The 24th Century Warrior Became a Fake Heiress novel Chapter 8

"However, what Zeus excelled at was information tracking."

"Once he detected the initial trail of this item, even if he failed to pinpoint its exact coordinates later, it would be enough to count as preliminary completion of the task."

"At that point, this level-zero account would be considered a failure—not only wiped clean and deleted, but also liable for significant compensation."

Someone remarked with glee.

This was the harsh reality of the Darknet.

Except for tasks allowing multiple acceptances, for ordinary tasks, once more than two people accepted them, competition mode was triggered.

Apart from the person who completed the task fastest and made the most progress, others who accepted the task and then failed would have a certain amount of points and level compensation deducted from their accounts to be given to the winner. Additionally, the person who lost points had to pay compensation based on a percentage of the task's bounty.

After all, if you accepted a task without the capability to complete it, needlessly increasing the difficulty and competition, you naturally had to bear a considerable cost.

This was also to prevent those without sufficient skills from maliciously accepting tasks and hindering others' completion.

Now, Isabella's account was only Level Zero. That meant if she didn't complete this task, or fell behind Zeus, her only path would be account deletion.

"Newbies, always so bold with their skills," someone with the alias "Smole" sneered in the forum's comment section.

Many below echoed the sentiment.

Isabella, however, paid little attention to these discussions on the forum and was unaware of the swirling currents within the Darknet.

After glancing at the task requirements, she promptly exited and began using the old, battered computer to hack into and enter the city's network system.

It happened to be quite a coincidence.

Isabella had checked earlier and found that the task issuer's ID was located just one city over, neighboring her own.

For Isabella, this made pinpointing the location much simpler.

Once she accessed the city network management center through the city management system, she began retrieving vast amounts of data from the city's interconnected network system, along with various video surveillance feeds.

For Isabella, once the target's location was confirmed, all the task requirements and information provided by the issuer became of little assistance to her.

Objects were inanimate, but people were living.

First, investigate where this item initially appeared and when it was lost.

Then, slowly trace back to identify the first person who came into contact with the item and its last recorded location on the networked surveillance.

The task publisher provided detailed materials to help sort out the situation, but Isabella didn't need them.

She closed her eyes slightly, her mental power and psychic energy merging into the network. She began rapidly retrieving massive amounts of information and video surveillance data—data that would take even a supercomputer at least a dozen hours to fully process and organize.

"Whoosh!"

About half an hour later, Isabella opened her eyes.

"Found it."

She had tracked all the people and information the item had come into contact with over the past two to three weeks, along with their trajectories, movements, and daily routines.

Finally, she pinpointed the last known location of the item and the most likely place it currently was.

"Eastbrook Street, 38, Building 76, Apartment 363, safe in the west bedroom."

Isabella typed this sentence into the task submission box.

*****

Meanwhile, in Hallard City, at Hanks Group.

Edward Hanks frowned deeply, staring at the message on his computer screen.

This was something a friend had suggested he try.

Zeus provided a location where the item was last likely seen.

For most people, getting that far was pretty good.

And Zeus was among the most authoritative experts in information investigation.

Confidently, he submitted his answer, thinking he'd likely get at least one-fifth of the reward again.

These kinds of information tasks were always his favorite.

Except for some cases with long histories and scarce information, usually when he took action, he could get some portion of the reward.

As Zeus whistled, waiting for Edward to transfer the payment, a "Task Failed" message appeared on the interface.

Then, in the Golden Hub, a red notification began flashing.

"S-level Urgent PTU5888 task completed. Completer: Deity. Completion time: thirty minutes, forty seconds. Completion grade: S-level! Task perfect!"

This kind of red notification only appeared when a Purple-level urgent task was completed.

And the employer confirmed the task was perfectly fulfilled.

Isabella saw her Darknet account now held a balance of one hundred million dollars.

That was the reward for Edward's task.

Moreover, because the item was perfectly recovered, Edward even managed to use the time difference to apprehend the company executive who was hiding in the house.

The individual had undergone plastic surgery during this period. Having planned this long in advance, by the time Edward and others discovered the data was missing, it was already the absolute last day.

If it hadn't been found by tomorrow, Hanks Group would have faced massive losses. In comparison, one hundred million dollars was nothing.

In fact, if it weren't for the inability to contact that person on the Darknet, Edward would have wanted to personally express his gratitude.