Chapter 14 The Data Garbage

"That's bad..." Pan Feng whispered.

"Did he hear us..." Hua Xiong also whispered.

"I'm only a few meters away from you guys. What's the point of lowering your voices?" Feng Bujue said.

"Um...hehe...that's true..." Pan Feng was about to reply.

Feng Bujue interrupted, "Before you start making up lies, let me state that I don't think you're cheating players, because your behavior doesn't look like it at all. You're clearly people from inside Dream Inc. I don't know if you're GMs, but I think your work isn't suitable to be exposed." His gaze quickly swept over Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, hinting that what he was about to say was important. "Tell us the truth, and we can cooperate with your work and keep everything a secret after the script ends. Otherwise...I might just make up a story about today's events, embellish it, divide it into a dozen sections, and serialize it on various forums in the form of a chaptered novel to break the news."

"Uh...wait a minute..." Hua Xiong replied, "Let us discuss it."

"Be my guest." Feng Bujue said, turning and moving away from them.

The two left the broken exterior wall glass and went to a corner of the office, whispering to each other. About five minutes later, they returned.

Pan Feng opened his mouth and said to Feng Bujue and Xiao Tan, "Alright, what do you want to know?"

"What are your identities, what work are you doing, and what exactly is the plot of this script?" Feng Bujue asked quickly, having already thought it through.

"You guessed right, we're game administrators." Hua Xiong said, "We came to this script to deal with a type of data garbage called 'Derivatives.'" He paused. "As for the plot of this script... you've already seen it. The one we were chasing just now was the mutated form of Dr. Ashford. The general plot is like this... this Ashford has some anti-human sentiments. He stole the Z-virus from the research institute, then added the virus to another special solution he had prepared in advance, and used a device on the roof of this building to launch it, infecting everyone in the city."

"So only the zombies in the research institute are ordinary zombies, while the ones outside have turned into those strange blood wolf zombies?" Feng Bujue continued.

"Actually, as a transformation of the variant virus, blood wolf zombies are stronger than ordinary zombies in the setting. Although they seem useless now, at night, without garlic, it will be difficult for players of your level to fight these monsters," Hua Xiong said.

"Then what about those zombie werewolves we encountered earlier?" Xiao Tan asked.

"According to the script's flow, the system always has to arrange a few mini-bosses inside and outside this building," Pan Feng replied. "The zombie werewolf's related setting says that 'variant virus infected individuals have a 0.003% chance of becoming more powerful and stable mutants.'"

Feng Bujue said, "You can see a lot... monster data, how many clearance routes there are, when the flags are triggered, and you can see the script's map, right?"

"Not only that, we can check the players' coordinates, real-time status, skills in the skill bar, title abilities, etc., at any time in the menu," Pan Feng said. "I remember you were infected just now, right? You managed to go to the research institute and find the serum to detoxify yourself? You're really something."

Feng Bujue said, "Thank you, but... I think there's one piece of information you can't check." He paused. "That's the 'Derivative' you mentioned, right?"

Hua Xiong sighed, "If we could check it, we wouldn't have to go to such lengths to try to clear the script first."

Feng Bujue said, "After the clearance conditions are met, we ordinary players will be teleported out, while you should be able to ignore the teleportation time. So... when we leave the script and get our settlement rewards, your work has just begun. Without the interference of players, you can let go and search for Derivatives in the ended script world and dispose of them."

"Oh... impressive, you can deduce this much with just a few words," Hua Xiong said.

"I'm no longer interested in your situation or this script." Feng Bujue reached out and touched the back of his neck, tilting his head back to relax his cervical vertebrae. "Please tell me about the Derivatives in detail."

"There's no point in you knowing, because you can't help at all," Pan Feng said. "If it were me, I'd wish the GM would take me to quickly find the escaped Ashford mutant, kill it, and easily clear the level to get the rewards."

"Please explain the ins and outs of the Derivatives to me in detail," Feng Bujue said with a smile. "Otherwise, I might not be able to help but write two sharp and highly煽动性 emails to Young Master Atobe and 'Difficult to Name,' telling them... that some technical errors by the game company caused you to be killed by a powerful monster that shouldn't exist in this script."

"I say... how do you know they were killed by Derivatives?" Pan Feng asked.

"Just connecting the answers and questions," Feng Bujue said.

Pan and Hua didn't quite understand that answer...

"Um...cough cough, alright." Hua Xiong said, "It doesn't matter if we tell you, players will find out about the existence of Derivatives sooner or later anyway. Although the probability of players encountering them is very small, the company is still preparing to issue a related document during the open beta phase, using more appropriate wording to explain it." He looked around, then said, "Come with me." He took a step and led the three towards a coffee machine.

He came to the cubicle closest to the machine, picked up a very conspicuous can of coffee on the desk, and opened the lid, pointing to the coffee grounds inside, which were about three-quarters full. "Let's say these coffee grounds are all data." He raised his right index finger. "One of these grounds is uncontrolled garbage data that the system needs to clear." He paused, then said, "And this one ground is constantly moving and changing position throughout the entire can of coffee grounds." He looked at Feng Bujue and Wang Tan Zhi. "How can you accurately pick it out?"

"Impossible," Feng Bujue replied immediately.

"Yes, impossible," Hua Xiong continued. He reached into the can and grabbed a handful of coffee grounds in his palm. "What the system can do is grab that set of data and all the data within a certain area around it like this, at a fleeting moment." He slightly raised his fist, coffee grounds slowly leaking from his fingers. "But, in this handful of coffee grounds in my hand, there is only one ground that needs to be destroyed, and the other grounds are useful. I can't throw away this entire handful just to clear one ground. And I can't hold this handful of grounds in my hand for too long, because the one I want to eliminate can slip through my fingers at any time."

"So... the system uses this data to generate scripts," Feng Bujue said, "Turning the Derivative from code into a concrete monster, allowing you to kill or defeat it, making it lose its ability to resist and escape, and then the system can clear it when cleaning up the script."

Hua Xiong said, "That's right." He grabbed a cup and found a can of sugar cubes. "This cup is the shell of the script. You players are like these sugar cubes." He pointed to the cup. "When you queue for a script and hear the system prompt [Team size random value generated: six people]." He threw the coffee grounds into the cup. "The data has been thrown into the shell, but at this stage they are just various basic elements, such as air, water, luck, soil, etc..." He took six sugar cubes in his hand. "Then, including you, six players come to the entrance of this script and hear the sentence [Your team has entered the queue, searching for other ready individuals or teams], at this moment..." He threw away two sugar cubes and said, "Two of them are replaced by Pan and me. Those two will be immediately assigned to other waiting scripts, and they won't even notice the change."

Pan Feng continued, "We GMs usually work in pairs on standby. Once a Derivative's code is circled in an upcoming script, we will insert ourselves into that queue. The players we replace are usually two-person teams or two solo players, and there is no team-up situation with the players who successfully enter the script."

"What if you encounter a five-person or six-person team?" Xiao Tan interjected.

"For a five-person team, we can only replace the solo player and send one person in. As for a six-person team, there's absolutely no way. They have to face the Derivative themselves. However, since the server opened, there hasn't been a six-person team that encountered a Derivative," Pan Feng replied. "By the way, the amount of data the system 'captures' can only be used to generate six-person team survival mode scripts, so you don't have to worry about encountering Derivatives in two- to five-person scripts or other modes."

"Doesn't that mean six-person team scripts are super dangerous?" Xiao Tan exclaimed.

"There aren't that many Derivatives," Pan Feng laughed. "The proportion of that kind of uncontrollable data appearing is close to one in a billion. During internal testing at the company, two sets of servers, sleep mode and non-sleep mode, ran continuously for thirty days, and only encountered Derivative code ten times in total."

"Anyway, when you hear the sentence [Script generating]..." Hua Xiong, who was next to him, then threw all the sugar cubes into the cup, went to the coffee machine, and added hot water. The coffee grounds that had been added earlier were then dissolved into liquid. "All those elements will generate a normal script according to your levels, combat strengths, specialization tendencies, past performances, etc. Things like the plot and worldview are also generated at this time. And the Derivative is mixed in this script, combined with a certain data element and manifested."

Feng Bujue thought for a moment and asked, "Then... how strong is the Derivative, exactly?"

"Haha..." Pan Feng laughed, "You've seen our strength, right?"

"I've noticed..." Feng Bujue said.

"Do you know why we come in pairs to clear Derivatives?"

"Because one person might get killed, right..." Feng Bujue replied.

Pan Feng said, "It's good that you know. Don't look at the fact that we're currently displaying level thirteen, but we're using GM accounts. Our actual combat ability is about ten levels higher than our level. Even so, we still can't say we're invincible. Take the boss from just now, for example. It jumped off the building and ran away, and we were powerless. If we followed and jumped, we'd die just like the players."

Xiao Tan asked, "Then why doesn't your company adjust the administrator's character abilities to be higher? For example, looking like level thirteen, but actually having the strength of level fifty or something."

Hua Xiong held the cup of coffee in front of him: "Two sugar cubes can be put in this cup, but can two watermelons be put in?"

"Oh..." Xiao Tan nodded, as if he understood.

"Our accounts won't level up. We're specifically responsible for the level five to fourteen range. The administrators in other level ranges are in a similar situation to us, with super combat power that exceeds their displayed level," Pan Feng said. "Now that you know about the Derivative, if you encounter it again in the future... although the probability is infinitely close to zero, if you do encounter it, please cooperate with the on-site administrator and keep it a secret from other players."

"I'm curious..." Feng Bujue said thoughtfully, "Derivatives... if they escape your pursuit in the script, what will happen?"

Pan and Hua's expressions changed when they heard this.

Feng Bujue continued, "You also admitted that one administrator might not be able to deal with a Derivative, which means that similar things have happened before, right? Situations where... an administrator went to hunt alone and was killed by the Derivative."

Hua Xiong said, "That script will be closed normally, turned back into data, and the surviving Derivative code will become stronger and more cunning..."

"Cunning?" Feng Bujue asked, puzzled.

"Derivatives have a certain degree of autonomous AI and are divided into four levels. Generally speaking, the Derivatives that we administrators deal with are the weakest fourth-level Derivatives. Their intelligence is slightly higher than that of a relatively intelligent script boss, and their combat power is slightly stronger than that of a relatively powerful script boss.

Once a script ends with a Derivative still alive, that Derivative will become stronger and more cunning, as I just said. It may be promoted to the third level. In 97% of cases, a fourth-level Derivative can be defeated by one administrator, but a third-level Derivative must be dealt with by two administrators. The success rate of one person handling it is below 50%."

Feng Bujue said, "What about higher levels?"

"Never seen them," Hua Xiong replied. "To be honest, I've never even heard of them. Second-level Derivatives only theoretically have the possibility of being born. Actually, there has only been one case of a third-level Derivative so far. During the game operation phase, the probability of a third-level Derivative appearing will increase slightly. Of course, even if it increases tenfold, it is still a very small possibility."

"Um... I understand. Then, let's go and see just how strong this fourth-level data garbage in this script is..." Feng Bujue laughed.