In a world of magic, being able to surf the web was a rare delight for Weston.
Even better, after some digging he discovered that a predecessor had once built a vast archive on this magical network.
That senior had also uploaded a huge amount of magical information into it.
Weston was overjoyed and decided this was his chance to rise.
Cracking the archive, however, was no easy task.
Just as every lock needs its key, entering the archive required a matching passkey.
Weston spent more than half a year and tens of thousands of attempts trying to glimpse its secrets, but every time the Defense System blocked him.
Ten-odd minutes later Weston sat up, reinvigorated.
"My mana's almost restored."
"It's still early; one last try, then I'll pick the Young Lady up from school."
The words barely left his mouth before he called up the Super Ancient Text interface, connected to that magical URL and began working.
"Like this… then this… and finally…"
His fingers flew; streams of data raced across the screen.
Half a minute passed.
Ding—!
A sound different from the hundreds of previous attempts rang out.
"Hmm? What's this…"
"Did I just crack the magical archive?"
Weston's heart pounded; his eyes bored into the screen, afraid to blink.
He tried to stay calm, but the thought of inheriting some great senior's magical legacy made the corners of his mouth twitch uncontrollably.
The next moment, however, a pop-up doused him with ice water.
On the virtual screen appeared a window: [Your system has been breached!!]
The window hovered for three seconds, then—like a virus—the entire interface began changing wildly.
"W-what the heck?!"
"Someone's counter-hacking my spell—was this another trap the senior set?!"
Weston's face turned ashen.
He'd never faced this before, but he knew exactly what happened to an infected 'computer'.
If things went wrong, his own 'computer' might be bricked for good!
With that fear he frantically tried to sever his link to the magic network.
Before he could act, the virtual interface froze mid-change and every command halted.
Like the desktop of a freshly booted computer…
utterly still.
Weston's heart sank.
He knew it wasn't because his spell had blocked the intrusion—it was because the intrusion was already over.
"That person's spell has more raw 'Computing Power' than my Super Ancient Text!"
Weston clenched his fists.
If this was a defense left by the archive's creator, so be it.
To a Super Ancient Text user, information is the greatest asset; the Counter-Hack had probably siphoned—or wiped—his data as a warning.
At worst it would erase his stored data to punish him.
But Weston's Super Ancient Text held nothing valuable; losing it was no loss.
Computing Power, however, couldn't be stolen.
At most the intruder could 'copy' it and evolve their own calculations.
"What exactly…"
As he wondered, the interface beeped: beep-beep-beep.
Glancing over, he saw a dragon icon blinking in the corner.
Gulp… "A Chat Window?"
Weston reached out but hesitated to tap it.
Before he could decide, the other side—tired of waiting—force-opened the session.
Crack—
With a crackle of static, a square screen popped up on the Super Ancient Text interface.
Inside was an old man's face.
A Video Call?!
"Oh?"
"So the youngster who's been poking at my archive is this small?"
Crap!
The guy who built the archive wasn't dead after all!
"Senior, I—I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion…"
Breaking into an archive was no different from burglary.
Caught red-handed, Weston could only stammer an apology.
The old man probably couldn't crawl through the line to hit him, but since he'd already embedded a chat client in Weston's Super Ancient Text, who knew what else he could do?
"Hahaha…"
"Relax, I mean no harm."
"I just found your way of handling data amusing, so I dropped by to see what sort of person you are."
The elder studied Weston, stroking his long white beard.
"Barely nine years old, yet you've awakened the Super Ancient Text and built such an elegant, handy data model—quite the prodigy!"
"H-ha… really?"
"You flatter me, senior; I'm only standing on the shoulders of giants, borrowing past methods."
Weston forced a smile, uneasy.
His data-processing tricks weren't original; they were lifted from his past life—WPS for documents, CAD for drafting, Unity for modeling. To this world's network-naïve Mages they looked ingenious, but any modern computer worker could master them in half a day.
"Standing on the shoulders of giants?"
"A profound saying indeed!"
"Young friend, you're from Ishgar, aren't you? What's your name?"
Hmm? What does he mean… "I'm Weston."
"Weston Lagrange."
"Nine years old this year."
"From your question, senior, are you saying you're not from Ishgar?"
The old man twirled his beard and smiled.
"Correct!"
"I am Elefseria, Mage of Kiltina!"