A month after Deverick and Opus made Nemesis public. On this day, they are looking at the server statistics. They noticed that although the member count has increased, the buzz over it has died down. People started getting used to the banner and the members of the servers doesn't seem that enthusiastic about contributing. A stagnation.
"Hmmm. The members either aren't interested in the rewards or believe they are exaggerated. And something tells me it is the latter."
"How should we prove it then?"
"Well, I have just the right idea. My old processor is still around right?"
"Yeah. I turned it into an assistant."
"Pull up the demonstration video for Razor 40."
Later that day, an announcement was made on Nemesis. Upon clicking on it, the usual animation and video played.
"Hello everyone. I believe I haven't introduced myself yet. I will go by BlackJester when I am online. Now let's get to the point of this video. I see that many of you doubt the authenticity of our rewards. So here I am today, to remove your doubts. Behind me is one of the rewards we are offering. One of the two that we claim is better than the Razor 40."
BlackJester walked to the side, allowing the audience to see the machine behind him.
"Right now, I will run the same tests that the Razor 40 ran. In fact, this is the very same super data file they released for everyone."
The man walked over to the machine and started typing. The camera followed him.
"As you can see, I just rebooted it and reset everything. The storage is empty. Now I will process the file."
Black clicked start. One minute passed. Then the machine beeped.
Black then opened the file. Empty.
At this scene, everyone burst out in disbelief.
"Holy! How long was that."
"Too fast."
"So fast!"
"Does anyone remember how long the Razor 40 took?"
"4 minutes."
"Crazy. These guys are serious."
In this one stunt, Opus managed to once again set the network ablaze.
---Elder Windfrey's Side---
Elder Windfrey stared in astonishment at the hologram in front of him. A technology that will redefine the foundation of magic. That's what he saw in this. He can't help but wonder how this was developed. If this was made by man, then they have to be one of the greatest mages in rune complexity. If not the greatest. As one of the Elders, it is obvious he has lived a long life. Yet in all his experience, he doubts not even Elanora, the elder that spent the most time on rune research could come up with something so efficient.
Why does he say that? Because he and Elanora both participated in the creation of Razor 40. How else could the product claim to be at the peak of magic technology?
Windfrey stared at his friend list. The contribution of many of them started skyrocketing. Just imagine the money that Jester is raking in. At the rate this is going, they will soon reach the levels of wealth that rival top families. If this keeps up for a few decades, they might even be able to contest with the Mordesins in terms of wealth.
Wait! The money. It has to go somewhere right? And all the transactions are processed by Nori Bank. Jester, you made one big mistake. I want to see how you will get out of this on. Let me see the mastermind behind this whole scheme. Windfrey then ordered the higher-ups to start an investigation. One to see which account is receiving all the money.
A week had passed since Windfrey gave his order. On this day, Deverick and Opus were doing their usual research on the application of runes and occasionally checking on the server.
"This SoTired guy is actually pretty good. He managed to pass level 3." Deverick made some chit-chat.
"Why pay attention to him? The highest one already passed the fifth level."
"He's unknown."
"That makes sense. This achievement would give him a lot of attention."
"I just thought something. I should get a cover account since I can't always be using my operator one."
"A good move since you went to all this trouble to hide your information. On that topic, there is this one persistent guy that has been trying to trace your account."
"Interesting. How far did he get?"
"Halfway."
"Darn, people are better at this hacking stuff than I thought. If we give him any more time, he might crack our security. Well, that just means we need to start the variations."
"Done. The time between changes is now 3 days."
The moment Opus said that both of them started shining.
"What's going on? Why did we start glowing?"
[Ding. For your joint achievement, you have been granted the title: Encrypting the World]
"What was that? It seems like something spoke to me."
"That makes both of us."
Then information suddenly popped into their minds.
<Encrypting the World>
Description: Using your outrageous encryption abilities, you and your companion have managed to deceive the world-granted system, Nori.
Perk: Shroud of Secrecy
Shroud of Secrecy: When you intend to hide something, others will never be able to find it. Can only be applied to one thing at a time.
"I see now. That was us getting a title."
Although the information was short, a lot of things can be analyzed from it. For one, the security system they have is good. So good that Adnea decided to give them a title. Another thing is that the global bank system is not man-made. By the wording, it appears the system is formed by the world for some reason. This explains why not even Windfrey could crack the system. Although he made it, he does not know the reasoning behind it.
The last thing is that his title gave him a perk. A bonus. This means that all titles must come with a secret effect that others are not aware of. A powerful trump card for those that won't expect it.
Although not stated, Deverick theorizes that the perk of a title is related to his achievement, which is related to the name. This means that the last thing one might want to do is go around telling others about their title. Unless of course, they are so powerful that it doesn't matter.
Then Deverick thought about his father's title. At the time, he thought that it was simply a nickname people gave him to describe his cunning mind, but now that he has his own title, he thought differently.
"Encrypting the World," Deverick said his and Opus's title out loud. The same. It has the same special ring as when his mom said it.
"Black Schemer," Deverick confirmed it.
Yes. When a title is uttered, there is a certain distinguishable ring to it. One that is not produced by humans. Deverick was sure of it.
---11-year-old Deverick ---
A year has passed. Things continued like usual. Deverick and Opus would develop new rune applications and put the less potent ones on Nemesis. There were also many discoveries that weren't put on the exchange list. These are the trump cards to ensure their uniqueness.
For example, there was a way to drastically increase his rate of development of mana. Just this alone made it so that Deverick's magic accumulation surpasses those of his age, despite not spending much time actually developing his mana.
Another discovery they kept to themselves is space magic. They managed to find a way to open up an independent space in any object to hold items. As a result, they managed to modify Deverick's kata into a spatial bracelet on top of its original features. This discovery was far from perfect, but the materials required for further experimentation are hard to come by. Not even his family could help him with that one.
Deverick had decided that he was eventually going to release these discoveries, but that is in the future. This is partly because Deverick highly doubts the mage's ability to produce these products even if he does release them. Don't misunderstand him. Deverick is not looking down on the abilities of mages when it comes to runes. It is just that these discoveries were built on his Chaotic Rune Encryption(CRE), which explains why no one has found them before. Just the sheer monstrosity of the encryption is enough to overload Opus' storage system now.
This is not even getting into the fact that Opus utilizes a really compact form of information storage that is a variation of the CRE. Because of this, Opus has gotten bigger compared to a year ago. His diameter has doubled in size, resulting in four times his initial volume and 16 times the initial storage. That's the cool thing about combining CRE and rune constructs. The bigger the rune construct, the faster the storage grows.
CRE aside, Deverick estimates that for there to be people to be good enough to produce spatial items, they would need to pass level 50 in the Nemesis trials. The highest someone has reached in the past year is level 18. It can't be helped. The way the difficulty scales is beyond anything any of the challengers has seen. They would get an epiphany one moment which allows them to easily pass their current level. Then when they go to the next one in high spirits, they are grounded again by the feeling of not even knowing how to start.
Because of this trait, Deverick is pretty sure the account that reached level 18 is the result of group collaboration. Also, when that account completes the level, a few other accounts soon follow using the same solution. Deverick has nothing against this, but Opus, the moderator of the server, decided that only unique solutions are rewarded. The others might have the rank, but they don't have the contribution points rewarded for actually solving it. Deverick was sure this decision crushed the hopes of many challengers. In a way, the server is living up to its name.
In contrast to the ever-present BlackJester, there have been rumors of an admin that goes by WhiteJester. No one knows who started this rumor, but it was confirmed when a certain announcement was made. In contrast with the cool animations and eye-catching videos of BlackJester, this announcement was short and simple.
"Looking to buy properties and business. Will pay with contribution and demas. Interested parties can message me. Only accepting a limited amount -WhiteJester"
This simple announcement made people curious. Why would the Jesters want to buy properties? They already have enough money to live a carefree life so what more would investing do? And let's not mention the slow return on the investment. No matter how they think about it, it doesn't make sense.
Many people were curious, but they decided to watch the situation first. That is until everyone on a certain person's friend list saw his contribution skyrocket in ways exchanging demas wouldn't provide. This person started getting messages about what happened. How can his points go up so much, and so fast at that?
He explained that WhiteJester's payment of contribution points has a conversion rate of 35 demas to one contribution point. A better exchange rate than the official one by a long shot. So, he quickly exchanged all his spare properties and a few businesses.
This story quickly spread. Many were looking forward to capitalizing on this opportunity to get lots of contribution points for cheap. The price of some items is ridiculous if they want to exchange them with only demas. But this hope did not happen. All they got upon messaging WhiteJester was a single automated response.
"Thank you for your willingness to contribute, but I have reached the limits of my budget."
"Why do you need all this stuff anyway?"
"So that I can hire people to work for me."
"Why? Can't you have your family do most of it?"
"With what I have in mind, having a large number of normal people would be more efficient."
"So what exactly do you have in mind?"
"I want to support them in developing food."
"Huh?!?"
"That is one of the joys in life. Eating delicious foods. The chefs here make good food, but it gets old when you have it for 11 years. I want to see what people around the work can do."
"I assume you brought buildings in the empire so far?"
"Yeah. And even if a city has more properties than others, I can always convert some for something else."
"So what about the contribution points? Aren't you afraid it will disrupt the economy?"
"The thing is, I want a few people to buy things. This will make it more enticing the next time I want to buy things. But next time, I will decrease the exchange rate."
"Very clever. Conditioning the people to do everything you will ask."
"What's the point of such a powerful network if I don't use it?"
"That's a good point, but aren't you afraid they will analyze the technology and your items become obsolete?"
"If they can, I actually want that to happen. That way, I don't have to make all the parts from scratch every time I want to make something."
"Then what about money? I highly doubt that they will constantly be willing to convert contribution points. Especially when they get their hands on the good stuff."
"Then we just have to introduce more services that use contribution points."
"Give me some examples."
"Opus, do you know what is the most costly thing in the world?"
"Knowledge?"
"Correct. Information as well. So let's use your vast database and create a section where people can request knowledge or information. I permit you to sell anything 3 or more levels below our current level of research. For 2 levels below, make it restricted so that only those who have enough contribution points can get that information."
"Understood. I would assume a similar system for the food chain?"
"You know me too well."
