90: Chapter 89 Is this still cyberspace?

This discovery was like throwing a boulder into a calm lake, sending continuous ripples through Lin Yi's mind.

After a night of hard work, using [Baize] to synthesize data and repeatedly deliberate and analyze, he reached a conclusion that was both absurd and seemingly the only logical one: The good news was that the V of this world had likely inherited some of the "Mod" effects he had installed for his character in the game before transmigrating, becoming a "V-zilla" whose cyberware compatibility and potential abilities far exceeded those of ordinary people; the bad news was that he clearly remembered that these mods included an extremely dangerous one—the Blackwall quickhack skill mod.

What did this mean? In this real world where countless terrifying Rogue AI wandered beyond the Blackwall, every time V attempted to use that ability to simulate or even borrow power from outside the wall, it was like lighting a bonfire and shouting loudly in a dark forest. The consequences could not be undone by simply reloading a save like in a game.

Unknown corruption, being marked by powerful AI, or even inviting disaster upon herself... countless terrible possibilities swirled in his mind.

"I must wait for V to return tomorrow and give her a comprehensive diagnostic check, from hardware to neural signals." Lin Yi rubbed his brow vigorously, trying to suppress that worry. "Just worrying here is useless."

He took a deep breath and turned his attention to the present.

Before V returned, perhaps he could do something proactively.

In the ruins of the Old Net, countless lost technologies and forbidden knowledge were buried. Perhaps there, he could find research materials related to super AI of the Blackwall's level, or techniques to deal with their potential risks.

He decided to act immediately.

Without another word, Lin Yi went straight into his studio and skillfully sat in the specially made work chair.

He directly connected to Cyberspace via a bare-metal connection through "Baize."

His conscious perspective was instantly stretched and twisted, the scenes of the real world vanishing like an ebbing tide, replaced by an endless, surging torrent of data.

Ever since that thrilling battle with Alt Cunningham in Pacifica last time, Lin Yi had learned his lesson.

Utilizing the powerful computing power of "Baize," he had written a real-time physiological status monitoring program, like a safety rope for the digital world.

This program would continuously monitor the various neural loads and vital signs of his body in the real world, and once it detected that he was approaching a threshold of irreversible damage, it would forcibly interrupt the connection and safely "eject" him back to the real world.

Better safe than sorry; this was the basic rule for survival in the perilous deep net.

At the same time, he still had another thought in mind.

Last time he clashed with Alt, at the most critical moment, an external, incomprehensible force intervened. That bridging protocol named [Transcendent-86 - LONG] had arrived like a deus ex machina, instantly turning the tide of the battle.

Afterwards, he searched every corner of "Baize," from the memory management unit to the lowest-level system logs, yet he couldn't find a single record or trace of that protocol, as if it were just a hallucination.

But he was certain that it must have been someone at the Transcendent AI level who had intervened.

This time, venturing deep into the network, besides looking for information, he also held a sliver of hope—could he have another encounter with that mysterious existence?

While thinking, he ran his stealth scripts, sneaking through the ocean of data toward the predetermined coordinates.

The surrounding points of light sped backward, forming dazzling trails.

"Holy moly, it's a good thing I'm not photosensitive; this scenery is really blinding, there's no sense of space at all," Lin Yi grumbled, looking at his surroundings.

Before long, that familiar giant barrier that separated the two worlds appeared in his "field of vision" again.

The Blackwall.

It was not made of bricks and stone, but was a constantly flowing, churning dark red data storm, interspersed with ominous black vortices and pale, lightning-like fluctuations that occasionally pierced his vision, clearly continuing its routine interception of the Rogue AI from the Old Net side.

It stood there silently, exuding a suffocating sense of oppression. It was both a fragile barrier protecting the human world and an invisible cage imprisoning countless data monsters. Although it wasn't his first time seeing it, it was still shocking.

After experiencing the crisis where he was nearly killed by Alt last time, facing this giant wall again, Lin Yi's heart was filled with complex awe.

Subconsciously, almost with a tentative mindset, he reached out with a "hand" composed of consciousness toward that churning data storm, wanting to touch it, to perceive it...

However, just as his digital tentacles were about to touch that violent data, a strange, completely illogical "information stream," or perhaps "feeling," was fed directly back into his consciousness core.

"What? Damaged... uncomfortable... shy...?"

Lin Yi retracted his "hand" as if electrocuted, his entire digital image freezing, "staring" at the still violently churning Blackwall in front of him as if he had seen a ghost.

This feedback was too bizarre! How could the Blackwall transmit such near... emotional information? Was it some kind of unknown interference? Or had his own sensory system malfunctioned?

He immediately activated the [Insight] function of "Baize," attempting to perform a thorough scan and analysis of the Blackwall's state before him, wanting to figure out where this weird feedback came from.

Data streams began to converge, the analysis protocol just starting...

But before [Insight] could finish reading the initial environmental variables, a more direct, more irresistible "intent," or rather a pure command, rudely interrupted all his operations, exploding directly in the depths of his consciousness:

[What are you looking at? Come here, you brat!]

This intent carried an indescribable sense of familiarity and unquestionable power.

The next second, Lin Yi felt an unprecedented dizziness!

The surrounding data scenery didn't just blur; it was as if it had been grabbed by an invisible giant hand and rudely thrown into a high-speed spinning washing machine.

All sense of direction and space was instantly lost. He felt as if he had become a speck of dust thrown into a torrent, forced to let that power carry him, tumbling toward an unknown, irresistible destination.

The scene before his eyes reorganized amidst crazy twisting and tearing. When his nearly falling-apart digital consciousness barely stabilized again, he found that he was no longer in front of that Blackwall filled with data storms.

Lin Yi looked at the environment, which was completely different from the Cyberspace he had explored before, with a dumbfounded expression and said: "Hey, what the hell, where did you drag me to?"