Chapter 4: Camouflage Protocol
The feeling of being watched wasn't paranoia. It was a data read-out.
Han moved through the city's peripheral alleys, avoiding the main avenues where the White Crane Guard patrols were more frequent. Above him, the night sky looked normal to anyone else, but he could see the pulsations of a golden light grid stretching across the clouds, sweeping the terrain like a search radar.
[INTEGRITY SCAN: 45% of Sector completed...]
[OBJECTIVE: Identify foreign code fragment]
"I have to disappear," Han muttered, sinking deeper into the shadows.
Every time the radar passed over him, his own system vibrated with an "Imminent Detection" warning. If the world's system flagged him as a virus, they wouldn't send a guard; they'd send a delete command. He needed a "mask"—something that would make his energy look legitimate in the eyes of the Administrator.
He stopped in front of a dilapidated building that smelled of burnt incense and old paper: a supply shop for runic inscriptions. It was a low-profile place, perfect for what he had in mind.
Upon entering, a bell tinkled. An old man with parchment-like skin and eyes clouded by cataracts looked up from a counter filled with brushes and jars of spiritual ink.
"We're closing, boy," the old man said in a raspy voice. "Come back tomorrow if you have silver. If not, get out."
Han didn't move. His eyes fixed on the runic papers hanging from the walls. To the old man, they were protection talismans. To Han, they were fragments of source code printed on paper.
[OBJECT: Concealment Talisman (Low Grade) | Quality: Poor (Contains syntax errors)]
"I'm not looking for charity," Han said, keeping his voice low and steady. "I'm looking for work. I know your talismans are failing. The ink isn't flowing correctly in the base strokes, is it?"
The old man frowned, setting his brush aside. "What are you saying? I've been drawing runes for fifty years. What would a vagrant like you know about the flow of Qi on paper?"
Han approached the counter, ignoring the hostile glare. He pointed to a talisman the old man was trying to finish. "That stroke right there"—Han indicated a curve in the lower corner—"is creating an infinite energy loop. The Qi enters but has no exit, which is why the paper burns before you can even activate it. If you move the connection point one millimeter upward, the energy will circulate constantly."
The old man froze. He looked at the talisman, then at the youth in front of him. With trembling hands, he took the brush and made the adjustment Han had suggested. The paper glowed with a soft, steady green light, without the erratic sparks from before.
"How... how did you see that?" the old man asked, astonished.
"I just have a good eye for bugs," Han replied. In his mind, the dialog box updated.
[Suggestion accepted. Object has been optimized.]
[Reputation with "Elder Mo" increased.]
"I need a place to stay tonight and access to your scrap materials," Han continued. "In exchange, I can fix every talisman you have in stock."
Elder Mo looked at him for a long time, weighing the offer. Finally, he nodded and pointed to a small back room filled with junk. Han wasted no time. Once alone, he took several defective runic papers and a jar of low-grade ink.
He needed to create a "Personal Firewall."
He sat on the floor and began to draw. He didn't follow the traditional methods of this world, which relied on faith and memory. Han drew with the precision of a circuit printer. Every line he traced was a concealment instruction. He was writing a subnet mask for his own soul.
[CREATING OBJECT: "Null Pointer" Data Mask]
[STATUS: 80% completed...]
As he worked, sweat poured down his forehead. His new "Virtual Core" hummed under the pressure. Suddenly, the temple floor vibrated. An intense golden light pierced through the cracks in the room's door.
[ALERT: Integrity Scan in immediate area]
[DETECTION PROBABILITY: 98%]
"Damn it, not now!" Han grit his teeth, accelerating the final stroke.
The air in the room grew heavy. He felt an invisible pressure trying to "read" his essence, stripping down every bit of his existence. It was the world's Administrator, searching for the intruder. Han finished the last rune just as the golden light flooded the room.
He slapped the runic paper onto his chest and activated the Qi flow through his virtual patch.
[COMMAND: /hide --identity=unknown]
The golden light swept over his body. Han held his breath, feeling as if a giant hand were passing inches from his face. For a second, time stood still. The error messages in his vision flashed violently yellow, struggling to keep the mask active.
Then, the light withdrew.
[SCAN COMPLETED: No anomalies found in subsector 09]
Han collapsed against the wall, drenched in sweat. His lungs burned and his energy was near zero, but he had done it. He had fooled the universe's security system... at least for now.
"One second more and I would've been deleted," he whispered, looking at the runic paper in his hand, now charred from the effort.
The next morning, Elder Mo entered the room and found Han sleeping on the floor, surrounded by talismans that glowed with a technical perfection the old man had never seen in his life. They weren't just fixed talismans; they were optimized versions, more powerful and efficient.
"Boy... who are you, really?" Mo asked softly, with a mix of fear and respect.
Han opened one eye, his cynical and tired gaze returning to his face. "Just a programmer, Mo. Just someone who hates seeing badly written code."
He stood up, feeling his energy level had stabilized a bit. He had survived the first purge, but he knew this was only the beginning. The Administrator would scan again, and each time it would be harder to hide. He needed to get stronger—not just to fight cultivators like Lu Chen, but to hack the system before the system hacked him.
[Soul Synchronization: 0.10%]
[New Quest Detected: Infiltrate the White Crane Sect to gain access to the "Technique Database"]
Han smiled to himself as he packed his new tools. If the world was a server, the Sect was the data center. And he needed a terminal with better privileges.