Chapter 335: Precaution Against a Rainy Day

Before today, Yu Sheng's impression of the danger posed by the Holy Ascetic Society wasn't particularly profound—he only knew it was an extremist, fanatical group, knew they had acted shamelessly regarding the Artificial Saintess and the Brass Knights, and knew this group wielded many black technologies, entrenched themselves in a region, and caused considerable trouble for many factions, but regarding the threat this organization could pose to the outside world, he had always lacked a tangible sense of it.

In fact, regarding this point, his impression of the Angel Cultists was actually more profound, after all, the Angel Cultists had truly awakened a slumbering Dark Angel, and almost blew up the Borderland...

But now he understood, there was a reason the Holy Ascetic Society could stand alongside the "Angel Sect" and the "Black Point Group" as the world's three major tumors—even in his view, the danger level of this Ascetic Society was even higher than that of the Angel Sect.

Because they had culture, not only culture, but also organization, and even a set of unshakable action guidelines!

The Angel Cultists only knew to chant scriptures when encountering a situation, considering it a success if they annoyed the Dark Angel out, and apart from that, they were a disorganized mess, but this bunch of Ascetic Society lunatics... they treated Angels as research materials, intending to develop weapons of mass destruction and mass-produce and equip them! For this goal, they could even lie in wait for ten years in a treacherous Otherworld on a single ship, could actively seek out the landing points of Dark Angels everywhere, and could dance on the blade under the noses of major powers like the Borderland Council and the Grand Void Spirit Pivot!

"We will immediately make contact with the Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain, as well as other factions," Bai Liqing's tone was exceptionally serious, her expression more solemn than usual, "The Ascetic Society cultists we discovered in the Borderland and on Feiyu-13b may not be the only ones; these cultists are like cockroaches—when you find one, they have likely already bloomed everywhere."

"Focus the investigation on places where Dark Angels have descended," Yu Sheng said from the side, "The Ascetic Society's goal is the 'Angel Catalyst' produced after an Angel falls, but the descent of a Dark Angel follows no pattern at all, so their most likely course of action is to observe and sample places where Angel descent phenomena have previously occurred..."

"That makes sense," Bai Liqing said, "And not just places where Angels have descended, we must also try to find the survivors who lived through Angel descent events... The Ascetic Society is very likely to attempt to contact them."

"It's been over ten years, perhaps some have already contacted the Ascetic Society, or even been converted into deep-cover agents," Hu Li, who had been sitting quietly on the side listening without speaking much, suddenly chimed in, "We must also be careful not to startle the snake by disturbing the grass."

Yu Sheng looked at Miss Fox with a bit of surprise, realizing that this Nine-Tailed Fox, who seemed to be daydreaming, had actually been following the topic and thinking along with it, unlike the Erin beside her—Erin was truly daydreaming.

Of course, Luna was even more impressive—she seemed to have crashed again.

"Rest assured, we will naturally treat this with caution." Bai Liqing nodded very solemnly, and then her gaze fell again on the Ancaela Crystal on the platform not far away.

Yu Sheng also noticed her gaze.

"We cannot yet determine exactly how these crystals will produce a 'reaction', but one thing is certain: these 'Angel Catalysts' are not as harmless as they appear," Bai Liqing said lightly, "We should add a few safety protocols."

Yu Sheng nodded: "For example, do not perform a jump while carrying Ancaela Crystals."

After leaving the Special Operations Bureau, Yu Sheng did not go home, but instead brought Erin, Hu Li, and Luna directly to the spaceship in the valley.

Technical experts from the Special Operations Bureau were still engaging in a battle of wits with the complex and bizarre core system of this spaceship.

To be honest, when Yu Sheng normally "piloted" the ship, he actually didn't need most of the systems on board, after all, the process of him controlling the ship's navigation was essentially just moving his own "limbs", and teleporting home was merely adding a set of "door" coordinates to the phase engine's jump parameters; the entire process was completely "supra-system"—using the terminology of the Borderland, the whole process was actually more akin to the "Ship Soul" piloting the ship.

He himself was the Ship Soul of this vessel.

But he also knew the necessity of that pile of control systems on board, especially regarding navigation and jumping.

After all, his "doors" could only lead to places he had personally been to, aside from random teleportation, and if he wanted to travel to an unfamiliar coordinate on a star chart, he still had to rely on the spaceship's own navigation and jump functions—he, this "Ship Soul", could at most make it a bit more convenient when issuing commands to these systems.

In the bridge control hall, a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard and a tall, thin build was busy at the main control platform; the console before him had been dismantled, with several external cables extending from inside, connecting to several terminals beside him, and on the screen of every terminal, a large amount of dazzling data and patterns were refreshing rapidly.

And near him, several other people who looked like assistants were busy elsewhere; some were connecting additional read-write devices to other control platforms, some were resetting the operating status of certain subsystems, and others were communicating with personnel from other work groups using communicators—while the control hall here was buzzing with frantic activity, several other groups were doing similar work in the spaceship's server bay, subsystem bay, disaster recovery database, and other locations.

As Yu Sheng and the others entered, they saw this tense and busy scene, and apart from the middle-aged man guarding the main control platform who looked up and greeted him, the other people in the hall didn't even bother to lift their heads.

Yu Sheng didn't mind at all; he understood the state of total focus these technicians must be in at this moment, it was just that... his own "feeling" at this moment was a bit strange.

Because he was completely connected to this ship.

He could even feel the process of these technical groups plugging a bunch of wires into his "body" and flashing the system here.

Yes, flashing the system; the main work these technical experts are currently doing is flashing the system of this spaceship, which was produced by the Ascetic Society, flashing its core program into the Special Operations Bureau version, and incidentally flashing its navigation identification code into a legal sequence.

"My dad used to do similar things," Hu Li stood beside Yu Sheng watching for a while, then suddenly muttered, "We have an old 'Immortal Shuttle' at home; sometimes it just wouldn't fly properly, and Dad would plug a bunch of wires into it like this, and then it would be fixed... but sometimes it couldn't be fixed, and he would get scolded by Mom, and then it would be sent to the factory for repair."

As she spoke, she pulled a ham sausage out from her tail, tearing it open with her sharp teeth while muttering: "But that ship was much smaller than this one."

Yu Sheng reached out and rubbed the downy fur behind Miss Fox's ears, then came to the side of the main console and asked curiously: "How is the progress?"

"We have already begun rewriting its main system; the progress is smoother than expected," the scruffy middle-aged technical expert looked up, glanced at Yu Sheng, "Those cultists cleaned the ship's original star chart and navigation data completely clean, which actually reduced a lot of trouble for us—but the data ports used by its phase engine are quite... unique; most general star charts cannot be directly mounted into them, requiring some time for recompilation."

"Additionally, we received orders to crack the 'Holy Coffin's' database, with the requirement that no damage be caused to the Holy Coffin itself; this work has just begun, so you may need to wait patiently for a while—mainly because this is the first time we have seen such a thing; although it still uses a classic command architecture of the Ascetic Society, many strange things have been added to the underlying code, rendering some old experiences useless."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, didn't quite understand, but he wasn't particularly interested in technical details himself, so after a moment of thought, he asked another question that interested him: "The identification code of this ship right now is still that set of things from the Ascetic Society, right?"

The technical expert was slightly stunned, stopped his work, and looked up at Yu Sheng: "Yes, but we will update its identification code to a legal sequence after the main system update..."

"Can the old one be kept?" Yu Sheng asked with a serious face.

"... Huh?"

"Just keep two sets of navigation identification codes," Yu Sheng scratched his head, "I don't understand technical matters very well, don't mind if I say something wrong, is this technically feasible? Keeping both the ship's identification code within the Ascetic Society's fleet system and the identification code of a legal ship simultaneously, and switching between them at any time if necessary."

The technical expert in front of him also realized what was meant upon hearing this: "You want to..."

"In case it's needed in the future," Yu Sheng stroked his chin, "for infiltration and such."

"What you say is technically feasible; it's just a matter of maintaining a 'shadow system,' but in actual use, it will likely be difficult to achieve the effect you want," the technical expert looked somewhat troubled. "Mainly because this ship has almost certainly already been flagged by the Ascetic Society, especially for an infiltration vessel of this type; it is basically treated under the standard that 'loss of contact equals defection.' Its original identification code has most likely been added to the Ascetic Society's alert list; you won't be able to infiltrate with it at all, and it's more likely to immediately summon an entire fleet."

"Alright, that's true too," Yu Sheng pondered for a moment, but then immediately waved his hand, "Doesn't matter, keep an old set anyway, in case it's needed."

The technical expert blinked, probably a bit unaccustomed to Yu Sheng's rhythm of pondering for a moment and then coming up with some inexplicable ideas, but quickly, he remembered the instructions given to him by the higher-ups before leaving the Bureau—

Don't delve deep into "his" train of thought, don't be curious about "his" goals; these are problems the Director needs to consider; in the past, just do as "he" says; as long as the other party doesn't intend to overthrow the entire Borderland, don't worry about so many trivialities...

"I understand, everything will follow your wishes."

(End of Chapter)