Chapter 588 Super Authority?

The group of Star Scholars who had been working day and night in the computer room for several days were finally tricked into going to the lounge, which temporarily relieved the crisis of "interstellar friends dying suddenly at the construction site". After leaving the computer room, Mo Ran went to inspect the progress of the dome repair in the Rift Laboratory to ensure that the Black Rock Space Station's "self-healing" could continue to be maintained at the highest efficiency.

She then dismissed everyone around her and began to think about how to report Master Alvin and his team's investigation findings in the most concise way possible—

By the way, could you find out when the "real Blackrock Space Station expert" that Zhenjun mentioned will arrive?

At the same time, Yu Sheng and Eileen were still in the "Alice Embassy" at the border.

He brought the little doll over firstly to apologize, and secondly because he wanted to see what exactly happened to the servo robot that had been infected with the "shake to redirect to ads" feature.

However, by the time he and Eileen arrived, Marlene had already completed the first round of emergency treatment for Maris—the living doll lady had successfully disabled her maid's ad-redirecting function and greatly improved the latter's "walking one step and stopping one step" symptoms.

Now Marys is taking two steps and then stopping.

Yu Sheng pressed the little doll's head and apologized to Mary and her servant. The good news was that the little doll was actually quite cooperative. Despite her usual carefree, boisterous, and uncouth behavior, she actually knew she was in the wrong at this moment.

Marlene, however, didn't seem to care much.

“Actually, it doesn’t have much of an impact,” the living doll said with a smile. “Marily actually had a bit of this problem herself, and I’ve gotten used to it to some extent.”

Yu Sheng glanced to the side and saw the Clockwork Maid lying obediently on the inspection bed. The decorative large clockwork key, along with part of the back cover, had been removed and placed aside. Several cables were connected to her chest and neck, and she was currently being flashed using a data terminal.

"Does she usually stop and walk every few steps?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.

Marlene sighed: "...She always does commercials."

As soon as she finished speaking, Maris, who was staring blankly with several cables plugged in, immediately turned around: "By simply recharging your basic membership, you can reduce the number of ads pushed to your device by three-quarters, and receive personalized push services based on your daily browsing data. Recharging now also includes..."

Marlene sighed again.

Yu Sheng didn't know what to say, but he suddenly felt that the daily life in this "Alice Embassy" seemed quite colorful.

Then he received a long-distance interstellar call from Mo Ran from the Black Stone Space Station.

Blackstone Station itself is still damaged, so Yu Sheng only puts his limited "instinct" on that space station to ensure that the space station's self-healing ability is maintained at its highest efficiency. He does not monitor the status of Blackstone Station in real time. So when Mo Ran suddenly called him from interstellar space to tell him that Blackstone Station had "fallen out" of this world and had briefly become a living thing outside the world, he was completely stunned.

Yu Sheng knew that a group of "Star Scholars" had been holed up in the space station's data center these past few days, cultivating their immortality, but he never expected that those experts and scholars would uncover such a huge secret in just a few days! How to put it... As expected of Luo's kind, a renowned psionic species in the universe, these "cosmic long-eared" beings are truly suited for this kind of work—digging up little secrets in interstellar space...

Eileen was sitting on Mary's examination bed at that moment, looking up at Yu Sheng and seeing his face change color after answering a phone call. She was immediately curious: "What's wrong?"

“Mo Ran has discovered something terrible,” Yu Sheng explained the situation to the little puppet, then stroked his chin. “I was originally planning to tell Luo about Black Stone Station in a couple of days, but it seems her ‘vacation’ will have to end early.”

Eileen immediately jumped off the inspection bed, skillfully grabbed Yu Sheng's clothes, and climbed onto his shoulder, chattering as she did so: "Then you'd better hurry up, Rapunzel has already started taking Luo to the river outside town to fish, and they're also planning to steal fruit from the Snake Queen's lair. If you're two days late, that pointy-eared girl will be completely useless under Rapunzel's influence, and then they'll be two big golden retrievers..."

Yu Sheng hurriedly said goodbye to Marlene, and a door opened directly into the fairytale town in the valley. Then, as the illusory door disappeared into thin air, the "Mech Repair Room" returned to silence.

Lying on the inspection bed, Mary blinked, looking in the direction the door had disappeared. After a while, she turned her head somewhat dazedly to look at the mistress sitting beside her.

Marlene was also looking at the wind-up maid on the bed.

"...How exactly did you get all that junk stuff put on you?" Marlene finally couldn't help but ask.

Mary replied honestly, "Miss Eileen said that the accelerator can increase the winning rate..."

“No, that’s not what I’m asking,” Marlene interrupted. “I mean, how did she bypass your authentication and the security protocols of the Garden Network itself?”

Maris's eyes momentarily went blank, a slight buzzing sound emanated from her body, and the holographic projection displaying "Garden Network Simulation Connection" status above the data terminal next to the inspection bed flickered for a moment.

“I… don’t know,” the clockwork maid said hesitantly. “None of the security protocols are working, and Miss Eileen has learned to call and rewrite various simulated interfaces at an astonishing speed, and even… seems to ignore the compatibility issues between the Garden Network and other external networks. But from my observation, Miss Eileen herself seems unaware of all this; she’s acting entirely on instinct.”

Marlene frowned deeply.

"The security and defense mechanisms at the 'assembly site' also failed to respond?"

“No response—because Miss Eileen didn’t actually cause any damage to the Garden Network, not even the slightest damage,” Maris shook her head. “Although many of her instinctive actions violated security protocols, in the end, apart from adding a set of adware plugins to my system, she didn’t do anything beyond the security boundaries… Perhaps, that’s one of her ‘instincts’.”

Marlene didn't say anything for a moment, but picked up the data terminal next to her and started operating it quickly.

She was accessing the Garden Network's access logs from Marys's memory bank—which also contained Eileen's activity records within the network.

"...You passed by 'Alice's House'?"

"Yes, we made a brief stop there, and I briefed Miss Eileen on the background and current status of the access point."

Marlene looked up from the data terminal: "Then do you know that she accessed several remote ports of Alice's House?"

The clockwork maid lying on the bed was momentarily surprised and instinctively propped herself up halfway—but she quickly shuddered and lay back down.

The aftereffects of shaking it haven't worn off yet.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Mary said quickly. “We only stayed briefly outside the barrier, and ‘Alice’s House’ was closed as usual. Miss Eileen didn’t visit at all; she didn’t even approach the entrance.”

"But the system logs show that she communicated with the 'antique shop' several times, although they were all brief and did not transmit any valid data, the communication process did exist."

Mary blinked: "...I don't understand."

Marlene remained silent for a while, lost in thought. After a long pause, she put the data terminal back and broke the silence softly: "Her privileges are very high, extremely high—there is a special set of access codes in her 'Alice Key' that can bypass the Garden Network's security protocols. And since your simulated mind is authorized by the Garden Network to the Universal Union's 'Universal Base,' she can also easily bypass your various authentication permissions."

Marise thought for a moment, then looked somewhat serious: "Then it seems I'll have to be more careful when playing games with Miss Eileen in the future. She always acts on instinct more than reason..."

Marlene felt like she had heard something strange, but she didn't pay attention to it. Instead, she looked very seriously into the clockwork maid's eyes, her expression thoughtful.

Marise sensed a sudden tension in her mistress's eyes: "...Miss Marlene?"

"Your basic rewrite permissions are still in a state of penetration, right?" Marlene suddenly said.

The clockwork maid unconsciously shifted her body: "Okay, it seems so. What do you want to do?"

Marlene suddenly smiled and moved a little closer to the inspection bed.

The clockwork maid visibly tensed up: "Miss Marlene, please allow me to remind you, the user license agreement states..."

Marlene: "You're a catgirl."

Maris: "..."

Marlene: "...No response?"

"Personality protection procedures triggered. A rewriting attempt violating the basic user agreement has been detected. This is the 127th warning. For your data security and user experience, please do not rewrite the servo robot's basic personality settings without authorization. If rewriting is absolutely necessary, please purchase the 'Advanced Development Extension Pack' customized for developers by Universal Union. Purchase now and enjoy a 15% discount. You can purchase it on any platform..."

Marlene: "...?"

After basic permissions were bypassed, what's left at the very bottom of the mind core is still an advertisement?!

...

A gentle breeze carries the fragrance of grass and trees, and soft sunlight illuminates the riverbank beside the woods. A small campfire crackles, releasing the aroma of roasting food.

Several branches were stuck in the muddy ground beside the campfire, with fish and shrimp caught from the river, fruits taken from the snake demon's lair, and mushrooms picked from the Black Forest strung on them.

The big golden retriever and its puppy nestled in a patch of wild grass, munching on freshly roasted mushrooms.

In terms of age, Rapunzel is much older than Lopez, and in terms of the amount of hair, Rapunzel is much older than Lopez.

But this doesn't stop the two sisters from calling each other by name—it's all thanks to the power of roasted mushrooms.

"That's great," Luo mumbled sleepily, chewing on a mushroom. "I want to be a scholar someday, a great scholar, a astronomical scholar... I'll go after I graduate..."

"I'm not graduating, I'm already seventeen, but I've saved up a lot of money, enough to buy everyone... oh wait, no, my brother saved me," Rapunzel looked up at the sky, muttering to herself, her mood shifting between disappointment and happiness, then turning dejected again, "Then I still have to worry about graduating, why is math so hard..."

"What's so hard about math? It's just a matter of having a brain, isn't it?" Luo glanced back at the hazy, golden banana beside her, then took a bite of the roasted stone in her hand. "I'll tutor you later. I'm really good at math. I... I don't want to work, I don't want to work! Those two job postings are scams—"

As the blonde elf spoke, she seemed to recall something sad and began to shout at the top of her lungs. This commotion startled the long-haired princess standing nearby, who slapped her across the face: "Are you stupid? You were off work, and I dragged you back—right, bro? Bro, why did you dye your hair... Oh, it's Irene, Irene, why did you dye your hair?"

The kid at home was so engrossed in gnawing on wild mushrooms he'd just captured from the Black Forest that he was practically delirious.

Yu Sheng led Eileen back into the valley, and this was the first thing they saw.

(End of this chapter)