"What did it do?" the Champion asked the Tinkerer, who stood in front of him with the suppressed Specter Core.
The Tinkerer took a deep breath, terror on her face.
"It encrypted our database," she said in horror.
The Champion furrowed his brows. "So? Just decrypt it."
The Tinkerer laughed nervously. "That's not that easy."
"Why not?" the Champion asked.
"We don't know how it has been encrypted. We need a number to decrypt it, and we don't know that number," she explained.
"Then just try all of the numbers," the Champion said.
"Champion, the number might be thousands or millions of digits long. We would need to try out every number from one to Googolplex. If we use our most advanced machines to try all of the numbers, we might need trillions of years."
The Champion's eyes widened in shock.
At that point, creating a new database and researching everything from scratch would be faster!
"What's the impact on Aegis?" he asked.
The Tinkerer took a deep breath.
"All data is inaccessible. We can't see anything. The automatic Containment Units can't be accessed. We can't verify or assign identities. We can't open doors. We can't operate most of our machines. We can't contact cities. We can't contact the strongholds…"
"I had to open the doors by hand…"
The Champion just looked at the Tinkerer with horror.
The next moment, he used his Barrier to command his coffee machine to make some coffee.
The coffee machine just answered that it couldn't verify the Champion's identity.
His own coffee machine was refusing to make coffee!
Aegis had been crippled.
The individual Barriers could still communicate with each other, but anything that required access to the database didn't work anymore.
"The good news is," the Tinkerer continued, "our Containment Units have a failsafe. As long as they still have Zephyx, they will keep suppressing the Specters.That means our contained Force Specters will only start breaking out within the next couple of days. We still have time to-"
"What?!" the Champion shouted. "Our Force Specters might break out?!"
"They won't!" the Tinkerer quickly answered. "We just have to refill their Zephyx manually! After we've done that, we just need to change their design a bit to allow us to gain access-"
"We don't have access to our Specters?!" the Champion shouted, standing up from his throne.
'Pretty sure I've said that,' the Tinkerer thought.
"Yes, we don't have access to our Specters at the moment," she said.
"Fix this immediately! You're the Technician's replacement! It's your job to deal with these things!" the Champion shouted.
The Tinkerer started to sweat.
"We have to know how it was encrypted. If we know how it was encrypted, we can decrypt it," the Tinkerer said. "I need to ask the Specter."
The Champion furrowed his brows as he looked at the suppressed Specter Core.
Then, he just waved his hand.
The Tinkerer nodded and put the Zephyx Suppressors away.
The next moment, the Specter recovered and looked around.
"This does not look like a Containment Unit," the Specter mused.
"Tell us how you encrypted the database," the Tinkerer asked.
"I encrypted the database?" the Specter asked. "Oh, that's what all these lines were about. I didn't know. Sorry."
The Champion looked at the Specter in disgust.
He knew exactly that the Specter was not sorry.
"Tell us what you typed in," the Tinkerer asked.
"Of course," the Specter answered.
Naturally, its life was in Aegis' hands, and it would help them so that they wouldn't kill it.
The Specter recited the complicated lines it put into the database.
"Fuck!" the Tinkerer shouted, kicking the ground.
The Champion glanced at the Tinkerer.
That was… an unusual outburst.
Naturally, the Champion didn't understand anything of what the Specter had just recited.
"What did it say?" the Champion asked.
The Tinkerer was breathing heavily.
"The encryption is based on our database's contents. The order it sent gathered random letters from millions of random entries, converted them into numbers, and multiplied them with each other."
"I know what parts were read out and how they are multiplied, but without access to the database, I don't know the values of these parts."
"In essence, I need access to the database to access the database."
"Even worse, there was no check for the sum. That means it put a lock on the database and then destroyed the key! Nobody knows what number is needed to decrypt the database. Not me. Not Julian. Not this Specter. Nobody!"
The Champion put his head in his hands while the Tinkerer glared at the Specter.
"Why?! Why did Julian do this?! What does he want?!" she shouted.
"I don't know," the Specter said. "I only have a message to deliver, and then, I no longer serve Julian Winter."
The Champion pulled his head out of his hands and looked at the Specter.
Maybe that message had some information that they needed.
"Speak," the Champion said.
"I am now going to recite Julian Winter's message," the Specter said.
"I did my job. If you are unhappy with how I do my job, you are free to do it for me. My job has to be done one way or another. Do it for me, and I don't have to do it myself."
"That is the message," the Specter spoke.
The Tinkerer furrowed her brows.
She wasn't sure what the Specter meant.
However, the Champion knew exactly what that meant, and he clenched his fists in rage.
Do his job for him?!
Julian was telling the Champion that he had simply done the job of the Envious Researcher.
He had dealt with humanity's advancement.
And if the Champion was unhappy with how Julian did it, he was free to do it for him.
Julian was using him!
Julian was forcing the Champion to do his job for him!
After all, if the Champion didn't,Julian would keep doing his job like this!
All of Aegis had been crippled!
They had not lost a single person, and their Extractors were still as powerful as ever!
But he had essentially crippled Aegis' eyes, ears, and mouth.
They would need to make a completely new database and set up all the parameters again!
They would need to gather all of the knowledge again and put it back into it!
That would take years!
And after years or decades, they would be in the same position they had been just two hours ago!
"Can I go into my Containment Unit now?" the Specter asked.
At that moment, the Champion's rage exploded.
BANG!
He vaporized the Specter on the spot.
The Tinkerer gulped nervously as she looked at the smoking stain on the ground.
"I… have to deal with things. Excuse me," she carefully said, quickly bowing before leaving the office.
The Champion just gritted his teeth and put his head in his hands again.
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