CHAPTER 492: CHAPTER 157: PLAYER: OLD NET? HEHE, I’M COMING IN~

This was the first time Lin Miao saw what the old net really looked like. How to put it...

It didn’t seem all that dangerous.

Of course, that’s how he felt; someone else might not think the same.

A normal person, even if they caught a rogue AI, wouldn’t be able to use its port to bypass the Black Wall and enter the old net, because the Black Wall is intangible. It resides in the brain of everyone connected to the network, without physical form, and is everywhere.

After staring at it for a long time without discerning anything, Lin Miao waved and pulled the rogue AI from the void next to him, then released his data control over it and asked,

"Now, will you tell me where you came from?"

But the rogue AI, feeling its newfound freedom, didn’t answer Lin Miao’s question. Instead, in the moment it broke free of its chains, it released its form, swelling billions of times in an instant. Its data volume nearly obscured Lin Miao’s entire field of vision, stretching endlessly with no shape, surging towards him like a mountain calling the sea.

In comparison, Lin Miao’s figure seemed like a drop in the ocean, not even matching a tiny boat, just a mayfly.

Snap—

A gentle snap of fingers.

The world seemed to hit the pause button, and all the data on the AI stopped flowing, freezing in place, with its CPU overloaded and crashing.

Lin Miao originally wanted to save some effort and let the other side speak for itself, but it seemed this guy couldn’t understand human language and was genuinely crazy.

"Alright... let me find out for myself."

He habitually rolled up his sleeves, and the red data easily tore through the firewall constructed by the opponent, breaking into the data fortress and starting to search for the information he wanted using the methods and software Lucy taught him.

The rogue AI’s database was a mess, with the memories of seven or eight people mixed together. Multiple consciousness fragments had been forcibly kneaded into one, full of pain and madness... there was almost no rationality to speak of, making it difficult for Lin Miao to find useful information.

Yazhuo Wood, Kate, Wolfs...

These were the names of the cultists. According to the memory data Lin Miao found, they were initially normal members of the Vortex Gang, wandering around, fighting, and collecting protection fees every day. Until one day, after they installed a batch of brain implant plugins of unknown origin, things began to change...

Their behavioral logic changed day by day, without them being aware at all...

Lin Miao suddenly realized how similar this situation was to Pereira, and that modifier...

However, Blue Eyes’s technology should be significantly superior to those strange brain implants; at least Pereira wouldn’t install those odd and unknown implants.

Moreover, in the subsequent data, Lin Miao was surprised to discover that these cultists seemed to indeed have connections with Blue Eyes. They communicated on special frequency bands, but they didn’t speak in human language, using instead religious codes like Lilith, Wolf Father, Holy Mother, Eden, Necrotech Sorcerer, leaving Lin Miao utterly baffled.

What nonsense, wasn’t Lilith the female demon who betrayed humanity and strangled infants?

What does it have to do with AI?

What’s all this mess behind?

Yet in the chaos of its memory database, Lin Miao captured a key frame of information.

This group of cultists met with people from Blue Eyes in an abandoned factory and spouted a bunch of bizarre stuff.

No wonder Blue Eyes could know about the events in the Watson District that night and contact him immediately. Apparently, the faction behind this rogue AI was also aware of this, so... this guy had become a discarded pawn.

No wonder it was clueless, like a mute.

But this doesn’t mean that this rogue AI has lost its value.

On the contrary, this is something many companies dream of, full of technology lost to the old era. Huang Ban, Military Science dream of digging up the things they discarded.

To avoid encountering anything unclean in this ghostly place, Lin Miao didn’t stay long.

After exiting the old net, he played with the woman’s head, bound by play, as if handling a rare treasure.

This is a living old net entry point. If it could be utilized, its value would far exceed the AI itself.

[Lin Miao: System, if I take it out and upload it to the subnet I built, will we lose the old net entry point?]

[System: No, but I recommend setting up a separate subnet to house the AI to preserve the old net entry point.]

[Lin Miao: Why? Can’t I use the existing one?]

[System: The current Sea God subnet system is connected to the Night City network. Directly integrating into the Sea God subnet might lead to AI intrusion events, and even the Black Wall cannot guarantee perfect data purification.]

Is that so... it seems there’s no way to save money on this.

[Lin Miao: Is there any risk of sudden death for players entering the old net, like the reality brain being burned by the rogue AI or being possessed by a ghost?]

[System: No, protecting the players’ life and property security is the primary rule. Nothing happening in Cyberspace can affect reality.]

[Lin Miao: Then can I let players enter the old net to salvage data for me? Since it doesn’t matter if they die, right?]

[System: .....]

[Lin Miao: Look at Huang Ban, heartlessly employing dozens of child hackers to dig data in the old net without pay, only covering meals. What a heartless company. We must not exploit employees like Huang Ban; we must provide players with the best experience to demonstrate our excellent service.]