Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 670 - 562: The Dark Side

Chapter 670: Chapter 562: The Dark Side

The next morning, Xu Yang opened his eyes to see Little Fool lying beside him, her hair long.

He intended to get up silently, but Little Fool, with her acute senses, darted up before he moved and spoke first.

"Daddy, I want to keep my hair," Little Fool said. "I can take care of it myself, I’ll tie it up so it won’t cover my eyes; I’ll apply shampoo every day and wash it clean, so it won’t look messy."

"Oh," Xu Yang thought that was fine, as long as she could manage it herself.

He got out of bed, and Little Fool diligently opened the curtains and then, as if afraid Xu Yang might change his mind, quickly used the remote to send cooking instructions to the automated kitchen.

The domestic eyeball robot prepared fragrant fried meat, scrambled eggs, fish steak, as well as juice and milk, serving the food on a tray.

"Where’s Snowball?" Little Fool looked around.

"Little Fatty took him away, as arranged yesterday. But no worries, he’ll come back soon," Xu Yang said while eating.

After over a year of deliberate retraining, Xu Yang had completely weaned off nutrient paste and started to reacquaint himself with the real taste of food.

"What if he gets lost?" Little Fool was scared that Snowball had run off with someone.

"Snowball is pretty smart," Xu Yang nodded. "Don’t worry about him, if he’s really stolen, we’ll hire someone to find him."

"Then I’ll play with Little Farosa." After filling her bottle with milk from the milk machine, Little Fool walked down the counter where Little Farosa was already waiting for her near the toy box.

Xu Yang snapped back to reality only after finishing his breakfast.

It was the first time in a year that Little Fool had engaged him in a fully coherent and logical conversation.

This realization made him unable to resist going to the playhouse to see Little Fool carefully assembling a miniature garden railway track on the floor, with Little Farosa assisting her.

The role that Little Farosa played in all this, Xu Yang was also well aware of.

The name "Xu Yang" was destined to be hidden behind the world and history, but no matter, if he looked to the future, the name Xu Cheng should become known to the public, Xu Yang thought silently.

Little Fool carefully assembled the railroad tracks in the huge sandbox, placing scaled-down houses, trees, stations, and figures beside it. Then, she put the train on the track, pressed the button, and when the train chugged along the tracks she had set up by hand, Little Fool exchanged a joyous look with Little Farosa.

"Quack!" Little Fool was extremely happy.

Little Farosa just watched her tenderly.

Xu Yang was adjusting equipment in the machine room when, at 10 in the morning, Lu Jing arrived on time for a visit.

"Sorry to disturb," Lu Jing stepped in and was immediately captivated by the beautiful network monitoring studio that resembled an exhibition room.

She cared about the models in the glass cabinets, the advanced terminal machines, and the postmodern sculptures, but due to her complete upbringing and manners, she suppressed the urge to touch and feel them.

However, upon seeing Little Fool, her decorum vanished, and Lu Jing couldn’t help but walk over, bend down, and pat Little Fool’s head.

"Whose child are you?" Lu Jing melted at the sight of the adorable young girl and a naive smile spread across her face.

"Quack..." Little Fool felt as if all the magic power in her mind was being emptied.

She instinctively raised her hand to release a shield of air, but the magic power condensed into a shield was easily absorbed by Lu Jing’s anti-magic power, like dust, and was ineffective.

Little Farosa stood in the distance, watching Lu Jing with narrowed eyes.

Xu Yang came over as Little Fool, frightened by Lu Jing’s personal anti-magic power, ran to Xu Yang’s side, holding his hand and pointing at Lu Jing.

"Did I do something wrong?" Lu Jing was a bit uneasy.

"The witches might see you as an enemy," Xu Yang picked up Little Fool with one hand and then led Lu Jing into the data machine room.

"I’m sorry..." Lu Jing apologized to Little Fool.

It was the first time Little Fool had heard someone older apologize to her so earnestly. She generously waved her hand, forgiving Lu Jing.

"Let’s talk business. You’re here because you heard about it from Seeking Shadow or Rinne," Xu Yang said, looking at the heavy black servers on both sides.

"Yes, I want..." Lu Jing paused mid-step, unable to say it no matter what.

"You want to crack the permissions inside your Digital Mind, right? The function of your Digital Mind is incomplete, it’s a castrated version, incapable of performing real engineering skills," Xu Yang clarified her purpose for her.

"...Yes, I want a fully functional Digital Mind. I’ve heard that deep beneath the surface, public network, there lies a deeper anonymous network with more information than the surface web, even many times more. I’ve tried several times to enter but was blocked by my own Digital Mind," Lu Jing nodded seriously.

"The company trains Digital Mind holders to allow them to access the network with their physical bodies, as pathfinders for consciousness upload technology and better protect company network infrastructure, building a clean network environment. By doing this, you’ll be violating the agreement with Heavenly Cardinal Manufacturing," Xu Yang pointed out the risks, to prevent Lu Jing from being hesitant later.

"I’ve listened to the company too much... too much..."

Lu Jing thought about the miracle on her lower abdomen, a dark tattoo that had appeared after she had received the grace of the Witch Goddess. It meant that Lu Jing had been implanted with the seed of rebellion against the company and the following of the Witch Goddess; therefore, she had to seek the limits of her power and could no longer blindly obey the company.

"Generation after generation of Digital Mind holders have all sunk into the dark side of power." Xu Yang put Little Fool down, dragged a chair over, and pulled out the wiring from the server. "Lie down, Lu Jing, and then I will hack into your Digital Mind."

Lu Jing’s heart pounded, and her body began to shake.

She closed her eyes and, with difficulty, convinced herself to lie down on the chair, her body trembling restlessly.

What program had been implanted in her brain? Wasn’t it the most shameful thing in the world to deliver oneself to a stranger without any precautions? Thinking of this, Lu Jing’s face turned red, and her movements became even more awkward.

If this guy were to load that kind, that kind of program into her brain, wouldn’t she be powerless? She would easily be infected by a virus, turned into a toy...

"Don’t move around." Xu Yang inserted the wiring into the new data port behind Lu Jing’s ear.

In an instant, a virtual panel popped up in front of Lu Jing’s eyes, alerting her that she was being accessed by a malicious program and asking her to immediately disconnect the physical link.

"What did you do?" Lu Jing was shocked, her previous wild thoughts seemingly becoming reality. She cried out instinctively, wanting to disconnect the wiring.

"Either accept the hack or stay where you are," Xu Yang warned, while he gently subdued the restless Lu Jing.

In fact, without Lu Jing’s confirmation, the program implanted by Xu Yang had begun its assault on Lu Jing’s brain implant, first locking down information access ports to prevent triggering any alarms. Bringing Lu Jing to this room was a precaution; no signal could leave Xu Yang’s studio.

Following that, Lu Jing saw her virtual interface completely transform, as if the software had received a thorough update and overhaul.

The strategic permissions of the Digital Mind opened one by one to Lu Jing; new interactive content appeared, the number of objects she could access increased, and files she had never seen before were fed into her, including specialized network access software, hacking toolkits, Trojan programs, core key decryption libraries, deep anonymous network sites...

Lu Jing now felt like a bad kid, super bad.

Then Lu Jing felt her body heat up, her brain buzzed, and her body began to feel strange. She looked at Xu Yang with embarrassment. "What else did you do to me?"

"Firstly, it’s your brain processor unlocking the firmware, so your power consumption increases, and your body temperature rises," Xu Yang had Little Fool bring over an ice pack.

With an ice pack on her head, Little Fool felt her own head cool. As she ran over quickly with her teeth chattering, she tossed the ice pack onto Lu Jing to absorb the heat rising from her body.

Gradually, Lu Jing started feeling better.

This was truly the most marvelous experience of her life.

Last of all, Xu Yang installed a piece of software into Lu Jing’s brain implant system.

"New World Mechanism?" Lu Jing saw the new software in her brain.

"Log in and take a look," Xu Yang encouraged.

Lu Jing initiated an uplink connection and joined, discovering that it was a deeply encrypted interaction and communication tool.

Upon logging in, her existence was entirely a string of gibberish and anonymous codes, impossible to discern. There were many groups, mostly composed of nonconformists currently discussing topics that Lu Jing dared not even think about.

If any monitoring troop saw this, the people discussing these topics would be arrested immediately...

She immediately felt anxious and frightened. If she entered the dark side and encountered such people who violated social morals, wouldn’t she be a lamb amongst wolves?

"What is this?" Lu Jing exited the New World Mechanism.

"It’s an interactive tool I designed," Xu Yang explained. "A safe, anonymous, risk-free new internet world. You should know that we are facing pressure from both ends. On one end, with increasing strife between companies and the Helis Sea blockade of their communications, it’s very possible that there will be situations where different jurisdictions can’t communicate."

"The wide area network becomes a local network?" Lu Jing was somewhat surprised.

"Yes, people are accustomed to freely accessing sites from other jurisdictions, but this might just be a fleeting moment in a long history. In the future, as conflicts intensify, companies could very likely turn on each other, blocking the information access of residents in their jurisdictions, creating artificial information gaps."

"And the other end?" Lu Jing pondered.

"The deep anonymous network itself is falling apart... I’m entrusted to establish servers to share the data pressure of the anonymous network, which is what you see here, the entire machine room, and even this entire studio, are actually built to protect this treasure... the deep anonymous network, a treasure trove of our era, the true data library. Storing all the secrets and history of our civilization for the past 100 years."

Lu Jing was dazzled by all the new information and knowledge. She returned to the New World Mechanism, and, gathering her courage, she browsed through that forbidden content—every item either so sensitive that her heart raced, or so explicit that her face turned red.

"I’m also a member of the dark side now," Lu Jing murmured.

From a green-clothed maid who followed the rules by Miss Lu’s side to now, a little bad girl who had fallen into the dark side of the Digital Mind. She reminisced about the past, all because of the encounter with the Cyber Specter in Aizu City.

Thinking of the Cyber Specter, which had been imprisoned by the person before her, Lu Jing’s emotions became complicated.

How could she release it...