Chapter 476 - 464: Going to Die, Going to Die
Allen forcefully suppressed the tremor originating from the depths of his soul, regaining control of his facial muscles.
He twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing a somewhat stiff smile. "So it’s President Augustus here to provide personal guidance. I am deeply honored. Regarding that anti-addiction system, how about I create a backdoor for you right now..."
"There’s no need."
The gentle voice interrupted him, carrying a trace of amusement. "That is what you deserve. Your game’s rules are very fair. Since I’m participating as a player, naturally, I should abide by them."
"A player..." Allen thought, a bitter taste rising in his mouth. "I’m the one being played here, aren’t I?"
He sighed softly and bowed slightly, lowering his posture even further. "May I ask what orders Your Excellency has in summoning me?"
Within the pitch-black pupil of the massive eyeball suspended high in the air, a faint ripple seemed to surface, like an ancient abyss reflecting the birth and death of stars.
"Just a bit of curiosity," Augustus’s voice remained mild. "You seem to be quite interested in the natives of that Plane?"
Allen’s heart skipped a beat as he carefully weighed his words. "They possess a unique Spirit Core talent. I believe they hold a certain degree of research value."
𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
"Research value?" Augustus chuckled lightly, causing the surrounding neural nodes to emit blue light at a much higher frequency.
"Allen Wesren, Investigator EX-2071. I have reviewed your file; you are quite adept at calculating cost-benefit ratios. So, have you calculated exactly how much you’ve invested to protect that little Aiselan Kingdom?
"Your Golem Legion, your Half-plane Workshop, that Celestial Net system you’ve set up to cover the entire Plane, and the virtual world that consumes massive amounts of computing power... Can these costs really be recovered with a mere three hundred Credit Points and thirty thousand Mid-Level Magic Stones a year?"
Every question struck Allen’s heart like a heavy sledgehammer. He fell silent.
"They cannot," Augustus answered for him. "Unless what you are plotting for is something far more important than the mission reward itself."
The air seemed to freeze. Allen felt an invisible pressure crushing him from all sides. The mere "gaze" of that colossal eyeball was enough to inflict a needle-like stabbing pain upon his soul. He knew that any lies would be utterly meaningless before a Moonlight Mage.
"Yes, I admit it," Allen said, slowly raising his head to look directly into that profound pitch-blackness. "I am very interested in the underlying operational mechanics of the Spirit Core. At the same time, I needed a stable environment to collect sufficient data to deduce my Core Witchcraft and counteract the mutation brought about by my Meditation Method."
He had chosen to confess.
"Oh? Data on human nature?" Augustus’s tone revealed genuine surprise. "So that’s how it is. No wonder... You are quite honest, at least."
"In your presence, I have no right to hide anything."
"Very good." Augustus sounded somewhat pleased. Then, changing the subject, he unveiled the truth with the flat tone of someone stating a simple fact.
"Actually, you didn’t need to go to such lengths. The Aiselan Kingdom has always been one of my testing grounds."
"It really is you, the Rancher!" Allen thought, his inner bitterness deepening. "If you had told me earlier you were a Moonlight Level big shot, I wouldn’t have come even if you beat me to death!"
"I have dozens of bloodline testing grounds just like Aiselan distributed across different Planes.
"Many of them have established civilizations lasting thousands of years, composing countless moving and tragic heroic epics." Augustus mused with a hint of a sigh, "Some of those stories are quite touching, occasionally bringing a sliver of emotion to my numb brain. It’s a pity they have a much more important use for me.
"I simply wanted to see in which direction a lifeform’s bloodline would evolve in order to adapt to specific environments."
Allen felt a chill run straight up his spine to the back of his head.
"As for those Heart Eaters..." The Moonlight Mage’s tone carried an almost imperceptible hint of teasing. "I assume you understand that they are not naturally born Demons. That Dawn Star Level flesh construct, along with all the offspring it produces, serves the experimental goals I predefined.
"Its true purpose in periodically releasing its spawn to land is not to harvest those mature Spirit Cores, but rather to maintain a constant pressure that forces the Aiselans’ Spirit Cores to continuously evolve."
The fifty-three million natives of the entire Aiselan Kingdom had struggled on the brink of life and death for generations, believing they were fighting a crisis of extinction. Yet, in the eyes of a Moonlight Mage, this was nothing more than a minor directed cultivation experiment. They were lab rats wholly unaware of their status, unable to see the true depths of despair. In a way, ignorance was their best protection.
"You did very well, Allen." Oston’s voice lost its initial mildness. Its temperature plummeted, becoming as biting as the freezing winds of a polar glacier. "You built a watertight defense line. The Aiselans live in peace and prosperity, and their mortality rate has dropped significantly. This caused them to lose their most crucial evolutionary driver—the intense pressure between life and death.
"The mutation experiment on the Spirit Core has practically ground to a halt.
"Therefore, several years ago, I originally planned to step in and directly erase you—the variable interfering with my experiment."
The surrounding air gradually grew viscous. Without any fluctuations in Magic Power or the light and shadows of Magic, the writhing flesh and blood earth around them fell dead silent. Allen felt an irresistible, heavy pressure descending from the heavens.
The Magic Power within his body autonomously ceased circulating; a Second-level Wizard was unbearably fragile before such might. Every bone in his body creaked, the air in his lungs was forcefully squeezed out, and a suffocating sensation akin to drowning completely engulfed him. He couldn’t even move a single finger.
Allen clenched his jaw, his gaze locked intensely on that horrifyingly massive eyeball. He did not cry out for mercy. Crushed under the absolute power of the Moonlight Level, the success rate of any resistance strategy could only be zero.
Yet, a split second before his cervical vertebrae snapped, the pressure abruptly vanished.
"But I discovered something interesting." Oston’s voice grew mild once more, even carrying a trace of admiration.
"I found that the Allen Network and Cyber Spirit Realm you set up are quite fascinating.
"You used virtual deaths and mental stimulation to replace brutal physical elimination. Within your game, the new generation ’dies’ dozens of times a day. Their spirits are repeatedly crushed between hope and despair. This high-intensity ’mental extraction’ has increased their Spirit Core awakening rate by a full three times compared to my previous method of culling through the Beast Tide.
"High efficiency, low cost, and zero loss. A very interesting experimental approach. Because of that, I spared your life and observed you for two years."
Allen’s tensed body slowly relaxed. Surviving a catastrophe. For the first time, he clearly felt the profound weight of this concept. "I never imagined," he thought, "that an online game would be what rewrote my destiny at the very last moment."
"Speaking of which," Augustus said casually, as if suddenly recalling something, "your predecessor, that Second-level Wizard named Maurice, wasn’t nearly as smart as you."
Allen stood up straight and listened quietly.
"He too quickly discovered the secret of the Spirit Core, but he was far too greedy and foolish. He actually conducted large-scale induced mutation experiments in secret.
"By the time I noticed, his actions had severely contaminated the Aiselans’ gene pool, forcing me to reset the bodies of over a hundred thousand people.
"So, after that fool exhausted his Magic Power, I had him torn into thousands of pieces."
"So that was it," Allen thought, secretly rejoicing. Fortunately, he had resisted the urge to experiment on the Aiselans and had held the invisible bottom line. The White Wizard’s Code was nothing more than a mere scrap of paper in the eyes of these High-tier Wizards; the only thing that could truly save one’s life was restraining the deep-seated greed in their bones.
Just as Allen thought he had thoroughly figured out this Moonlight Mage’s code of conduct, Augustus shifted the conversation once again.
"While your new method is highly efficient, it also has a massive drawback."
Allen’s heart leaped into his throat once more.
"The peace and prosperity you brought have drastically extended the Aiselans’ average lifespan, and their newborn birth rate is also dropping. This severely slows down the speed of their genetic iteration.
"For me, an observation cycle of over a hundred years for a single sample is simply too long.
"What I need are test subjects that live, die, and iterate rapidly, not a bunch of long-lived species that can survive for two or three hundred years."
The Moonlight Mage’s mild voice slowly echoed by Allen’s ear, like a Death God murmuring.
"So, Allen Wesren.
"How should I deal with you?"