Telepathy

Madam Ye suddenly thought something up and looked at Ye Qing expectantly. Although she was a bit embarrassed, she remembered how Maid Ya tried to dig up Mortal's data and kept getting blocked, fiercely at that.

As expected, Ye Qing asked, "Do you know how to get over the firewalls?"

Madam Ye asked in response, "Do you have a way to get over the hackers?" Even as she asked, Madam Ye went to the computer and started getting past the firewalls. Even if she didn't know how to manage permissions and edit the site, she knew how to get there.

Ye Qing also didn't answer Madam Ye's immediate question and instead referred to the earlier one. "There are some reasons that you might not be aware of as of yet. For example, you don't have to worry about any legal repercussions since it would have been impossible to sell the in-game digital product without authorization from the Main Network that controls the in-game world.

"The Main Network's authority is split between the governments that constitute the power supplying hardware and the hyper-intelligent artificial intelligence that constitutes the software. If you want to auction in-game items, you'd either need the unanimous vote from the former committee or the support of the latter artificial intelligence. In my case, I've managed to secure the latter.

"The hackers targeting the site would be after management rights, and although we're not breaking the law or any of the game's terms of service, it is undoubtedly that we will draw a lot of attention and face many obstacles expanding. Before now, the profit was kept in the pockets of the governments behind the game, but we somehow broke this balance, and sooner or later, other similar auction houses will flood the internet."

Even as Ye Qing answered, Madam Ye had finished going past the firewalls and stood up to the side of the computer. She took a moment to digest the information; Antique Night Auction House went from a local business with occasional international deals to becoming the focus of the global economy in this new, digital age. She was feeling a little restless, one person can't handle all of this on his own… Right?

Ye Qing could understand her worries. "I think it's time for you to discuss with Al-Father for a more suitable venue of operation, a larger place. I can invest some of my money into constructing a better company, hiring professional bodyguards, and trustworthy staff… As for the incoming waves of hackers, it would be much easier to handle rebuilding the website from the immersive capsule— I only need some key permissions."

Madam Ye breathed in. "You can give yourself all permissions required. In the future, you can handle the digital and online issues, leave the matters of the real world for me to handle."

Ye Qing nodded, handed the unconscious Maid Ya to Madam Ye, and then sat facing the computer. One thing he didn't say was the moment he took the website's management under his name, it would be co-managed by Claudia. Well, good luck to anyone trying to get past her firewall.

In the list of active members, from the hundreds of thousands of lurking profiles, the name Mortal suddenly changed to Kaiser. Moments later, the name disappeared from the members' list. Of course, no one noticed this change as a flood of new users was pouring into the database.

It took a few minutes for Ye Qing to isolate the permissions of the entire website solely to his account, and with Madam Ye's approval, he also removed Maid Ya's account from any position of power since they couldn't guarantee her counter-hacking skills to prevent people from taking control of the account.

It was almost 9:50 PM by the time Ye Qing made it back into the private villa, together with Madam Ye and Maid Ya. The young man was too anxious to log in to Clash of Titans Online lest he missed the scheduled departure time for the Floating Academy in the City of Storms.

When Ye Qing made it into the immersive cabinet and got into the system, the first order of business was to instruct Claudia.

"Claudia, I want you to rework the frame of Antique Night Auction House's website with the available permissions, make sure of maintenance and security firewalls to be monitored 24/7, counter any hacking attempts, and transfer the money earned online to a virtual international account separate from my personal account."

[Welcome back, Sir. With my current level of authority, I am indeed in a position to co-manage the website, and your requests can be met.]

[Reconstructing the framework of the website should take a few hours of maintenance, do you wish to email a notice of maintenance shutdown to all current active members?]

"Yeah, that would be great. Make sure to enlist the warm regards of Kaiser of the Night in each email, announcing to the world that this is the identity of the main mod…

"However, don't reveal any information regarding the identity of whoever was involved with the last auction… Advertise a privacy policy that during live auctions, everyone in the lobby would have an anonymous presence and a gray account." Ye Qing considered his options before replying to Claudia.

After some thought, he proposed adding features such as a timeline feed, both globally and personally, available to all members. Actually, the interface was like a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook combined into one, though the theme was black and somewhat eerily static instead of the lively blue.

[I understand, Sir. The maintenance work should be finished after an estimated time of 7 to 8 hours.]

Ye Qing nodded to himself.

Technicalities were never the source of his worries, but humanity had always and would forever be the main source of worries. Although they live in a capitalistic society of pragmatic minds, when the value of profit is just so much, anyone can adopt the persona of the fool.

With that idea in mind, Ye Qing felt anxious to try and progress further with his cultivation in real life in preparation for whatever trouble may come his way, but he also knew that Madam Ye could not spare him the time of the day to stand as a guardian.

The more he thought about it, the more determined he was to try out that ridiculous, whimsical idea of his.

Ye Qing's mind blanked out in a familiar manner as the scenery began to shift and twist in his perception.

…

Ye Qing's avatar quickly blurred into the in-game world.

He seamlessly blended into the environment of the restaurant, standing not very far from the table which he had previously occupied. The customers and other NPCs looked over briefly, seeing it was yet another one of those Undying Otherworlders, no one continued to pay attention.

Ye Qing found it weird for some reason… The entire thing about the so-called Children of the Realm and their awareness of the players. He suddenly had a ridiculous thought; what if he was at a restaurant in real life and all of a sudden, an insubstantial body took form, went from illusory to real, and started walking around?

This ridiculous thought was gone the moment it festered in Ye Qing's mind as he quickly received an invitation to join a party group.

Without even looking, Ye Qing accepted the invitation and very quickly, telepathic messages popped into his head.

Luke: "Check this new feature out! We can communicate by simply thinking about it! If I don't want the other party members to listen, I just need to filter them out subconsciously by willing it!"

Anna: "You really know how to make a last-minute entry don't you? Come already!"

Luke: "That really sounds… Yeah, weird…"

Anna: "I…"

Quinton: "Stop making things awkward, Luke."

Luke: "Weren't you the silent type, Quinton? You've been pretty talkative recently, especially when it comes to Anna…"

Anna: "Stop talking, Luke! Mortal, hurry up; the flying ship is about to depart!"

The flood of messages stunned Ye Qing, he really hadn't expected the game to update in one day since his last login. Still, he welcomed this change as it was much bee than texting and reading text messages in-game.

Luke: "Fine, I won't bother you lovebirds! Careful, that Quinton guy is a Gunslinger! Anyway… Hey, did you guys see this whole Antique Night Auction House thing? The forums are exploding!"

Ye Qing wasn't surprised that Luke was the first to bring up this topic as he was, well, the kind of guy to pay attention to these hot topics.

In his usual incognito robes, Ye Qing left the restaurant and started making his way to the rendezvous point.

He replied, "I heard a little about it, but I didn't get the chance to look into this matter on a deeper level."

Anna: "I wanted to check it too, but the site is currently in maintenance— their servers must be loaded with so many new members."

Ye Qing knew Anna was right, as the servers, at least hardwar-wise, couldn't handle such a flood of data all of a sudden. Thus, he decided to limit the top 300,000 spots of active auction participants in the old-fashion auction way.

People can simply occupy a spot by bidding for it, and by the time the weekly, monthly, seasonal, and annual auctions start, the people with the highest bids for the 300,000 spots will have access to the auction.