After passing through the long and winding pipeline, Chen Ze and Renamon finally entered Snowden—EDEN's largest hacker black market.
This was the shadowy underbelly hidden beneath EDEN's network, even beneath the entire internet itself.
Hackers from all corners of the globe, wielding their techniques and resources, conducted shady, illegal, even morally reprehensible transactions here.
Although this was merely Snowden's Japanese branch specializing in personal information trading, the shocking nature of these transactions would still stun any ordinary person who stumbled across this place by chance.
Here, individuals' private information was openly sold at astonishingly cheap prices.
Names, gender, birthdates, home addresses, ID details, account passwords, salary, purchase histories—even monthly hotel records…
Everywhere Chen Ze looked, hackers either peddled this personal information openly or sold self-made software capable of retrieving it.
The sources of this personal data varied widely—some were stolen via trojans, others directly hacked from servers, and the boldest hackers even directly extracted data from government databases.
"To think personal information could be traded at this scale…"
Chen Ze stared dumbfounded at the scene unfolding before him. Although he had long been aware of just how pervasive information networks had become in this era, seeing it firsthand still shocked him deeply.
"Do you have any local Tokyo residents' personal information?"
With the silent Renamon at his side, Chen Ze approached the nearest hacker—a teenage boy—and asked bluntly.
"Apart from an address in Tokyo, any other requirements?"
Without bothering to ask Chen Ze's intent, the teen hacker countered skillfully.
"Gender? Age? Salary bracket? Social class?"
Seeing how professional the hacker seemed, Chen Ze didn't hold back, listing his requirements frankly.
"Male, between sixteen and eighteen years old, preferably a student who rarely spends much time online."
"Oh, and if he could be taller, that'd be even better."
The first few conditions weren't unusual, but when Chen Ze mentioned height, the teen hacker clearly paused in surprise, raising his head to cast Chen Ze an odd look.
"Takagi Soichiro, seventeen, active member of a high school basketball team. Lives at XX Nakano Street, Tokyo."
The boy swiftly scrolled through a virtual screen, quickly retrieving a suitable candidate from his vast database.
"He fits your criteria. If you're not satisfied, I can find others."
Saying this, the teen hacker promptly sent Chen Ze a photo—a snapshot of the high schooler named Takagi Soichiro, apparently taken secretly during basketball practice.
From the angle, lighting, and environment, it was clearly a covert shot, but even so, one could see that the boy in the picture was bright and handsome.
"No good. This guy's way too eye-catching. Got anyone more average-looking?"
Furrowing his brows slightly, Chen Ze, using a Digital Avatar for such purposes for the first time, wasn't quite comfortable with the rapid-fire exchange of data.
Thankfully, he'd gotten used to manipulating screens during his previous stint as Agumon, quickly pulling up a virtual panel to examine the identity data more carefully.
"Average-looking?"
This time, it was the young hacker's turn to frown. He had sold plenty of information here, yet it was his first time meeting a buyer with demands as unusual as Chen Ze's.
Tall yet average-looking—these two conditions seemed somewhat contradictory, if not outright incompatible.
"Right, just the kind of person who'd blend into the background unnoticed."
The teen hacker couldn't resist shooting Chen Ze another glance, desperately holding back the retort he wanted to voice—You seriously think someone with your avatar's height can blend into the background?!
But adhering to the customer-is-god principle, he silently grumbled inwardly and continued sifting through his vast collection of data for suitable candidates.
"How about this one?"
"Nakai. Unemployed, living near Tokyo Bay. Seems like he does some low-level gang activities part-time?"
Pulling out another detailed profile, the hacker cautiously presented a photo and tested Chen Ze's reaction.
"In all respects, he meets your requirements."
"The only minor issue might be… he comes with a lot of 'privileges.'"
Though essentially a delinquent, this "Nakai" seemed surprisingly affluent, reflected clearly in his data. Aside from thorough personal information, he also possessed numerous additional accounts.
Things like login credentials to certain private clubs, VIP access to EDEN's Kabukicho sector—those sorts of entry permissions.
"I should clarify up front: I don't offer partial purchases here."
Apparently sensing Chen Ze was a newcomer, the young hacker stressed his rules clearly.
"If you want this guy's information, you have to purchase all the data associated with him. I promise I won't sell it again afterward."
This was precisely the key difference between directly stealing another person's Digital Avatar and creating a new Avatar by purchasing personal information.
Compared to outright hijacking someone's Digital Avatar, constructing one from purchased personal data created a near-perfect, infinitely realistic imitation.
Theoretically, the more comprehensive the information, the more flawless the Digital Avatar a hacker could produce.
With sufficiently advanced hacking skills and banking information from the original person, hackers could even create Avatars capable of fooling banking security systems.
Thus, even though they weren't original Avatars, these meticulously crafted duplicates could easily deceive any identity verification system—provided one didn't unfortunately encounter the original owner face-to-face.
"…"
Standing quietly behind Chen Ze, Renamon watched him bargain with the hacker, her eyes sparkling with interest.
Perhaps it was just Renamon's imagination, but she found this particular side of Chen Ze surprisingly "cute."
After growing used to seeing Chen Ze's genius-hacker persona, suddenly witnessing this street-smart, bargaining version made Renamon find it difficult to reconcile the two images.
So this is what humans are truly like…
Though Renamon possessed extraordinary intelligence, the complexity of human behavior far exceeded her understanding.
In the Digimon world, survival of the fittest had always been the unwavering law, preserving their relatively straightforward mindset.
Before meeting Chen Ze, Renamon had never considered anything beyond digivolution and gaining strength.
But things were different now. Renamon had discovered that besides evolution, there were so many other things worth pursuing and experiencing.
Putting aside distant concepts like family or friends, merely observing humans' endlessly contradictory yet fascinating behavior was enough to captivate Renamon completely.
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