Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 408 - 48: Ventilation Duct

"That’s the only way." Mr. Geng said, "What are your plans next?"

"Since we didn’t find more clues outside, we’re planning to explore Warehouse No. 1," Ding Chao said.

"Alright, be careful."

The Field Operations agents of Group 67 gathered at the main entrance of Warehouse No. 1. After conducting a final check with the memetic detection equipment and confirming no abnormalities, Ding Chao nodded to a short-statured agent wearing prescription tactical goggles.

The Field Operations agent’s name is Sharma, who has a quarter Indian heritage and is the communicator in Group 67.

India is a peculiar country with an illiteracy rate of 50%, yet programmers constitute 0.2% of the national population, surpassing even countries like Xiazhou Federation with only a 1% illiteracy rate.

Moreover, across the ocean in the Hezhong States, programmers of Indian origin make up more than seventy percent of the entire programmer population; even the latest CEO and Chairman of the top IT company "Soft Giant" in Hezhong States was Indian.

Sharma might have inherited the remarkable programmer talent of Indians, displaying extraordinary skills in computer programming from a young age, winning various programming contests in elementary, middle, and high schools until he stumbled upon the wrong path in college, becoming a hacker. With his solid skills and an exploited loophole in a private bank’s security system, he managed to steal virtual currency worth billions.

According to the Federation’s cybersecurity law, this amount would have landed Sharma in prison for a lifetime... fortunately, when he was caught, the money was still untouched, and his talent attracted the attention of the military bigwigs, sparing him from imprisonment... transforming from a shady hacker to a white hat serving the military.

After Ye Jiu learned about Sharma’s abilities, he used relentless persistence to recruit him—of course, another key reason was Sharma’s personal interest in investigating and studying mysterious creatures. He had once hacked into the Federation’s official database and stumbled upon numerous confidential files related to mysterious creatures, becoming deeply fascinated by these dangerous and enigmatic entities ever since.

Apart from his programmer skills, Sharma’s Indian bloodline gifted him with another hobby: risk-taking.

After Ye Jiu and Sharma extended their invitation, they hit it off instantly—he with feelings, she with intentions... Sharma soon left the army, becoming a member of the Field Operations Department at the Celestial City Mysterious Creature Research Institute.

"Show us your skills, Sharma," Ding Chao said.

"Just watch, Team Leader." Sharma stepped forward, affixing a sucker, shaped very much like a stethoscope, onto the door lock of the warehouse and then sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling a laptop from his backpack.

He plugged the other end of the "stethoscope" into the computer, and as his ten fingers rapidly tapped on the keyboard, code lines began crazily scrolling across the screen.

One minute, two minutes...

Four minutes, five minutes...

Ten minutes passed, the code on the screen still rolling, yet the specially alloyed door remained unyielding, while beads of sweat appeared on Sharma’s forehead.

"How much longer?" Ding Chao asked softly, frowning.

"I’m... I’m not sure," Sharma’s voice was somewhat dry, "Honestly, I’ve cracked a bunch of security programs even more complex than this one... but this door lock is truly bizarre; every time I’m about to finish cracking it, its underlying code resets, causing all my previous efforts to come to naught... Logically, security programs of this level shouldn’t be capable of this!"

"I don’t understand." Ding Chao, who was clueless about computers, shook his head, "Can you explain it in simpler terms?"

"It’s like being in a maze, whenever I’m about to reach the maze exit, the internal paths change entirely, and my position resets to the center... It’s not considered a very ingenious security measure because its biggest flaw lies in its exceedingly high computational demand."

"How high?" Ding Chao couldn’t help but ask.

"At least a supercomputer is needed to meet this demand... This supercomputer, in the entire Shuzhou Region, only the Mysterious Creature Research Institute in Celestial City has one." Sharma wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, muttering.

"Can we crack the door lock using the supercomputer from the Mysterious Creature Research Institute?" Yin Xiang asked.

"Yes, but it would take at least six to eight hours," Sharma replied, "I estimate six to eight hours, but specifically..."

"We don’t have that much time." Ding Chao interrupted him, "You continue cracking the door lock; others think about whether there are other ways to get inside the warehouse without using brute force."

"Can we use a laser cutter to make an opening in the wall and then drill inside?" suggested a Field Operations agent.

"It’s difficult," Ding Chao immediately shook his head, "Before we set out, I looked at the No. 105 factory’s warehouse design plan. The thinnest part of the warehouse’s exterior wall is one and a half meters thick, excluding the concrete outer wall; inside, it’s entirely assembled from steel structure modules. If the laser cutter’s power is too high, it may damage the equipment placed against the wall; if too low, it would be tough to cut it open quickly... Furthermore, during cutting, the internal steel structure will conduct high temperatures inside the warehouse, damaging these precision instruments... No way!"