"Your experience is abundant, and your equipment advanced," the black man nodded approvingly, "What device could possibly escape your control? This technology is called Digital Mind, right? Only a few massive corporations have succeeded in developing it."
Within and outside of massive corporations, there was a significant generational gap in technology. Xu Yang, as an elite engineer cultivated by a massive corporation, had extraordinary abilities. Coupled with the high-end technology exclusive to massive corporations, "Digital Mind," Xu Yang was invincible in the outside world.
Although this power was formidable, Xu Yang always felt that it didn't truly belong to him when he used it at the company. Over his many years with the company, he paid attention, mastering Digital Mind through lengthy learning, training, and combat, ensuring it was trustworthy and becoming an essential tool in his mind. It now also assisted him in escaping a tight spot, seeking a glimmer of hope.
Xu Yang shook his head, dismissed the geisha robot, reset the menu prices to their original state, switched the television back to the previous channel, and deleted all operation records to avoid being tracked down later. Nevertheless, most stores were unattended and it would be a long time before someone came to deal with it.
Knocking on the table, Xu Yang restored everything to how it was before.
After initial confusion, the diners quickly turned their attention elsewhere.
The black man placed a box in front of Xu Yang.
"Open it."
Glancing at it, it was a miniature safe from a small security company. Xu Yang pulled out the wiring and connected it to the safe. The firewall was as good as nonexistent before the custom cracking algorithm of his Digital Mind, which also contained three built-in viruses. Xu Yang cleared them in less than half a second, eliminating the risk of self-combustion.
The safe disintegrated by itself, revealing nothing inside.
The black man's expression turned from relaxed to grave as he took out another rectangular case.
"Now I want to see your ability to crack this company's high-end product..."
"Enough."
"Hmm?"
"Without exaggeration, I am the best neuro-hacker you could encounter," Xu Yang disdained the test, "Give me the problem, I'll solve it. Give me a hundred million, and we're even."
"Oh," the black man put the items away.
"That includes the advance payment. Ten million isn't too much, is it?"
"Ten million?" The black man laughed, "First, take a look at the details of the commission."
The sound of the jet propulsion from the service robot grew louder as it approached, interrupting their conversation as it brought over the food.
A bowl of piping hot, fragrant tonkotsu ramen was placed in front of Xu Yang, with slices of char siu, a fried egg, peas, and seaweed strips lying atop the pork bone broth and noodles.
Xu Yang didn't pick up his chopsticks. For a moment, he missed the nutrient paste from the company, which lacked such complex aromas.
"My name is Matteo," the black man said, "I'm sending some information wirelessly to you, open your interface."
Xu Yang introspected his internal information platform, received the connection with Matteo, and as soon as he approved, the other side transmitted eight documents, most of them news reports, the others were files from an excavation company.
He ate the ramen while quickly scanning the documents' contents.
"A major excavation work halted outside Aizu City," Xu Yang murmured, "Residents injured, missing. Strange lights at night. Bronze Titan Excavation Company..."
"This company is a subsidiary of Near East Providence."
"Near East Providence... an energy conglomerate."
"They're so rich they dig anywhere, even here, on Kyoto Infinity's turf, and they interfere."
"There's no spices or oil here."
"Of course not. But that's not what they're here for."
"Then what are they here for...?"
Matteo crunched through a piece of fried chicken, swallowing it down with a large gulp of hot tea, then leaned back and let out a relieved two words: "Witch."
"What?"
"While digging, they stumbled upon an Ancient Witch," Matteo said, "a living Ancient Witch buried deep in Aizu's Underground City."
Xu Yang went back to browse through those reports and the information about the excavation company again.
It mentioned that the excavation work started off very smoothly, and although no fossil energies were found, many ancient relics and burial artifacts were unearthed, which seemed to be related to the Ancient Witch Council.
Then, abruptly, the excavation work stopped.
That was two weeks ago.
"They didn't keep digging..."
"It's a matter of territory. Kyoto Infinity doesn't want Near East Providence to take away ancient species of infinite value from their turf. The standoff was too intense, neither side would give in. Ancient Witches... The Witches of that era weren't like modern bitches, slaves, and killing machines; they were worshipped as gods in ancient times."
"That's our target," Xu Yang felt a surge of excitement within him.
Witches were strategic resources of this era, more daunting than nuclear weapons.
The most powerful among them could not only resist or absorb the impact of nuclear weapons, but they also possessed the energy to directly manipulate and change reality.
Extremely rare living Ancient Witches were worth more than a large company itself.
"Just us?" Xu Yang came to his senses.
"Kyoto Infinity has submitted a proposal to the Corporate Alliance. While you were eating noodles, the Corporate Alliance was already deliberating her ownership. There's a small window during this time, about 12 hours left."
"What I mean is, just 'us'?"
"Don't worry," Matteo chuckled, "I've got a 'company' backing me, too. What I need is efficiency and capability. Who would have thought that so close in Aizu City, one could find a master holding Digital Mind, saving money on combat robots."
So that's how it was; a third-party large company or a giant corporation was eyeing Witch resources. Xu Yang silently analyzed. Being involved in this matter was undoubtedly extremely dangerous, but missing the opportunity was even more agonizing.
"Solve the money problem, and I can be in place," Xu Yang said.
"Here's an installment for you now," Matteo pushed an anonymous cash card across the table.
Xu Yang picked up the cash card, opened the digital display, and the upper right corner showed 10,000,000—a full 10 million funds.
10 million at hand!
Couldn't get too excited, if he was right, there was still 90 million waiting.
"How can I make sure you guys won't silence me?" Xu Yang asked.
"How is that possible," Matteo said, "We need you. You have to handle the cracking of the external facilities at the dig site, you're needed for disabling hidden traps inside, and when it comes to getting away clean, we'll need you to erase traces, hack into a few drones. Instead of us killing you, we're more worried about you ratting us out to Kyoto Infinity someday."
"So you can trust me then."
"Ah," the black man shook his head, "definitely trust."
"How come?"
"You're strapped for cash, brother."
That hit close to home for Xu Yang; he decided to take the risk.
He plainly looked unfamiliar with the underworld, which probably made the man guess he had just escaped from some big company and was not likely to turn around and cooperate with them. Xu Yang thought to himself. Now he truly couldn't afford to be seen; once discovered, he would certainly end up with his brain harvested.
At any time, what a company needed was a person's labor, not a person's personal pursuits, value, and ideals. These things that couldn't be achieved in a company had to be sought outside of it.
"Let's go," Xu Yang said, "When do we move."
"Don't forget we've got only 12 hours, if you ask me, right now."
"Good," Xu Yang stood up.
The lifestyle of the past was now very far away.