Chapter Ninety-One: A Master of Divine Rank

At the laboratory in Fuyun Technology Industrial Park, Shanjiang Town, Li Fu, dressed in a white lab coat, was leading Yan Zhang’s bio-sensing technology team in experiments and research. In this transparent lab made entirely of tempered glass, a person lay quietly on a bed, his head covered with electronic sensors linked by wires to a computer.

"Liu Jun, you haven’t been up to anything wicked lately, have you? Once this device starts, all those indecent films you’ve been watching will be projected for everyone to see," Yan Zhang said with a smile to Liu Jun, who had closed his eyes and was preparing to undergo the test. Liu Jun was also a member of the bio-sensing research team, and this time he had been drawn by lot to serve as the guinea pig. Anyone chosen that way would, as a rule, become the butt of everyone’s jokes.

In previous experiments, although the equipment had been unable to read the tester’s brainwave data with perfect precision, it had occasionally managed to extract surprisingly specific information—such as a childhood secret of peeking at the neighbor’s older sister bathing, an old unspoken crush on someone, or some vivid memory that had never faded. Every time, it exposed a few of everyone’s private little secrets, and no one was willing to be the guinea pig. Thus, each test had to rely on a lottery to decide who would take the role.

"Go on, go on. You make it sound as if none of you have ever watched indecent films. Hurry up and start," said the slightly chubby Liu Jun, opening his eyes to wave Yan Zhang away. Inside, he grumbled at his misfortune: out of dozens of people in the project team drawing lots together, he had actually been the one to win.

"Haha, we’ve got quite a few ladies here today. If you end up exposing someone’s..." Yan Zhang laughed, unable to finish.

They were all young people and loved to tease one another. The others nearby joined in the jokes as well.

"Laugh, laugh all you want. Next time it’ll be your turn to be the guinea pig," Liu Jun said, closing his eyes again and refusing to pay them any more mind. Yet beneath his calm, he felt a trace of nervousness, silently praying that he would not embarrass himself.

"All right, all right, everyone prepare yourselves. The experiment is about to begin. If we keep failing like this, who knows when we’ll ever get bio-sensing technology fully worked out?" Li Fu said, still grinning broadly. As for his researchers’ habit of joking around, he had always believed that so long as it remained within bounds and harmed no one’s feelings, a little teasing was harmless enough.

At his words, the others reined in their smiles and hurried back to their posts, preparing for the next round of testing. Since Li Fu’s return, the entire project’s pace had accelerated dramatically. They were now basically able to read brainwave information, though not yet with truly precise accuracy.

"Test start!"

Li Fu looked at a huge monitor connected to the computer. The screen displayed the interface of a wildly popular mobile game.

"Begin linking brain nerves. Brain-nerve connection normal. Begin transmitting information."

A cold female electronic voice sounded in the lab.

Liu Jun only felt a faint current connect with his body. With his eyes closed, he could see nothing, but as that weak current flowed through him, the interface of the game appeared in his mind with startling clarity, without the slightest restriction of size.

"Hm, let’s start with a solo queue match and see how it goes. Feels pretty fun."

Liu Jun immediately found it novel. In his mind he carefully felt his way around the interface, glancing at runes, then the store, then switching at once to the friends list. His thoughts moved extremely fast, and then he went straight into solo queue.

Li Fu and the others watched the enormous screen, where the game interface shifted at a dizzying pace, like a fast-forwarded video player, following every thought in Liu Jun’s mind.

"Brainwave frequency: 17 hertz, in the beta stage!"

"Operation speed: 34 actions per second!"

"Reaction time: 0.083 seconds!"

"......"

On another monitor connected to the computer, a series of data lines tracking Liu Jun’s brainwave frequency and the game-operation frequency also began to fluctuate rapidly.

The main screen quickly changed to the match-start interface. Ten players began racing to see who would load fastest. Needless to say, it was Liu Jun. The lab’s internet was on a dedicated broadband line; even downloading movies was a matter of seconds, let alone connecting to a game.

"This game’s character design is really something. Why do the female heroes all have such exaggerated curves? And those cherry lips, tiny waist, and long, high-slit legs..."

Since he had nothing else to do and all the information was being sent directly into his brain, Liu Jun grew bored while waiting. His attention drifted to the game heroes, Daji and Angela, and he immediately noticed the voluptuous figures of the two female characters.

"Haha, I said this kid Liu Jun was never serious. Look, he’s exposed himself already," someone said.

Outside the thick tempered glass, everyone saw several areas on the monitor highlighted with red circles, and they all burst into laughter. Those red-circled spots were the parts of Liu Jun’s mind that were most active at that moment—in other words, where his attention was focused.

So everyone instantly knew what he was thinking: swelling curves, tiny waists, and the like. They could not help laughing.

"Haha, Liu Jun, this kid, haha!" Yan Zhang nearly covered his mouth with both hands, but he simply could not hold it in. Every time a test produced someone’s embarrassment, everyone would laugh. The human curiosity to know other people’s thoughts and secrets was almost instinctive. Even Li Fu could not suppress his laughter.

Soon, the screen switched again and entered the game. The display seemed to speed forward. The game character controlled by Li Jun’s thoughts, Zhuge Liang, almost instantly opened the equipment-buying interface, bought the desired gear in what seemed like a blink, and then strolled unhurriedly toward mid lane while his teammates still stood there in a daze.

"Looks like Liu Jun is a real master at this game. Buying equipment that fast..."

If Li Fu’s eyes had not been so sharp, he might not even have caught the moment Liu Jun purchased his items.

Very soon, battle commenced. Because Liu Jun was controlling the game directly through brainwaves, and because the lab’s network speed was astonishingly fast, the already decent player controlling Zhuge Liang was now like a tiger with wings. Nearly every command executed instantly, and every skill chain was stitched together with flawless precision. His reactions were so fast they dazzled the eye, and before enemies and teammates could even understand what had happened, the fight was often already over.

"Chirp! Chirp!"

Inside the entire lab, the sounds of Zhuge Liang’s passive triggers and skill releases never stopped. Liu Jun’s Zhuge Liang was like a top-tier god, harvesting kills at will, nimbly and deftly dodging every attack. In less than ten minutes, under the command of this divine Zhuge Liang, they had utterly crushed the enemy base in a one-sided victory.

"Thirty-two kills, zero deaths, twelve assists!"

With flawless statistics, Zhuge Liang took MVP without the slightest dispute.

"Damn, since when was Liu Jun this good at the game? The last time he used Zhuge Liang, he was a complete liability—he dragged me into seven straight losses!" someone cried out in astonishment. Clearly, this person had played with Liu Jun before and knew full well that Liu Jun’s Zhuge Liang was not actually that strong. And this was ranked play, not a low-level lobby for bullying beginners.

"Brainwave frequency: 25 hertz, in the beta stage, extreme excitement state!"

"Operation speed: 529 actions per second!"

"Reaction time: 0.067 seconds!"

"......"

The monitor beside them recording the test data captured all the peak values. At this point, Liu Jun’s brainwave frequency had soared to 25 hertz, basically placing him in a state of extreme exhilaration, not unlike someone high on drugs, already bordering on a self-forgetful trance. Clearly, the game had been immensely satisfying for him, with every kind of top-tier maneuver and kill streak.

His operation speed had even reached a terrifying 529 actions per second. One must know that an ordinary person reaching 150 actions per second was already quite impressive; a true expert usually only exceeded 200. Yet Liu Jun could easily surpass 500, and during the game he maintained more than 400 for long stretches.

"Information transmission accuracy: 99.9999%!"

"Information reading accuracy: 99.9%!"

Soon, the two figures Li Fu cared about most also appeared. The accuracy of transmitting information into Liu Jun’s brain through the device had already reached four nines after the decimal point. As for reading information from Liu Jun’s mind, the accuracy was likewise extremely high—essentially only one error in a thousand attempts.

"Hm, not bad. At least it’s presentable now. This error rate has reached an acceptable level. But this is only the simplest kind of game-interface operation. If we want to achieve true virtual-world operations, this failure rate is still far too high."

Looking at the data, Li Fu nodded with satisfaction. In essence, the error rate for information reading had now reached a tolerable level. Using a computer for office work, browsing the internet, gaming, design, and so on posed no problem at all. But compared with the pure virtual world he envisioned, it was still far too distant.

A one-in-a-thousand error rate might sound small, but once data reached a certain scale, that level of error became difficult to accept.

PS: Thanks to ZHM6909 and Cha Li Ji for the 500 tip. Thank you for supporting Old Bull!