[Attention please! The next stage will commence immediately. The remaining eight hundred teams will be advancing to the second stage now] Levi sat back comfortably on the swiveling chair awaiting the host continuation. Ding! [Anyone made a wild guess at what the next challenge might be?]- Chubby sent a message to their group chat. [Who knows? I spent my break going through more tactics about firewalls. It's inevitable in this case]- Slime sounded impassive but he was also eagerly waiting on what the next challenge would be. [Same here. I'm a bit weak in the firewalls aspects so I tried to study some... Didn't expect it would be so difficult]- Valkyrie added a sticker that showed a girl collapsing from exhaustion. [Pfft!]- Chubby flooded the group chats with laughing emoticons and stickers. Levi shook his head helplessly at Valkyrie's words. Lazy thing... If you want to survive as a hacker, you need to know at least the basics in firewall tactics. [If you pay attention, you will
Levi's brows knitted as he watched the screen with a discerning look. The timer continually slowly counted down. His eyes flashed with realization and he had just adjusted his mic to say something when Chubby's voice came through, "I have an idea! We can all start sending random code to the virus. It might confuse it and slow it down, giving us time to get past it." "Sounds like a good idea. Let's get on with it. There are only four minutes left," Valkyrie drew her keyboard closer. Levi, seeing they agreed with it, didn't voice out his own opinions. As soon as they began to type furiously, he joined. Tap! Tap! Tap! Strings of code appeared on the screen as their fingers worked hastily across the screen. The spider seemed to pause for a moment, as if it was trying to make sense of the information it was receiving. "Good job Chubby!" Slime praised when he saw the spider paused movement. He attempted to move his icon forward to the finish line when— The spider started to move a
[Congratulations once again the Hacksmiths. The creator of that virus will specially have a word with you all after this challenge is over regardless of the results]The host sent another wave of shock across the tournament arena. Hackers who didn't even know about the Hacksmiths before began to click on the profiles of each team member to know who they were.The community chat of course was on fire.[What?! Is that the sound of my jaw breaking in the background?][Isn't that team the one that Blackwing belongs to? Oh my God!][Who would have thought— this is too shocking][I didn't want to say this earlier but now I'm not afraid, I'm officially a fan of the Hacksmiths especially Blackwing. He's so cool][Guys, I just created a betting poll. I drew up the list of leading teams. You can vote till your heart's content for your favorite teams. Note, this is only for the audience only. Participants of the tournament are not eligible to vote]The hacker that dropped this message added a l
The next day, just after breakfast, Levi opened the window's blinds to allow the rays of sunlight to illuminate the room.He picked up a piece of clothing Brooklyn must have dropped while rushing that morning and returned it to its original position.A little smile danced on his lips as he remembered how upset she had been because she missed the alarm due to their hectic tossing around in the bed.But that couldn't be compared to the horrific expression she had when she saw the long trail of hickeys he had left on her body in the most revealing spots.Once again, he was banned from touching her for a month. Pst! That's only her wishful thinking.Ding!Ding!His phone lit up with notifications. There were mails of the reports from his newly acquired print media companies back in San Jose but Brooklyn's message was what caught his eye.[The dinner is starting by 7 pm. The chauffeur will pick you up from home. Please be ready by then]He chuckled at the sticker she sent. It was of a doll
[Opponent Located][Vikings vs Quantums]Dark Cipher couldn't help but sag his shoulders in disappointment. He was expecting to go against the Hacksmiths.Is this thing rigged? Damn it!"Well, I think even if we paired with the Hacksmiths, they are only unknown hackers who got the spotlight for being lucky yesterday, we would have defeated them."His eyes darkened at the words of one of his female teammates. He moved his mouse cursor again, circling around Levi's name.After what happened yesterday, he couldn't exactly agree with the fact that they might beat the Hacksmiths if they were to go against them.That's more of the reason he wanted them to be paired against each other."I wonder which team got the Wickers. As long as it's not us, I'm fine with any other team," Phantom also spoke.[Hacksmiths vs Wickers]"Woohoo! We didn't get the Vikings," Valkyrie danced in her chair.Levi's brows contracted in disappointment. Why? Is this damn system rigged? Why couldn't it have allocated
[Congratulations Hacksmiths. You have won this contest!]Cracked and the rest of his team members were speechless.Then he saw that while they were busy figuring out a way to infiltrate the Hacksmiths firewall, one of the members already created a secret path to their base, stole their flag and returned without them noticing."What the fuck!" His teammates cursed on the other side but Cracked was even more focused on seeing the icon of the team member who had stolen their flag successfully.Once the screen interface changed and they were logged out of the set up, he quickly searched and once he found that person's profile, his eyes displayed an intrigued glint."Blackwing?" He smiled and clicked on his mouse.The cursor moved quickly and a request to be comrades was sent to Levi.On the other side,"Woohoo! We did it!" Valkyrie didn't realise what had happened as she had been sitting comfortably in her chair doing nothing until the message displayed on the desktop screen."Ahem! Senpa
Once the arena was coordinated, the host continued, "For the final round of our annual hacker contest, we will be having a Network Intrusion Simulation challenge."Huh? Every hacker paid attention to his words. Levi sat back and stroked his chin. Network Intrusion Simulation challenge?As if the host heard his words, he affirmed, "Yes, Network Intrusion Simulation challenge. In this round, all teams have to infiltrate a highly secured network system to plant the teams digital flags""You will be provided a simulated network environment representing a fictional organisation's IT infrastructure."Levi stroked his chin with a thoughtful look. Hmm, interesting..."Note, you all will be assailed by bobby traps like firewalls, viruses and many others. All you have to do is to successfully get into the system and plant your digital key at the core to demonstrate a successful infiltration."The host paused for a second for them to assimilate the information before continuing,"The core of the
Amidst all these, the two teams involved faced each other. As soon as Levi gave the command, they swung to action."Can I really not stay back?" Valkyrie cried as her fingers flew across the keyboard sending a series of codes across.It was all too sudden. She didn't expect that after avoiding the Vikings for so long, they would actually encounter each other like this."Yeah, stay back and get infected," Levi didn't mince his words as he evaded Dark Cipher's attack.It seems like he is particularly focused on finishing him off. After evading the attacks for some time, Levi's eyes curved because he could see other teams approaching.If they don't finish this off, another team can seize the opportunity to get out first."Time to finish this," His eyes curved coldly as his fingers changed directions."Uh? What's going on senior? Why did you suddenly stop?" Slime noticed him slowing down."Oh no, you are going to get infected!" Chubby was alarmed.Tap!Tap!Tap!Levi released his fingers