About two hours ago…

White Elephant City, White Tower Academy, World Network Center.

Fu Yongqi, a university scholar on duty, was nestled in his office, his slightly bloated body leaning on the duty chair. On the table were half a bottle of champagne, a goblet, and a large bag of barbecue skewers.

The rich aroma of barbecue filled the house. Ever since he accepted a good apprentice, his life has become more and more prosperous.

This apprentice is none other than Mr. Chen Xingchen, the hottest new star of the real power faction today, who owns the largest kingdom in the world and has the support of two king-level powerhouses. Both of them are supreme in the Heavenly Ranking and have the highest strength.

sky.

Just a few days ago, the dean invited him to the dormitory for tea and a heart-to-heart talk, and earnestly told him to have more emotional contact with Mr. Chen so that Mr. Chen would have a sense of belonging to White Tower College, just like his alma mater.

Even if he is a scholar on duty, as the dean of the guardian of the world, it is not easy to meet him. It is a great honor to be invited to the small dormitory to drink tea and have a heart-to-heart talk.

He felt like he was one step closer to the vice president.

But having said that, he has not contacted Mr. Chen so far. Mainly because the status of the two parties is a bit awkward. Mr. Chen is only his apprentice in name, and the other party has not really learned anything from him, but he is

As a tutor, his posture was too low in front of the other party, which would be humiliating to the academy, and his posture was too high for fear of offending the other party. No matter what he did, there seemed to be a problem, so he stopped contacting him to avoid embarrassment to each other.

Unless Chen Xing takes the initiative to find him, he will avoid it if he can.

Fo Yongqi glanced at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. It was now three-thirty in the afternoon, and there were still more than two hours before shift change.

When he thought of having an appointment with the young and beautiful Heita student girl at night, a wave of heat surged up from under his body, making his brain congested and excited.

He picked up the wine glass and drank the champagne soaked in ice cubes in one gulp. Suddenly, a cold feeling spread down his throat, clashing with the rising heat. Water and fire merged, and he couldn't help but let out an "ah" sound.

Sighing, feeling extremely comfortable.

Putting down the wine glass, he put his hands on his stomach and leaned back in the chair, intending to take a nap.

But just when he closed his eyes and was about to enter a dormant state, a sharp and long flute sound suddenly sounded outside.

"Woo..."

The sound was long, loud, and annoying. Even though he tried to close his eyes and ignore it, the sharp sound still penetrated his ears, stimulating his brain all the time.

"What the hell are those guys doing outside?"

The university scholar on duty complained, “The alarm doesn’t sound like an alarm, it’s too noisy!”

Suddenly, he seemed to remember something, and his body froze, as if his hands and feet were frozen instantly, but he still maintained the posture of getting up. His pupils gradually expanded, and cold sweat broke out at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He remembered that this was a special alert when a major crisis occurred.

In the past two hundred years, it had only rang twice, and this was the third time. So he didn't react for a while and thought it was some accident caused by researchers outside.

His whole body shivered, he woke up, and hurriedly lowered his head to find his slippers.

"Bang!"

As soon as he found a slipper, the door to the on-duty office was violently opened, and a researcher in a white coat rushed in, looking extremely panicked, "Oh no, something big has happened!"

"The mastermind has crashed!"

"At first we thought it was just a routine restart to clear redundant data, a matter of ten seconds."

"But, it's been ten minutes now!

"

"What did you say!" The university scholar on duty stared wide-eyed and was so shocked that he forgot the other slipper, pushed the researcher away, and rushed out with one foot bare.

For more than two hundred years, such a thing has never happened to the supercomputer "Nova" as the master brain of mankind. A downtime of more than ten seconds is a major event, let alone ten minutes now.

If the mastermind is down for ten minutes, the impact on human society will be no less than a large tsunami.

"Since just now, the main brain has been in a shutdown state."

"We have tried at least thirty methods, but the main brain still cannot be restarted."

Researchers from the monitoring center reported to the university scholars who hurriedly arrived for the day.

Realizing that the matter was of great importance, Fo Yongqi immediately ordered, "Notify all university scholars on duty to be present and report the situation to the dean!"

"Continue to check the cause and figure out what is causing the problem!"

The main brain crashed, which was unprecedented. As an intelligent life form, Nova has always been running very stably, and there has never been such a huge flaw.

He suddenly had a bad premonition in his heart. Perhaps the bankers' worries had become a reality!

More than two hundred years ago, the public network system with "Nova" as the computing core was launched. Bankers refused to mount the money system under Nova. They claimed that Nova was "an alien life with huge risks".

So it took half a century to independently develop the "Butler" system and create a capital circulation network, which is now the Money Network, the Dark Network, and the Copper Stink Network.

However, the White Tower Academy also created a backup mastermind "Hela" so that it can be replaced if Nova has problems.

Thinking of this, the university scholar on duty felt a lot more at ease.

After a while, more than a dozen university scholars on duty hurried over. They were generally the same as Fo Yongqi, who had one bare foot. Some were wearing pajamas, some had half shaved, some had soap bubbles in their hair, and some

The corners of his mouth were still stained with tomato juice, but he rushed to the scene as soon as possible.

"How is the situation?" "Is the power supply stable?" "Is it possible that it is caused by data redundancy?" "The cable below was replaced a few years ago?" "It is unlikely that the line is faulty."

"I want to know the operation status of the backup power supply!" "Start the maintenance channel inspection process!" "Is there a problem with the cooling system?"

The scholars on duty all talked about it and put forward their own guesses one after another.

"We have tried all conventional methods, so let's go underground to see the situation."

"Who is the university scholar on duty today? Let him sign the Main Brain Maintenance Certificate!" "What time is it? Don't worry about the formalities!" "Everyone is here, there is no need to sign it, let's go!"

The academics crowded into the deep elevator and rushed deep underground to the computer room where the mastermind Nova was.

A few minutes later, the scholars held emergency lights and walked through a large area of ​​equipment and pipelines to the location of the master brain.

I saw them collectively raising their heads, opening their mouths, and staring, as if they had seen something incredible.

The iron chain that originally penetrated the mechanical maid's body and hung it in mid-air was empty, with nothing on it.

Thousands of pipelines that were previously connected to half of the mechanical body were moved to a row of cabinets next to it. At this moment, the cabinets were emitting sparks and were in a short-circuit state.

Seeing such a scene, everyone understood that this was not a crash of the mastermind, but a jailbreak of the mastermind!

And looking at the surrounding situation, it seems that the other party has left for a while. Before leaving, a temporary replacement was made, that is, the row of cabinets, to delay the time of being discovered.

At this moment, a question came to everyone's mind - how did she escape under the noses of four legends and thousands of managers?

Under such a security configuration, not even a fly can fly away. How did she repair her body and escape from here?

"Discover the underground tunnel!"

The researchers who rushed down quickly found the corridor in the corner.

"She seems to be controlling some kind of mutated creature that's good at digging."

"Abyssal termites, Abyssal termites!" A researcher picked up an arm-long insect arthropod and immediately determined the species of the digging creature.

"Oh my god, why are there abyssal termites here!"

"How could Nova communicate with mutated creatures?" "Perhaps she dug through by chance..."

"The main brain is gone, what should we do?" Everyone shook their heads, feeling confused, dizzy, and unable to think.

About twenty minutes later, Dean Lumsden arrived at the scene, and everyone immediately had a backbone and gathered around the World Guardian.

"Dean, you are finally here!" "We have been waiting so impatiently for you!" "Nova has disappeared, leaving behind a bunch of broken units. What should we do now?"

Ramsden pondered for a while, touched his gray beard, and sighed slowly, "Maybe it's time to let her go free..."

Then he focused his gaze and said loudly, "Transfer the data immediately and let Hela come online!"

Everyone's eyes suddenly lit up, as if they were gearing up and eager to try.

Years of preparation are just for this moment. Humanity will completely get rid of its dependence on mechanical life from other worlds and enter a new era.

However, they soon discovered a new disaster, an irreversible disaster!

When the bad news came, everyone was stunned.

The ClearNet database was destroyed, and the data accumulated for more than two hundred years was lost.

The Hella unit was damaged by unknown factors and could not be started.

However, these two points are not the most important.

The database can be re-established if it is gone, and Hella can also be re-written.

The most terrible thing is that the satellite network all over the world is paralyzed.

After testing, it was found that it was not physical damage to the satellite or communication base station, but an unexplained interference turbulence in the network signal, which made data transmission impossible.

To put it simply, humans cannot continue to use traditional network technology. Unless there is a new data transmission model, the network can no longer be used.

Scholars soon discovered that not only network signals, but also all data signals were interfered with and could not operate normally. Not to mention the Internet, even the TV could not be used normally.

In just two hours, human beings seemed to have returned to primitive times, and communication became extremely difficult.

"Great, the analog signal can still be used normally!"

After half an hour of testing, the scholars found that radios using analog signals, wired telephones and wireless telegraphs from seven hundred years ago were still functioning normally.

The academics on duty immediately breathed a sigh of relief. At least mankind has not returned to the era of relying on beacons to transmit information.

"Broadcast to the world via long waveband."

"We have encountered an unprecedented communication crisis, but compared to the catastrophe five hundred years ago, this is nothing."
Chapter completed!