Player Reload
Chapter 318: After modification - 290 Other World

Chapter 318: After modification: Chapter 290 Other World

"The bureau is very focused on this, and has already classified it as an A-grade incident."

Yuan Zhixia sent over an address of a hotpot restaurant, "I’ll tell you the details offline."

"Alright."

Li Cheng emerged from under the turret and said to Gray Rain, "You keep an eye on things here, I’m heading out. Is there anything you want to buy?"

"Something to buy..."

Gray Rain thought seriously for a moment, then raised her phone, "I want to raise a Fire Dragon."

Her phone screen was playing a short video, showing a man in a powered exoskeleton and heavy fire-resistant suit using a chain to heavily choke a Fire Dragon’s neck,

The video uploader’s ID was clearly [Red Driver Loves Playing With Dogs].

Drivers belong to the Thousand Throats Beast Guild, focusing on the Summoner’s path, and upgrading magical pets consumes a lot of resources, so they’re generally quite poor.

To generate income, he recently started a short video account dedicated to taming unruly magical creatures sent by other players, such as Griffins, Bottom-dwelling Demon Fish, Giant Trolls, Ogres, Hellhounds, etc.,

Using his "magical" taming methods to subdue these fantastic creatures so they obey their owners, earning both a commission and video platform fees.

Regarding the "magical" taming methods, it initially involved using language comprehension spells to communicate with the demon beasts, attempting language pua,

If pua failed, spiritual control and brainwashing, hallucinogenic drugs would be used,

If that still didn’t work, he’d use packages including Dragon Fruit, heart and lungs, heartwarming foot, blueberry juice, and fans, etc.

"Brothers and sisters, click follow! Double-tap! Double-tap——"

Clad in a fire-resistant suit, the Red Driver yelled hoarsely at the camera, while being frantically sprayed by the Fire Dragon’s Dragon Fire, pulling the chain tightly around the dragon’s neck.

There was a subtle, distinct sense of déjà vu.

"You want to raise a Fire Dragon? You look like one."

Li Cheng’s eyelid twitched, and he took the phone from Gray Rain amidst her protests, "Go do your homework."

Leaving the three-dimensional warehouse, Li Cheng rode his motorcycle to the hotpot restaurant, Yuan Zhixia had already ordered the dishes and was waiting, the table was tagged with Special Affairs Bureau standard talismans for soundproofing and reducing presence, so the conversation wouldn’t be disturbed.

"Haven’t seen you in a while, you’ve changed a lot."

Yuan Zhixia raised her eyebrows, both sides knew each other’s real identities, so they didn’t disguise.

Up close, she could tell Li Cheng’s physical strength from his breathing rate, pulse, and heartbeat.

Yuan Zhixia was now a member of the Mobile Task Force under the Special Affairs Bureau, having carried out several regular tasks with the Mobile Task Force, currently at Level 16,

While Li Cheng, an unaffiliated lone wolf player without regular task resources, was also Level 16, indirectly proving his final evaluations on script tasks were definitely no less than A.

"It’s mutual."

Li Cheng sat down, he could feel that Yuan Zhixia’s physical strength was not much beyond ordinary, but there seemed to be a layer of an indescribable barrier around her, probably some sort of magic profession.

"This is the summary of the data from the bureau,"

Yuan Zhixia handed Li Cheng a square, rugged phone, casually saying, "Since victims of this incident include players or their relatives, this data will soon be released on the forum to ease the panic. So this isn’t technically a breach of confidentiality."

"Thanks."

Li Cheng took the phone, activating the multi-threaded brain domain method, scanned through the data quickly, gaining a general understanding of the event.

About two months ago, a small-scale spreading of a mobile app named "corda" began on foreign dark nets.

This software disguised as a game app was 5G in size, with users able to play a series of games including Sudoku, English spelling, and quiz games directly without registration.

On the surface, it looked normal, but if users successfully completed the games, within the next eight hours, their brain power would be significantly enhanced, memory improved, becoming sharp-witted, articulate, and exceedingly confident.

This addictive sensation was quite useful for exams.

If users wanted to maintain this state, they had to watch a mandatory one-minute ad to recover in-game energy,

"This APP was first released on the dark web, after reaching hundreds of downloads, the uploader deleted it themselves. It has complex code restrictions inside, preventing anyone from re-uploading it online.

It can only be transmitted via Bluetooth between two phones offline, making its spread quite covert."

Yuan Zhixia picked up a piece of fatty beef with her chopsticks, calmly saying, "Moreover, after playing, users’ cognition would be altered, unable to realize anything amiss, wouldn’t tell adults, instead passing it on to close peers.

Causing Europe and America’s official institutions and the Global Supernatural Alliance GOC to remain unaware.

Your cousins got this app from their cram school classmates’ phones."

Li Cheng frowned, "Something like memetic brainwashing?"

"Kind of."

Yuan Zhixia nodded, "The key is this, in the app’s user service agreement and privacy policy interface, there’s a quite bizarre text."

She took the phone, opened the corda software in safety box mode, clicked the user service agreement page.

The user agreement was tens of thousands of words long, the content was mostly mundane, except one line of very small, almost unreadable text——

[The user voluntarily waives the ownership of their soul, bears all risks of playing the game, and acts as an anchor]

"Waiving soul ownership is understandable, some order evil faction devils include some trap terms in contracts,"

Li Cheng exclaimed, "But what does ’act as an anchor’ mean."

"This is the main point."

Yuan Zhixia exited the user service agreement, opened the game interface, quickly lost a game, and the screen immediately popped up with the option to "watch an ad to gain energy."

Clicking to watch, the ad content wasn’t for money-grabbing mobile or web games, short dramas, or short videos,

But a meaningless montage.

Blood-red clouds covering the sky, hundred-meter-high tsunamis, modern cities in ruins after earthquakes, severely mutated animals, scavengers wearing pig-nose anti-toxic masks, ultimately fixed on a giant floating eye similar to Sauron’s Eye from The Lord of the Rings.

"The bureau’s analysts have verified thoroughly, the video has no falsified content or AI generation, it’s the original footage."

Yuan Zhixia said, "If the guess is correct, those teenagers in vegetative states have their souls, in some unknown way, fallen into the dilapidated Otherworld depicted in the video.

This is still the first large-scale, premeditated infiltration of Otherworld abnormal event."

Yuan Zhixia’s tone was very serious, traveling to Otherworld isn’t a good thing, who knows if it’s Sword Art Online, Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World, No Job Reincarnation, or a gag comic’s crappy fart planet.