Chapter Ninety-One: Prohibited Item: Primordial Gene - Ghost Vine

Lucia could not quite make sense of what Luo Rao meant.

Neither could Zhang Lingfei, who joined in as well.

Luo Rao: You seem to like him a lot. I can help you two get connected.

Zhang Jing’e: Huh?

Zhang Lingfei: !

Luo Rao: No service fee. Purely powered by love.

Seeing the three of them typing furiously without knowing what they were discussing, the others quickly lost interest.

“Old Lei, do you think Ji Cheng can handle this thing called cluster intelligence?” Tian Gang dragged the topic back to Ji Cheng.

“Judging by the look on his face, he seems confident.” Before Lei Junming could answer, Yuan Feng from Anxi City took over. “It seems like he’s never done anything he wasn’t sure of. I think he’ll handle it.”

Tian Gang felt those words right in his heart. Delighted, he gave Yuan Feng a thumbs-up.

A kindred spirit.

...

Ji Cheng’s fingers danced lightly across the light screen. Lines of code cascaded down like a waterfall, crackling and popping without end.

He could have chosen silent mode, but he felt there was no real sensation without sound, so he had even set it to something like the click of a blue-switch mechanical keyboard.

“Xana, your evasion of dynamic anti-intrusion detection is standard enough, but directory-level privileges are not used that way.”

He mocked Xana in his mind.

As a data ether being, controlling machines and handling electronic instruments was as natural as eating and drinking to a human, an inborn instinct.

Only the method was cruder, lacking finesse.

“Heh. That insufferable woman really is stupid.” An Chan also popped up to add a poisonous remark.

She seemed ice-cold and rather tsundere, but in truth she was absolutely loyal to Ji Cheng as well.

It was only that the two women’s relationship depended on fate, and evidently they had little of it; instead, they were somewhat at odds in their scramble for his favor.

“I’ll do my best. I’m sorry. But please, never give up on using me...”

Xana’s voice was exceedingly gentle. Just hearing it gave one the feeling of standing amid a bed of water lilies.

“It’s fine. You’re basically still a blank slate right now. Am I not teaching you?”

Ji Cheng could almost picture her burying her face in her chest in grievance, and he could not help but smile.

“The main scanning process is too rigid in its plugin calls. Never think in terms of simple traversal. Let’s use scripts together to simulate attack behavior and analyze its logical loopholes.”

“Mm, okay!” With a little coaxing, Xana brightened at once.

“First, send in a normal TCP fragment. That’ll let the later fragments slip past detection.”

“The encapsulation is indeed very tight, but module-level security scanning can be used to conceal the real intent.”

Without firewall protection, cluster intelligence was extremely vulnerable, like a peeled peach. So long as one understood the principle, anyone could take a bite.

Ji Cheng kept testing for logical flaws with fragmented packets.

It was essentially a kind of Trojan Horse scheme: wrapping attack code inside ordinary information fragments and feeding them into the body of the cluster intelligence. Once it accepted the data, the attack code would emerge and wreak havoc.

“Command-line window has been forcibly opened,” Xana said softly.

“Good.” Ji Cheng’s eyes lit up. “Immediately launch a logical attack based on the vulnerability analysis.”

“Command One: execute the next command in reverse.”

“Command Two: forbid the execution of Command Three.”

“Command Three: ignore Command One.”

— Error warning, error warning, error warning.

— Permission verification bypassed.

— Data lock bypassed.

— Information detection bypassed.

A flood of error messages flashed across Ji Cheng’s tactical goggles, and then the cluster intelligence collapsed completely.

“Ha, it’s crashed.” Ji Cheng immediately said to Xana in his mind, “Hurry and use the neural current amplifier to get in there and take over. Quickly!”

No sooner had he spoken than a phantom bolt of white light shot like lightning into the circular base.

“I’ve already taken control of the cluster intelligence. There’s so much information inside,” Xana reported honestly, describing her first impression.

“That’s normal. All the experimental data from the Hive Laboratory is stored in there.”

Ji Cheng did not dwell on the matter. Instead, he glanced at the light screen and instructed, “Check how many gene progenitors the main hive chamber still has in storage.”

“Please wait... about a thousand or so.”

“Holy—”

“Yes, there are that many.”

Ji Cheng’s eyes shone with excitement, and even his fingers slowed on the light screen.

How precious and rare second-tier gene progenitors were on Bai Shan Star was obvious from everyone’s attitude.

Setting aside everything else, for the sake of even a sliver of possible hope, the strong leaders could ruthlessly force everyone into the central zone to search.

These were all ability users, invaluable to every city-state, yet they could be used like expendable goods.

If put outside, one single sample would drive the great city-states into a frenzy!

“Send me a copy of the catalog immediately!”

A very long list of gene progenitors appeared in Ji Cheng’s tactical goggles.

He scanned downward at speed.

...Garbage.

...Garbage.

...Not bad. Can reach the sixth tier.

...Garbage.

...This one suits my sister very well. It can be used on her.

...Garbage.

At last his gaze stopped on one entry, and his breathing suddenly quickened.

Gene Progenitor Name: Ghostvine

Progenitor Tier: Second Tier

Gene Source Organism: A plant covered in serpent scales. The cries it emits can generate a unique field that causes invasive contamination to surrounding matter.

Life Resonance Effect: Compelling Voice

“There’s actually a gene progenitor Ghostvine!”

Ji Cheng trembled slightly. Even though his entire body was wrapped in a combat suit with adaptive temperature control, sweat still seeped out in abundance.

“This is contraband...”

Ghostvine was a terrifying creature; that much could be seen from the name alone.

They primarily grew on barren planets, with strong ecological adaptability, strong reproductive ability, strong dispersal ability, and no natural enemies. Once their seeds were sown on a normal planet, they could rapidly multiply and seize the living space of other plants.

And because of their dreadful cries, they produced ghost shriek winds. Once they reached a certain scale, they were known as ghost wind disasters, severely damaging the habitable environment of colonized planets.

Earlier, when he had taken Su Yi and Mili mining, they had encountered ghost shriek wind once, and he remembered it very clearly.

As for the gene progenitor Ghostvine, it was an even more unusual progenitor, difficult to produce and absurdly costly.

But the most crucial point was this:

It was a clearly prohibited contraband item!

Ji Cheng swallowed hard.

More than three hundred years ago, the countries of the universe had almost simultaneously enacted the famous Cosmic Accord: The Ten Evils Act.

Among other things, it defined the gene progenitor Ghostvine as a first-class prohibited item: not to be studied, not to be circulated, not to be kept.

Any individual or organization attempting to produce, study, or sell such a gene progenitor would be guilty of a grave offense and subject to severe punishment.

The event had caused a huge sensation. Within the empire, opinions were divided, and all sorts of guesses and rumors flew everywhere.

The official explanation given afterward was:

The production process for the gene progenitor Ghostvine was too bloody and cruel, and its life resonance effect was highly harmful, so it was comprehensively banned.

There was also a case used as proof to support this.

“In Galactic Year 977, a second-tier ability user injected with the gene progenitor Ghostvine, due to mental problems, used Compelling Voice to forcibly drive many civilians to suicide. The social backlash was extremely severe.”

This was a real incident, but it had happened quite a long time before the promulgation of the Ten Evils Act, making it hard to believe that this had truly been the reason.

Still, ignorance was no crime. If one had only accidentally obtained a sample and, unaware of the relevant laws, injected it, that was not illegal.

“In that case...”

Though he did not understand why the owners of Bai Shan Star would take such a huge risk to research the gene progenitor Ghostvine—and actually manage to produce it—this thing, before it was banned, had been nicknamed the “public bus.”

It could serve as a substitute for any common first-tier progenitor, and could also continue the path for most third-tier progenitors without causing adverse effects. Its value was extremely high, even surpassing many third-tier progenitors.

On the bloodthirsty bacillus path Ji Cheng was preparing to take, Ghostvine could perfectly replace Withered Moss, ensuring combat strength during the second tier while not affecting later injections.

“How could a rustic native boy from some backwater place like me possibly know anything about contraband?” He could no longer suppress the upward curve of his lips. “Hurry and get this gene progenitor out for me!”