Rebirth in the Dragon Kingdom: The Strongest Blade

At 8:52 a.m., in front of the main entrance of the DARPA building.

Lin Zhe—or rather, "Charles"—carrying his briefcase, walked steadily toward the glass revolving door. His steps were somewhat dragging, a symptom of Dr. Miller's arthritis; his brow was slightly furrowed, revealing the serious expression often seen on a scholar.

"Good morning, Dr. Charles." The guard at the door was a burly black man in his forties with a professional smile on his face.

Lin Zhe nodded without saying a word and placed his right hand on the fingerprint scanner.

The green light comes on.

"Iris verification, please."

Lin Zhe moved closer to the scanner, and the blue eye (bionic iris) was scanned by infrared light.

"Verification successful. Please wait, you need to enter a dynamic password."

Lin Zhe typed "Triton-7-21" on the keyboard, his movements neither fast nor slow, just like usual.

A message popped up on the screen: "Welcome, Dr. Charles, Access Level A. Today's appointment time: 08:50-12:00. Please come in."

The glass door slowly opened.

The moment Lin Zhe stepped inside, Long Qing's voice came through the miniature communicator in his ear: "Passed through the main gate. The surveillance footage has been replaced, showing you entered at 08:50:03. The live feed in the guard room now shows your video from three seconds ago, looping for fifteen seconds, which is enough time for you to leave the monitored area."

"Received," Lin Zhe replied softly.

He walked toward the elevator as if he had been there countless times before—in fact, he had walked through this place hundreds of times in the virtual environment.

At the same time, at the ventilation duct entrance in the northeast corner of the building.

Dragon teeth and claws, like two geckos, clung to the inner wall of the metal pipe. Their magnetic gloves and shoes emitted a very faint hum, almost inaudible in the confined space.

"Third stage." Longya looked at the timer on his wristwatch. "Twelve seconds faster than planned."

"Don't get cocky, the hardest part is yet to come." Dragon Claw stared at the almost invisible infrared emitter on the pipe wall ahead. "Fourth stage, three meters distance, 0.3-second interval. Ready—"

An infrared beam swept across.

"Walk!"

The two simultaneously released the magnetic attraction, their bodies lurching forward through the pipe. After 0.2 seconds, the magnetism activated again, holding them against the pipe wall for 0.1 seconds, then releasing them again... This cycle repeated at an astonishing speed.

Three meters away, 0.29 seconds to pass.

"Safe." Dragon Claw breathed a sigh of relief.

In front of them was the ventilation duct outlet grille, and below it was the server room on the second basement level. Through the gaps in the grille, they could see several technicians working inside, but no one was looking up at the ceiling.

"Wait for the signal," Longya said in a low voice.

Entrance to the maintenance access road in Zone E of the underground parking lot.

Dragon Shadow and Dragon Thorn had changed into magnetic levitation shoes, with the soles five millimeters off the ground, suspending them in mid-air. In front of them was a heavy metal door with a combination lock.

「密码是『7-2-9-4-1-6』。」龙影低声说，「但开门会有声音，我们需要同步干扰。」

He took out a palm-sized device and stuck it to the crack in the door. "This is a sound jammer. It can create 0.5 seconds of white noise to mask the sound of the door opening. But it only lasts for three seconds."

"That's enough." Dragon Thorn got ready.

Long Ying entered the password, and the metal door made a slight "click" sound. Almost simultaneously, the sound jammer activated, and a low white noise rang out, just enough to cover the sound of the door opening.

The two slipped inside, and the door closed automatically behind them.

The passageway was pitch black, with only the faint green glow of the emergency lights on the walls. To make matters worse, the entire passageway was covered with a red laser grid—a grid of ten centimeters by ten centimeters—and it was moving irregularly.

"Calculate the path." Long Ying closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, a stream of data seemed to flash in his pupils. His brain was working at high speed, analyzing the pattern of the laser's movement.

"Three steps to the left, pause for 0.2 seconds, two steps to the right, move forward one meter, crouch down to pass..." Long Ying began to give instructions.

Dragon Thorn followed closely, their movements as precise as machines. It took them a full four minutes to traverse the seventy-meter passage—but every step they took landed safely, without triggering any alarms.

At the end of the passage is a ventilation grille, below which is the backup server room on the fourth basement level.

"Arrived at the designated location," the Dragon Spurs reported. "Wait for the signal."

At 9:05 a.m., in an unused office on the second basement floor.

The five people finally reunited.

The office was small, piled with discarded office furniture, covered in a thick layer of dust. It was clear that no one had used it for a long time.

"It's going too smoothly for me," Longya muttered. "I've never seen a mission go this smoothly in my life."

"Don't jinx it." Dragon Claw glared at him.

Lin Zhe carefully checked the office door lock, confirming it was locked from the inside, before opening his briefcase and taking out his portable terminal. "The map shows the control room is on the seventh basement level, but my access is only up to the sixth floor. Level A clearance isn't enough to enter the control room."

"Then what should we do?" Long Ying asked, "A direct assault?"

"A direct assault would be suicide." Lin Zhe shook his head. "There are two armed guards at the entrance to the control room, and the duty officer inside is also armed. Once a firefight breaks out, the entire base will be placed under lockdown."

Just then, footsteps and voices came from the corridor outside the door.

"...The air conditioning system in the control room is malfunctioning again; it needs repairs every year..."

"What's wrong this time?"

"They said it's a thermostat malfunction, and they want us to go up and take a look..."

The five people exchanged glances, their eyes gleaming.

Lin Zhe made a gesture, and the five of them quickly dispersed and hid. Dragon Fang and Dragon Claw hid behind the door, Dragon Shadow and Dragon Thorn hid behind an abandoned filing cabinet, while Lin Zhe stood by the door, holding a nerve paralysis device in his hand.

The door was pushed open. Two men dressed as repairmen walked in, one carrying a toolbox and the other a tablet computer.

"This lousy office is still locked..." Before the person in front could finish speaking, Longya covered his mouth from behind the door and chopped him on the side of the neck with a chop, causing him to collapse limply.

Before the repairman behind him could react, Lin Zhe's nerve paralysis device was already pressed against his neck.

"Buzz—" A slight electrical sound.

The repairman's eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness. The whole process took less than three seconds and was completely silent.

Long Ying quickly searched the two men and pulled an access card from a repairman's pocket.

"Main control room maintenance access card, level B-7." Long Ying's eyes lit up. "This allows access to the main control room."

"But they only have two people, while we have five." Dragon Claw frowned. "Going down is easy, but what about coming back up? The elevator has surveillance cameras, and the guards will notice the discrepancy in the number of people."

Lin Zhe thought for a moment: "Let's go down first. When we come back up, we can use the maintenance passage. This card should also grant access to the maintenance passage."

"What about these two people?" Longya pointed to the unconscious repairman on the ground.

"Drag him to a corner and tie him up with restraints," Lin Zhe said. "The nerve paralysis device will last for thirty minutes, which is enough for us to complete the mission."

The five men acted swiftly. Two minutes later, they changed into maintenance workers' uniforms—the clothes were a bit tight, but barely wearable. Lin Zhe and Long Ying put on the two maintenance workers' hard hats, pulling the brims down to cover most of their faces.

"Walk."

Seven underground floors, outside the main control room.

The elevator doors opened, and five people pushed out toolboxes. The corridor was spacious, with white metal walls and a gleaming floor. Twenty meters ahead was the heavy metal door to the control room, where two fully armed guards stood.

"Halt." A guard raised his hand. "Maintenance worker? Is there any maintenance scheduled for today?"

Lin Zhe lowered his head and handed over the repairman's work ID and access card: "The air conditioning system is malfunctioning; the duty room just notified us."

The guard took the card and swiped it on the handheld scanner. The screen displayed: "Maintenance Task No. B7-092, Air Conditioning Temperature Control System Repair, Authorized Personnel: Two."

He looked up at the five people: "Why are there five of you?"

"The system is quite troublesome. The duty room said they'll send a few more people to fix it as soon as possible," Lin Zhe said calmly. "If the air conditioning in the control room breaks down completely, the server will overheat, and the losses will be huge."

The guard hesitated for a moment, glanced at the information on the scanner, and finally nodded: "Go in. Be quick, and don't look around or touch anything."

"clear."

The metal door slowly opened, and five people pushed their toolboxes inside.

The control room was much larger than I had imagined. The entire room was circular, with a ring of huge screens on the walls displaying the status of all areas of the laboratory. In the center was a circular control console where three operators were monitoring the data.

"A repairman?" A staff member on duty glanced back at them. "The air conditioner is in that corner over there. Once it's fixed, get out of here and don't disturb our work."

"OK."

The five pushed their toolbox toward the air conditioning unit in the corner. Dragon Fang and Dragon Claw pretended to inspect the equipment, while Dragon Shadow and Dragon Thorn quietly observed the layout of the control panel.

Lin Zhe took out the data acquisition device—the silver-gray metal box—from the bottom of the toolbox. He needed to connect it to the main server.

But here's the problem—the main server's interface is located below the console, where the operator sits.

"We need to distract them," Lin Zhe said in a low voice.

Long Ying thought for a moment, then took out a palm-sized device from his toolbox—an electromagnetic pulse generator. He quietly attached it to the circuit board of the air conditioning unit and pressed the button.

"Sizzle—"

The lights in the control room flickered, and several displays went black briefly.

"What's going on?!" The duty officer stood up.

"It might be a circuit malfunction," Lin Zhe quickly said. "Let's check it."

Three staff members on duty gathered around, looking at the faint blue smoke rising from the air conditioning unit—an effect deliberately created by Long Ying.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lin Zhe quickly crouched down under the control panel and located the main server's data interface. The interface on the silver-gray metal box automatically extended and connected to the server interface.

"Connection successful." The green light on the metal box began to flash. "Data transmission has begun. Estimated time: 19 minutes and 42 seconds."

Lin Zhe breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the air conditioning unit: "I found the problem. One capacitor is burnt out. It needs to be replaced, which will probably take... about twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes?" A duty officer frowned. "Hurry up and fix it. The control room can't be without air conditioning for long."

"Okay, right away."

Time ticked by. The hearts of all five were in their throats. The data transmission progress bar moved slowly: 10%...20%...30%...

Just as the data transmission reached 65%, a red alert suddenly lit up on one of the console screens.

Warning: Abnormal data outflow detected! Warning: Abnormal data outflow detected!

"What's going on?!" The duty officer rushed back to the control panel.

Lin Zhe's expression changed—he'd been discovered!

"Long Qing, what's going on?!" he whispered into the communicator.

"They have a hidden data monitoring program!" Long Qing's voice was urgent. "My previous blocking was detected! They're tracking the data stream in reverse!"

"How long can it last?"

"At most three minutes! And... the guards have already received the alarm and are rushing to the control room!"

On the control panel, the operator had already pressed the alarm button. A piercing alarm blared throughout the entire seventh basement level.

"You! Stay where you are!" A duty officer drew his pistol.

But it was too late.

Dragon Fang and Dragon Claw struck almost simultaneously. Dragon Fang lunged forward, grabbed the guard's wrist holding the gun, and twisted it, causing the pistol to slip from his hand. Dragon Claw, meanwhile, tackled another guard from the side and quickly bound him with restraints.

The third operator tried to press the emergency lockdown button on the control panel, but Lin Zhe's nerve paralysis device was already pressed against the back of his neck.

"Sizzle—"

The duty officer collapsed to the ground.

"How much data is left to transmit?" Lin Zhe asked.

"72%...73%...The progress is slowing down, the other side is interfering!" Long Ying stared at the display screen on the metal box.