Digital Hackers' Memories

Judging from its appearance alone, it looks like a round sphere manufactured using a special process.

Its surface, resembling stainless steel, is so smooth it reflects a person's image, while inconspicuous lines cover every corner of the sphere, dividing it into an irregular grid.

"This is... an Invader?"

Narrowing its eyes, the fox beast warily observed the unidentified white sphere, as if it sensed the presence of an invader from its mechanical structure.

And that is indeed the case. This white sphere was originally composed of data from the Invaders, except that Chen Ze added some code he wrote himself.

Furthermore, since this white sphere is composed of Chen Ze's own data, its security is far more stable and controllable than that of ordinary invaders.

"If you were to call it an Invader, you wouldn't be wrong."

After gagging a few times, Chen Ze, who was gradually recovering, answered weakly.

"An egg-shaped invader?"

First, it glanced at Chen Ze suspiciously, and then the fox demon beast turned on its sarcastic mode.

"Do you think you're Piccolo the Great Demon King? Using such a disgusting method to 'produce' an Invader."

This time, Chen Ze, who was still nauseous, was stunned. But upon closer reflection, he realized that the scene of him vomiting out the white sphere was indeed somewhat similar to Piccolo Daimaō from Dragon Ball.

Wait, the key issue doesn't seem to lie there.

Looking up in surprise at the fox-like beast that seemed about to say something, Chen Ze promptly interrupted its "venom spray".

"How do you know about Dragon Ball? Isn't that an anime from the last century?"

In Chen Ze's memory, the development trajectory of this world was no different from that of his previous life's Earth until the emergence of the EDEN network, including classic manga series such as Dragon Ball, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece.

That is why Chen Ze, who was reborn into this world at the beginning, mistakenly believed that this world was the "near future" period of the original Earth.

"Does it make a difference?"

Raising an eyebrow slightly, the fox-like beast spoke calmly.

"For me, as long as the data exists on the internet, finding it is not difficult at all."

"On the contrary, it's you. First it was The Matrix, and then it was Dragon Ball. You really are the 'old-fashioned relic' your parents talk about."

Listening to the series of complaints from the fox beast, Chen Ze realized that he had once again overlooked the fact that "the fox beast is not human".

Perhaps for humans, data on the internet has a "memory," and as time goes by and things pass, more and more new things will replace the old ones.

However, for Digimon, data on the internet has no distinction between old and new; there is only the difference between what is needed and what is not needed, what exists and what does not exist.

"Forget it, why don't you tell me what this thing is all about first?"

After a brief exchange, the fox-like beast realized that the topic was getting further and further off track and pointed to the floating white sphere to continue asking questions.

"It seems different from the invaders we've encountered before?"

Aside from its uncontrollable rampage, the biggest impression this white sphere gave the Foxmon was that it seemed to have lost its terrifying ability to assimilate and erode all data.

"Isn't that natural?"

Chen Ze casually waved his claw, and the white sphere that had been quietly floating in mid-air suddenly began to spin.

clack clack...

As the white sphere rotates, the irregular "cracks" on its surface, resembling a network, begin to unfold and recombine.

In the blink of an eye, a huge gap appeared on the originally smooth surface of the sphere, and an eyeball full of mechanical and cyberpunk elements was revealed.

It is somewhat similar to the indifferent single eye of the Invader, but this eyeball has obvious emotional fluctuations.

clack clack...

It seems like I'm adapting to this new world, or perhaps I'm simply not used to my current perspective...

The electronic eye of the white sphere kept rotating, scanning all the surrounding information in a very short time and turning it into truly visualized images.

The white sphere clearly shows Agumon swinging its claws...

Chen Ze, in his Agumon form, could also see the constantly rotating eyeballs on the white sphere...

This feeling of having two perspectives, like having a clone, momentarily overloaded Chen Ze's brain.

"Hmm, something feels off."

Clearly not quite comfortable with this "shared perspective" operation, Chen Ze quickly decided to create a separate virtual screen and project what the white sphere saw onto that screen.

"To distinguish it from the real Invader, I call it the 'Invader - Modified Form'."

"Of course, you can also call it 'Magic Eye' or 'Little Bick'."

***********************

PS: Originally Erika's personal invader, now it's just a power-up for the protagonist!

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Former Steel Empire

"Little Bick? What a twisted sense of humor."

Looking at Chen Ze's face, which was full of malicious smiles, the fox demon could only mutter to itself.

He had only casually remarked that the other party's behavior was exactly like Piccolo's egg-spitting behavior, and the other party actually named this modified Invader "Little Piccolo".

This behavior, which seemed both like a joke and a self-punishment, could only be described as childish; the fox spirit could think of no other word to describe it.

However, despite her complaints, Renamon realized through her brief observation that this "Little Piccolo" was indeed not the same type of invader as before, and her vigilance relaxed a bit.

"What's the use of this thing?"

Now that things have come to this, the fox spirit has not forgotten what the other party said before.

Chen Ze originally planned to use the data from the Invaders to create an "artificial digital core".

In a sense, Piccolo, which was created in this way, can indeed be considered a man-made Digimon.

Chen Ze, who had never been to the Digital World, might not have understood what his actions meant, but Renamon, a native of the Digital World, knew it perfectly well.

In the digital world, there once existed a powerful force called the "Iron Empire," one of whose core technologies was the so-called "artificial digital core."

Without the need for lengthy evolution and nurturing, this powerful empire can directly create powerful Digimon at the mature or even perfect stages by producing artificial digital cores.

It is said that even the most powerful leader of that force was born in this way.

It wasn't until this vast empire collapsed for some unknown reason that the artificially created mechanical and modified Digimon were gradually accepted by Yggdrasil and officially renamed "Steel Realm".

Since then, those evolved Digimon that originally belonged exclusively to the Steel Empire have become one of the evolutionary paths for ordinary Digimon, just like other branches of Digimon that can evolve freely.

If you were to ask, just how powerful was the steel empire at its peak?

This can still be seen in the "modern Digimon" that have evolved to their perfect form.

Because those fully evolved forms still retain, to varying degrees, the structures and traces of mechanical and biochemical modifications.

Even at the Ultimate level, a considerable number of Digimon still retain various mechanical parts.

Although Renamon didn't expect Chen Ze to create an artificial digital core of the same level as the Steel Empire, she was very curious about the potential of such an "artificial digital core" made using the data code of the Invaders.

"Uh, does scouting count?"

On the other hand, Chen Ze was stumped by the fox demon's question.

After all, his original intention in creating Little Bick was simply to have an "external" computer or virtual machine that could run programs that were inconvenient to experiment on himself.

For example, there's the "evolution program," which is still in the experimental stage, and compatibility experiments between various different system software.

As for more, bolder ideas?

Although Chen Ze had some simple ideas, it was still too far from actually realizing them.

"For now, we can only scout ahead?"

Upon hearing this, the fox demon immediately showed a disappointed expression.

Compared to the Steel Empire's technology, which directly manufactures Digimon at the Adult stage or higher, Piccolo, which is currently only in the exploratory stage, is clearly far from the "artificial Digicore" she envisioned.

"Be content! It's already quite good that we were able to scout the way."

Speechless at the completely clueless Youkomon, Chen Ze didn't explain the effort and technology required to create Little Piccolo. Instead, he opened a virtual screen and shared some of Little Piccolo's permissions with the other party.

"how do you feel?"

Having skillfully accepted the usage rights transferred by Chen Ze, Renamon, as a Digimon, did not need a separate screen and quickly adapted to this dual-line operation "clone mode".

"Well……"

Little Piccolo's eyes darted around, and Renamon could clearly see the surprised expression on its "true form's" face through the other's perspective.

"This feeling of seeing yourself is very strange."

The fox spirit was telling the truth; the feeling of seeing oneself from a "second-person" perspective was truly amazing.

With its rich combat experience, Renamon could even imagine the enormous advantage it would have from having Piccolo's perspective during battle.

"Can mini-Beek be mass-produced?"

After a brief period of adjustment, the fox spirit asked another question that gave Chen Ze a headache.

"What do you think?"

Rolling his eyes in annoyance, Chen Ze felt like the fox spirit was treating him like Doraemon's pocket.

"Making such a small Bick has consumed most of my data."

Although Chen Ze is not a true Digimon, in terms of "needing enough data to evolve," he is not much different from other Digimon.

"Pity."

After Chen Ze's reminder, the fox demon beast instantly realized this.

Rather than creating "useless" clones like Piccolo, accumulating enough data to evolve to the next stage is the most correct choice for Digimon.

Perhaps the real role of Little Piccolo at this stage is to help Chen Ze absorb some alien data that he doesn't need, so that he doesn't waste "resources" like his Digimon did.

"Our next task is to find a jump program that can leave EDEN."

Although it is phrased as a question, the fox spirit here uses an affirmative tone.

With Little Bick's "external computer" that they could tinker with at will, the two of them only needed to find a way to run VPN or VPS programs on it to leave the virtual network at any time.

Compared to hacking into a hacker's computer, finding similar software programs online is much easier, and you don't have to worry about being discovered.

"Yes, we are now..."

Just as Chen Ze was about to say something, a loud noise suddenly came from behind them.

Boom!

Immediately afterwards, a familiar-looking tentacle appeared out of thin air, corroding and assimilating all the data it could access.

"The Invader?"

With a wave of that black and white tentacle, everything around turned into a mosaic.

The "humanoid" form behind it could break through the boundaries of digital space at any moment and descend directly into the fourth layer of Kowloon.

How did it catch up?

Without a second thought, the perfectly coordinated fox demon and Chen Ze took off running.

"Now you have no choice but to go in, you're such a jinx!"

Staring at the entrance to the fifth floor of Kowloon so close at hand, Chen Ze didn't know whether to lament his bad luck or complain about how strong the "jinx" attribute of the fox beast was.

I always feel that after teaming up with this person, nothing I experience ever goes smoothly.

Chapter Thirty-Three: So You're Not Human After All?

EDEN Free Zone, Kowloon Fifth Floor.

Unlike the first three layers, which still retain a basic structure, the fourth layer of Kowloon completely blurs the concept of space.

Here, nothing—north, south, or up—means anything; distance and terrain are no insurmountable barriers.

Once outsiders enter this place, it's like going to space. Apart from the occasional data stack that can be used as a stepping stone, they have to move around mostly by floating and flying.

In a sense, this is the real online world, a real network with few rules and no frameworks.

The 1995 digital world that Chen Ze and Renamon entered during the Hikari Hill incident was the prototype of this world, an incomplete digital space.

In fact, before the EDEN virtual network was officially established, only data life forms such as Digimon could enter this place.

It wasn't until the Kamishiro Corporation developed EDEN technology that humans were able to digitize their mental data and upload their consciousness here through specific devices.