Chapter 3208 — There's No Other Way!

"Once the next stone gate opens, there will be a second refinement method for the jade pendant space. After that refinement, the jade pendant space can grant even more wondrous benefits!" Elder Jiao said.

"What benefits?" Wei Zhao asked, barely able to contain his impatience. But no sooner had he asked than he shook his head and smiled wryly. "I doubt I even need to guess. You'll just say your memories haven't been unlocked yet and that for now you don't know — am I right?"

"Right. You knew, and you still asked," Elder Jiao said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, leaving Wei Zhao so exasperated his teeth itched.

The successful refinement of the jade pendant space left Wei Zhao rather elated, and in the days that followed he began helping Xu Shilan and Cheng Yiyi prepare for the charity performance at the orphanage.

An event of such scale had to be publicized well in advance, and that promotional warm-up period would need at least a month. Otherwise, even a great celebrity could not simply announce a concert out of the blue and expect the desired results.

What was worth celebrating during this time was that Han Jingyi's new alchemy peripheral device had been successfully launched on the market — and those sects and families who had been lured by the low price into believing that Xuandan Sect's knockoff medicinal cauldrons could be upgraded just the same were left utterly dumbstruck!

Upgrades, sure, you could do upgrades — but a peripheral that had to connect to Wi-Fi and verify its data through a server? How was Xuandan Sect supposed to counterfeit that?

Of course, this peripheral didn't just leave the people who had bought Xuandan Sect's cauldrons dumbstruck; it caught Kang Jingming himself off guard! He had never expected that Liu Jinghan's side would skip the upgrade entirely and simply roll out a peripheral device!

That left Dr. Benjamin II, who had already cracked the single-chip encryption, with no room to maneuver at all! Because the peripheral used a completely different encryption scheme from before — cracking it would require starting all over again.

Xuandan Sect's earlier promise to provide upgrade services as quickly as possible had also become empty words. After all, Dr. Benjamin II hadn't cracked it yet — what was he supposed to upgrade with? True, they had sold quite a few and built up a sizable customer base, but if no upgrade service materialized soon, Xuandan Sect's reputation would be ruined, and selling these things afterward would be harder still.

After all, having weathered several rounds of piracy crackdowns, whether those customers could still trust Xuandan Sect's knockoff cauldrons was anyone's guess.

"Dr. Benjamin II, this peripheral — how soon can you crack it at the earliest?" Kang Jingming was getting anxious. He had made some money before, but compared with the losses from the first-grade elixir fiasco, it amounted to nothing!

After all, half of those profits went to Miss Luan at the center — Kang Jingming only enjoyed half! And because that half had been sold under Xuandan Sect's banner, trading on Xuandan Sect's reputation, another half of it had to be left to Xuandan Sect.

What remained in the end — twenty-five percent — was all that Ancestor Xuanchen got. Reckoned that way, it really wasn't much, and that was precisely what had Kang Jingming so irritable. He and Ancestor Xuanchen were grasshoppers tied to the same string now; when Ancestor Xuanchen lost money, it was the same as Kang Jingming losing money!

"It simply cannot be cracked in a short time," Dr. Benjamin II said. "I've examined Liu Group's server. It uses a database and backend system not available on the market — clearly built in-house — and its security is extremely high. At least with my current capabilities, I have no way of breaking in within a short period!"

"What? Then that means we're out of hope? Our cauldrons can't be upgraded?" Kang Jingming was aghast. He certainly didn't want the cauldrons to sit there unable to be upgraded — who would he sell them to then?

"It's not that there's no way. There is a way — it's just a bit troublesome!" Dr. Benjamin II said.

"What way?" Kang Jingming asked quickly.

"Very simple. Buy up more of these peripherals and cauldrons, then gather a large group of alchemists and have them use the peripherals to refine pills. Intercept and save the data transmitted from the server — with that much data, it should basically cover the parameters of other alchemists as well, enough to match and generalize. For the rare few cases that can't be generalized, we can custom-make one for them: have them test-refine pills using Liu Group's peripheral, intercept the data, and then we upgrade theirs!" Dr. Benjamin II said.

"But how many cauldrons and peripherals would that take?!" Kang Jingming gasped. "And if I buy a whole set of peripherals and cauldrons just to let someone test them for an upgrade, won't I lose everything? Our upgrades are already cheaper than Wei Zhao's side — and now I'm supposed to buy a set of Wei Zhao's cauldrons and peripherals just for one parameter? Am I out of my mind?"

"Then there's no other way. I'm telling you the most feasible method available at present. If you won't accept it, then I can only slowly work on cracking Liu Group's server — but don't get your hopes up too high!" Dr. Benjamin II said.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Kang Jingming was thoroughly unwilling to accept it. If Dr. Benjamin said so, it meant there really was no way — but he refused to let a business that had just started making money die young.

"You could think of other methods. For instance — how did you get the program for that single-chip in the first place? Use the same method again to get the server's program back!" Dr. Benjamin said.

"Oh? So if I get the server's program, what happens if they upgrade it again after that?" Kang Jingming asked.

"Upgrade again... unlikely. As far as I can imagine, the cauldron's functions have already reached their limit. Any additions would just mean more pill categories. But it doesn't matter whether they upgrade the single-chip program or the server. We've already cracked the single-chip — if they upgrade, we can roll out a corresponding upgrade program within a day, even a few hours," Dr. Benjamin II said. "And if they upgrade the server, that's fine too. I don't believe they could rebuild an entirely new backend system and database on top of this existing set. All they'd be doing is upgrading — but once I have the source code, I can certainly find the cracks and the methods within it. So for me, there's no pressure."

"In other words, if I get the server's backend code and database, then everything's smooth sailing, right?" Kang Jingming's hope was reignited.

"You could put it that way," Dr. Benjamin II said with a nod.

"Good. I'll go give it a try." Kang Jingming hung up the phone, and his mind immediately began turning over how to get his hands on Liu Group's server backend program and database. (Murloc official WeChat account: yuren22 — update schedules will be announced there!)