Free Web NovelChapter 377: Chapter 370: The Decryption of Reversed Causality
’Opportunity, Xirang, Wild Ships?’
’The opportunity lies with Xirang and the Wild Ships?’
The greatest similarity between Xirang and the Wild Ships was that the staff at the Xirang Research Institute, just like the survivors on the Wild Ships, didn’t have Celestial Net Chips in their brains.
’Is this the so-called opportunity?’
Intelligence is an information gap.
Obviously, Black Gold’s Grand Commander, who had left with the ship Nirvana, had learned some inside information. She was passing a message to Black Gold in a cryptic manner that only an Earthling or someone familiar with her would understand.
Combining this with the future Shi Ming had seen with his Eye of Destiny, it wasn’t hard to deduce the contents of her message:
1. The Nirvana is about to return.
2. The Nirvana might use "the net" to take actions detrimental to humanity, which would be a crisis for all humankind.
3. Humanity’s opportunity, or breakthrough, in facing the Nirvana lies with Xirang and the Wild Ships—with those people not controlled by the Celestial Net.
’As for there being 53 characters...’
Black Gold had received this message two days ago. The number 53 was exactly the same as the number of days remaining until the day of the prophecy, back when he first received it.
This was probably no coincidence.
It was another warning.
...
Shi Ming didn’t voice his thoughts directly.
He also wanted to hear Black Gold’s opinion.
They knew their Grand Commander’s personality better and might be able to analyze the message from a different angle, yielding different intelligence.
Seeing that Shi Ming had finished his contemplation, Xivier continued.
"When we received the message, we had Black Gold’s top decryption experts analyze it. They believe there are two points worth noting."
’Two points?’
Shi Ming put down the slip of paper.
"I’m listening."
"First, the Grand Commander has used Starlink to send us messages five times before. What’s different this time is that, despite deliberately saving space by not using punctuation, seven character slots were left unused. This is very much against her habits. From this, we deduce that the number 53, or perhaps 7, might be an important message she wanted to convey, one related to a timescale."
Shi Ming nodded.
A person who makes the most of every resource would never waste 11.6% of a precious communication channel.
And that was indeed the case.
"Second, by analyzing the previous five messages along with this one, Black Gold’s decryption experts discovered six recurring letters, scattered across the six messages."
"Coincidentally, these letters combine to form ’craquer,’ which means ’to crack’ or ’to break.’"
"But it doesn’t say what is to be cracked."
"When the Grand Commander left Black Gold, the most noteworthy thing was the Nameless Cocoon. Could she mean for us to quickly break open the Nameless Cocoon? To kill this insect? If that’s all it is... then wouldn’t that..."
Before she could finish her sentence,
Xivier felt a cold breeze wash over her.
’Strange,’
’this cabin is so tightly sealed. How could there be a draft?’
Shi Ming immediately soothed Ah Jian.
He decided to correct her line of thinking right away to prevent it from going astray. Based on the analysis Ah Jian had provided earlier, combined with the decryption from Black Gold, what needed to be "cracked" was already obvious.
"It’s not hard to guess, actually."
"Look at this message."
"I know a little French and Latin myself. They share the same roots. If you select the syllables where the pronunciation has completely diverged and then rearrange the letters, you have a chance of spelling out a new message. It happens to read as three terms."
Shi Ming picked up a pen and casually circled some letters on the paper in sequence.
"Opportunity,"
"Xirang,"
"Free Ships (Wild Ships)."
Xivier stared, stunned by Shi Ming’s seamless deduction.
Decrypting from nothing required a wild, boundless imagination.
This looked like a pattern-finding problem from a math olympiad, but in practice, it was a hundred times more difficult.
Deducing based on syllabic mutations between two languages was an angle they had never considered. Although feasible, such a method would require massive calculations and rearrangements. ’Could this incredibly young Stone Patrol Envoy in front of me really have formed a complete theory in such a short time, without relying on any external tools?’
’Is his brainpower comparable to the most powerful computer?’
’Is this the Spiritual Power of a Holy Hall Tier Awakened?’
She had no time to verify her thoughts.
Because Shi Ming had already stated his conclusion—
"So, when you combine that with what Black Gold’s experts found by integrating the six messages, what needs to be ’cracked’ becomes self-evident."
"The Celestial Net System."
’The Celestial Net System?’
...
"First, the numbers. Fifty-three characters, seven empty slots. It’s highly likely a timescale, representing the number of days remaining until the crisis. If it were seven, there’d be no point in struggling. We could just lie down and accept our fate; there would be no time to coordinate."
"Assuming it’s 53, the crisis will arrive in 53 days."
"You received the message the day before yesterday. Fifty-three days from then is the last day of the year. Leaving a two-day buffer, we can tentatively set the date as December 28th."
"We need to ’crack’ something before December 28th. The ’opportunity’ lies with ’Xirang’ and the ’Wild Ships.’ The difference between them and us is that they have no Celestial Net Chips at all. Therefore, it’s not hard to deduce that what Beyoncé wants us to crack is the Celestial Net System on the Wandering Ships."
Before December 28th, find the opportunity within Xirang and the Wild Ships to crack the Celestial Net System.
"Of course, it’s also possible we’re thinking about this the wrong way."
"After all, if you start with the wrong approach to decryption, the result can be completely off the mark."
"Besides, the Celestial Net System is rooted in the Wandering Ships and the Brain Domains of humans; it’s not something you can just crack because you want to. Perhaps Black Gold can have an in-depth discussion with Da Yu and seek advice from the Xirang Research Institute. In the face of a potential crisis, I believe they will be willing to share their past research."
Xivier pondered for a moment, then nodded.
The matter was of great importance.
Even if it turned out to be a false alarm, it was better to be prepared for danger in times of peace. Besides, humanity had suffered under the Celestial Net System for a long time. Even without a crisis, they couldn’t allow themselves to be controlled for generations to come. As for the mission from Wandering Ship 001 to find some Eye of the Divine, that was like finding a needle in a haystack. No one had ever heard of such a strange object appearing.
...
「After seeing Xivier off.」
Shi Ming stood on the deck, the prophecy of the future replaying in his mind.
In that static image from the prophecy, tens of thousands of Wandering Ships were gathered in one place, but the King-level Wandering Ships were nowhere to be seen. In theory, an event of this scale would require the King-level ships to take the lead; their absence was impossible. So why were they missing in the future?
’Could this be the result of today’s discussion?’
’What kind of reverse causality is this!’
No matter what, he had to give it his all. For something like this, he needed to prepare on two fronts: find a crack in the system and suppress with force. That way, if one plan had a flaw, the other could take its place. This would create a higher tolerance for error, ensuring he wouldn’t be completely passive when the crisis arrived.
The meeting was over, and it was time to head for the Earth Core.
"Three-Eyes."
"Coming, Master."
His Sun-Piercer ability flared, revealing the Ten Thousand Realms like a vast sea, poised and ready.
The Three-Eyed Golden Crow flew down from the highest point of the Da Yun, landing on Shi Ming’s shoulder like an ordinary black bird.
It, too, could finally occupy this coveted spot for a day.
