Chapter 112 High-risk Node! 【VIP】

The data nodes in the high-risk areas are indeed different.

As soon as players step inside, it feels like stirring up a hornet's nest. The data flow is no longer a gentle stream, but a raging torrent, carrying with it countless probes, traps, and attack programs disguised as harmless data. The "wild monsters" here are more cunning and more ferocious.

Players feel like they have entered a huge online PVP arena.

The "residents" here—or players—view life as a game. They roam cyberspace and rewrite reality with the "Ether Editor."

Here, every data node is a battlefield, and every collision of [Ether Editing] is a battle between code and program.

The confrontations between highly skilled hackers have become extremely treacherous.

The opponent will not stand there stupidly and fight hard. If a blow misses or is slightly disadvantaged, it will immediately slide away like a loach, using the complex data terrain to fight guerrilla warfare.

A battle can drag on like an old lady's foot binding, long and smelly.

The most troublesome thing for others is that the top guys have mastered the advanced application of [Ether Editing] - Ether Key. They will use [Ether Editing] to compile Ether Key with a one-way locking function, and transmit themselves to the opponent's real location, starting a Mortal Kombat.

The players don't care about this at all. They are like a stubborn stone, moving steadily in the rapids.

Her perception of [invasion] became more acute in this rapids, like a swimming shark, accurately tearing through one firewall after another - paralyzing nodes and copying data.

With her diligent study, the experience bar of [Invasion] finally began to rise at a visible speed, and players could feel the bottleneck of level 1 loosening.

Trouble also followed.

Once, the player had just cracked a key node and was preparing to evacuate.

The space twisted without warning, and a woman wearing standard combat uniform and with neat purple short hair appeared next to her out of thin air, holding an ether key that flashed a dangerous red light in her hand.

"Tsk, you're pretty quick, newbie." The woman raised an eyebrow, her tone scrutinizing. "But, the game should be over."

She raised her hand to activate the key, and the player's [Insight] prompted: This is some kind of strong control program.

In fact, players don’t have time to look at the key or the instructions that appear when they use [Insight].

The moment the other party appeared, a glaring [Reality Intrusion Warning] popped up on her system.

The player didn't even think twice, his body was faster than his mind. He spun around, and with lightning speed, he grabbed the woman's wrist holding the key with his right hand. He then made a fist with his left hand and smashed it hard into the woman's abdomen with a whistling sound that tore through the air!

"Poof!" The woman's eyes suddenly widened. She had never expected this to happen. The severe pain made her bend over like a shrimp in an instant, and the ether key she had carefully compiled flew out of her hand.

"You...you have no moral integrity!" The woman gasped in pain and tried to use [Ether Editing] to escape.

If this can still make her run away, then the player might as well change his career.

She didn't give the woman any chance to escape. She pressed her knee precisely against her lower back and used her other hand to twist her arms behind her back. Her movements were clean and sharp, and her expression was cold and brutal.

"Let's just fight, why all the nonsense?" the player said in a flat tone, as if stating a fact. "Give up? Or take a few more hits?"

woman:"……"

She looked into the player's calm blue eyes, which contained only pure "problem-solving" focus, without a trace of fear or anger.

A chill ran down my spine. How could this be a hacker? This was a fighting machine in human form!

"I... give up." She uttered these two words in frustration.

The player let go of his hand, and the woman covered her stomach, stood up with a pale face, and looked at the player with complicated eyes.

But the players didn't care about that. When the [Tame] button lit up, they started clicking on it frantically to tame her.

The NPC's expression quickly became painful. She seemed to still have the strength to resist, but this resistance was quickly overcome. Following the system's crisp notification tone, the NPC's expression also became calm.

[Taming] Success!

[Gain new followers: Shuangyi

[Follower Characteristics: One-way positioning and tracking expert, [Ether Editing] master.]

Shuangyi rubbed her belly and watched the player glance at her, then leave her and continue to clear the next node as if nothing had happened, as if he had just casually swatted a fly.

She clearly felt that there was a deeper connection between herself and the other person, and she could vaguely feel that there were several other people in this place who had this kind of connection with her.

After being conquered by her, the [Pixel Duck] lady casually ignored the enemy she was fighting with just a second ago.

It was obvious that she had absolute confidence in her own abilities.

Shuang Yi suddenly laughed. "Hello, Lin Chen?" Is that what you call me? You're so wild... but, you're a hacker... hiss, that's not right. I should say I haven't seen anyone like you.

Yu, is still busy dismantling the firewall.

Similar scenes are repeated in high-risk areas.

A woman wearing a gorgeous long dress and with the elegance of a prince (codenamed "Feiying") tried to trap the player with a sophisticated logic trap. As a result, the player directly used [Ether Editing] to distort the ground beneath her feet, causing her to fall into the data turbulence, losing all her elegance, and then being pressed to the ground by the player.

A taciturn girl covered in a black cloak (codenamed "Shadow Shuttle") appeared and disappeared mysteriously, and nearly injured the player with space cutting several times. In the end, the player's terrifying combat instinct predicted all her actions, and she was hit on the side of the neck by a precise hand knife, and fell down softly.

There is also a passionate and attacking method ("Melting Furnace"), her violent data stream attacks were countered by players with bullets, and she is even more.

Without exception, they were all beaten and then [tamed].

Soon, behind the player

Shuangyi, Feiying, Yingsuo, and Ronglu, four top hackers with very different styles, all well-known in the underground world of Punklode, are now labeled as "followers" and follow the players with bruises (physically) or mental depression (from being beaten).

They watched the players use the most primitive and unreasonable physical methods to "solve" one after another of their colleagues who tried to teleport over to "Mortal Kombat". Their expressions changed from initial shock and frustration to numbness and... weird admiration?

"I say... our 'master', does she have any misunderstanding about the word 'hacker'?" Feiying elegantly (tried to) straighten her long skirt that was wrinkled by the player, her tone full of disillusionment.

"Misunderstanding? I don't think she's a hacker at all." Ronglu rubbed his still aching waist and grimaced. "What hacker fights with fists and shoulder throws? Shouldn't they be fighting with drones flying all over the sky and portable tactical laser cannons with imaginary energy hidden in the shadows? Using bare hands is too outrageous!"

"Highly efficient." Shadowsoo spoke succinctly, the half of his face exposed under his cloak expressionless, but there seemed to be a hint of... approval in his eyes?

Shuang Yi crossed her arms, watching the player easily defeat another unlucky teleporter. The corners of her mouth curled up. "Outrageous? It's quite outrageous. But don't you think? Her current attitude... this attitude of treating hacker duels, teleportation, and rewriting reality as game levels, and using the simplest and most direct method to 'beat them'... doesn't it sound like those truly legendary hackers? For example - [Zero]."

At the mention of that legendary name, everyone fell silent. Zero, a recognized legend in Punklord, a madman who truly saw the world as a playground.

In order to leave Punklod, he had no qualms about paralyzing the entire planet's network. At that time, the Rainbow City was filled with graffiti left by him - a hacker's favorite signature and an ordinary smile.

(●V●).

"Do you think...she has that kind of potential?" Feiying thought thoughtfully.

"Who knows." Shuang Yi shrugged. "But following her, at least it won't be boring, and I can also learn some... uh, alternative 'combat skills'?"

Although they were beaten badly, these guys are all top figures.

They quickly adjusted their mindsets and began to fulfill their duties as "consultants"—mainly to avoid being beaten again and to see how far this monster could go.

At the player's request, they began to teach her real hacking skills, building the basics from scratch.

Shuangyi taught her how to construct and analyze etheric keys more finely and understand the deep principles of spatial positioning.

Feiying taught her the ingenious construction and countermeasures of logical traps, as well as elegant (?) data flow disguise.

Shadowsock demonstrates how to blend into the data stream, allowing for silent sneaking and surprise attacks.

The Crucible shared how to compress and condense violent data attacks into a "data cannon" that kills with one strike.

Their teaching styles are also completely different, and they dislike each other privately.

Shuangyi dislikes Feiying for being too flashy: "Why do we need so many special effects in a fight? Practicality is king!"

Feiying retorted, "Your crude positioning is like using a cannon to swatter a mosquito. There's no aesthetic appeal at all!"

Shadowsock silently finished off the enemy: "They are all garbage, stealth is the best."

The Furnace acted like a big boss: "What are you arguing about? Being able to blast through the firewall is a sign of great skill!"

Players are like super sponges, madly absorbing knowledge under the repeated bombardment of actual combat and top hackers.

With these high-quality "sparring partners" and guidance, her [Invasion] skill's experience value soared rapidly.

Finally, after successfully countering Shuang Yi's meticulously designed complex trap and using his newly learned spatial interference technique to silence the furnace's data cannon, the familiar system prompt sounded:

[Invasion] level increased to Lv.2!

[Skill unlocked: Teleport Lv.1!

Description: Performs spatial displacement by analyzing known coordinates or anchor points. Distance and accuracy are affected by skill level, proficiency, and coordinate clarity.

Done!

The player paused, taking in her newfound power. She tried to mentally locate the coordinates of Gear Alley, her finger tracing the air. A familiar portal, its edges tinged with a chaotic hue, silently opened before her.

Shuangyi and the others watched this scene with complicated expressions. It had taken them years to master this technique, and this guy had only learned it in... a few days? Or had he learned it between getting beaten (others getting beaten) and beating others (herself beating others)?

"Monster..." Furnace muttered.

"The legendary seed has been planted..." Feiying's eyes flickered.

"..." Shadowsoo lowered the brim of his cloak.

Shuang Yi grinned, with a hint of resignation and excitement: "Well, now she can really go around the world 'grinding dungeons'."

"But why is this teleportation so weird?" Ronglu turned his face away, not daring to look directly at the teleportation portal that seemed to be able to bewitch people.

"After looking at it for so long, I actually feel strangely that it's... a little sacred?" Feiying stared at it carefully with a look of surprise on her face, but soon turned her head away, unable to bear it anymore.

"Don't stare at it, stay calm." Shadowsoo whispered, hiding in his cloak.

The air became a little subtle and they began to feel dizzy.

The player ignored their comments, looking at the portal in front of him, then at the coordinates of the data ocean in the distance, feeling excited.

Now, there is only one last obstacle on the road to the cheat code for [Zero] - the broken ship lying in Gear Alley.

She stepped into the portal with a clear goal: go back and pick the lock!