Chapter 27: Report

Just as Qi Sheng was monitoring the operation of the Test Tower.

In the real world, at the Human Federation Star Net Security Center.

Beep!

"Verification successful!"

An electronic prompt sounded, and the metal door slid sideways into the wall.

Ding Xiu strode into the office and sat down at the computer desk.

Looking at the constantly rising number of online report notifications on his right, he couldn't help but sigh.

At that moment, the projector on the ceiling automatically activated; the beam it cast converged in front of the desk, condensing into a robot projection.

"Smart Assistant A at your service. You currently have 328 unprocessed online reports. Among them, 227 reports are marked as AI-handling projects and will be resolved by Assistant A for you. The remaining 101 reports, after retrieval and reading, contain content I cannot accurately judge, requiring your personal analysis and resolution."

Ignoring the smart assistant, Ding Xiu pressed the blue button on the desk. Immediately, the projector on the ceiling cast down more light, constructing a virtual workstation centered around Ding Xiu.

Countless blue and white points of light slowly rotated around him.

"Start working!"

Pulling himself together, Ding Xiu quickly entered a work state, clicking the white points of light surrounding him to read the report information.

After AI filtering, the report information presented before him required his personal handling to determine whether to transfer the reports to local law enforcement departments or hand them over to internal regulatory units of other races.

Having consecutively processed four reports, Ding Xiu clicked open another white point of light.

Immediately, a virtual screen condensed in front of him, displaying detailed report information:

Reporter: Gaming Is Art

Verified Identity: Wang Xuexi (Identity Code:...)

Report Content:

Someone in the group chat, an online scammer, is spreading fake phishing links, claiming the links allow downloading the latest virtual reality game released by the Eclipse Clan, "Dark Land"...

(Attachment: Group chat screenshot)

(Attachment: Screenshot of the network ID information of the poster)

Seeing this report information, Ding Xiu felt surprised.

This kind of information was obviously fake at a glance; he didn't even need to click the link to know it was false information.

Games released by the Eclipse Clan many years ago had no cracked versions, let alone "Dark Land," which was only recently released and employed more advanced encryption technology.

Precisely because of this, the situation seemed strange.

Logically, the AI assistant should have been able to handle this kind of information on its own; why did it need to be transferred to him for manual verification?

"Assistant A, why didn't you handle this report?"

Facing the inquiry, Assistant A, who had been sitting dazed on the desk, stood up and pointed at the report information before him, saying:

"We must conduct a detailed inspection of all report information and can only make a judgment after verifying the content. However, for this report, I cannot retrieve any useful information from the evidence provided, making further processing impossible."

Hearing Assistant A's explanation, Ding Xiu grew even more puzzled:

"Why is further processing impossible?"

"There are three reasons. First, I searched for the 'Welfare Officer' mentioned in the report. Although this person's network information can be found online, their account has no verification information, and the IP location cannot be traced... In other words, this account completed registration without passing identity verification. My database contains no precedent for unverified registrations, indicating a logical error beyond my comprehension."

"Second, I entered the reported link to search for other clues and discovered that this link also has issues; I actually cannot bypass the permissions behind the link... This is the final feedback I received."

As Assistant A finished speaking, the holographic information before Ding Xiu changed.

A line of notification popped up in the projection:

【Download limit reached. The publisher has not enabled new download permissions; downloading cannot continue.】

A human-like expression of confusion appeared on Assistant A's Iron Face:

"My permissions rank as Level A within the Human Federation's network information processing. Only information designated as Level S by the smart main brains of various cities and the Federation's Central Main Brain is inaccessible to me; for all other verifications, I have the authority to bypass authentication and access directly. Therefore, the inspection of this link can only be judged as a failure."

"Finally, I inspected the network traces of the 'Welfare Officer' but could not find any readable or traceable network clues, including which specific groups they posted the download links in; I am unable to access such detailed information."

"In summary, according to Article 238 of the AI Main Brain Regulations, an AI must verify all information before handling an incident independently. Since I cannot further verify any of these three lines of evidence, I have judged the inspection as failed and transferred it for manual processing."

After listening to Assistant A's account, Ding Xiu immediately realized that this report, which seemed obviously fake at a glance, was far from as simple as he had imagined.

He immediately followed Assistant A's processing method to re-examine the publisher's verified identity, the link information, and the IP address.

The results obtained were exactly as Assistant A had stated; absolutely no useful information could be found.

"Could it be the Eclipse Clan?"

Faced with such a bizarre problem, the first thing Ding Xiu thought of was the Eclipse Clan.

The core smart brains of the major cities of the Human Federation and the Federation Main Brain were originally established with the help of the Eclipse Clan.

Including the Star Net, which the Human Race and various factions fleeing here jointly connected to, was also completed with technical support provided by the Eclipse Clan; therefore, only the Eclipse Clan possesses the highest network permissions to freely enter the networks of other races.

In those years, the Human Federation had also worried about this issue, believing that connecting to the Star Net posed hidden dangers and that the secrets of the Human Race would be completely exposed before the Eclipse Clan.

But this issue was suppressed during the discussions of the Federation's Supreme Council.

The reason was simple; during the meeting, someone asked such a question:

"May I ask the city administrators and federation councilors present: given the technological level of the Eclipse Clan, if they truly had intentions against humanity, what would be our probability of successfully resisting?"

This sentence plunged the protesters at the meeting into silence.

In fact, if the Eclipse Clan wanted to invade Earth, the Human Race would have no power to resist.

During the years of contact with the Eclipse Clan, they had never shown any hostility toward the Human Race and had even actively provided various forms of technical support.

If they could connect to the Star Net created by the Eclipse Clan, the Human Federation would gain access to a vast amount of technology stored by the Eclipse Clan on the Star Net, providing a huge boost to their development.

Ultimately, the meeting voted to decide that the Human Federation would connect to the Star Net, request assistance from the Eclipse Clan, and establish city smart brains and a main brain belonging to the Human Federation.

Therefore, the smart main brains of the Eclipse Clan possessed supreme network permissions higher than those of the main brains of other races.

Only the super main brains of the Eclipse Clan had the permission to set absolutely confidential data on the Star Net and could bypass the smart brains of other races to complete registration information via unverified registration applications.

Thinking of this, Ding Xiu's expression became strange.

The highest echelon of the Eclipse Clan, possessing control over super smart brains, registered an unverified network identity just to post a prank link on the Human Federation's network?

This speculation was truly too absurd.

But apart from the involvement of the Eclipse Clan, he could not think of any other possibility.

To clarify the identity of the Welfare Officer, Ding Xiu submitted the report content to the head of the Network Security Group.

After explaining the reasons in detail over the phone, he paid it no further mind and continued processing other report information.

Ten minutes later, the group leader, Yue Dong, appeared beside him via a three-dimensional projection.

"Ding Xiu, I have fed back the content you reported to the Federation Main Brain. The conclusion received is that it has never approved any unverified identity registration information, so the Welfare Officer is very likely a high-ranking member of the Eclipse Clan."

"Really the Eclipse Clan?" Ding Xiu frowned slightly.

"Only the Eclipse Clan holds the supreme Star Net permissions that can bypass the Federation Main Brain. Regarding the series of strange behaviors exhibited by the Welfare Officer, the Federation Main Brain has analyzed and provided twelve possibilities."

"The first possibility is that some problem has arisen within the high echelons of the Eclipse Clan, leading a certain member to steal the database of 'Dark Land' and spread a cracked version on our Human Federation's network."

"The second possibility is that this is merely a prank by the high echelons of the Eclipse Clan, and there is no cracked version of the game behind the link at all."

"The third possibility..."

Speaking to this point, Yue Dong paused briefly before continuing:

"But none of these twelve guesses can perfectly explain the series of confusing behaviors exhibited by the Welfare Officer."

"The biggest problem now is that the Federation Smart Brain cannot track the Welfare Officer's network traces, including which chat groups they distributed the links in, nor can it download content through the link, so it cannot determine whether a game truly exists behind the link."

"Ding Xiu, I am now giving you a task: monitor this link information in real-time and wait to see if there is any possibility of the download permissions being opened again."

After listening to the group leader's explanation, Ding Xiu immediately nodded:

"Understood. I will monitor whether there are any changes to the closed download permissions of this link."

The figure of the group leader faded at this moment. Ding Xiu turned his head to look at Assistant A, who was sitting dazed on the desk:

"Assistant A, help me monitor the link's movements in real-time and report to me if anything happens."

At this moment, Assistant A raised its head, a human-like expression of bewilderment appearing on its Iron Face:

"I do not have permission to access the link and cannot carry out deep-level monitoring."

"I don't need you to check whether the download permissions behind the link are opened. I want you to click download at a frequency of one hundred thousand times per second, continuously for twenty-four hours. Since we lack permissions, we will use high-frequency connection attempts to wait for the moment when permissions might be opened."

"Understood!" Assistant A nodded at this moment.

Just as Assistant A initiated the high-frequency connections.

Qi Sheng, located in Emperor Tomb Village, received feedback from the Guide, indicating that a smart AI was making high-frequency access requests to the Challenger System.

This made Qi Sheng realize that his method of recruiting players had likely attracted the attention of the Human Federation's network security agencies, or even the high echelons of the Human Federation.

Regarding this, Qi Sheng had no thoughts of coping or dealing with it.

As the number of players in "Monster World" continued to grow, there would eventually be a day when everything was fully exposed.

He was not worried about exposure; he only wished to delay the time of exposure.

Furthermore, the various factions on Earth could not prohibit the growth in the number of "Monster World" players.

Because the supreme network permissions of the Star Net built by the Eclipse Clan had long been easily penetrated and seized by the Guide.

(End of Chapter)