Zhou Mei'er and Wu Chen's gasps of amazement over their new website were transmitted through Hou Liang's headset, but he didn't hear them. He was eagerly analyzing the new codes, comparing them to his own.
Then suddenly he was interrupted when his other computer received a message. His heart thumped. He immediately clicked it open.
"My fees are expensive but I won't collect payment from the Black Stars. You're welcome. You need to up your game, KeymonSTER. You have the ability but not enough confidence. –Drakon"
Hou Liang cried out, standing so abruptly that he knocked over his chair to the floor.
"D-drakon? Is this the same Drakon that I'm thinking of? No way…"
"Hey bro. Are you okay?"
Wu Chen and Zhou Mei'er heard Hou Liang's exclamation.
"What's happening? Why did you―"
Hou Liang hung up the call. He was too excited that he forgot to bid proper goodbyes to his friends.
He quickly typed a reply, not even bothering to pick up his chair.
However, his reply bounced. He tried tracing the message but like before, it was like chasing after a phantom. There were no trails at all, or even if there were, his ability was not enough to find them. This only strengthened the possibility that it was really THE Drakon who redesigned the Black Stars website and sent him a message.
Of course, being unable to trace wasn't enough to prove anything. After all, there were many hackers in the world who excelled in erasing their tracks. Were they all Drakon? Of course not.
Drakon was a recently famous hacker who emerged out of nowhere less than a year ago. Nobody knew where he came from because the guy communicated in many, different languages. Whatever language his client used, he would fluently use it as well.
He first gained a bit of attention when he accepted lucrative jobs troubleshooting and improving various companies' system securities around the world. He was very thorough that he would always catch the smallest of errors overlooked by most hackers, and then offer sophisticated methods on how to improve their systems.
After completing the jobs, the companies would offer permanent positions to him but he always declined, disappearing without a trace until he accepted another job from another company. The amount of jobs he accepted and completed in a short period of time was impressive. It was estimated by those who tried to closely follow his activities that the money Drakon earned from these jobs was in the tens of millions in US dollars.
Hearing about his track record, more companies sought his services but they had no way of directly contacting him. All they could do was announce the job online and hope that Drakon would pop by and accept it.
He gained even more attention when rumours leaked that a few governments tried to recruit him. There was no concrete evidence to prove that Drakon accepted any of these governments' offers, but some said that he accepted some of the offers when the pay was high enough. Nobody really knew whether these rumours were true or not. After all, most dealings with the government were highly classified.
Despite all these lucrative undertakings, the top hackers didn't really put Drakon in their sights. Yes, he earned tens of millions in such a short period of time but what he did was nothing special or complicated. To top hackers, system securities were child's play. Some of them even looked down on him for being a white hat, for not being daring enough to come to the dark side.
Soon, however, they were forced to take Drakon seriously. Very, very seriously. Drakon finally started accepting jobs from the dark web.
High-profile figures such as politicians, company heads, organized crime bosses, even religious leaders, and other such personalities were destroyed by Drakon overnight. Companies and organizations collapsed due to the frighteningly extensive and detailed reports he provided. Even some minor governments in different parts of the world were forced to change leaders because of the dirt he dug out.
His calm, detail-oriented, thorough, and untraceable style was very similar to that legendary world-class hacker who mysteriously disappeared some years ago. Some were even speculating that perhaps the legendary hacker was actually Drakon re-emerging under another name.
However, the veteran hackers disagreed. Indeed, their styles were similar but Drakon clearly prioritized money. On the other hand, that legendary hacker couldn't care less about earning anything. He would hack to amuse himself to the point that his objectives were difficult to understand by common sense.
That legendary hacker would often hack into various governments' intelligence agencies, not to cause any trouble, but only to read classified files like someone borrowing books from a public library. The agencies wouldn't even know that they were hacked. They would only discover by chance when they routinely checked old files only to discover added notes that weren't there before.
The notes usually went along these lines:
"That was so entertaining. Thank you!"
"This is a page-turner. Highly recommended!"
"What a tragic story. Made me teary-eyed."
Like a phantom, he would come and go as he pleased. Like a phantom, he would vanish without any trace.
Back in his cramped apartment filled with disorganized computer parts and other electronic devices, Hou Liang felt star-struck. Drakon was like the hottest new celebrity in the hacking world.
The top hackers might not be completely sold on Drakon yet, but to plebeians like Hou Liang, he was already a star deserving to be idolized.
Hou Liang wondered why someone like Drakon would concern himself with something like the Black Stars fan club. What was even more amazing was Drakon knew his main hacker name, KeymonSTER. Nobody really made this connection to him before. This was the first time. Most people knew him as Monkeyface, a normal "computer expert".
'No, wait.'
Suddenly, he remembered something.
There was one more person who knew that he was KeymonSTER.
Iris Long whispered this very word to his ear during her launch party.
"Drakon must be connected to Iris Long," he murmured to himself. "Perhaps they even know each other in person. This explains why she knows that I'm KeymonSTER and why Drakon got involved with the Black Stars website. Hmm…this must be it."
Hou Liang nodded, thinking that his conjecture made sense.