83: Chapter 75: Master Level Skills_2 83: Chapter 75: Master Level Skills_2 “Right, do you know who the Chief is?” Li Ming asked.

“The Chief?” The cripple shuddered, calming his mind, “It must be the head of the organization ‘Ash.’

He looked at the screen in the cabin, with the navigation data and surveillance footage flashing by quickly, he hesitated, “You still have the highest authority here?”

“What else?” Li Ming shrugged his shoulders, the cripple wanted to say something but stopped, suddenly feeling as if a layer of black fog had enveloped Li Ming, nearly making him impossible to see clearly.

“Uncle Cripple!”

The cripple snapped back to reality, only to realize that Li Ming had walked up to him at some point, his face filled with confusion, “What’s wrong with you?

I called you two or three times.”

“That thing on your back, show it to me.” Li Ming pointed and said.

“Oh, right.” The cripple seemed somewhat at a loss, with a clang, the thing slammed onto the floor, and then he asked, “What exactly do you want with this thing?

Isn’t it just a detection device?”

Li Ming didn’t speak, he touched it and completely relaxed, it hadn’t changed.

Seeing that he didn’t speak, the cripple didn’t ask further, and regained his composure, “News of this squad’s death won’t stay hidden for too long.

On Silver Grey Star, you’re the only target, you must be the prime suspect.”

“We should leave here as soon as possible.

I have a channel; we can smuggle ourselves to Casakuk first, then from Casakuk to Sand Dust Star.”

“The only inter-civilization stargate is on Capital Star, we definitely can’t go there, we can only travel slowly; three to five years should get us to the Inseres civilization, the closest one…”

“Then we find a way to get an identity and go into hiding for a while.”

“Uncle Cripple, that’s quite a spiel; I’m tired just listening to it,” Li Ming shook his head and interrupted, “I’m not planning on leaving for the time being.”

“Not leaving?” The cripple widened his eyes, “Don’t think you can take on Ash just because you’ve taken down these people.

Since you have already revealed something special, they will never let you go.”

“How do you plan to play it?”

“Of course I can’t outplay them, but what about Professor Wu?” Li Ming asked.

The cripple was taken aback, “Professor Wu…”

“If we do as you say, it’ll be at least a waste of five to six years, and we might not even get a bit of resources.”

“Though Professor Wu doesn’t have much influence now, a dying camel is still larger than a horse; it’s certainly no problem to just protect you,” the cripple nodded but frowned again, “But why would he protect you?”

“What do you think?” Li Ming smiled, the cripple held back, and glared at him fiercely.

“I’m already in my forties or fifties, I’ve had my fair share of enjoyment.

Since you want to play, let’s play, worst case scenario, we die together.”

The cripple grumbled and picked up a smoking pipe from the pile of sundries on the ground.

“Hey, this kind of old thing is rare.” He examined it for a while, then rinsed the mouthpiece with water, lit the leftover tobacco inside, and found a corner to sit down and puff away.

Li Ming, holding the detector, walked into a cabin door, closed it, and placed his palm on it; twenty thousand points of metal energy drained away.

Li Ming placed it inside the Control Bar and tried to activate its power.

The Control Bar actually dematerialized directly, as if it had been temporarily locked.

And he keenly felt that some change had occurred in his body, an indescribable energy continuously emerged, soaking into every part of his body.

“In a moment, I should possess what’s called the potential for refinement.”

Li Ming pondered, and when he came out, the cripple was sitting at the edge of the cabin, still puffing away.

He, on the other hand, walked straight to the console and took out the advanced USB drive that he had found on Chen Songnan.

The slender cylindrical device had a port at the bottom.

He pulled out a data cable from the console and plugged it in; a window popped up on the virtual screen in front of him–“Unable to retrieve data!”

It wasn’t identifiable, which Li Ming had expected.

Quantum encryption is an extremely simple yet brute-force method of encryption.

The randomly arranged passwords are almost endless; only the entangled quantum key can unlock it.

“What is this thing?” The cripple grew curious and came over for a look.

“A USB drive with quantum encryption,” Li Ming casually explained, his hands moving like phantoms on the virtual keyboard, with numerous data windows popping up and disappearing.

“Quantum encryption?” The cripple was quite astounded, “The stuff inside must be no small thing, huh?”

“Beep-Beep-”

A red warning window appeared on the virtual screen, Li Ming frowned slightly, “Can’t unlock it?”

“You want to crack it?” The cripple was even more astonished, coughing twice as white smoke came from his mouth and nose, “Quantum entanglement, you know, the constantly changing encryption method, can only be matched with a quantum key.”

“Without a team, and server terminal cooperation, you’re dreaming if you think you can crack it.”

Li Ming naturally understood.

“Advanced hackers, still not enough.” Li Ming muttered thoughtfully, hesitating for a moment before finally deciding to upgrade the mini-intellect.

This thing, definitely couldn’t be handed over to Qin Xiao just like that.

Four thousand points of metal energy were immediately consumed, and the mini-intellect underwent a metamorphosis, its metal shell becoming more exquisite, all physical buttons disappeared, it didn’t grow larger but instead shrunk to the size of a wristwatch.

[Mini-Intellect–D: A more professional computation support tool.]

…

Control Effect: Hacking Techniques–Advanced

Control Ability–Computation Enhancement: Temporarily upgrade hacking techniques to master-level.]

“Master-level?”

Li Ming raised an eyebrow, a master hacker, huh?

Familiar feelings of dizziness and brain swelling followed, he then activated [Computation Enhancement], and in an instant, an indescribable sensation came over him, a torrent of information flooded into his mind.

It was as if he had sat in front of the intellect for decades, with everyday tasks consisting of operating the intellect over and over, with various related knowledge coming effortlessly.

“Phew…

What a strong master-level.” Li Ming shook his head to ease the swelling pain and then suddenly froze, a look of astonishment in his eyes, only he could see the fluorescent blue screen that appeared before him with a line of text–

[Hacking techniques elevated to master-level, obtained ability–Personal Terminal, consume [Mini-Intellect] to permanently crystallize this ability?]

After elevating a certain technique to master-level, it was possible to derive ability entries, and by consuming Controlled Objects, one could permanently crystallize this ability within oneself.

A light dawned in Li Ming’s mind, like a master craftsman who had immersed himself in a trade for many years, always having his own unique tricks, only his were a bit against the heavens.

[Personal Terminal: Temporarily transform oneself into a server terminal of the same level]

“Logically, it is only upon reaching Class C that the level of skill equates to master-level.

This temporary elevation is like taking a shortcut.” Li Ming pondered.

To elevate to Class C would consume metal energy in the tens of thousands.

To crystallize was necessary, otherwise there was hardly any hope of breaking the encryption; the server terminal was on a completely different level than common terminals.

But after crystallization, the mini-intellect would disappear, and the master-level hacker boost would naturally be gone as well.

“What’s wrong?” The cripple saw Li Ming standing still and thought he was discouraged by a setback in cracking the encryption, so he consoled, “Don’t lose heart, quantum encryption is famously difficult, many Bounty Hunters are afraid to even touch it.”

“To each his own specialty.

The fact that you could crack this spaceship’s artificial intelligence is already amazing; many hacker experts hired by Bounty Hunter teams are only at this level.”

Li Ming gave him a glance, then sat back at the control panel.

He had an idea, to first utilize the master-level hacker to create a decryption program, and once crystallized, he could simply launch the decryption program.

“Beep—”

Several hours later, Li Ming took a deep breath and pressed the last key; the decryption program launched.

His fingers made contact with the control panel, and immediately a special connection was formed between the two, his body heating up like engaging in high-frequency physical activities, steaming, leaving the cripple speechless.

Li Ming rested several times, and it wasn’t until daylight that numerous windows popped up on the virtual screen in front of him, all full of files.

The cripple, originally relaxed and smoking on the side, nearly popped his eyes out at the sight, his face almost pressed against the virtual screen in disbelief, “You really cracked it?”

“What else?

It decided to unlock itself?” Li Ming was both physically and mentally exhausted, yet he still found the energy to joke as he clicked open the files one by one.

“Not that…

Give me a moment to take this in.” The cripple felt dizzy, and when he realized Li Ming was already a Class E Life Form, he wasn’t that shocked.

Because, that was still within the realm of what “humans” could achieve.

But now?

After many years in the trade of Bounty Hunters and knowing something about hackers,

the hacker’s own skills were one aspect, but equipment was also crucial, with the latter’s importance sometimes even surpassing the former.

Just with the artificial intelligence of a small spaceship, he had forced open the quantum encryption, which was too far-fetched.