The towering glass doors of Jiangcheng Tech Ventures gleamed under the morning sun. Lin Yi adjusted his simple backpack and stepped inside, heart pounding but face calm.
The lobby was spacious and modern. Employees in sharp suits passed by, heads buried in phones or deep conversations. Lin Yi felt both out of place and strangely determined.
A receptionist greeted him. "Welcome to Jiangcheng Tech Ventures. Please wait here; your mentor will meet you shortly."
Lin Yi nodded and found a seat.
Minutes later, a man in his early thirties approached. "Lin Yi? I'm Chen Wei, your internship mentor."
"Nice to meet you," Lin Yi replied.
Chen Wei's eyes scanned him quickly but without judgment. "I've heard good things. Let's get started."
The office was a hive of activity. Rows of developers typed furiously, whiteboards filled with diagrams and notes.
"Here's your first project," Chen Wei said, handing Lin Yi a tablet. "We're developing a real-time market prediction tool for high-frequency trading. Your task: optimize the neural network to reduce latency by 15% without losing accuracy."
Lin Yi opened the project files. The code was complex, full of legacy functions and patch fixes.
[System Hint: Identify redundant processes and apply parallel computing techniques.]
He smiled inwardly and got to work.
Hours passed in a blur of coding, debugging, and testing. Colleagues glanced over curiously as Lin Yi worked silently but efficiently.
Midway, a senior developer, Xu Rong, approached with a smirk.
"So, you're the newbie everyone's talking about," she said. "Don't expect to outshine the veterans so easily."
Lin Yi looked up calmly. "I'm here to learn and contribute."
Xu Rong scoffed but walked away.
By evening, Lin Yi had shaved 18% off the latency while improving prediction accuracy by 2%.
Chen Wei reviewed the results, impressed. "Excellent work. You clearly have talent."
[Mission Update: Internship Project Phase 1 Complete]
[Reward: ¥10,000 | New System Module: 'Data Stream Optimizer']
Lin Yi smiled faintly.
Walking home, the city lights blurred past him. The road ahead was still long.
But this time, Lin Yi knew he wasn't alone.
The Shenhao system was with him.
And he was ready for whatever came next.