Abnormal crossing

Chapter 170 Now Things Are Really Full of Suspicion (Part 2)

"."

Kay's concise remark made the atmosphere somewhat somber.

The increased frequency of appearances of high-ranking mechs not only indicates that Boko III's attitude towards Jokovin and his group is somewhat subtle, but more importantly, it also suggests certain underlying circumstances:
The movement of these strategic assets is not something that Boko III can decide alone, or at least not easily; it will inevitably involve other high-ranking officials.

In other words.

From a probabilistic perspective, Boko III was probably not the only one with problems within the Bosnian court.

After all, even the weakest fourth-order civilization has a history of thousands or tens of thousands of years, its territory spans multiple star systems, its internal forces are complex and intertwined, and its monarch holds a supreme position, but is not truly supreme.

Just like the nuclear weapons Gu Wei had before his time travel, who could arbitrarily decide to use them unless it was a life-or-death crisis with no other choice?
Milo then stroked his stubble-covered chin, pondered for a moment, and said, "The frequency of the higher-level mechs is indeed a bit off, but it's too difficult to analyze substantial intelligence based on just this. Jin, have you made any other discoveries?"

“Yes,” Jin nodded immediately, her finger drawing out a screen full of data: “From the moment we entered the palace, there were a large number of wave packet attacks trying to infiltrate our communication equipment. Considering the technological gap between the two sides, I fabricated a scenario where the equipment was cracked to mislead the other side.”

"Furthermore, according to the wave packet analysis, the intruder's location is on the fourth floor of the palace."

"The imperial palace has four stories?"

Jin had barely finished speaking.

Adele, who was standing nearby, gasped softly and covered her mouth with her hand: "How could it be there?"

Milo turned to look at her, his expression inquiring.

Adele pondered for a moment upon seeing this, then organized her thoughts and explained, "Captain Milo, the 'Wings of the Sky' palace has six floors. The first floor is an 'underground' structure, which was originally the location of the Bosca Royal Research Center. Later, His Majesty converted it into the experimental hub for Project Zero."

"The second floor above is the storage floor, where the royal family has accumulated treasures and important documents over the years. The third floor is the port berth and reception floor, where royal guests are usually settled."

"The remaining four, five, and six floors are all related to members of the royal family—the sixth floor is the residence of His Majesty and the Queen, the fifth floor is the banquet hall for state banquets, and as for the fourth floor..."

Speaking of it.

Adele glanced instinctively at Ophelia beside her: "That's the living quarters for the royal children."

Milo frowned immediately: "Royal children?"

“That’s right,” Adele nodded slightly. “Each prince and princess has their own private palace suite. Although His Majesty’s offspring have been born quite frequently in recent years, the entire floor is still quite spacious.”

Milo remained silent upon hearing this.

The fourth floor is actually the residence of the royal children?

He had assumed that the wave packet attack Jin mentioned came from some kind of research institute or similar organization.
To know.

Such data intrusions typically require substantial computing power, which in reality boils down to two key aspects:

Equipment size and energy consumption.

The former is relatively easier to explain.

After all, Bosca was a fourth-order civilization that spanned multiple star systems. While they might not be able to reduce the size of their high-computing devices to the extreme level of the Star Sea, it was still possible to shrink them to a size large enough to be housed in a palace.

But energy is different.

You can't reduce the size of this thing like you can reduce its volume. In fact, in order to power a smaller device, the energy consumption might actually be higher than that of a normal-sized one.

Furthermore, the energy consumption of this computing power is not simply tens of thousands of kilowatt-hours; in reality, it's enough to power an entire planet for XXX hours.

So putting everything else aside, just looking at the location, it's completely different from a royal bedchamber.
Milo then paused and asked Jin, "Jin, have you figured out the exact room location yet?"

“No,” Jin shook her head, crossed her legs and said, “This kind of anti-intrusion is quite complicated to deal with—the crew equipment we use all comes from the Khan, so the available computing resources are also linked to this ship—you can’t expect too much from the AI ​​on the ship that’s currently acting like an artificial intelligence.”

"Given that the other party's technical level wasn't high, it was possible to find them through brute force and reverse location, but at the same time, the other party would also realize that they were being countered. I was afraid of damaging them, so I only rubbed against them and didn't force my way in."

Milo simply replied with an "oh".

This is true.

Right now, Meimei is driving a stealth tank outside the planet Boska, while the Khan can only use its own computing power.

The Khan's original ship spirit was completely devoured by the Eraser, and now it's temporarily being replaced by a traffic control AI, similar to a high-speed train broadcast system. Under these circumstances, we really can't expect too much from it.
So Milo didn't put too much pressure on Jin, and casually asked, "Any other discoveries?"

Jin nodded this time: "There is a rather strange phenomenon. I don't know if it's a problem with the AI ​​or something else, but some of the free parameters of the attack wave packet have changed several times—behavioral analysis is close to that of a different species."

“Different origins?” Qiao Kewen, standing to the side, was slightly taken aback. “Ms. Jin, do you mean that more than one person hacked into the device?”

“Yes, but we can’t rule out the possibility that the AI’s analysis was flawed,” Jin shrugged and pointed to the ceiling. “After all, the AI’s computing power is limited, and it was forced to interrupt the data connection several times, so it’s reasonable that some errors or even misjudgments occurred.”

Milo followed Jin's gaze to the ceiling for a few seconds, then turned to Adele: "Princess Adele, who currently resides on the fourth floor of the palace?"

“This number is probably a bit too many,” Adele said with a hint of unease. “There are a total of eighteen royal children in this generation, seven boys and eleven girls. After the older princesses and princes returned, only Ophelia and two newborn princesses who are not yet able to take care of themselves are not living on the fourth floor. In fact, after today, Ophelia will probably have to go back to her palace.”

“Ophelia can wait a little longer, there’s no rush to go back,” Jokovin interrupted his sister, his expression somewhat serious. “Adele, you’re the same—just say that I’ve been separated from you for too long and miss my family too much, so I’m leaving you on the ship for a few more days.” Adele blinked and nodded at her brother.

It's obvious there's a problem with the royal family now, and going back rashly would be too risky—she didn't know about the pollution beforehand, she just thought Boko III had been affected a bit.

As the story unfolds, Adele has even developed a sense of lingering fear.

Perhaps this can be considered a kind of ignorance is bliss.

“Alright, let’s leave the topic of the fourth floor here for now.” Seeing that it was difficult to pinpoint the specific intruders, Milo decisively changed the subject: “There’s a high probability that the higher-ups in Bosca have problems, and there are also suspected royal children acting strangely in the fourth floor area. So, next, we should have a proper discussion about the most important person involved—Jin. Have you found anything about Boko III himself?”

“You might not believe it, but when Milo mentioned Boko III, Jin’s expression finally turned serious: “According to the scan results, there’s actually nothing seriously wrong with his body.”

Jin had barely finished speaking.

Everyone, including Gu Wei and Li Zi, was momentarily stunned.

Milo blinked a few times quickly: "Wait, I don't quite understand. What do you mean by 'no major problem'?"

“Literally speaking, or more accurately, he is actually very healthy,” Jin tilted her head and pulled out a long series of light screens that looked like a health report: “I started collecting his physical data from the moment we met. I won’t go into the detailed classifications, let’s just talk about the conclusion.”

"According to the data analysis, Boko III's current physical condition is roughly that of a 75-year-old, which is much healthier than his listed age of 97. It can be said that he is in very good health."

"At the same time, during the period when he was 'sick', that is, when he was exhibiting frightening symptoms, his physical functions were actually improving."

Milo was taken aback again: "Up?"

“Yes,” Jin pointed to a certain section: “From here to here, it took about fifteen seconds, and the trend can even be said to be quite obvious.”

Gu Wei leaned forward curiously for a few glances and soon let out a soft exclamation.

Just as Jin said.

It is clear that within the timeline she was referring to, many data curves showed a significant upward trend.

For example, there was a metric called "Basal Metabolic Rate." Although Gu Wei didn't know the specific method for measuring this data, the value increased by 731% in an instant.

To know.

Even for sprinters, the increase in basal metabolic rate at the moment of starting explosively is only about 40%, and for someone who eats purple sweet potatoes like the person on the other side of the sea, it's only up to 55%.

Boko III's metabolic rate reached more than ten times that of the purple sweet potato people in a short period of time.
True.

The Persian civilization was far more technologically advanced than Earth's, but their average lifespan was only around 100 years. The difference between the two civilizations was not so exaggerated as to be on such a scale.

Especially in the field of biology, once you reach a certain level, it is extremely difficult to make further progress.

For example, in feudal times, even with an extremely high infant mortality rate, the average lifespan was only thirty or forty years.

The average life expectancy in the Song Dynasty was about 41 years, while the average life expectancy in Italy was about 37 years. By the Ming Dynasty, the average life expectancy was about 45 years, while the average life expectancy in Italy was only 39 years.

Later, with the advancement of technology, in less than two hundred years, the average life expectancy on Earth increased from thirty or forty years to 70+ years.

But once this number exceeded seventy, the pace slowed down, and statistics began to be based on five or even ten years, with the growth rate becoming slower year by year.

This trend also applies to Xinghai.

Therefore, even if Boko III was the leader of a fourth-order civilization, his physical abilities could not have been exaggerated to this extent.

“Besides the basal metabolic rate, Boko III’s other data during that period also have major problems,” Jin then pointed to several other sections: “For example, the nerve conduction velocity was 4.7 times faster than that of a normal Boscan at its peak.”

"Furthermore, the activity of the prefrontal cortex increased by 215%, the secretion of pepsinogen and bile acids all dropped to zero, the fluctuation amplitude of epidermal resistance reached 273%, and the intercellular space of the stratum corneum expanded by 4.2 micrometers during the onset of the disease—can you believe that even the amount of positrons released from the skin surface suddenly reached 1700 times the background radiation value?"

"Incidentally, this testing equipment does not require the assistance of an AI, so it uses instruments that I developed myself, and there is no possibility of error."

Milo looked at the form with equal seriousness.

This is indeed a bit strange.
Seeing Boko III clutching his forehead with bulging veins, no one would think the best of him—his fingers were practically digging into his skull! That scene would be rated R-rated on Earth in no time.

The result was unexpected.

This art style, which makes it look like it's about to turn into a monster, is actually an improvement in bodily functions?
"Wait a minute!"

While everyone remained silent, Gu Wei, whose mental workload was lightest (after all, he was illiterate), was the first to realize something and abruptly turned to look at Jin:

"Jin, if Boko III's abnormality is an enhancement of his physical functions, then wasn't that golden light..."

“That’s right,” Jin raised her eyelids and glanced at him, then waved her hand, and the scene in front of her quickly changed to another one: “That golden light actually has some problems—it suppressed Boko III’s physical enhancement and put it down.”

Note:
Many readers asked about the lottery in the last chapter. The lottery method is to vote with monthly tickets, but it will probably start in June. Next month, I need to learn how other authors conduct their lotteries (actually, I said I would learn before, but I kept putting it off).

(End of this chapter)