In a world of magic, being able to surf the web was a rare delight for Weston.
Even better, after so digging he discovered that a predecessor had once built a vast archive on this magical network.
That senior had also uploaded a huge amount of magical information into it.
Weston was overjoyed and decided this was his chance to rise.
Cracking the archive, however, was no easy task.
Just as every lock needs its key, entering the archive required a matching passkey.
Weston spent more than half a year and tens of thousands of attempts trying to glimpse its secrets, but every ti the Defense System blocked him.
Ten-odd minutes later Weston sat up, reinvigorated.
"My magic power’s almost restored."
"It’s still early. One last try, then I’ll pick the Young Lady up from school."
The words barely left his mouth before he called up the Super Archive interface, connected to that magical id and began working.
"Like this... then this... and finally..."
His fingers flew and streams of data raced across the screen.
Half a minute passed.
Ding—!
A sound different from the hundreds of previous attempts rang out.
"Hmm? What’s this..."
"Did I just crack the magical archive?"
Weston’s heart pounded, his eyes boring into the screen, afraid to blink.
He tried to stay calm, but the thought of inheriting so great senior’s magical legacy made the corners of his mouth twitch uncontrollably.
The next mont, however, a pop-up doused him with ice water.
On the virtual screen appeared a window: [Your system has been breached!!]
The window hovered for three seconds, then—like a virus—the entire interface began changing wildly.
"W-what the heck?!"
"Soone’s counter-hacking my spell, was this another trap the senior set?!"
Weston’s face turned ashen.
He’d never faced this before, but he knew exactly what happened to an infected ’computer’.
If things went wrong, his own ’computer’ might be bricked for good!
With that fear he frantically tried to sever his link to the magic network.
Before he could act, the virtual interface froze mid-change and every command halted.
Like the desktop of a freshly booted computer...
Utterly still.
Weston’s heart sank.
He knew it wasn’t because his spell had blocked the intrusion, it was because the intrusion was already over.
"That person’s spell has more raw ’Computing Power’ than my Super Archive!"
Weston clenched his fists.
If this was a defense left by the archive’s creator, so be it.
To a Super Archive user, information is the greatest asset. The Counter-Hack had probably siphoned or wiped his data as a warning.
At worst it would erase his stored data to punish him.
But Weston’s Super Archive held nothing valuable; losing it was no loss.
Computing Power, however, couldn’t be stolen.
At most the intruder could ’copy’ it and evolve their own calculations.
"What exactly..."
As he wondered, the interface beeped: beep-beep-beep.
Glancing over, he saw a dragon icon blinking in the corner.
Gulp...
"A Chat Window?"
Weston reached out but hesitated to tap it.
Before he could decide, the other side, tired of waiting, force-opened the session.
Crack—
With a crackle of static, a square screen popped up on the Super Archive interface.
Inside was an old man’s face.
A Video Call?!
"Oh?"
"So the youngster who’s been poking at my archive is this small?"
Crap!
The guy who built the archive wasn’t dead after all!
"Sir, I-I’m terribly sorry for the intrusion..."
Breaking into an archive was no different from burglary.
Caught red-handed, Weston could only stamr an apology.
The old man probably couldn’t crawl through the line to hit him, but since he’d already embedded a chat client in Weston’s Super Archive, who knew what else he could do?
"Hahaha..."
"Relax, I an no harm."
"I just found your way of handling data amusing, so I dropped by to see what sort of person you are."
The elder studied Weston, stroking his long white beard.
"Barely nine years old, yet you’ve awakened the Super Archive and built such an elegant, handy data model, you’re quite the prodigy!"
"H-ha... really?"
"You flatter , senior; I’m only standing on the shoulders of giants, borrowing past thods."
Weston forced a smile, uneasy.
His data-processing tricks weren’t original; they were lifted from his past life, WPS for docunts, CAD for drafting, Unity for modeling. To this world’s network-naïve Wizards they looked ingenious, but any modern Comp Sci graduate could master them in half a day.
"Standing on the shoulders of giants?"
"A profound saying indeed!"
"Young friend, you’re from Ishgar, aren’t you? What’s your na?"
Hmm? What does he an... "I’m Weston."
"Weston Lagrange."
"Nine years old this year."
"From your question, senior, are you saying you’re not from Ishgar?"
The old man twirled his beard and smiled.
"Correct!"
"I am Elefseria, a Wizard of Guiltina!"
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