Chapter 48: It's Still More Profitable to Go Back to Your Old Trade!
"I'm telling you, this matter is non-negotiable. The trouble you caused is for you to solve with headquarters. I can't help here, nor do I have the authority to do so."
"Losing two A+ grade combatants at once—let alone me, even the director of our base wouldn't be able to help."
After saying this, the Finance Officer hung up the phone and set it aside.
"Sigh, talk about grasping at straws." After sighing, the Finance Officer sat on the sofa nearby, feeling somewhat exhausted.
But he had barely sat down for long before he felt something was off.
"What's going on? Why is the door open?"
Looking at the door that had inexplicably been left ajar, the Finance Officer became vigilant.
He slowly moved from the sofa back to the chair at the large Terminal desk, then reached his hand under the table. After that, he made no further movements, instead quietly observing his surroundings.
Although nothing else had happened besides that door being opened for no apparent reason, the Finance Officer didn't think it was an accident.
Picking up the Terminal again, the Finance Officer began to make a call.
The phone rang only once before being answered.
"Finance Officer Wang?"
"Something might have happened here." The Finance Officer's tone was serious. "I just discovered my door was left ajar for unknown reasons, so I'm checking with your side..."
"We are checking it right now."
Before the Finance Officer could finish, the person on the other end interrupted him.
"It's not just you. Even the Director's Office, the Accounting Room, and the Project Room have been left ajar. And according to the surveillance, all four of your doors were opened almost simultaneously."
"Furthermore, many researchers have reported to me that their Level 3 base access cards have gone missing. One or two might be dismissed as some fool losing them, but there are nearly ten of them, and they all vanished at the same time. I strongly suspect that someone with an invisibility-type ability has infiltrated the base."
Hearing this, the Finance Officer immediately frowned.
"If this person has an invisibility-type ability, then how could they get in here? This place isn't accessible with just a Level 3 base access card."
"They used Dr. Lin's Level 2 access card. Dr. Lin left the base not long ago, so it must have been stolen then. The system just alerted us that Dr. Lin's card has just opened the door to the Data Center. I've already initiated emergency lockdown mode. If nothing goes wrong, we should be able to trap this Esper in the Data Center."
"That's good. Hurry up and catch that Esper! To think a base this big could let a little invisible rat sneak in—I don't know what you lot in the Security Department are even doing."
Having said that, the Finance Officer hung up the phone.
He patted his pocket and, finding his card was still there, breathed a sigh of relief. He then set the Terminal aside and leaned back in his chair.
"About ten Level 3 access cards and one Level 2 access card—is that Esper really that good at stealing? Didn't they feel anything when their cards were swiped?"
The Finance Officer couldn't understand it. After all, even if the other party could turn invisible, they shouldn't be unable to notice being robbed, right?
"Forget it. After this incident, that bunch from the Security Department will surely come asking me for money to improve security measures. I'd better calculate how much funding I should allocate to them."
As he spoke, the Finance Officer began to operate the large Terminal in front of him.
But the moment he opened the account containing all of the base's liquid funds, he froze in place as if hit by a paralysis spell.
Because the account, which should have shown over five million, now displayed a glaring number.
"0"
"C-could it be a system error?"
He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, then tremblingly closed all the pages on the large Terminal.
After pressing F5 several times, the Finance Officer opened the page again and logged back into the account.
It was still 0.
Consequently, the Finance Officer let out a shrill, piercing shriek.
...
Rewinding a few minutes, let's shift the perspective back to Cipher.
In the center of the Administrative Area's hall, a turning over coin was slowly spinning in the air.
Cipher was standing at the entrance of the Finance Office, looking at the quantum storage in her hand with an expression just like someone looking at a money tree.
"As expected of something produced by the system, five million! To think I got it so easily!"
She had originally seen the account logged in on the large Terminal and thought there was no hope for those five million.
After all, large Terminals couldn't pay Credits; payments had to be made via personal Terminals.
But to her surprise, she had only inserted the quantum storage into the large Terminal out of a whim...
And it... it really could siphon it!
Only then did Cipher realize the true capability of the quantum storage.
As long as an account is logged in, no matter what device is used, it can siphon it all away!
This is way too overpowered!
Doesn't that mean as long as she could log into someone else's account with a personal Terminal, even without knowing the transaction password, she could siphon away all their Credits without leaving a trace?
The value of that free ten-pull purple is still rising!
And there was another surprise: the Finance Officer had clearly said there was less than five million, but she had siphoned 5.23 million Credits. This didn't match the amount the Finance Officer had stated.
But what did that have to do with her? She was actually hoping the Finance Officer had hidden even more. All she could say was, thank you for the gift from the heavens!
After collecting herself, Cipher turned her gaze to the other three doors in the Administrative Area.
She twirled the quantum storage in her hand, the corners of her mouth gradually curling upward.
(A long and boring process of collecting money is omitted here...)
Back in the hall, Cipher looked at the seven million-plus Credits on the quantum storage (over a million of which she had brought herself), and her breathing became slightly rapid.
Over seven million Credits! That's equivalent to over seven thousand stellar jade! This is a huge haul!
Converting that, it's over forty pulls. Adding the thirty pulls she had done before, she was almost at the pity threshold!
"No, Cipher, calm down. You can pull cards anytime; there's no need to do it now. There are still things that need to be done."
After muttering to herself for a while, Cipher calmed down again.
"Whew... Before, doing tasks and commissions, I struggled for ages and only got less than twenty pulls. And now, just by coming to rob a base, I've directly obtained nearly forty pulls. As expected, it's still more profitable to go back to Cipher's old trade."
After lamenting her difficult experience of saving up pulls over the past two days, Cipher grabbed the turning over coin and left the Administrative Area, starting to explore other places.
Cipher ran along another corridor, looking around, and soon discovered another door that also required a Level 2 access card to open: "Data Center".
"Data Center? Could it be the place where experimental data is stored?"
Cipher looked at the four characters on the door and guessed, but soon she shook her head and cast the doubt aside.
"Anyway, I have the access card, so I'll just open it and see."
After saying this, Cipher took out Lin Zhiyuan's access card, swiped it at the entrance, and the door opened just like before.
Walking into the Data Center, she found a hall similar to the Administrative Area, except there were only three doors here, one less than on the other side.
These doors were the "Server Room", "Data Storage Room", and "Mainframe Room".
Just as Cipher was preparing to go check out the Data Storage Room, an unexpected event occurred.
Accompanied by red alarm lights and a piercing alarm sound, followed by a "whoosh," the door leading into the Data Center was slammed shut.