Chapter 39.1: Black Mage Yang Sets Off
On the morning of October 16, Earth time, a convoy of inconspicuous vehicles arrived at a research institute nestled in the surrounding mountains of G Province. After the handover to the institute's person-in-charge, a group of soldiers in training uniforms swiftly carried the patients on beds along with their life support equipment into the facility.
These patients in a vegetative state were sent from a care facility in G Province, accompanied by a number of medical staff. Once the patients were settled, the accompanying medical personnel were summoned to the institute's second conference room for a report briefing.
These medical staff had been notified at the last minute and forced to participate in a certain project by higher authorities. While traveling here, none of them could clearly say what their superiors had intended from them.
It was not only upon encountering the mysterious researchers within this facility that the medical staff suddenly realized and got excited—everyone here was an expert in the fields of neuroscience and neurology. Could there have been a significant breakthrough in the country regarding patients in vegetative states?!
The newly arrived medical staff assumed they would see some bulky medical equipment or new medication used on patients until they saw those bizarre motorcycle helmets…
In any case, when the medical staff witnessed these experts timely and punctually "fitting" the consciousness-impaired patients, categorized by the duration of their coma, with what seemed to be motorcycle helmets, their faces twitched.
"Um… Director Lu, what on earth is this?" The director of the care facility, a doctor with extensive clinical experience despite lacking in academic publications, couldn't help but cast an inquisitive gaze at Lu Yiyun, director of NeuroTech Center.
Lu Yiyun didn't waste time explaining too much and directly handed over a patient's medical record to the care facility's head and led him to see the patient.
"On October 16, ten in the morning, Gong Minglan, 19 years old, a survivor of a major car accident in K Province earlier this June, fell into a coma due to brain injuries and has been in a comatose state for 4 months and 8 days," explained Lu Yiyun to the care facility's head from behind the observation room window.
"After implementing a special treatment plan and tracking the relevant neural responses at the linguistic level, the patient's brain waves, while slight, have shown reactions to the names of relatives, hometown, school names, and even the names of classmates and teachers. Our assessment is that the patient's cognitive and sensory nerves have shown signs of recovery to a certain extent, and we predict a favorable prognosis for her conscious rehabilitation."
The care facility's director was unable to contain his excitement as he eagerly examined the patient's brain wave imaging records.
However, Lu Yiyun didn't show much relief; her brows remained furrowed. "We only have seven helmets available for treatment, and based on our observations so far, the shorter the duration of the coma, the better the results. Director Gu, please understand the constraints we're facing."
Director Gu didn't have a chance to say a word before Lu Yiyun interrupted him, leaving him momentarily stunned before he eked out a bitter smile.
What this meant was clear: the limited treatment methods could only be allocated to patients with the highest chances of recovery…
Director Gu had spent many years working on clinical treatment for vegetative state patients. Lu Yiyun could understand his frustration and handed him a thick file. "Patients with consciousness disorders exceeding a certain duration, even with the implementation of a special treatment plan, show no changes in their brain wave imaging. We have already tried our best."
One helmet was dismantled, one was "wasted" by Lu Yiyun's trailing of the game, and one had been assigned to Ji Tang. The remaining seven helmets were solely used for clinical experiments with patients.
The expert team didn't give up on any patients that showed even the slightest brain wave response when a helmet was equipped. Experiments were conducted punctually, hoping that the subtle stimulations generated by the helmets would contribute to the patients' recovery. However, the expert team was indeed powerless when it came to patients who showed no response in their brain waves after a helmet was equipped.
A human's soul was something Earth humans had no way of seeing. Human exploration of the realm of consciousness and soul had been limited to studying the reactions of the human brain's neurons.
The expert team couldn't comprehend the component within the helmets that couldn't be dissembled nor the principles behind its functioning and why it could positively stimulate the brain waves of humans. Nevertheless, this didn't hinder the experts from finding ways to utilize this "special treatment" method and contribute to the field of human medicine.
In the whole of China, approximately a hundred thousand people fell into a comatose state each year due to traumatic brain injury, stroke, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and other conditions. The urgent need for a means of treatment in this field went without saying.
Each patient that woke up signified a family receiving salvation.
Driven by this pressing need, not only did the expert task force fend off any collective scrutiny from within the country, but they also adopted the most conservative "non-interference" strategy themselves.
The reason was simple. Even the most socially inept person could discern, based on the information and understanding the expert task force currently possessed about the "target," that this individual appeared capricious, unconventional, and acted in a way as if his mental age fluctuated between youth and advanced age. It was as if this extraordinary individual had the spirit of a young person yet possessed remarkable self-restraint, more enduring than that of a seasoned fugitive.
Most importantly, the "target" seemed to display minimal materialistic desires, even by ordinary standards.
Even three-year-old kids knew to feign crying to extort benefits from their parents, yet the "target," who possessed "black technology" far surpassing anything on Earth, refrained from engaging in any sort of profit-seeking, even persisting in a "game" that operated on a non-profit basis.
Taking these factors into consideration, the expert task force arrived at a unanimous analysis:
1: The actions of the "target" revolve around a "specific purpose" known only to himself and tailored to his own needs.
2: This "specific purpose" isn't in conflict with the expert task force's application of helmets in the medical field.
3: This "specific purpose" is highly important to the "target" to the extent that it makes the "target" disregard all external temptations.
This conclusion made the heads of everyone in the expert task force hurt and further muddled their understanding of the "target's" psyche. Even Professor Yin Zhengliang, an expert in criminal psychology at the Public Security University, was hesitant to declare confidently whether the "target" was a cunning and crafty villain or a clueless youngster with an empty mind…
In any case, regardless of what the "target's" motives were, the safest choice for the expert task force was to stabilize the situation as much as possible to ensure that the "target" remained within the country and at ease.
The expert task force would be required to maintain the current stable cooperation with this mysterious "target" while gradually exploring mutually acceptable methods and expanding the scope of collaboration. Within this overarching principle, the expert task force would strive to meet the reasonable demands of the "target" to the best of their ability.
Of course, in the event that the "target" plotted something sinister or revealed their true intentions… Well, the vast mountains of G Province were an ideal place to hide cutting-edge weapons, and several battalions of ground forces had already been deployed in the mountains surrounding An City for training exercises…
Yang Qiu was unaware that the small place he rented was under constant satellite surveillance, nor did he know that his regular coordinates had appeared in certain classified documents.
Nevertheless, Yang Qiu wouldn't care even if he knew all that. He was very satisfied with the strategies and policies specially developed by the experts toward and for him.
Moreover, he had never considered causing trouble on Earth—there was already such a vast stage in the other world, waiting for him to revel in.
While the scientific faction of the expert task force collaborated with clinical experts to study the principles and patterns of the "special treatment" on patients, Yang Qiu was leisurely seated in the Exile Town's Town Hall with a cup of fruit tea in hand, observing players that were in an underground passage.
Within the underground passage, a player had just failed the "Mental Trial" assessment. He crouched in the corner, clutching his head while cursing the game developers as his friends around him offered consolation.
Yang Qiu was rather unperturbed and looked toward the next challenger.
The player with the ID Phantom felt somewhat nervous after witnessing the failure of his fellow but still bravely entered the "test grounds," a huge fantasy-style magical array.
Roughly 30 seconds later, Phantom cursed out loud and withdrew, holding his head in frustration.
Yang Qiu had no expression as he shifted his attention to the next challenger, Ou Huang, who had already attempted the challenge multiple times without success.
Ou Huang was the first that had gained "friendly" reputation with Yang Qiu.
Blossoming Strokes, Unceasing Entropy, and Win By Grinding (Jiang Wei) were the second batch.
The third batch included players like Phantom and Guileless Gale, who didn't level up as quickly as the previously mentioned players.
And until these two followers of Brother Lahong who had also made significant contributions during the [Birth of the Undead Race] breakthrough quest achieved enough reputation and started the job advancement quest, not one player from the first two batches had managed to complete the mage apprentice job advancement…
Ou Huang had posted numerous posts, crying and complaining, while Blossoming Strokes, Unceasing Entropy, and Win By Grinding angrily vented their frustrations on the forums and even called upon their friends to demand fairness for the advancement quest.
Among those complaining was Yang Qiu's older sister, Yang Ying… who criticized the game's horrible production and deceitful development team, which left Yang Qiu both amused and exasperated.
The truth was, Yang Qiu couldn't explain, nor could he lower the difficulty level.
The magic of this world was toxic. Even though the players only projected their souls through the imprint matrix and remained safe on Earth without being affected by the madness within the corruption of magic, they would inevitably face interference whenever they absorbed magic through meditation in this plane.
Since the players were only projecting their souls through avatars, the negative influences of magic were similar to feeling disgusted while watching a B-grade movie or getting scared while watching a horror film.
Nonetheless, it was still a form of negative influence. Therefore, before these players who desired to pursue the system of magic could acquire (implant) their class's skills through advancement, they needed to pass the test first.
The principle of the test was quite simple. Yang Qiu had created an illusionist's visual deception array in the underground passage (magic powder was provided by the Great Leaf Vines players cultivated while trying to farm his reputation). By inputting and circulating a certain amount of magic within the visual deception array, Yang Qiu turned it into a trial of his own making: "Randomized 100 Questions, Quick Selection Challenge," where questions refreshed extremely quickly and could be comparable to legitimate mental corruption.
When players activated "Basic Meditation" in the underground passage as per the quest requirements, mental contamination, present within the abundant magic, would mercilessly assault their sensory nerves while players were forced to instinctively answer the questions at lightning speed.
The questions were, of course, extremely simple. For example, in the 100 random questions assigned to Phantom, who had just failed, the first question was asking who the player should help when witnessing the scene of a burly man snatching a child's lollipop…
The second question: When thugs are openly committing arson, murder, and looting on the street, should one quickly notify the authorities or join them?
The third question: When an elderly person falls, should one offer assistance or gleefully rush over to stomp on them?
…And so on.
These were 100 simple questions that any elementary school student with a normal moral compass could easily handle. If an ordinary person from Earth were given this set of questions under different circumstances, they would very likely suspect the tester's sanity.
However, answering these 100 questions correctly under the intense pressure of mental contamination wasn't so easy. It required players to have a certain level of resilience and the ability to maintain clarity and rationality amid the high-pressure environment and strong mental interference.
So far, the player who had made the most progress in the challenge was Ou Huang. In the previous attempt, he successfully made it to the 81st question before falling at the 82nd. This time, even Yang Qiu had high expectations for the current attempt.
Only by standing within the illusory array would a player be able to see the "mental trial." Ou Huang remained calm and focused his mind as he endured the disturbing noise of mental contamination—in reality, players couldn't understand the language of the magical other world and could communicate with NPCs only because of their link within the imprint matrix, so the unintelligible murmurs sounded like strong noise that had influenced one's mental state greatly.
Completely focused, he rapidly answered the questions. 60 questions… 70 questions… 75 questions…
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