Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 833: Chapter 1: Arasaka Ichiro

While Gao Gong was busy assisting with a delivery, elsewhere a world-shaking event was unfolding.

At Arasaka Tower, two hacker teams simultaneously took action, targeting the liberation of the largest Virtual Personality Storage Center on the planet.

In this Cyber Test Field, no one dared to claim their personality was flawless.

Just like an annual health check-up, Personality Replication was something most people opted for if conditions allowed, for peace of mind if everything was fine, and for fixing or upgrading if there were issues, solving problems on the virtual level.

But hacking into Arasaka Tower and releasing these personalities would cause widespread social ethical chaos.

After all, once activated, virtual personas wouldn’t admit to being fake.

And capturing Arasaka Tower before the Cyber Tide would be even more impactful.

Because once backup personalities disappeared, the initial Cyber Wave’s ’Memory Loss,’ ’Personality Reset,’ ’Neurotheft,’ ’Pheromone Virus’ would be triggered, leaving nothing to repair mentally.

The hacker teams invading Arasaka Tower gained fame after their successful intrusion, known as the ’11 Arhats’.

But now, the plot had been completely altered by a certain Transmigrator.

In the previous timeline, the leaders of the ’11 Arhats,’ Holy City of Terria and Paradise Bird Hee Guanlan, each organized a hacker team to compete for who would hack in first.

At this moment, the buildings surrounding Arasaka Tower had completely lost control, with people implanted with brain-machines crazily storming the tower’s perimeter.

Many wore bizarre smiles, moved in odd ways, clearly implanted with some crawling virus.

The outer guards of Arasaka Tower showed no mercy, immediately opening fire, with gunshots ringing continuously.

Where there is chaos, there are players, and now a large number of players gathered at the periphery of Arasaka Tower, ready to invade this Personality Storage Center at any time.

However, players couldn’t be entirely blamed; after all, this was a mainline mission on the planet, with rewards so generous they tempted even the Transmigrator.

As it’s said, not brothers, not humans, only friends are mesmerizing.

[Planet Main Quest: Fall of Arasaka Tower]

Difficulty: ??

Mission Brief: A new era wave is about to descend; the world will face sudden changes. Will you rise up and become the dominator of the new world, or become the debris of a mad era—it’s yours to decide.

In the new era, everything from the old era, giant corporations, Mother City, Mechanical Legions, alien organizations—all could be overturned, and you are one of the possibilities.

Mission Goals (Selectable):

Chaos Camp: Bring down Arasaka Tower, release all personalities, become the undertaker of the world

Order Camp: Protect Arasaka Tower, maintain the old order of this world

Basic Reward: Release (Protect) one virtual personality, +1000 experience, +1 Arasaka Tower reputation

Additional Reward 1: Kill any senior member of Arasaka Tower (intrusion hacker), +5 million experience, automatically extract one enemy skill

Additional Reward 2: Activate team battle mechanism, destroy (protect) one information defense mechanism, +10 million experience

Additional Reward 3: Activate experience pool function, automatically gain 30% of the enemy’s death experience

Additional Reward 4: This event will trigger unpredictable consequences; you may gain some faction’s favor, but conversely, you may also face extreme hostility from others.

Note: Due to its far-reaching impact, which may even decide the player’s career development and mainline participation, choose carefully.

From the player’s perspective, this battle marked the beginning of large-scale player warfare, with grassroots players—mercenaries, ordinary bionics, Neural Editors, hackers—clashing with organized players—Corporate Knights, corporate employees, Mechanical City affiliates.

’Recruiting, recruiting—down with corporations, everyone’s responsibility! Join Baozi Squad; everyone gets a Prosthetic Eye and at least a Fine-level weapon. Down with capitalists, everyone’s responsibility!’ I Love Eating Buns

’Dammit, Baozi, you profiteer, how dare you talk about taking down capitalists when you’re the biggest one!’

’Yeah, just a Prosthetic Eye, and you’re proud of it!’

’This is advanced stuff, a Prosthetic Eye that can link to a Space Station!’ Baozi cried out.

’@I Love Eating Buns, give me your location; I want to blow up your little flower!’

’Are there any Advanced Mecha Pilots? Brothers, let’s team up and do something big!’ Gao Da called out online.

’Any Corporate Knights? Gather to me, I’ll bring you into the group. I’ve got a few spots, all good defenses, but you need to be at least level 30, Mechanical Transformation 50%’ Justice’s Security Manager

’Any hacker brothers, invite me to the telegram group; let’s hack Arasaka Tower together!’ Legendary Hacker

’Don’t be fooled by him, @Legendary Hacker is a standard corporate employee. Pulling him in would expose you, several hacker teams have been deceived and wiped out by corporate antivirus software.’

’Wow, a spy within a spy has begun?’

’Fight, fight!’

’I have a group of a hundred Neural Editors, join the group for IP checks; our goal is to take down one or two Advanced NPC Hackers, call me if interested.’

Players at this time were no longer cannon fodder, generally over level 30, professional enforcers in some companies.

Many even harbored thoughts of hunting Advanced NPCs, after all, 5 million experience was quite tempting.

”Where did these Neural Editors come from? They don’t look like they’re from one company.”

Ahong summoned the firewall of the ’Ancient Database’, holding off ’Antivirus Guardians’, occasionally tracing the other party’s neural IP, followed by a series of actions: ’Quick Crack’, ’Weak Link’, ’Spread and Diffuse’, ’Malignant Infection’—often capturing and terminating a squad of connected players.

To Paradise Bird, Ahong was a weakling. To Xiuyue, the third junior brother was a weakling. To Leo, Ahong was a useless apprentice; but to players, Ahong was undeniably an NPC big boss, adept with all sorts of hacking software, his random combinations of cracking software producing shocking effects, often stacking over a dozen negative states in one move.

Players had never encountered such a ’Murong Fu-level’ hacker expert, tortured to death.

And Ahong, finally enjoying the honors of an expert, couldn’t help but sigh, ”What’s the use of numbers? It’s all about technique on the virtual level.”

”Hehe, you’re quite right.”

An Electronic Guardian suddenly showed a sinister smile, lunging at the opponent’s firewall.

However, a thick ’tail sting’ descended from above, piercing the opponent’s face, with virtual electronic venom spilling out, dissolving the opponent from the source code level.

A half-human, half-scorpion figure several meters tall emerged from a data node.

”Sister Du Mei, why are you here? I’ve got this.” Ahong was startled for a moment, then spoke.

Du Mei, or rather, Scorpion, ignored him, the numerous pairs of electronic compound eyes on her face fixated on the software fragments scattered across the ground.

Soon, all the faces on these fragments displayed bizarre smiles, merging with one another to form a virtual monster towering several dozen meters high.

”Mr. Pintou.”

”Scorpion, so you’re not dead.”

”If you haven’t been converted by the Punk Clan, why would I be dead?”

Mr. Pintou tilted his head thoughtfully, then nodded.

”Makes sense.”

In the next moment, the monster opened its mouth wide, and countless electronic entities spewed forth like a flood toward the two of them.

Meanwhile, a small group of over a hundred Neural Editors were wailing in distress.

’Damn, when did we get implanted with ’Malware’!’

’Who the heck is Mr. Pintou?’

’What a despicable NPC, ambushing us like this!’

’Damn it, what do we do now?’

’Maybe we should disconnect from the network.’

...

Of course, not every player was so unlucky. Some high-level players had already begun achieving various first kills.

For example——

[Player Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella, player Red Flower Demon, and player Lingling Water have completed the first kill of Arasaka Saburo’s son, Arasaka Yorinobu, gaining 5 million experience and automatically extracting an enemy skill]

[Player Scissorhand, player Hacker, player Fire Starter, player Liu Dehua, and player Yanzi have completed the first kill of ’Adam Heavy Hammer,’ gaining 5 million experience and automatically extracting an enemy skill]

’Damn, players from the Chaos Camp are so fierce!’

’Brother Umbrella is truly the number one assassin; when he strikes, it’s astonishing!’

’Not Brother Umbrella, it’s Umbrella God!’

’By the way, who is Lingling Water? Seems like another assassin.’

’Don’t know, don’t know.’

’I’m the world’s number one business assassin, challenge me if you disagree!’ Lingling Water

’Scissorhand, Hacker, Fire Starter, these people seem like members of the Evil Jade Clan?’

’The notorious clan specializing in killing players?’

’I heard they disbanded, though.’

’Who knows?’

...

Elsewhere, Arasaka Ichiro, who was returning from a business meeting, received news of the deaths of his clone son and the strongest warrior of the Arasaka Group just as he entered Arasaka Tower, causing his expression to darken instantly.

”Is this the only good news you have for me?”

Although Arasaka looked old, with a backhand slap, he exploded the head of one of his subordinates.

”When will the people from Marubeni Technology arrive?”

”According to our contact, no more than 30 minutes.”

A confidant hesitated, then couldn’t help but say:

”But the bigger problem is still those hackers.”

”I will handle them personally,” Arasaka waved them off and said to the advanced bodyguards behind him, ”You go and clear out those pests!”

The bodyguards gave a slight bow and vanished instantly.

”Useless bunch, don’t follow me!”

Arasaka dismissed his surrounding subordinates and entered an elevator alone, descending to the lowest level of Arasaka Tower. This level, beneath the Personality Storage Center, was unknown to anyone else.

This floor contained nothing except a giant server chassis, roughly the size of a basketball court, covered with dense data lines.

This appeared to be a ’Super Brain-Machine,’ as its style resembled a Brain-Machine, but most Brain-Machines are finger-sized at most, while this device was terrifyingly large.

Arasaka roughly grabbed a data cable and plugged it directly into the back of his head. In the next moment, the signal transmitter at Arasaka Tower began to operate.

Besides functioning as a virtual personality storage center, Arasaka Tower also served as a super observatory, capable of some form of communication with outer space.

And now, Arasaka seemed to be communicating with some extraterrestrial existence.

Arasaka appeared very angry.

”You promised me, old man!”

”If you don’t help, I’ll report you to Mother City. I lost a son; I’m capable of anything right now!”

”Fine, fine, that’s not what you said before.”

”You lot...”

”Do you agree?”

”Since you want it, then take it.”

A cold voice suddenly rang out.

In the next moment, Arasaka’s eyes bulged, and his head instantly exploded, then countless transparent tentacles sprouted like seedlings from the cranial cavity.