Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 216 - 14 Seal Method and Dummy Method

Chapter 216: Chapter 14 Seal Method and Dummy Method

"Aske," Medea ran to Aske who was still examining a body and bent down to call him.

"What’s wrong?" Aske asked calmly.

"It’s like this..." Medea briefly explained everyone’s reasoning.

In short, the girls hoped to invent a method to identify their comrades, to prevent the mutants from continuing to duplicate fakes and then infiltrate the team like last time.

However, the embarrassing part was that any information that entered the public memory could be accessed by the mutant, and when it came to duplicating fakes later, it would be perfectly replicated, thus rendering the method ineffective.

Aske: ????

Wait a second, we were just in a Mind type mutant instance, were things really that complicated?

After pondering for a while, Aske realized: back when he wasn’t a professional player, playing these mutant instances as a gamer seemed indeed quite complex.

In the epoch-making super-intelligent holographic game "Iron and Fire," many so-called mutant instances had created groundbreaking new gameplay.

For example, the Mind type instances would use intelligent AI to disguise as teammates, deceiving members of the squad.

In the early versions, the method of deception was very simple and crude; create a clone suddenly mixed into the team, then throughout the whole instance, it would talk and move in sync with the character it copied, making it difficult for players to distinguish who was human and who was AI.

Although holographic gaming pods prohibit external programs like YY Voice, it doesn’t stop players from going offline. Hence, just by going offline and asking, one would know.

In the later versions of the game, a more sinister game design appeared: bait-and-switch.

Using fog, Teleportation, and other dramatic methods, they would forcibly split the team, then create a group of clones to deceive the scattered teammates.

Through server big data and advanced algorithm training, these clone NPCs’ intelligence far exceeded ordinary NPCs, and they could pass the Turing test, simulating over ten million types of speaking personas, no matter if the original character was aloof, straightforward, gentle, or full of witty remarks; they could simulate it with 99% similarity.

Moreover, when players communicated online, the server would record in some way. Any information you directly saw or heard, the server, according to the algorithm, would determine that the clone’s AI also knew it, making these clones seamlessly disguise themselves, ordinary people simply could not recognize them.

How did players solve this? Still relying on the crude method of offline communication of secret codes and online verification of those codes, the server had no way to intervene.

However, in this world, it was mostly unworkable—at least the barrier of "unable to go offline" couldn’t be overcome.

There was a simple solution, which was to have all the girls Teleport back to Fire Island, leaving only Aske alone outside to handle the mutant.

As long as I play the instance alone, no matter who you turn into, it’s useless for me; I will just eliminate anyone I meet and push through.

However, this kind of opportunistic approach, undoubtedly, went against Aske’s intention of training the team. If every time they hit a snag they relied on Fire Island, would everyone think about solutions when they encountered problems later? And how could they grow without thinking?

Seeing that Medea was still in deep meditative thought, Aske smiled and reminded her:

"Here’s an idea. You find Sigrdrifa to carve a stamp, any design as long as it’s not symmetrical."

"Then, find Nora to borrow some carbon paper."

"Carbon paper?" Medea asked curiously.

"Each sheet of carbon paper should be inserted under a sheet of notebook paper," Aske said. "Then close your eyes, randomly spin the stamp a few times and press down hard. Afterwards, move it to the right a bit, spin and press down again."

"Since you are spinning the stamp with your eyes closed, you won’t know what angles the two designs on each paper are positioned."

"Finally, continue with your eyes closed, tear these sheets of notebook paper into balls, and distribute them to each member of the team."

"Since none of us know the contents on the papers, the mutant won’t know either."

Medea suddenly realized: "Even though we don’t know what’s on the paper! But the designs on each paper are the same!"

"So when encountering a clone, just have them open the paper and compare whether my design matches theirs, then I’ll know whether it’s a real person or a clone!"

"You really are the Squad Leader! Brilliant!" Medea thought more and more about how clever it was, excitedly embracing Aske, her eyes almost leaping out with little stars.

Aske awkwardly extricated himself from her embrace, coughed, and said:

"All in all, facing such mutants, you need to use your brain more, got it?"

"Got it!" Then Medea couldn’t wait to share this method over the Mind Communication Channel, immediately earning admiration from the other girls.

This method ingeniously used the "can only duplicate through reading memories" mechanism of the Mind type Mutant to isolate the secret code outside of everyone’s memory while also allowing simple identification.

"Refine it a bit, and you can stamp with your eyes closed, then take a photo with a mobile phone and send it to everyone," Thira said. "When meeting up, just open the gallery and compare the photos."

"Except we don’t have mobile phones." Nora took carbon paper out of her bag. "Let’s stick with Aske’s method first."

"Why do you have carbon paper?" Eleanor curiously asked.

"I record some important information twice," Nora responded. "Then I tear off one of the sheets and keep it separate, in case I lose the notebook."

Meanwhile, Sigrdrifa pulled out a potato and expertly sliced it open with a small knife, then carved a few simple patterns on the cross section.

"Hey, wait!" Eleanor became even more curious. "Why are you carrying a potato around?"

"Emergency food," Sigrdrifa replied. "In case there’s nothing else to eat one day, it can save lives."

How odd the things you all carry around! Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the same time.

After quickly finishing the carving, Sigrdrifa closed her eyes and pressed down hard twice on the notebook that Nora had already laid the carbon paper on.

Then she tore off the pages now imprinted with patterns, crumpled them into balls, and distributed them to each team member.

Matthews, standing by, was utterly confused. Since Medea had spoken in the Mind Communication Channel, he hadn’t heard a word.

Seeing the girls from The Azure Longsword exchanging the crumpled papers, he could only guess that they had devised an effective secret identification method, and he started scratching his head in perplexity.

What could the method be? What method!

"Well..." Matthews thought long and hard, and finally decided to swallow his pride and ask their Squad Leader, Aske.

As soon as he began to speak, Medea immediately cut in, sneering:

"Want to know our method of identification? Name your price first."

Good thing I was here; otherwise, with the Squad Leader’s nonchalant attitude about money, he might have just revealed the secret.

"Damn!" Matthews immediately lost interest. You want my money for that crude little trick?

He gloomily returned to his team and called over a few of his sharper subordinates to discuss the situation.

"So, this Mutant can duplicate the acquaintances in our memories and use their guise to deceive and infiltrate us," one subordinate said. "In that case, we could agree on a secret code..."

"The moment you know the code, the Mutant, by reading your memory, will know it too," Matthews said irritably. "Wouldn’t the Mutant’s duplicates know it, then?"

"But if we don’t know the code, how are we supposed to verify it?" another subordinate asked in surprise.

"That’s precisely the crux of the issue! The key!" Matthews said impatiently. "The girls on the other side figured it out; how can you lot not come up with anything? Use your brains!"

The subordinates were speechless. Weren’t you unable to figure it out either?

But since Matthews was the leader, he could be illogical and delegate responsibility. So, everyone pondered deeply for a long time until suddenly, a subordinate had a stroke of insight and asked in confirmation:

"Squad Leader, are you saying that they first made a marking in a notebook and then tore it out and crumpled it into balls to distribute to everyone?"

"Exactly," said Matthews. "But I didn’t see what they wrote. Also, since the code was clearly written down, wouldn’t the person writing have a memory of it? Wouldn’t that still be perceived by the Mutant?"

"I get it now," said the subordinate confidently. "The key to this method is that the person who wrote is a fool."

"A fool?"

"Yes, a forgetful fool."

Matthews and the others suddenly felt enlightened:

"Right!"

"Get a fool to write, have him write the same code on all the papers, and he’ll forget it immediately!"

"That way the Mutant can’t read his memory!"