Chapter 1 Yikes, Isn't This a Trojan Horse?

Li Ang remained calm, pressing the edge of his qiang blade against the back of the acquaintance, and questioned in a low voice, "Speak, who exactly are you?"

At this moment, Tang Rannuo, leading the illusion-affected Chen Furuo, also approached from across the street.

Seeing the black trojan horse lying on the ground, she frowned, turned around without hesitation, and waved her palm, equipped with a finger-tiger knuckle duster, in the air to release a skill.

Skill Name: Idler Repellent Barrier

Type: Psionic

Effect: Deploys a barrier of limited range, lasting for 10 minutes, preventing sounds, smells, electromagnetic signals, and player communications within the barrier from being transmitted outside. It also creates a slight mental interference, causing anyone attempting to cross the barrier to subconsciously choose to leave for various psychological reasons. The effectiveness of the mental interference depends on the target's willpower.

Cost: 100 Psionic Points

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Note: In response to city regulations prohibiting fireworks, numerous mystics brainstormed and collaborated to develop the Idler Repellent Barrier.

The range of this skill isn't large, but due to its powerful effect, the scroll is of Excellent quality.

Especially in the real world where it's necessary to avoid causing too much commotion and conceal one's whereabouts, the skill's applicability is even more extensive.

The barrier was quickly deployed. Tang Rannuo turned around and said to Li Ang, "Now, people outside the alley can't hear anything inside. Player communication here is also cut off."

She wasn't worried about her Russian girlfriend failing to find her.

Before deploying the barrier, Tang Rannuo had informed her girlfriend of her location again.

Moreover, they had already exchanged information on all their skills and items, so the other party knew the barrier's effect and had a unique skill to freely traverse the barrier.

Li Ang nodded and said to the silent black trojan horse, "Brother, you appeared suspiciously next to us just now. As a player, you should know that this is an extremely unfriendly act of provocation.

Your Tiger Bro is a reasonable person. As long as you explain who you are, why you're here, and what you mean by following us,

and your reasons are sufficient and justifiable, I can let you go—of course, provided you hand over some of your game currency and equipment."

The black trojan horse wasn't too surprised by Li Ang's threat.

Once two unfamiliar players discover each other, they will definitely prioritize escape and retreat out of a chain of suspicion and self-preservation—

The consequences of losing a fight are simply too terrible.

Handing over all game currency and equipment, being kidnapped and sold to other organizations, being directly killed and stripped of player status, having relatives threatened to become slaves...

The possible tragic endings make players, when unaware of each other's strengths, more inclined to run away, hide, and conceal their whereabouts.

But if they meet on a narrow road and there's no escape, then they can only do everything they can to cripple or kill the other party first, or at least ensure that the other party completely loses the ability to retaliate.

With his limbs broken and his life controlled by others, the black trojan horse's soul and body trembled with pain and fear of death.

Fortunately, as a player, the black trojan horse's physique far surpassed that of ordinary people, so he didn't faint from the pain of his broken wrists and ankles.

He sighed inwardly and, gritting his teeth, chose to cooperate—as long as he delayed for a while, he might still have a chance to escape unscathed.

"I am a player affiliated with the Whale Song organization. My player name is Black Trojan Horse."

He displayed his ID information in mid-air.

Gray Pigeon·Black Trojan Horse lv10

Compared to the last time they met, his level had increased by two, but his title name hadn't changed.

Perhaps his performance in the mission wasn't outstanding, or the new title skills weren't as useful as Gray Pigeon.

A strange light flashed in Tang Rannuo's eyes; she seemed to have heard of this organization.

The black trojan horse exhaled a breath of stale air and looked at the dazed programmer Chen Furuo in front of him, saying faintly, "I'm not here to target you.

To be precise, I'm here for him."

"Oh?" Li Ang raised an eyebrow. "You know each other?"

"No, I'm here to find him to complete an order from the Whale Song organization's superiors."

The black trojan horse, lying on the ground, carefully considered his words, organized his thoughts, and said, "The history of the Whale Song organization goes back further than this session of the Killing Field game."

Having become a mid-level member of Whale Song, the black trojan horse knew more about the organization's secrets.

He continued, "Whale Song originated in a private online chat room in the early years of this century. Its members were a small group of outstanding talents in the field of computer science from all over the world.

At that time, these people discussed theoretical computer science, computation theory, algorithms, machine translation, computer graphics and vision, information science, software engineering, and artificial intelligence in the chat room.

Ultimately, the topic led to the future development direction of the computer field, with the focus on artificial intelligence."

The black trojan horse paused for a moment, resisting the urge to move his numb arm slightly, and continued, "Artificial intelligence technology is a branch of computer science, meaning 'understanding the essence of intelligence and producing new intelligent machines that can react in a way similar to human intelligence.'

It originated in the 1950s and, due to its incredibly bright development prospects, was hailed as one of the three cutting-edge technologies of the 21st century.

At that time, the people in the chat room had a heated discussion about artificial intelligence technology and ultimately reached a consensus—that artificial intelligence technology would mature in the not-too-distant future

and would cause earth-shattering changes to the social form of human civilization at an extremely fast speed and with extremely high efficiency."

Li Ang chuckled. "Sounds a bit like science fiction."

"Yes."

The black trojan horse, with the qiang blade pressing into the ground beside him, licked his somewhat chapped lips and said, "The content of those people's chats wasn't surprising at the time.

Whether it was robots in the Dawn, The Naked Sun, Foundation and Earth, or A Case of Conscience, as well as some science fiction movies, all expressed speculation and worries about artificial intelligence technology.

But the people in the chat room at the time were younger and more radical, believing that a perfect creation would eventually surpass its creator.

In the industrial, agricultural, and service sectors, human laborers would get tired, weary, demand wages, be disabled by accidents, and be unable to work due to old age and weakness.

Intelligent machines would not.

In the field of management, human managers would embezzle, prostitute, corrupt, degenerate, bend the law for personal gain, and abuse their power.

Intelligent machines would not.

The mechs would be the doctors who never make mistakes, the agents who never err, the media that never manipulate the truth, the judges who are always fair, and the soldiers who are always loyal.

Mechanicality is superior to humanity."