Origin Accelerator

Before long, Dad came home too.

Dad was an electric welder at the shipyard. Because of his work, he looked much older than he was.

Though he was only forty-six, he looked fifty-six.

The welding light often made the skin on his face peel, leaving it red and raw.

At last, the whole family was sitting together for a meal.

"Chu Feng, where are you planning to go after graduation? The shipyard is hiring sea-trial crew right now. Your dad knows the manager there. How about I put in a word and you give it a try?"

Chu Feng had just graduated. In an age when graduation practically meant unemployment, parents always worried about everything concerning their children.

In his previous life, Chu Feng had refused to work at the local factory. His ambitions had been sky-high; he had not wanted to stay home and had longed to go elsewhere, insisting on heading to the Demon City to make a name for himself.

But as a newcomer with no connections, relying solely on youthful passion had ultimately left him battered and bloodied.

He had studied marine navigation and had always yearned for the ocean, believing that conquering the sea was a man's goal.

In the end, he had chosen to become a sailor in the Demon City.

But without any foundation, he could only start as a deckhand at the very bottom.

Moreover, the shipping industry had been in a slump for years, and wages kept falling.

Only after struggling for several years and finally becoming a senior officer had his circumstances improved slightly.

Even then, he had spent all year away from home and could not take care of his family. He often could not even return for the New Year. Only those who had experienced it could understand the bitterness.

Chu Feng had long made up his mind. His personal terminal contained all kinds of advanced technology.

But what it stored in the greatest quantity was still spacecraft.

Now that he had returned, though, he had no idea what had happened to the spacecraft. It had probably crashed...

This was the internet age, the stage with the lowest startup costs, and also the field he could access.

With Artificial Intelligence and his familiarity with Earth's technology, the internet was practically his private backyard.

Xiao Meng's technology alone was enough to crush the entire world.

"I want to start my own business."

Chu Feng stated his idea directly. These were the people closest to him, and his future was certainly not going to be ordinary.

"You're grown up now and have your own ideas. Your dad doesn't understand high-tech stuff, so I won't nag you too much about it."

Dad nodded, raised his glass, and took a sip.

"There's still a little savings at home. Take it and use it first. It's good for young people to have some drive, but let me make this clear: if it doesn't work out, you'll have to follow your mom and dad's arrangements!"

"Alright, it's a deal!"

Chu Feng smiled and raised his glass, wanting to clink it...

But his hand froze in midair.

Damn it, he had only just graduated back then. He did not drink at all at that time.

He had completely forgotten that.

Everyone at the table stared at the glass Chu Feng was holding up.

"Hehe, my son's grown up too. A little alcohol is fine, as long as he doesn't overdo it."

Dad smoothly defused the situation, earning a glare from Mom so fierce it nearly shot into the sky.

"Hehehe..."

"Alright, alright, I'll listen to Dad!"

After having a little drink with Dad, they finished the meal filled with the taste of home amid Mom's nagging, Dad's placating smiles, and Grandma's attempts to smooth things over.

After dinner, Dad had drunk a little too much and was dragged back to the room by Mom, who tugged him by the ear to rest. Grandma was getting old as well, so she went off for an afternoon nap.

Chu Feng entered his familiar yet unfamiliar room.

He held the bank card Dad had just given him. There was one hundred thousand in it. It was not much, but it was all of Dad's savings.

The family's circumstances were only so-so. Saving for his college tuition and living expenses had not been easy, but he had no intention of using this money. He had his own methods.

He turned on the computer in his room, which was nearly gathering dust, and endured the long wait.

"Network signal detected. Connect to the network?"

Xiao Meng's voice sounded.

"Connect!"

"Connecting to the network. Scanning the network..."

"Network scan complete. Time elapsed: twelve minutes and twenty-one seconds."

"Master, Earth's network is so slow. How can Earthlings stand something this slow?"

Chu Feng was speechless. Could it possibly be compared to Planet Taibo?

His home had a 100M broadband connection, already far better than the few-megabyte connection they used to have.

"First, search for all dormant accounts."

"Searching. Please wait..."

This was the internet age: convenient and fast.

By now, everyone was accustomed to working online.

There were also so many bank accounts around the world. Some had unused balances, some had forgotten passwords, some had not been passed down to the next generation in time, and some had simply been forgotten.

Perhaps each account did not contain much.

There might not be much in any one account, but small amounts added up and could not be underestimated.

"Master, after searching a total of 1.2 sextillion account records, approximately 789.6 billion in dormant accounts were found... Converted, that is approximately 9.6 billion Citibank Currency..."

"I didn't expect there to be so much money that would never be used..."

This was wealth that countless people could never possess in their entire lives, yet it lay in some unknown account, never to see the light of day again.

Money was dead, but people were alive!

And he would use this money to build up his own country, so Chu Feng felt perfectly at ease.

"Contact an agency and register several companies in the Cayman Islands. The parent company will be called Origin Technology Co., Ltd. Inject all the funds, set up cross-shareholding, and remember: don't leave any traces!"

"Yes, Master. Registration complete. With Earth's current network technology, no one will be able to trace the funds."

Xiao Meng answered proudly. This was her specialty.

"Transfer one hundred million in funds from the company account."

"Yes, Master. Taxes deducted. Transfer successful!"

A transfer notification arrived on his phone only seconds later.

"Your savings card account ending in 4350 received a UnionPay deposit of 100000000.00 Citibank Currency at 12:23 on May 31. Current balance: 100000302.69 Citibank Currency. [Industrial and Commercial Bank].

Converted into Huaxia Currency, it was over seven hundred million—more than enough for him to spend freely.

Seeing the sudden funds in his bank account, Chu Feng was quite excited. After all, in his previous life, the balance on his card had never exceeded six figures.

His phone suddenly rang. Seeing that it was 95588, he knew the bank had called.

He answered it. "Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Chu. I'm a bank representative from the Port District branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank. One hundred million Citibank Currency was just transferred into your account from overseas. May I confirm that this was authorized by you?"

"That's right. It was mine, investment capital allocated by my company."

"Thank you for your trust in us. If you have any questions, please call us. We will serve you wholeheartedly."

After hanging up, Chu Feng's expression did not change in the slightest.

With such a massive and sudden injection of funds, the bank would definitely monitor it. But Chu Feng was not worried; he trusted Xiao Meng's abilities.

Sure enough, another call came not long afterward, informing him that the account review had been completed and everything met the requirements.

Then came a long stream of investment recommendations and the like.

Chu Feng rejected them outright. What a joke—did he need their investment advice?

At Chu Feng's request, the money was also converted into Huaxia Currency, and the bank did not even charge a handling fee.

"Xiao Meng, help me write a program that can increase internet speed and operating speed."

"Master, what acceleration standard would you like? The minimum is a 50% increase, while the maximum is a 3000% increase."

"Uh, no need to go that overboard. Double the speed will do. Call it Origin Accelerator. Make sure the protection is solid. Don't get careless!"

"Master, you should trust Xiao Meng's abilities."

"Earth's computers still use binary language, while the more advanced Yilai Language is an intelligent language."

"Unless someone has specifically studied the language program, it will be impossible to crack."

Chu Feng smiled helplessly. He did not understand Yilai Language either. It was like how many people knew computer languages existed, but if asked to write code, they probably would not be able to type a single character. Professionals should handle professional matters.

In just a few minutes, Xiao Meng had designed the accelerator. It ran perfectly on the computer, and because it had been compiled in a different language, its file compression method was different as well.

It took up only around ten megabytes, yet it could accomplish what would otherwise require dozens of gigabytes.

The entire Origin Accelerator was silver and oval-shaped, somewhat modeled after Chu Feng's former spacecraft. It was brimming with technological flair. Once clicked, the central button spun at high speed, and acceleration was completed in less than a second.

He tested his computer. Its otherwise ordinary speed soared, far faster than the sluggish machine he remembered, and everything ran smoothly.

That was also Origin Accelerator's special effect: compressing the original data before transmission.

Originally, it could transmit only a 1MB file per second, but after the accelerator recoded it, 1MB could achieve the effect of someone else's 1GB.

Though the hardware had not changed, equivalent performance had increased. In other words, it had effectively accelerated the system.

Sure enough, webpages loaded much faster too. He even played a match of the currently popular League of Legends, and the latency was basically zero. It felt incredible.

"This is it. Xiao Meng, put it on the Red Hacker Alliance and set it to a one-month free trial."

"Yes, Master!"

The Red Hacker Alliance was one of the country's most famous online discussion platforms. Nearly all programs, games, and similar products were first released there for everyone to download free of charge, so users could identify bugs or shortcomings. It was also one of the highest-traffic websites.

Lu Guang was a regular on the Red Hacker Alliance. He was also a major Weibo influencer, specializing in testing various programs and rating them. Each of his videos received millions of views, and he had more than three million followers.

Today, Lu Guang was bored out of his mind. He had not found anything worthwhile all day, and he still had no material for his next video, which made him anxious.

Audiences these days were far too hard to please. The slightest dissatisfaction meant unfollowing and a barrage of criticism.

If he did not make his next video, or just picked something at random, he would probably be cursed to death.