Chapter 3105: Computing Power Pool Profiling

Realizing that the attacker held a massive lead in terms of Yuansiyi Bianyi, Xia Duo's brow furrowed even deeper.

On one hand, he was extremely eager to catch the other party and thereby obtain knowledge regarding Yuansiyi Bianyi, but on the other hand, he discovered that he might not be able to track them.

Given the abilities the other party had displayed, the Computing Power Pool network was, if not exactly a place they could walk through unimpeded, at least a place they could escape from whenever they pleased.

It could be said that this was likely the trickiest incident Xia Duo had encountered since he started out; he subconsciously wanted to draw computing power from the Computing Power Pool to analyze the torrent of subconscious information the other party had injected, or even to track them further.

However, he ultimately held back.

A moment later, Charles entered from outside, carrying the emergency shipping records submitted by the Computing Pool Connector supplier from Comanthar.

Xia Duo temporarily halted his analysis of the attacker's subconscious information, keeping only the most basic monitoring, and turned his attention to the materials Charles had brought.

But after flipping through only a few pages, he closed the materials and stuffed them back into Charles's hands; it wasn't because the data was falsified, but because he had miscalculated—the shipping records of the current era were far from the level he had anticipated.

The materials Charles brought back were basically just simple entries, such as when and where a certain number of people had purchased Computing Pool Connectors.

Although some people chose to register their Mage level at the Psionic Network Research Center's station in order to obtain higher subsidy quotas, the attacker this time had used only the most basic connector, which lacked any upgrade functions.

It was basically the kind you could pick up anywhere on the street.

Under these circumstances, the possibility of tracking them through shipping records was almost zero.

However, the materials Charles brought were not entirely useless; the shipping records were essentially the total number of Computing Power Pool users in the Comanthar territory, and by combining this with the login data from the Psionic Network Research Center, some information could still be determined.

For instance, for some connectors that logged in frequently, even if the user hadn't registered their Mage level, Xia Duo could actually determine their level based on the real-time computing efficiency of the Computing Power Pool.

He could even further determine the other party's area of research expertise by artificially and selectively assigning them specifically designed calculation tasks.

The Computing Power Pool was not a general-purpose computer; every unit that made up the pool could be said to be unique, and as long as it was designed properly, a profile could be determined for every individual.

It was just that without the assistance of a Magic Computer, the workload for doing so was immense—so immense that the Computing Power Pool itself couldn't calculate it—but—

If it were just profiling a single individual Mage, there wouldn't be much difficulty in that.

Of course, if the target of the profile was a Psionic Mage, then it would be troublesome.

Taking the suspected Psionic Mage currently attacking the Computing Power Pool as an example, the other party could also interpret Subconscious Information, which meant that any calculation tasks assigned to them could be interpreted by them.

In other words, the other party could selectively provide answers, rather than answering without reservation through their subconscious like other users (calculations at the Meta-thought Level would not directly reveal personal privacy, but one could determine areas of expertise through response speed, and other private information could actually be probed this way).

It was similar to how social media users on Earth might deliberately not watch a video they were interested in when it popped up, skipping it directly to mislead the algorithm, making the algorithm think they weren't interested in that type of video so it wouldn't push it to them in the future.

Therefore, trying to determine the attacker's area of expertise or even their identity information by customizing calculation tasks was unrealistic; doing so was effectively telling the other party—I am investigating you!

Social media platforms on Earth didn't actually care if users deliberately acted; on one hand, individuals could not represent the masses, and a minority of people were meaningless to the platform—the platform cared about the majority.

On the other hand, people could not suppress their inner selves forever; as long as they used it long enough, they would always expose a portion of their attributes, thereby becoming part of the software's profile.

By the same principle, the Computing Power Pool could also determine a Psionic Mage's area of expertise or even their identity information through long-term analysis.

Even without customizing calculation tasks specifically for them, just by using general calculation tasks, they would always expose certain tendencies over time.

In the long term, this could indeed be done, but the attacker this time was using a brand-new connector; for the time being, unless the two were directly connected, it was impossible to determine the other party's consciousness characteristics through a third party during a Mind Link.

In layman's terms, Xia Duo could not determine if the other party had used other connectors before, and the Computing Power Pool could not save such "login information."

As of now, a connector was a Computing Power Pool account, and changing a connector was like opening a new account; even if two connectors were used by the same person, the Computing Power Pool could not determine it.

There was no such thing as a "Mind Mark" or "Soul Fluctuation," at least not any theory Xia Duo had ever heard of.

Magic Artifacts bound to users using attunement; in essence, the Magic Artifact connected with the open Magic Net Strings passing through the human body, forcing the Magic Artifact to behave as if it had an owner.

If someone else took it, as long as they completed the attunement, the Magic Artifact would "recognize a new master" again; in reality, it was impossible to truly bind it to one user—whoever held it and completed the attunement could use it.

And the threshold for attunement for most Magic Artifacts was very low; generally, it was just carrying it on one's person for a while, and if it were a Mage, they could even actively attune, making the time even shorter.

Even if it looked like it was bound, it was actually just a more complex authentication mechanism.

As for the Magic Mark, it was essentially a fictitious proof of identity, except that most people corresponded this identity with their real identity.

The same Magic Mark could be used by Zhang San, and it could also be used by Li Si.

Of course, if Zhang San were willing to consume the Divine Grace of the Lady of Mysteries, he could "register" it with the Lady of Mysteries; this way, when others tried to impersonate his mark, the Lady of Mysteries would provide a prompt indicating the mark was fake.

Iolum offering a Mythallar to the Lady of Mysteries followed the same principle—it was called a "sacrifice," but it was actually "patent protection."

The higher a person's status, position, and strength, the more cautious their attitude toward the gods would be, and they would not offend them lightly. A low-level Mage might not care about the patent protection of a Mythallar, and if they had the chance to steal it, they would likely have no psychological burden.

But for existences like the Elven High Gods, it was impossible for them to do something like stealing.

The Computing Power Pool could of course use a Magic Mark as an identity identifier for "login," but this was essentially still anonymous; a Magic Mark could not be directly mapped to a specific Mage.

The Lady of Mysteries would only prompt that a mark was fake, but she wouldn't tell others which Mage had registered that mark!

Yet even so, most Mages were likely unable to accept "registering" their Magic Mark with the Computing Power Pool.

Whether it was the Computing Power Pool, various Magic Artifacts on the market, including the Communication Magic Tool of the Tower of Time, or even Mythallar Permission, they were all anonymous in nature.

Anyone who got their hands on them could use them.