Chapter 24 23. I’m Going Off!

While Shane was busy going through the world setting and storyline in another dimension, Ed and Dirt sat on the floor in the white room, waiting for the students. After five minutes, the bald man turned toward his robot and asked, "See how they're all doing," he paused as if he thought of something just now, "Review Shane's situation first."

Dirt nodded and opened up a window in front of his eyes. He did something on the screen and even typed a few words before confirming it. Right after that, the live situation of the system appeared on the screen. It didn't show him the actual footage of what was happening inside. Rather, they could see the type of world Shane had gotten this time according to his choices, and a prediction after calculating the overall stats.

[Difficulty: Severe]

[Winning Percentage: -10000%]

Dirt's eyes widened as he saw the situation. He remembered setting up the difficulty to an easy one since this was the first time they got inside the portal. He had been watching the entire scene with keen eyes. Just how did the difficulty of Shane's portal change all of a sudden?

It was normal for this and any other virtual portal to have difficulty ranges. When the system would be on the job, they would set the difficulties on their own with respect to the level they would be in, and everything would be under the eyes of the seniors who handled the portal to see whether anything would go wrong or not.

If there were glitches in the portal, the missions would be canceled before the systems could select the world. In any case, if a system happened to choose a world despite having glitches, the portal handler would be punished by kicking him out of his job and filing a compensation of a thousand Crana.

But the rules in the academy were different. The difficulty was always set to easy throughout the first three practicals. Since no one even touched the difficulty tab in the interface, Dirt had even forgotten that it even existed until today.

Moreover, only the portal handler knew how to change the difficulty….

That meant only he and Ed had the permission to change it. But even the robot knew that he and his boss were outside, and he had even double-checked everything, including the difficulty before sending off the other students before Shane.

It was set to easy mode at that time. Then how come the difficulty altered during Shane's time?

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. He instantly checked the other students' difficulties, only to find that they were all on easy mode. Some of them were even close to solving their first mission, but on Shane's side, he hadn't even started selecting a task yet!

After checking everything again, Dirt came to the conclusion that something or someone from the outside must have influenced this change. He glanced at his master and said, "There's something wrong with Shane's world."

Ed glanced at the screen and immediately understood, but he wasn't as anxious as his robot here. He waved his hand and squinted his eyes at the portal, "Someone must have hacked into the system."

"How did you come to that conclusion?!"

Ed snorted, "You're just a freakin robot, but I know these people. They were humans once, and whether they're in the mortal or higher plane, their desire to use others as a ladder won't ever change."

"But what about Shane…." Dirt frowned when he thought of it, "This is a level which not even top system's can dare apply for! They're always using moderate worlds to work as systems and kill monsters in their free time to earn enough experience and Crana for a living! How can we expect a complete newbie to outperform those people! This is simply inhuman!"

"It is, indeed, but…." Ed didn't say anything after this. Since he knew about Shane's cosmic energy situation, he wasn't very worried. That newbie had easily defeated him using his powers. What to speak of high grade monsters? Unless there was a surprise, he was sure that Shane's unnatural power would help him come out alive.

Shane was capable of surpassing his limits, and Ed had no doubt that the youth would do anything to survive even in drastic situations. That boy was overly optimistic in every situation, and even Ed wasn't like that when he was young.

Even if that person only had a breath left after arriving here, Ed could save him.

He took a deep breath and said, "That's not the important point. We should think about finding that hacker first. I have a feeling things won't be good if we lose them."

Dirt immediately went to his work. He first opened his interface and started typing something. After five minutes, he raised his head and said, "None of the students are suspicious."

"Hmm…." Ed frowned, 'If not the students, should he search the staff? But it couldn't be his fellow colleagues because they all had a clean background and were clearly loyal to him. Still, to be sure…..'

"Search the staff."

Dirt nodded and started his work. After a while, his hands paused as he frowned, "Not even the staff did anything. They're also clean."

"Then that hacker must be good at hiding," Ed's lips stretched to form a smirk, "It has been so long since I've gotten a worthy opponent!"

Dirt, despite not having any emotions, knew there was something wrong with that smile of his master. He shivered and stopped saying anything.

Ed finally got up and said, "I'm going off. Keep an eye on the situation here, and if there's even a slight glitch, contact me."

After saying that, the bald man walked out of the room with his hands in his pockets.

Dirt shook his head and sat while leaning on the wall. At this time, he was still worried about the only disciple of his master because no matter what, he believed in the statistics, which said that the chances of dying were too high for that boy. Should he do something about it?

After thinking for a while, Dirt opened his interface and started typing something. Soon after that, he secretly saved a weapon into Shane's inventory and closed his interface. This was the least he could do from here. He just hoped that boy could use this to save himself.