit figure.

”It has been confirmed, the source of ’Avalanche’ is a hacker we recruited.”

Paradise Bird said calmly.

”His avatar operates here in this Walled City.”

”What’s his ranking on the wanted list?”

”He’s not ranked, but his ’mining software’ is quite good, selling well in the ’Brain Mining Circle’, and he’s a professional seller there.”

”Oh.”

Not all cyber hackers are jacks of all trades; some can’t hack into enterprise-level servers to steal commercial secrets nor infiltrate cyber space to create dangerous viruses.

In fact, these ’special forces type’ hackers are the minority.

Those extremely specialized in one ’gray area’, where everything except their strengths are weaknesses, are the norm among cyber hackers.

As for the ’Brain Mining Circle’, it’s somewhat like the ancient ’Bitcoin circle’, but instead of playing with cryptocurrencies, they deal with computational power currency, and they burn brainpower instead of graphics cards.

Hackers in this circle specialize in targeting other people’s brains, treating them as their own ’mining nodes’ to extract computational power, forming ’computational power currency’ through algorithms, and trading it on the black market.

If Gao Gong were a newbie, his brain would have already become a ’mining pool’.

Compared to non-productive ’virtual currency’, ’computational power currency’ is very useful. For instance, some enterprises need to perform special experiments that can’t consume computational power through enterprise servers; or some business spies need ’temporary computational power’ to download some ’gray software’ into their brains, and it’s used as specialized currency for underground transactions.

This is a vast underground market.

However, these ’brain mine hackers’ are considered the lowest on the hacker’s social ladder.

It’s not that they target ordinary people, but they are very close to some ’Corporate White Gloves’, often leaking secrets from the circle.

Many hackers are unwilling to deal with such people.

”This ’Black Leaves’ has a good reputation within that circle; otherwise, we wouldn’t have sent him an invitation,” Paradise Bird added.

The ’good reputation’ of a hacker—is that a compliment or an insult?

Gao Gong thought for a moment and didn’t respond, instead changing the topic.

”I previously asked you to go to ’Johnson Corporation’ and chat with Murdoch; I heard you hacked into a ’Murdoch’?”

”Yes, we directly hacked into his head and turned it into an idiot.”

Although the four hackers he sent were top experts in this field.

But if a super entrepreneur were so easy to deal with, wouldn’t it be ridiculous?

So the ’Murdoch’ they hacked into was probably a fraud.

”How did it feel?”

Gao Gong suddenly said out of nowhere.

Paradise Bird understood what he meant, thought for a moment.

”Easier than expected, it was normal enterprise defense strength, with various types of electronic defense walls and anti-intrusion means, I also had a duel with a few old rivals, all of whom were good hands retired from the Mother City Six Ministries.”

Gao Gong turned a corner, his gaze sweeping over the dark alley, malicious eyes watching the two.

”Too normal inherently means abnormal.”

It was, after all, during the corporate war, against a huge biotech giant, if it was just normal network defense strength, something was definitely off.

Paradise Bird frowned, thinking for a bit, then said:

”But the whole process didn’t have any issues, I even had Miss Yuanyuan check, and there wasn’t any anti-tracking plugin in my virtual data.”

”That makes it even more interesting,” Gao Gong teased, stopping to look at the old decrepit building ahead without an elevator.

”This must be it, the twenty-ninth floor community, ’Black Leaves’ address.”

They were deep within ’Kowloon Walled City’, where it was dilapidated, chaotic, and inhabited by ’living dead’ souls.

”Go up,” Gao Gong said.

Paradise Bird looked around, speaking in a stiff tone:

”I’ll clear the area first.”

This super hacker seemed to express dissatisfaction with Gao Gong. The next moment, accompanied by a crisp phoenix call, flames erupted from each floor of the surrounding dilapidated buildings, setting them ablaze.

Interestingly, the living residents in those other floors ignored the flames, seemingly unaffected.

”The surrounding data nodes and the bottom-level network have been locked down. Even if it’s a clone, he can’t escape,”

Paradise Bird said coldly.

”Don’t get excited. Tell me, what exactly did ’Xiuyue’ want from me earlier?”

If the other party was a rich lady, then Gao Gong was like a wild and adorable wolfdog, lovable in various settings.

But without the attributes of a rich lady, Gao Gong immediately transformed into a Drama Enjoyer, born to disgust.

Following behind them, Paradise Bird looked quite displeased and was about to retort when her eyebrows suddenly furrowed.

The old stairway seemed crowded, with men, women, old and young either squatting or lying down, their expressions dazed, including many bionic men.

”Miners?” Gao Gong asked.

As an experienced hacker, Paradise Bird nodded, evidently recognizing it at a glance.

There was mining software running in these people’s brains.

”This is strange. Hackers aren’t gangs. Even if they’re mining, it’s about spreading viruses online, attacking randomly. There’s no need to gather so many people together.”

”You’ve forgotten, now that cyberspace is gone, reality is virtual, and virtual is reality.”

Data firelight flickered in Paradise Bird’s eyes. Scanning around quickly, a large area of the hallway emptied.

”So these are all virtual images, huh, just like real people.”

In the context of world fusion, unless Gao Gong carefully perceived, it was really hard to distinguish between living people and virtual illusions.

Most of the living people disappeared, leaving only a few bionic men.

”I’ve heard that in the latest bionic man law and regulations, smuggling bionic men is strictly prohibited. Are they using their personality chips for mining?”

Paradise Bird didn’t want to converse.

The two arrived at the third floor, room 302, which was the offline location of the hacker ’Black Leaves’.

Without wasting words, Paradise Bird’s strong leg kicked sharply, with a ’bang’, the door was kicked open.

A room not too messy, nor too clean, housed a young man with a cracked version of a ’Network Implantation Chamber’.

Gao Gong’s arm instantly transformed, several ’Skinned Great Serpent’ shot out, quickly tying up the other party.

”You—”

The young man’s eyes rolled white, and the ’cracked implantation chamber’ sizzled, clearly preparing to go online and escape, but a second later, the chamber emitted black smoke, clearly not succeeding.

Without a word, Paradise Bird pressed a hand on the person’s head, and electronic radiance simultaneously shone from both their eyes.

Compared to interrogation, hacking directly was more efficient.

As for Gao Gong, he glanced around the small room and soon found something of interest on the bookshelf, an old-style disc with a snowflake-patterned cover.

Another Avalanche!

A moment later, Paradise Bird released her hand with a frown.

”There’s nothing related to this ’Avalanche’ in his memory, maybe this part of the memory is stored elsewhere.”

”Unlikely,” Gao Gong shook his head, waving the disc in his hand.

”If he truly didn’t want this part of his memory discovered, why would he leave something so conspicuous?”

’Black Leaves’ was soon awakened, and facing these two intimidating intruders, he shrank, hunched over, and lowered his head.

”I don’t remember where that came from. I have a hobby of collecting ancient music discs and often shop in antique stores. Perhaps I bought it during such a shopping spree.”

”Do you know that someone is selling this thing online, and the ultimate source is you!”

”I’ve never done such a thing. In our line of work, one must remain discreet. We’re not disc vendors, and we certainly wouldn’t spread a ’dangerous software’ recklessly. That’s courting death, and clients wouldn’t trust us again.”

’Black Leaves’ quickly explained.

Gao Gong and Paradise Bird exchanged a glance, Paradise Bird coldly saying, ”Then hand over other backup memories and let me examine them one by one.”

’Black Leaves’ dryly laughed, ”Miss, you know well, in our line of work, handing over backup memories is a dead end.”

”You think you don’t have to die now?” Paradise Bird retorted.

”Though I can’t escape, at most I’ll just lose this one physical account,” ’Black Leaves’ said confidently.

”Really? Then let’s see,”

Gao Gong called for Gao Yuanyuan within his mind, and soon, five coordinates were transmitted.

Purple light flickered several times.

Five ’Black Leaves’ appeared in the small room, all in a sleeping state.

And in ’Black Leaves’’ terrified gaze, Gao Gong grinned:

”Don’t be excited, maybe you have backups stored in the network.”