Du Lang, Don’t Go Outside!

Du Lang immediately dug through his bookshelves to pry out the discarded collection of textbooks on Java that he had accumulated during his studies at university. After digging out the cardboard box from behind an indomitable ravine of books on business, economics, and history, he immediately attacked the small stack of textbooks with a duster in one hand and a power vacuum in the other.

"F*ck, to think that after all these years, I have to relive this nightmare again…"

Du Lang slammed his mug of coffee onto the study table, and dragged over the first few textbooks. He remembered the basics of programming in Java, and recalling the process of assigning, manipulating, and decompiling structures was just a lengthy reading assignment that could be finished with a single coffee. The hard part… was modifying memory.

Compared to C, C++, or other programming languages including Python and Haskell, Java was… for sake of lack of a better phrase, utterly sh*t at manipulating deep memory, and attempting to access the kernel required a multitude of effort that Du Lang hardly wanted to invest. And yet…

"Why the hell do I have to access the kernel to define a single variable? It would be more efficient to register it as surface-level memory, no?"

The interactive text flowing across his vision happily cheered him on with innumerable amounts of error messages. Sibyl had eagerly plagiarized from the ever-popular Visual Studio's graphical UI schema, and thus permitted Du Lang to write and manipulate code without having to approach a computer or keyboard. His eyes received the output, and his mind served as the input for anything that manifested as floating text.

Quite literally anything.

If he couldn't restrain his thoughts, or perhaps he was thinking of another matter, the floating text was soon replaced with an unrecognizable mound of utter gibberish, ultra-resolution images, or perhaps even video-like replays of his memories. To maintain the clean, organized state that was normally easily achieved with a computer and keyboard, Du Lang had to calm his mind until his thoughts were still and tranquil as the ever-spring jade lake of myth…

"F*ck that! Sibyl, filter out the unnecessary garbage when I'm coding. This is too much – I can't focus at all!" Du Lang rubbed at his sore eyes, and tried to take a sip from the mug that had been completely drained thirty minutes ago.

"How the hell am I supposed to form an entire program using my mind? Humans don't think procedurally – weren't you the one saying that just minutes ago?"

The black sphere hovered over the menacing stack of programming textbooks, and the hazy appearance warped as black threads extended towards the stacked, unforgiving books. Du Lang quickly shut his lips and watched as the thin appendages dove into the numerous textbooks and writhed around for a few dozen seconds. Soon enough, the clarion female voice with the secretarial tone echoed directly in his mind, hardly pleased and carrying a not-so-insignificant amount of disappointment.

[Applied framework has been updated. The host may now manipulate the information with selective keywords and phrases. Subliminal filter has been applied.]

Du Lang heaved a sigh of relief, but tapped his arms in concern for the female voice that had cooled noticeably since the first time it probed his mind. He nestled himself into the back of the armchair, and wiped the illusionary slate clean and prepared his mind.

"Form a modular kernel with a virtual environment compiled with… C++. Make the primary interpreter in hexadecimal format… yes, just like that."

Disregarding how his laziness had probably pissed Sibyl to the ends of the earth, Du Lang released an appreciative sigh when his vision started flickering and flashing with a myriad of lines of code. He raised the coffee mug to take a sip, and clacked his teeth in annoyance when there wasn't any left, not even the dregs. However dampening the lack of coffee had on his mood, Du Lang still felt rather satisfied at the result.

His lazy muttering resulted in the auto-generation of a core kernel situated in a virtual environment that was compiled in C++ and Assembly. Certainly, his mobile data plan was probably screaming in pain from the busy referencing and searching that Sibyl had to do to compile the unnecessary frameworks that were required to appease his laziness, but wasn't it equally offset by his creation of the multiple-thousand lines of code designing a kernel system that would have taken a standard graduate student several months to process?

Not to mention, it wasn't a shell of an experiment that proved to the professor that he wasn't one of those students who was utterly incapable of coding, but a fully operational, kernel that could initialize and implement modular subkernel systems with full operative capability and privileges!

Even Microsoft would be jealous at his efficiency... or perhaps not.

Well… it still couldn't boot yet as the filesystem and driver registry wasn't fully implemented yet, but it was progress for a day's worth of coffee…

"Watching thousands of lines of code stream past my gaze in the span of a second, and programming on a wholly virtual interface – I've become the protagonist of some science fiction novel, no?" Du Lang chuckled and walked out of the room with mug in hand.

"Let's finish this kernel system while we're still at it. Just assign four subsystems for now. Driver registry… Sibyl, do we even need that?"

[The host does not require initializing any drivers within any of the <Freeform> curse models. All relevant information is to be computed by Sibyl.]

"That's perfect, then. Forget the driver registry, erase the part that loads it into the booting sequence."

Du Lang poured himself another steaming mug of fresh coffee, and lounged in a comfortable recliner. He commanded and issued whimsical orders that caused tens of thousands of diligent lines of code to stream past the fringes of his vision, and soon, he had formed the ideal implementation of a modular kernel that could adapt to his needs. Du Lang felt a warm rush of euphoria blaze through his senses whenever he gazed at the AR-like implementation that Sibyl had formed, and allowed himself to relax in satisfaction.

Of course, now that he had a means of achieving his desires, he had opened the floodgates of nefarious schemes. Du Lang intended to cheat the system as best he could, and the first target was the limitation placed upon the Beginner <Freeform> Privilege.

Currently, he was a mere ant who could only cast one of his predecessor's masterpiece of eight curse models per day, and had to restrict its effects greatly as to not overdraft his spirit – if Sibyl's words were correct, that was. Du Lang knew that he could easily break past this barrier by constructing eight whimsical curse models, but he also thought of an exploit.

"What if… what if the first curse model doesn't implement any special effects except for serving as a virtual platform that could manage and selectively use curses?"

Well… it was assigned unilateral authority during its implementation, and whilst it remained active, if it were to cast all of Er Gouming's masterpiece curse models, wouldn't he have a method of bypassing the restrictions? The only matter of concern was that he didn't know the consumption rate of any of his predecessor's curse models…

Du Lang indulged in his fantasy for several moments, but was soon interrupted by the brisk ring of his smartphone. He clicked his tongue at the unsettling feeling of having cold water poured onto his hopes and dreams, but swiped his finger across the display to answer the call.

"Fang Tong, it hasn't been a week yet. What's with the early call?"

"Holy sh*t, brother Du – how can you remain so calm!?" Fang Tong's screech blasted through the Xiaomi's miserable speakers, causing Du Lang to flinch.

"Did you not see the news article <Phoenix News> posted under Fan Ruyan's name? You're in hot sh*t right now, Brother Du, you know that – right!?"

"What about it? Those people are going to be frustrated – I know that for certain, and that they're going to come after me – but what am I supposed to do in the first place?"

Du Lang glanced towards the constantly scrolling mess in the corner of his eye that wrote lines of code at a breathtaking pace. He briefly daydreamed how frustrated Fang Tong would become when he became aware of Du Lang's new cheat, but was quickly snapped back into reality by the former's next words.

"The underworld of Quanzhou is buzzing with the news that Mu Chengyan has dispatched several covert units of Academi to Jingdou. Don't go outside. No matter what, don't go outside!"

"F*ck, not even sending a few gangs to sound me out – the lunatic's called for help from his organization?" Du Lang's lips crinkled into a pout.

"But, you see, Fang Tong, my refrigerator's been empty for the past few days ���"

"Just get someone else to deliver it!!"

"Yes, yes, yes, I'll do that shortly. Brother Fang is so wise and knowledgeable, ah? Don't lose your head and get caught by the dragon above!"

Du Lang released a heavy sigh, and tossed the Xiaomi onto the recliner before sinking his body into the leather chair. He rubbed at his forehead until it stung red with perspiration. Suddenly, the speed that Sibyl wrote code didn't seem that fast anymore.

Academi, the Western-based private military corporation. It's extensive range of services included military security, hostage extraction, reconnaissance, and of course – destroy missions. The speed and terror the corporation spread across the world was unmistakable.

The speed and efficiency of its operatives was unbelievable. Several of its former targets had once believed with confidence that the PMC required time to dispatch its agents and navigate the international blackwater that was global politics, only to be assassinated the day later by an operative that had been living in the area for over three years. Of course, the covert specialists of private corporations were often a gamble, depending on the country they were planted in.

Sometimes, they would be utter recruits who had finished the organization's basic course of training and not much more, and were planted in advance to slowly nurture them into the menaces that their senior veterans once were. They were, still, on par with the United States military's elite specialists – but were susceptible to the awkwardness and restrictions that the foreign nations had on weapons.

Hua strictly banned the purchasing and owning of firearms by civilians, and if it were a rookie, perhaps Du Lang could appeal for governmental protection before the operative knocked on his door. If it were a veteran, however…

Du Lang shivered, and quickly dialed Gu Ling's number. A few minutes later, the disgruntled voice of a panting policewoman graced his tender, delicate ears.

"Make it quick! I'm in the middle of finishing a sting operation."

The cross tone and the words prompted a smile to arise on Du Lang's countenance. He forced his body to relax and leaned back into the recliner.

"Officer Gu, can you make me an identity? Express, and with double cream on top."

There was a brief pause and several moments of constant radio static. When Gu Ling's melancholic voice once again peered through the Xiaomi's speakers, it had lost the mild annoyance for its hellish cousin.

"…Du Lang, are you planning to infiltrate someone's company again? You have some balls, especially when their eyes are trained directly onto your figure right now given the new article –"

"Officer Gu," Du Lang interrupted with a grim smile.

"Tie Haoran has made his move. The underground's panicking now that his organization has sent several of its members."

"Tie Haoran? Academi? So – Fang Tong told you the news?" Gu Ling clucked her tongue in disapproval.

"Don't worry – the state bureau has discovered them a few years earlier, and had been keeping tabs on each of their movements. You've only got two rookies and a veteran to worry about – okay, that's it! I've got to go now, so call Elder Sister later, ah?"

"Just stay inside and they won't notice you, not after you changed your experience to that extreme!"

The Xiaomi released a sad, sonorous beep as the call ended. Du Lang placed the smartphone onto the armrest of the recliner, and lapsed in thought.

Two rookies and one veteran – surely, that news was comforting to some extent. But what were their names!?