The first order of business after establishing Lilypad-01 within the geothermal exchange node wasn't celebrating their temporary safety or the immediate launching of their new loan products. It was reinforcing their precarious sanctuary.
Li Fang had learned through bitter experience that survival was a constant process of shoring up defenses against an indifferent and often hostile universe. His scavenger smarts screamed that any respite was fleeting.
Before Xie Ruolan even began her deep dive into the Bank of Reincarnation's forgotten corners, Li Fang had insisted on spending almost all of their meager 40 or so Qi-Credits.
Twenty-five Credits vanished into the anonymous digital ether, purchasing subscriptions to several layers of passive obfuscation protocols.
Those subscriptions weren't active jamming fields, which were energy-intensive and easily detectable. Rather, they were sophisticated algorithmic cloaks. Routed through a chain of untraceable relays managed by Lilypad-01. Their protocols subtly altered the node's baseline energy signature, making it blend into the background noise of Sector Sigma-5's decaying infrastructure. They mimicked the energy patterns of dormant machinery, fluctuating geothermal leakage and even the collective Qi residue of forgotten vermin colonies.
Purchasing them was an essential layering designed to hide Lilypad-01 from the general, automated network sweeps that CRB and major Sect-Corps constantly trawled the Lower Layers with, sniffing for unauthorized high-energy nodes or unregistered AI activity.
It was like a digital camouflage, making their tiny spark less likely to attract the gaze of Neo-Tian's ever-watchful digital panopticon. At least, until they do something too catchy that even the obfuscation method could fail to mask.
With the remaining fifteen Credits, he'd acquired something Xie Ruolan had briefly mentioned needing.
Limited, read-only access credentials for a specific, heavily encrypted Undermarket component tracking ledger.
Not a public exchange but a shadow market where scavengers, rogue technicians, and even discreet Sect quartermasters traded information on the flow of rare or restricted technological components. From military-grade power cells to pre-Collapse AI cores.
Knowing where such items surfaced, or who was looking for them, could provide crucial intelligence or even early warnings of new threats or opportunities.
His balance now sat precisely at zero, a terrifying state, but Li Fang knew it wasn't a mindless expense.
The precautions he just subscribed to were the digital equivalent of reinforcing their door and putting sensors in the alleyways. The passive shielding was a start. Take it like a whisper in the digital storm.
Obviously, he knew it wouldn't deter a dedicated, active search by a determined adversary. It would be a vulnerability to be addressed when, or if, they ever had more substantial resources.
Once their digital footprint was somewhat minimized thanks to the obfuscation protocols he deployed, only did Xie Roulan turned her full, unnerving focus to the task at hand. Extracting capital from the belly of the beast she had once served.
Li Fang asked her if she's fine giving him what she considered a fund she's keeping for herself. But her response not only stupefied him but also made him remember how sophisticated she was, that she even decided to run away while holding the Void Sect's secrets in her hands.
Xie Ruolan disdained the source of those forgotten slush funds, so she thought it better to be gambled in arbitrage than let it rot in there.
Interfacing her personal, heavily modified comm unit directly with Lilypad-01, the repurposed Repo-Hound core provided a secure, isolated processing environment.
Her console seemed to crackle faintly, not with electricity, but with the density of cryptographic calculations as she erected layers of counter-intrusion protocols, quantum entanglement firewalls, and data-stream anonymizers around their connection.
Rather than calling it accessing a forgotten account, she was actually laying a digital siege or a careful infiltration into one of the most secure and ancient financial networks in existence.
"The Bank of Reincarnation doesn't use simple firewalls, Li Fang," She explained with her eyes transfixed on the cascading streams of archaic code and metaphysical access keys scrolling across her holographic keyboard.
Her fingers flew in a blur of precise movements. She resembled what the media depicted as a hacker.
"Its core systems are anchored across multiple reality layers. They utilize karmic resonance locks, spiritual guardian constructs – some dating back to the First Cultivator Dynasties – and predictive algorithms that can flag unauthorized access attempts based on deviations in the serene flow of probability." She scoffed disdainfully. "Tampering with active accounts, especially those tied to powerful lineages or Sect-Corp treasuries, is suicide. Those accounts are monitored by entities that make Celestial Revenue Bureau Auditors look like meter maids with faulty scanners. Your soul would be tagged, traced, and repossessed across multiple lifetimes before you could spend a single stolen Qi-Credit."
Li Fang gulped down as he felt a profound sense of uselessness mixed with awe.
The QFS interface in his vision offered analytical support, highlighting potential vulnerabilities in the Bank's archaic outer security layers, specific legacy encryption protocols or dormant, low-level watcher spirit constructs whose patrol patterns hadn't been updated in centuries.
However, Xie Ruolan was the one truly navigating this digital labyrinth. Her mind, honed by years within the Bank's highest echelons, intuitively understood the ancient logic and hidden pathways.
[QFS Assisting Host Associate 'Xie Roulan'...]
[Identifying Legacy Encryption Vulnerabilities…]
[Identified: Protocol Jade Abacus v3.7. Bypassed via simulated historical admin credentials.]
[Bypassing Dormant Watcher Spirit Constructs…]
[Identified Type: Scroll Guardian Echoes. Pacification via projected counter-resonance frequency.]
[Caution: Significant Residual Karmic Trace]
[Risk: Moderate]
[All transactions will leave faint, time-delayed karmic ripples that high-level Bank auditors might eventually detect if looking specifically for this type of breach. Minimize interaction duration.]
"You see, Li Fang. The true vaults are impenetrable without catastrophic risk," Xie Ruolan continued in a tone as if she were in a trance. "But peripheral slush funds, contingency accounts used for off-book operational expenses for centuries, funding for exploratory missions into uncharted spiritual realms, or setting up discreet observation posts in rival Sect territories… Some of those might have fallen through the cracks during major system upgrades or administrative purges." Her fingers danced faster before slowly turning her head to him. "The Bank is an ancient bureaucracy. Like any bureaucracy, it misplaces things. Especially things it wants to misplace."
Upon saying that, Xie Ruolan smiled and winked. As a young man burdened by debt and accruing negative karmic equity, Li Fang lacked the defense from that killer move.