Abyssal Wanderer

On the tenth floor of the Nord Resettlement Area, inside the Central Control Lighthouse.

The provisional government of the resettlement area was far more careless about the safekeeping of important strategic equipment such as multi-purpose printers than Jim had imagined - he even felt that the control here was not as careful as that of the Icarus Liberation Front.

All the inspections on the way to the printing room were easily passed under Jin Hyungjun's recommendation. The interior of the printing room hall where the printer is placed is like a utility room with dusty raw materials piled everywhere.

"Commonly used printing materials, such as carbon, iron, aluminum, copper and other elements are piled nearby and can be taken as needed. As for precious metals such as platinum, gold, osmium, or radioactive substances, they are kept in Elsewhere... In principle, printers are not allowed to bring their own materials here, and the price purchased here is about 50% more expensive than on the market... I am talking about the regular purchase price, for a transaction like yours It’s even more expensive.”

Probably seeing Jim's confused look, Jin Hyungjun explained.

"Don't the resettlement area governments care about this?"

Jim asked confused.

"After all, this is an important revenue-generating project for the government. In most cases, it turns a blind eye. Of course, there is still a minimum of management...such as identity and what is printed."

As the other party spoke, he glanced at Wang Ying, who had always had a cold face next to him, and then continued:

"But just like when the army was recruited in the old days, the big soldiers would be required to bring their own weapons or armor. On the contrary, the resettlement area government will encourage people from violent organizations to take the initiative to come here to upgrade their weapons... Of course, it will only be lightly armed, and they will all Registration is required. As for those big shots upgrading the weapons of their own bodyguards, that is another set of standards."

Regarding the behavior of the resettlement area government, Wang Ying snorted lightly, while Jim nodded.

If you can legally own a multi-purpose printer, then the thing itself is no different from a money printing machine - it is really difficult for them to ask the resettlement area government not to make money.

With this thought in mind, he cast his gaze towards the center of the printing room.

In the central hall of the printing room, a circular open space with a diameter of about twenty meters was cleared. There are various devices placed in the circle, and they are surrounded by the miracle left behind by the super artificial intelligence - a multi-purpose printer floating in mid-air.

At this moment, four suspicious "energy supply devices" released high-energy arcs that surrounded the multi-purpose printer. The destructive power of those arcs was restrained by the multi-purpose printer around itself, and was meekly absorbed into the pure blackness - from a distance, it looked as dazzling as the accretion disk around the black hole.

As for the body of the multi-purpose printer, it is rapidly changing its shape like a Rubik's Cube being rapidly turned by invisible hands.

"If I'm not mistaken... that thing seems to be an arc generator installed on a battleship."

Feeling his hair standing upright under the influence of the electrostatic field, Jim pointed to the "energy supply equipment" around the multi-function printer not far away and asked.

The arc generator is a "close combat weapon" used when deep space warships engage in boarding battles. It stimulates a high-energy arc that is enough to overload the warship's deflection shield and penetrate thick alloy armor.

And such a dangerous weapon was actually brought here to charge the universal printer...

Even the Icarus Liberation Front is not so wild.

"This is a routine operation."

Jin Hyungjun shrugged and said:

"In the past, the resettlement area government also used conventional methods to charge energy, but later technicians discovered that it was cheaper to use directed energy weapons for charging. In addition, the printing of some equipment has requirements for the instantaneous output power of energy. Using such Ship-based weapons can better satisfy the needs, so it slowly evolved into today’s plan.”

Looking at Jim's unbelievable expression, he continued:

“Of course, I know that when it comes to multi-purpose printers, the public always easily associates it with the stereotype of high-tech equipment. But in fact, you can’t even regard it as a sophisticated technological creation in human cognition—— The term 'universal printer' itself is a name we chose without authorization based on the functions we can understand.

"Their nature and true use may be completely beyond our imagination. They may be some kind of weapons, black boxes left by super artificial intelligence to monitor us, or even their ascended form... But no matter what , according to the 'rough treatment' according to human cognitive standards, it is impossible to harm them at all."

The true face of a multi-purpose printer...

After listening to Jin Hengjun's words, Jim couldn't help but think of this question.

Ever since Jiang Zhou learned about the universal printer, he had collected as much information related to it as possible. Just like what the middleman just said, there are countless speculations about the truth of multi-purpose printers in the academic community. And most of them seem reasonable and convincing.

This is not because the arguments for those speculations are rigorous, but because humans have too little understanding of the nature of multi-purpose printers - it is like discussing how many angels can stand on the tip of a needle. No matter how you discuss it, you will feel that " It makes sense."

"The door..."

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but murmur.

Hecate once called a universal printer this way, combined with the fact that the deep dive interface is essentially a special universal printer. The door connecting the abyssal dark web and basic reality should be their most real role.

But where will the Abyss Dark Web lead?

While thinking, several of them had already walked to the central open space. The air here is filled with the pungent smell of ozone.

As soon as they approached, several heavily armed security guards stopped them.

"Lao Huo, that job I mentioned before; three adjustments and transformations of depth 2, expedited."

Seeing this situation, Jin Hengjun immediately stepped forward to greet him. He shouted to a middle-aged man not far away who looked like the person in charge here.

The guy called "Lao Huo" had a messy afro on his head - it didn't look like he had deliberately left it that way in this environment - he had a long-finished cigarette butt in his mouth and put down the data in his hand. Ban raised his head and said.

"Wait a little longer."

After saying that, he simply tidied up, picked up a cup of coffee from the desk next to him and walked over.

"Brother, I have to say, you came at the right time this time... I just received the news that the supervision of the use of multi-purpose printers will be fully handed over to the Human Intelligence Ethics Supervision Committee. If it is a day or two later, you will I’m afraid I can’t even walk into the lighthouse.”

Lao Huo said as he walked.

"Ah? Why is this?"

Jin Hyungjun's eyes suddenly widened at this disastrous news, which could be called losing his job.

After spitting out the cigarette butt from the corner of his mouth, Lao Huo cursed and said:

"It's probably because the previous information security director was assassinated by Icarus' people, which made them feel that the lighthouse was unsafe... But to be honest, if it is really taken over by Bang Sunzi, I'm afraid we won't have any traces here in the future. It’s a waste of money. Those big companies have to hand over the money for adjustment and transformation to the Icarus Liberation Front and go to them for adjustment and transformation.”

Then, the two of them discussed the topic of losing their jobs for a while. Then Lao Huo seemed to have recalled something serious, turned to look at Jim and Wang Ying, and asked:

"Which one of you wants to make adjustments? First, give me an officially certified mental index report. The people from the committee will take over this place soon. I don't want to cause any accidents in the end."

"it's me."

When Wang Ying, who had been in a bad mood since she came in, heard this, she took out her police badge from her pocket and handed it over.

Her personal information is integrated into the police badge of the Public Security Bureau, which contains her mental index report of daily tests.

Lao Huo first took the police badge and inserted it into the scanning interface, then glanced at Jim and asked Jin Hengjun beside him:

"It turns out they are from the Public Security Bureau here to upgrade the equipment. This is easy to handle...but what is this guy next to here doing?"

"The printing permission was provided by him, and the memory was encrypted with his mandala."

Regarding this question, Jin Hyungjun immediately answered Jim's previous request.

In response to this, Lao Huo nodded and said:

"Oh... Got it, Keyman, right?"

Based on the unbreakable nature of the Mandala cipher, many black market transactions require a trustworthy third party to use its own Mandala encryption to act as intermediary insurance to ensure the security of the transaction.

Such a guarantor is called a "key holder".

It was precisely because of the existence of such a profession that Jim had reason to sneak in and connect to the multi-purpose printer in front of him.

Unfortunately, nowadays, even if you can connect to a universal printer, it doesn't make much sense. After all, "Jim Leiter" in the Eden Domain is currently completely dead. Even if he goes to the Eden Domain, he has no way to verify anything.

On the other hand, Wang Ying has no real plans to make upgrades and adjustments - even if Jiang Zhou is really willing to give her the printing rights for these adjustments.

Inhuman power means inhuman thinking. In order to maintain her pure humanity, she has always refused all replacement transformations that would lead to her own alienation. In today's era, although people with similar conservative ideas are not the mainstream, they are by no means a minority.

[Let me connect to the multi-purpose printer first. After I find what I'm looking for, you can just say you don't want to continue. Of course, if you really plan to upgrade your hardware, then there is no problem in giving these things to you]

Thinking of this, and looking at Wang Ying's expression that might break down at any moment, Jim couldn't help but comfort him.

[As I said before, there is no need for this... Besides, it's better for you to find what you want instead of asking me to come here in vain]

The other party replied without any anger.

Jim laughed dryly, then took back his memory from her hand and stepped forward.

"Then let me connect to the printer first and unlock the mandala password for printing permission in advance."

He said this to the person in charge known as "Lao Huo".

Although there is no way to complete the verification of the existence of "self", taking this opportunity to investigate the records of Mr. Jin's adjustments and transformations, and getting some more clues about the Orpheus Esoteric Cult is not completely in vain.

Jim thought.

The experience of connecting the multi-purpose printer was similar to what Liao Qi experienced in Icarus. After the strange touch of the data connector inserted into the occipital brain-computer interface came, he immediately lost control of his body and his consciousness fell into a bizarre world. In cyberspace.

At the same time, Jiang Zhou, who was in the Eden domain, also began to borrow Jim Leiter's anchor point and began to invade the external database connected to the multi-purpose printer.

Lighthouse database.

As the data center and government office headquarters of the Nord Resettlement Area, the lighthouse's firewall will naturally not be second-rate. In Jiang Zhou's hacker's visual perception, this firewall is like a three-step, one-post, five-step, one-post guard wall, surrounded by a viper wire fence.

With Jiang Zhou's current hacking capabilities, even if he could break through this firewall, he would still have to pay a heavy price. And in the process, he will undoubtedly expose himself.

Expose your position in the enemy's base camp.

But fortunately, he does not need to really break through or climb over this firewall, because at this moment he is coming in from the inside of the firewall.

After all, no matter how crazy the people who built the lighthouse firewall were, they would not be so bored as to build the wall to the data interface of the multi-purpose printer to guard against anything that might come out of the multi-purpose printer.

As a result, Jiang Zhou's consciousness reached into the interior of the lighthouse so easily, opened the database and quickly consulted it.

On the other hand, perhaps to kill this boring waiting time, or perhaps to adhere to the idea of ​​​​acting a complete set, Jim also plans to unlock the memory that stores the printing permission.

Well, first visualize the mandala code, and then unlock the memory.

With the input of the string of sixteen digits, the permissions of the memory were opened with a "click" - Jiang Zhou had locked the things he had brought out from the City of Sages with his own mandala password. .

But then again...why didn't Jim encrypt it with his own mandala code in the first place?

After all, my mandala password is too special, and maybe an inadvertent input may cause some problems - just like when I killed the Bacchanalia before.

When acting as Jim in the future, try to use Jim's mandala code.

Jiang Zhou thought.

While thinking about this, Jim suddenly realized a problem.

What is my mandala code?

He seemed to have forgotten. (End of chapter)