Eric returned a few minutes later with a list of names.
"Here are the top ten hackers here. They're versatile and are known for being ruthless. They've also won countless awards in and out of the country."
Jett merely glanced through the names on the list before he passed it back to him.
Then he got up and walked to the glass window in front of him. From here, he had an even better view of the entire room and could see every one of the contestants.
His eyes subconsciously kept going to the woman on the far right corner.
Technically, most of the contestants had their eyes pinned on her as they mocked her in their hearts.
For some reason, the man was quite disturbed by this.
Despite knowing she lacked no skill, she was being so stubborn and nonchalant. Or could it be she was being stubborn because of what her sister said to her earlier?
"Get me more information on that woman."
Eric was taken aback and confused as he repeated, "What woman?"
The few seconds it took him to ask that was enough time for Jett to rethink his decision and change his mind.
"Have you found the three people?"
However, Eric didn't hear the question as he followed his train of sight until it landed on Kelsie.
His eyes instantly darkened.
This woman.
Wasn't she the one who got into his boss' personal elevator the other day?
He had also seen her at the hospital the other day and at the theater just an hour ago. Could it be she was…
He paused and glared at her.
Could it be she was stalking his boss?
She must've found out his identity and decided to try her luck with him. After all, his boss was still single and a lot of women had tried to seduce him into falling for them.
Even though all of them had failed so far which brought about the rumor about him being gay, countless women still tried to get into his bed.
While he was deep in thought, Jett turned to look at him after several seconds of not getting a response and repeated, "Did you find them?"
Eric quickly snapped out of his daze and nodded fervently, lowering his head to the floor in apology. "Yes, I did. They'll be here soon. Forgive me for zoning out."
Jett returned his attention to the sight in front of him and said nothing in reply.
Downstairs, Kelsie glanced at the timer on the screen in front of her and sighed impatiently.
She glanced at the time on her wristwatch and sighed again.
Wasn't this a quick contest? Why were they taking so much time before starting it?
She was still complaining bitterly when her hindsight caught three people walking up to their table.
"I'm so glad there's a team that isn't filled up. I almost thought I wouldn't make it."
"Hello, you must be the team leader. I was told to join your team. I come from a far place, you see, and because of it, I came late. Hence, couldn't form a team."
"Good evening, nice to meet you. You're so beautiful! My name is…"
Kelsie suddenly raised her eyes to meet theirs and gently waved them aside, "Hi, I'm not the team leader. I just happened to be the first person in the group."
The trio of two men and a woman were a little taken aback by her strange and concise introduction, but given that she lowered her eyes almost immediately made them conclude she wasn't much of a talker and they took their seats.
Meanwhile, with her head lowered, Kelsie was clenching and unclenching her jaw.
A complete group of five?
She sighed inwardly.
If they had to tackle other teams as a team, then that means their team as a whole would win the prize money together.
She unfortunately had to share it now.
She sighed and took out her phone to check if the prize money had increased again. Sure enough, it did.
Seeing the money had nearly doubled since the last time she checked, she felt a little better.
With a quick calculation, she realized she would still have a substantial amount, even if it was split five ways.
A faint smile tugged the corners of her lips at this.
A smile Laura happened to see.
She leaned closer to her desk and a hypocritical soft smile danced across her lips, "I see your team is finally complete. Now, you finally have a shot at winning the prize money."
Her words had just fallen when someone snorted in contempt.
"She finally has a shot, my foot! Don't give her any hope, Laura. Those people with her, I've never seen them before. And I've participated in a lot of contests and competitions."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Don't be such a dullard. If a hacker hasn't been acknowledged by other hackers, not even one, it only means their skill is lacking. Even with a complete team, they still don't stand a chance,"
"Why have them compete with us if they're going to lose as soon as the contest starts? They'll just end up wasting our time. Do they think we have nothing better to do?"
"Shut up! Do you want blogs and media outlets to write about how the rich refuse to give chances to people who are just starting out and need a stepping stone?"
"There are reporters and television stations in the audience who disguised themselves as people who came to watch."
"So even if these people don't deserve to be given a chance, our sponsors have no choice, but to let them be a part of the contest at least. Do you get it now?"
Kelsie and the people at her team paid no heed to them.
She watched the timer on the screen tick down, her fingers tapping absently on the desk.
When the task finally appeared, her eyes scanned the text.
Optimize error-handling in a dynamic data pipeline… unconventional constructs… while loop inside a try-catch block…
She blinked, her head tilting slightly. Was this… a mistake?
Across from her, Laura's eyes instantly shot towards Kelsie the moment she saw the task.
Sure enough, Kelsie was perplexed.
Of course she had to be perplexed. This was way beyond whatever she must've learned abroad.
Only experienced hackers like her could attempt to reverse engineer something like this.
Heh! Weren't you smug just a second ago? Let's see how you deal with this task which takes amateur hackers at least a day to crack.
While she was thinking like this, Kelsie was suppressing a yawn.
What was this joke?
Her 6-year-old could reverse engineer this in a few minutes even if he was woken up to do so in the middle of the night.