The real world.
John got up from his bed, a confused expression on his face. He languidly descended the stairs, took a carton of milk from the refrigerator, and poured it into his mouth.
He had always been a law-abiding citizen, but everything that had happened in the game today took him a while to comprehend.
The splattered blood, the terrified eyes of his enemies before their tragic deaths, their helpless cries for mercy...
Honestly, in the end, he killed like a robot, his hand slashing with the knife, expressionless. "
Hoo-hoo-hoo..."
Rubbing his cheek, John mentally reminded himself that this was all just a game, don't get addicted!
Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang.
"Who's there?"
Without thinking, he opened the door. Seeing a middle-aged man in military uniform with two soldiers armed with rifles, John instinctively assumed a fighting stance.
"Young man, have you been playing too many games?"
"Ahem..."
John, realizing what had happened, panicked.
"Uh... playing games doesn't warrant sending soldiers to arrest me, right?"
"It was clearly a warning from those two disloyal online thugs, Aozaki and Monkey.
"Can I come in and sit for a while?"
"Sure, sure..."
John muttered to himself. "Are you going to leave if I don't let you in?
""Your family is quite wealthy," the middle-aged man said with a smile, observing the villa's decor.
"It can't be helped. You've been reborn into a good family." John made him a cup of tea.
"Seeing his subordinate nod, the middle-aged man sat down on the sofa and took a sip.
"So,
Have you ever thought about joining the army?" John asked with a wry smile. "Don't lie, sir. I can't even give up my rich second-generation status to join the army, and my spoiled physique wouldn't be able to withstand the hardships."
"It's okay. I'm not sending you to fight on the battlefield. Now, our technology is so advanced that all you have to do is sit in a command vehicle and press a button to kill the enemy," the middle-aged man coaxed.
"No..."
John, realizing what was happening, looked stunned.
"Sir, you called me over just to play a game. This isn't that serious!"
"If this really involves secrets, the worst that could happen is I quit playing games."
The middle-aged man shook his head and smiled.
Then, with a serious expression, he said, "To be honest, this game isn't simple. After research, the higher-ups have discovered that the technology displayed in it may not be just stickers, but is most likely real."
"Puff!"
John coughed dryly, setting down his cup.
"You're kidding, right? Just a bunch of game stickers..."
Suddenly, John's eyes narrowed as he remembered something.
It seemed like while waiting to return to the airdrop pod in the game, he had seen Aozaki and Monkey inspecting and dismantling an infantry fighting vehicle, and their minds had become uneasy.
Could they have doubted the game's authenticity and concluded that all the equipment and supplies displayed in it weren't stickers?
What kind of international joke was this? So, a massive Imperial aircraft carrier was parked in space. If all this technology was real, then which country or organization on Earth possessed it?
If not...
John shuddered at the thought.
He might have revealed something secret.
Mind uploading combined with cloning technology... this was proposed shortly after the advent of brain-computer interface technology, but it was strictly prohibited by countries around the world due to various ethical concerns.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... Look, I was still hesitant to let you be a normal person, but you discovered it yourself. So, to keep this secret, I had to put you in a difficult position."
John sobbed.
"Brother, don't do that. You'll only sting!"
The middle-aged man smiled, stood up, and patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, I'm just giving you an identity, not asking you to actually join the army. Even if you wanted to, I wouldn't consider your physical appearance. I'm only enlisting you to keep you quiet."
He turned to explain as he reached the door.
"By the way, report to the nearest police station tomorrow night. Someone will pick you up and take you to the army for training. Remember, even killing requires efficiency. We can't guarantee that foreigners won't be allowed into this game in the future, so don't embarrass us Chinese."
About your parents, don't worry. We'll send them a special acceptance letter from the National Defense University."
Damn, didn't they say they weren't considering me? Why do they have to undergo military training?
John's face darkened.
In an office somewhere in America,
A group of leaders, about to leave work, suddenly received an emergency call and rushed back.
"Old man Niky, you're exaggerating! It's just a virtual gimmick with a 99% simulation rate, and you're concluding that the technology inside could be real?"
An elderly, white-haired man in a police uniform sat cross-legged, a cigarette in his mouth, squinting as he scanned documents, his face showing dissatisfaction.
His words were echoed by many others, who felt it was a bit of an exaggeration.
"Better to believe than not. Besides, what if it's fake? Given their virtual reality technology with a 99% simulation rate, finding the real culprit would be a remarkable achievement!"
He smiled as the elderly man in casual clothes across from him pushed up his glasses.
"That's right," the old man in the police uniform hesitated, then nodded, then added, "So, your technical department has found a clue, and you want us to take action?"
The bespectacled old man shrugged helplessly, looking somewhat regretful.
"Old Cheng, you're not a professional in our department, so you're probably not familiar with network technology... Honestly, the other party's technology is completely out of our league. It's beyond the level of civilization."
Everyone was shocked to hear these words, sitting up straight and listening intently.
"We've used every means possible to track the interaction data, but do you know where the other party's IP address actually is?"
"???"
"Old Xia, can you stop being so tense? That's the most annoying thing about you old scholars."
"Ahem..." The bespectacled old man hesitated for a moment, but then said seriously, "The other party's IP address is the same as our supercomputer's."
"What supercomputer? Why haven't we heard of it before?"
someone asked, puzzled.
Old Bruce glanced at the old man serving tea at the head of the table.
With the man's tacit approval, he explained that the supercomputer was a next-generation quantum supercomputer secretly developed by the Americans. Its performance was no longer solely focused on encryption; it possessed the same supercomputing capabilities as a regular computer.
In short, with it, the world's network firewalls would be rendered useless.
Although a forced breach would draw the attention of other countries, even with force, the intruders knew they were under attack and couldn't stop it unless they unplugged the network cables.
The supercomputer had just been downgraded from top secret to classified, and the general public was still unaware of its existence. The location of its host was even more secret, known only to a handful of people. However,
here was the terrifying part.
They had just begun following their trail when they received the warning.
This was truly terrifying.
Everyone shuddered.
Modern society is an information society, and a failure of a country's network essentially paralyzes a large portion of its population.
If the other party truly harbored malicious intent, such advanced computer technology could bring chaos to the world.
"Do you really think they're aliens?"
A moment of silence fell over the conference room.
"Don't speculate. Old Man Bruce's theory is the work of a hidden organization. If aliens really existed, don't you think they wouldn't attack Earth?" The elder in the first seat said calmly, setting down his teacup.
So that's how it is.
Everyone nodded silently.
Indeed, if they were truly aliens, they definitely wouldn't have greeted them like this. They would probably just point a cannon in their faces and negotiate peace.