That's obviously impossible. If Hayden could actually invent something like that, big companies would be ecstatic.
However, after Yolanda was given the potion, she really felt a burning sensation in her heart, and her face turned pale instantly. How could she dare to say anything?
Little did she know that the drug was just a combat stimulant made by Hayden himself, and of course it would cause a burning sensation in her stomach after drinking it.
So, filled with fear and trepidation, Yolanda had no choice but to obediently whisper her reply:
"Our equipment was basically funded and supported by Smoke Mirror Life Construction Company."
Did Smoke Mirror Life Construction Company provide financial support?
If Hayden had four or five fewer years of experience as an urban mercenary, he might have stared in astonishment upon hearing this.
However, Hayden only swore in front of his students.
Within the urban mercenary world, many have developed unfortunate neuroticism from opposing the Smoke Mirror Company. This is because Smoke Mirror Life Construction is truly a wicked company.
All companies are bad. Capital comes into the world dripping with blood and filth from head to toe, from every pore. But some companies, like Mitra, the world's largest, at least know how to package their image, using public relations to cloak themselves in a gilded robe of compassion and peace.
However, Smoke Mirror Life Construction Corporation doesn't play that game at all. They are also a giant multinational corporation, but they do their evil deeds openly and honestly. They openly research bio-arcs, develop and use blood magic, and like to interfere in the interests of almost every field; they are vampires in the literal sense.
Moreover, this company's primary business area is biotechnology. They manufacture everything: medical devices, pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering, bioweapons, necromancy...
Hayden remembered perfectly well. Those well-trained individuals he'd just seen on the news broadcast—the ones who infiltrated the march, attacked the police, and instigated the riots—were they a group of cyborgs?
"Gan"
No wonder he immediately started swearing.
"Are you all insane? The Mitra Corporation may be utterly evil, but are you really planning to turn around and serve even darker vampires?"
If a monopoly enterprise holds power in the pharmaceutical field, the ordinary people living under its clutches will truly suffer a fate worse than death, living in a living hell.
Hayden's original ideal was to develop inexpensive medical magic potions, so how could he not understand this principle?
Sometimes Hayden had no choice but to buy products from SmokeGlass Life Construction Company. It was unavoidable. They monopolized too many things in the pharmaceutical field. No matter how much ordinary people disliked them, they couldn't completely avoid them.
However, the dividing line between "buying their products out of desperation" and "working for them to do bad things" is as high as twenty meters; they are completely different things!
The female student, Yolanda, probably understood this as well, so she immediately retorted, "Who's risking their lives? Do you think we're stupid?! We're not foolish enough to tie ourselves to the Smoke Mirror Company's war machine! We're just using them! What's wrong with using the money given by the Smoke Mirror Company to fight against the Mitra Group?"
what?
Just you?
Who is really using whom?
Hayden was so angry that he laughed instead.
However, he was too lazy to waste any more time chatting with these foolish students, so he simply got straight to the point: "Did you hack into the weather control system in the central area?"
This is an interesting question.
The students looked at each other in bewilderment, then shut their mouths and remained silent.
So Hayden nudged Yolanda with his scepter again: "Speak quickly."
She opened her mouth reluctantly and replied in a dry tone, "Alastor said last night that he would do it himself and asked us to distract the Mitra Group today. We haven't seen him since."
Hayden raised an eyebrow: "That's it?"
Yolanda nodded resentfully.
Mitra Group's weather control system, like the servers storing their critical data, should theoretically be impenetrable to hackers from the outside, as they are completely isolated from standard wireless networks. Yet, this has happened, and it was Alastor who accomplished it all by himself.
How did you do it?
Others might not have thought of it, but now, especially after completing the divination half an hour ago, Hayden had begun to understand, and was now certain. The answer was simply too incredible for a normal person to even consider.
Mitra Group’s critical systems cannot be compromised from the outside.
Therefore, it is clear that Alastor infiltrated the Mitra Group's branch building alone, broke into their important server room, and directly hacked into the system.
"Reality isn't a hacker action game, damn it!"
After reaching this final conclusion, Hayden couldn't help but burst into a tirade of profanities.
Infiltrate the building of the world's largest internet company (even if it's just a branch office), break into their key server room, and then directly connect to the hacker.
It's unbelievable that someone actually did this in real life.
Hayden couldn't help but feel a little admiration for this. He couldn't do such a thing, he wouldn't even think about it.
But one code equals another.
"So, to help Alastor launch a diversionary tactic, you actually brought the Smoke Mirror Company into the student street movement to incite riots. You really went for it! What kind of nonsense is this? For a greater good?"
He grew increasingly agitated, pointing upwards towards the city center.
"The people dying in the riots now are students just like you. You bunch of bastards, anti-company organization? What have you become of yourselves?"
Hearing Hayden's accusations, some of the student members of [Bo Xun] did indeed show signs of shame, and a few even nodded as he spoke. However, they were far too few. Hayden could see far too few.
At least Yolanda's expression clearly showed that she didn't care. However, she wasn't foolish enough to say it directly to Hayden.
"What exactly did Alastor want to do by infiltrating the Mitra Corporation's building and hacking into the weather control system? — Never mind. You small fry probably won't get any information out of me."
After scoffing, Hayden shook his head.
"I see now. You guys don't actually know how to rebel against the company. You're just a bunch of students messing around."
Upon hearing this, Yolanda naturally objected: "Huh? What do you know? Do you know how many amazing things we've done?"
Hayden responded with a sneer: "You call it something remarkable if you give me a few big news stories?"
He straightened up and paced around the large room, his grey robes billowing behind him. This surprised Angela, who was standing nearby, because she had never seen him express such intense emotions in this way before.
"The Mitra Group tolerated you before precisely because it saw through your naivety and inaction. You will never be able to unite the majority; instead, you harm those who truly need solutions. Therefore, you can never threaten the company's fundamental interests. The more you cause trouble, the weaker the forces you can actually mobilize. In the end, the flames will extinguish themselves and won't burn anything at all!"
Abigail, as Adam's agent in the black market on the streets of New Seattle, once hinted to Hayden that organizations like "Bojun" were merely part of a system created by the company, not only benefiting the company's market but also acting as a de facto pressure relief valve.
The power required to destroy the old world must be incredibly sophisticated and immense; it's certainly not something a group of college student hackers specializing in cyberattacks could accomplish. In other words, wasting the power of the masses on such matters makes the old world even safer.
If all you can do is incite, you're just wasting the emotions and energy of the masses.
Hayden didn't understand how to build a great enterprise that would create a new world. He also knew very well that someone as cynical, misanthropic, arrogant, and undisciplined as himself couldn't possibly have that ability.
But precisely because of this—
(I see.)
Hayden paced back and forth, a sudden realization dawning on him.
(Because I know myself very well, I understand even better that a group of undisciplined student brats are unlikely to produce any good results.)
"In short, no matter how 'wonderful' your ideas are, there's no way to whitewash it from the moment you teamed up with Smoke Mirror Company to instigate riots... But I can't just hand you over to the company cops. Damn it."
In New Arturo, a city where the Mitra Group controls everything from the law to law enforcement, Hayden couldn't even find a proper "police force" to deal with these idiotic students.
"And Alastor... Damn, who knows what he's going to do with the weather control system? But if he's as stupid as you guys to partner with Smoke Mirrors, it's definitely not going to be a good thing."
It is quite possible that Alastor did indeed collude with the Smoke Mirror Company.
"It's also possible that his subordinates acted on their own initiative to instigate this riot in collaboration with the Smoke Mirror Company."
A voice interrupted at this moment,
"In fact, it is very likely that even these students did not know that things would turn out this way."
Hayden immediately scoffed: "There's no such idiotic thing in real life, this isn't a comic book..."
Before he could finish speaking, Hayden realized that the source of the voice seemed a bit strange. It wasn't the voice of the students he had tied up, and it certainly wasn't Angela's.
When he looked in the direction of the sound, he discovered that a new figure had appeared through the large hole in the ceiling.
Alastor was standing on the edge of the large hole in the ceiling, looking down into the room.
The hacker who physically infiltrated the Mitra Group's branch office building has returned unharmed.
Looking at Alastor, who was unharmed, wearing a black coat, and looking calm and collected, Hayden, though expressionless, couldn't help but be secretly surprised.
This guy is definitely skilled.
However, isn't it precisely because of this that the current situation is even more troublesome?
039: Are you willing to fight?
Hayden always considered himself a genius.
However, even Hayden had to admit that Alastor was different from his group of rookie students. This guy was at least a genius of the same caliber as Hayden.
In fact, Alastor's genius may have been even greater.
However, Hayden would never admit to such a thing, even if it meant his death.
So after Alastor finished speaking from the hole in the ceiling, Hayden raised an eyebrow and retorted sharply, "You mean, this whole demonstration and riot was orchestrated by your men who went and messed around with Smoke Mirror Company? Including all the military and police equipment they used? —Are you treating me like an idiot?"
If all of Alastor's students were going their own way, and he was the only one completely unaware, wouldn't he be the biggest idiot?
Alastor shook his head as expected: "I did have some dealings with the [Bo Xun] organization and the Smoke Mirror Company, which is why we had the money to get these devices into the base. But as you should have noticed, these devices don't actually belong to the Smoke Mirror Company. I only discussed some financial transactions with them; it was just a matter of mutual exploitation. As for why I specifically chose Smoke Mirror... I admit they are also evil, even more so, but they are certainly more proactive."
Hayden glanced at the equipment and drones he had just seized—upon closer inspection, he realized that none of the equipment was actually Smoke Mirror's own product; it appeared to have been bought on the black market or modified after hijacking Mitra Corporation's equipment.
But he still frowned and said, "Anyone can make excuses. Do you expect me to believe you just by saying 'oh'?"
“That’s easy to verify.” Alastor turned to the female college student beside him. “Yoranda, you just drank the wizard’s truth serum. Now tell him, did you report to me beforehand your plan to instigate unrest in conjunction with the Smoke Mirror Company?”
Yolanda's face turned deathly pale.
"...No, no. This was a plan I made on my own."
She lowered her head, unsure whether it was out of fear of the effects of Hayden's Truth Potion or out of fear of admitting the truth to Alastor.
Moreover, it seemed that even the other students were unaware of this. Upon hearing Yolanda's confession, they all showed expressions of astonishment.
“Wait a minute, Yolanda!” one student even shouted out, “Didn’t you say this was Alastor’s plan?!”
Yolanda immediately retorted angrily, "If I didn't say it this way, would you have listened to my idea? Besides, it really is for Alastor's good! Look, he's back from Mitra's company building perfectly fine!"
She didn't think she was lying or that she had done anything wrong at all.
"You see, so that's how it is."
Alastor said to Hayden with satisfaction,
"Now we all know that my comrades did not know things would turn out this way."
Hayden couldn't help but curse inwardly, wondering why he had made up a fake truth serum for Yolanda. Now he couldn't very well say that the stuff was just a stimulant and that his testimony was worthless.
In the end, it was all just the students' side of the story. Hayden still couldn't be sure whether [Bo Xun], especially Alastor, was colluding with the Smoke Mirror Company.
However… it's too late now; we can't get any useful information out of the student fry anyway. Alastor's appearance at this point is actually a good thing for Hayden.
"Alastor, let's talk in private."
Hayden's face darkened as he said...
“I need to talk to you about the riots on the streets and the weather control system.”
Alastor didn't mince words and nodded directly: "Alright, that's exactly what I was thinking too. But please release my comrades first. They may have done some foolish things, but they don't deserve to be chained to the ground."
Hayden wanted to make a sarcastic remark at him, but he held back.
A few minutes later, these students, along with the ones Hayden had taken down at the entrance to the ruins of the base building, were all kept under Angela's supervision in the room. Only Hayden and Alastor went to a place a little further away, where the others couldn't hear their conversation.
"As you can see, their strength and wisdom are really unreliable."
Then Alastor said this as soon as he opened his mouth.
"That's why I've been trying to recruit you all this time, and that's why I don't think mass movements and social movements can do anything."
Hayden frowned and continued, "So that's why you went to cooperate with Smoke Mirror Company, because you think ordinary people are useless weaklings."
"And you,"
His words were probably a bit too much, so Alastor's reply became somewhat sharp.
"You're equally unqualified to discuss the masses with me. I risked my life to infiltrate a large company's server room and obtain a way to overthrow the Mithra Group. And you? You possess the same power and wisdom, yet you choose to remain aloof, making enough money to lie at home eating potato chips, drinking cola, and playing with dolls. Someone as capable as you, who has never tried to overthrow capitalists or improve the world, has the right to complain about how others do things?"
Hayden opened his mouth, then found himself seemingly unable to refute it.
He had no interest in changing society himself, nor did he think he could do it well. Frankly, given Hayden's usual cynical and unpleasant temperament, he wouldn't have wanted to get involved in this at all. Wasn't it better to just lounge on his sofa watching the latest anime episodes? Angela might not let him drink cola, but she would make delicious and healthy snacks for Hayden.
Perhaps it was all Professor Albion's fault. The professor's words this morning had indeed touched Hayden's empathy, which made him unable to resist stopping these mentally challenged students—whether in the march or in the basement just now—from dying needlessly.
"What exactly do you want to do?"