Becoming a male leader in a female body

Chapter 39: Modifying the Scores

In the mind-space, Little Four acknowledged Ling Lan's reminder out loud and then became silent and unmoving. Ling Lan knew then that Little Four's consciousness had already gone into the virtual network, leaving behind an empty shell.

10,000 years' worth of technological advancement, as well as the emergence of spiritual power, had greatly changed the methods and approaches of modern-day hackers. Becoming a hacker nowadays was no longer a purely learned skill; it also required some natural hacking talent. This talent referred to human spiritual power and the ability to disguise and hide one's true self.

The assessment to categorise spiritual power could only be done after the age of ten, because that was when the spiritual power of a child matured and started to evolve into different types, which would determine the direction of their development and cultivation.

Of course, Ling Lan did not know at this time that spiritual power would evolve that way, nor did she know that the internet hackers these days were so much more dangerous and terrifying than the ones from 10,000 years ago. These days, a battle between hackers could easily result in death or injury, while brain death was a rather common consequence.

In this era, hacker battles were known as death battles without gun-smoke — they were, at times, considered even more dangerous than real battles.

Still, it was fortunate that Ling Lan didn't know, otherwise she would never have let Little Four go into the system. In her heart, Little Four had become her most cherished relative. Even though the risk of her secret being exposed would be much higher if she didn't manage to get into the special classes, the problem wasn't insurmountable. If Little Four disappeared because of the dangers of hacking, however, she would never have been able to accept it.

The moment Little Four's consciousness entered the dummy avatar he had embedded in the Central Scout Academy's systems, 137 jerked to a stop, immediately pausing his actions in modifying the scores.

As expected of a top-tier hacker in the Federation — even though Little Four's entrance had been exceedingly subtle, 137's keen spiritual power had still sensed some disturbance in his surroundings. Cold sweat started dripping from his forehead.

Examiner 413, who was standing guard beside his physical body, stiffened — could it be that 137 was in danger? 137 was only trying to change the scores because of his recommendations — if 137 were to be harmed doing so, he would never forgive himself. Although the bonuses he would get from these recommendations were considerable, his teammate was much more important.

Number 137 was very careful, surreptitiously sending out mental feelers to investigate. Although he had no idea who his opponent was, he knew that it had to be someone formidable to be able to hide his presence so well.

Little Four observed all this coolly. He wasn't restricted by human limits on the net, whereby each person was only limited to one online avatar. Even hackers were not exempt from these limits — the most a hacker could do was to disguise his identity and obscure his entry point. In contrast, as long as he was online, he could divide himself into multiple avatars with a snap of his fingers, and conceal himself inside the very fabric of the internet itself.

Little Four merely had to trace the spiritual power of his opponent to find his entry point. Although the opponent did use some spiritual power to hide his identity and location, these little tricks were like child's play to Little Four. With no trouble at all, Little Four had managed to lock onto his opponent.

However, when he tapped into a monitoring device at the opponent's location and saw examiner 413, he knew that the matter wasn't the problem he had assumed it would be.