Chapter 673: The Possibility of Usurping a Player's Power
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 673: The Possibility of Usurping a Player's Power
Leaving that house and returning to Sister Bai’s home was only a matter of a few steps.
Even I hadn't expected things to be resolved so easily.
Of course, this was also my first time experiencing the status of a Teaching Assistant. The prestige and significance it carried were truly terrifying—at least in the outside world, it was an existence that stood above everyone else.
I suspected it wouldn't be long before word of what I’d done spread. After all, since the upper echelons of the Shi'an Bureau were all academy personnel, their status as alumnae naturally formed a massive social network.
In the outside world, the stability of one's position depended largely on their connections and relationships.
Therefore, if something involving a Teaching Assistant happened outside, they would certainly find ways to verify it.
However, I didn't care if others knew, nor was I afraid of anyone using this incident to plot against me. Ambushes and conspiracies didn't matter.
After all, I already knew from Fu Xinglan and the others that the Players were targeting me. Whatever plans they had, they could bring them on... I was also very curious to find out what my own weakness actually was.
"Alright, the show's over. Anything you want to say?" I dropped the Player I had caught onto the floor and undid the Seal Annotation on her mouth.
"Calamity Witch... I didn't expect someone as powerful as you to have such a terrible childhood." After adjusting to being able to speak again, this Player actually kept a very level head, still gossiping about what had just happened.
"Yes, it's something beyond my control. One's original birth family won't change just because I dislike them; they only change according to my strength. From your tone, is your life a mess too?" I sat on the sofa, crossing my legs as I questioned the Player.
"You want to know? Then can you let me go? I've been held like this for a long time, and it's very uncomfortable. Besides, I don't think I can slip away from your hands anyway," the Player bargained. "Let me sit comfortably, and I'll be happy to share my story with you. How about it? You should be quite interested."
"Hmm... alright." I studied the Player, seemingly considering something, before finally nodding in agreement.
"Then please release me. You have no idea how boring it gets when your senses are shielded for too long."
"Is that so?" I replied, undoing the Seal Annotation for her while simultaneously testing a few things.
Sister Bai watched leisurely from the side. She didn't mind me doing this because as long as she was there, no accidents would happen.
Of course, my so-called "testing" wasn't just about undoing the Seal Annotation; I was trying something that went beyond my previous understanding.
Mastering the Soul Mimicry technique and the Reincarnation Rebirth Spell had made me curious about the "Life State" of Players.
Combined with the concept of a Luck Alchemist and the Luck Alchemy they practiced, I had come to understand one truth:
Luck was also a resource that could be utilized. Wasn't the Players' method of descending just a technique for utilizing Luck?
So, I was thinking of another possibility... Could a Player be turned into one of my clones?
I didn't know.
But I was trying.
One thing was certain: if a Player died, I could use their "corpse" along with the Reincarnation Rebirth Spell and Soul Mimicry to create a clone. However, such a clone would be meaningless.
That kind of clone would have no "difference" or "change" compared to the ones I had made before; having one more or one less wouldn't matter at all.
So, I was looking for a meaningful method, attempting to usurp their status as a Player.
Since the Players themselves couldn't be trapped, sealed, or killed, there had to be a price for that.
The "characters" the Players controlled weren't their true selves. Since they kept themselves out of harm's way for their own safety, that left me room to maneuver.
I didn't believe that game world distributed the power of [Transcendent Knowledge] equally into everyone's hands.
Therefore, I judged that Players only had the right to use this power, not the right to dominate it.
Since it was power granted as "temporary ownership" by a primary entity, it could inevitably be stripped away.
"Now you can move your body. While you're at it, tell me about yourself," I said with a smile.
While I spoke, I was doing something else internally: perceiving the other party's emotions through Heart Sense.
Theoretically, once a person became a Player, they were already dead—or rather, their consciousness was dead, leaving only fragmented Soul Essence within the body for the Player to take over.
Such a person should be undetectable by Heart Sense. Thus, even if a Body Cultivation expert couldn't see Luck Threads, they could use Heart Sense to feel that something was wrong with a Player. It felt like communicating with a corpse, even though the other party's emotions and physical expressions were perfectly natural.
But this also meant I could directly use the Soul Mimicry technique on the Player in front of me without any additional casting materials. I could shape a mimicry soul to dominate this body. After all, there was "ownerless" Soul Essence inside her, which would allow me to fight her for control of the body.
"Hey, did you really clear the seal? Why can't I move my legs?"
"Oh? My apologies. I was in a hurry and afraid you had some trick to run away, so maybe the seal wasn't cleared completely." I snapped my fingers again, releasing the Seal Annotation on her legs. "How about now? Any other abnormalities?"
"Hmm... seems fine now." The female Player moved her body, then sat down heavily as if exhausted.
"Then... begin your performance. Please, tell your story." A faint, imperceptible smile played at the corners of my mouth as I made a welcoming gesture.
It seemed she hadn't noticed the abnormality in the Soul Essence within her body. However, this was also what I found strange: the technique the Players used to control the body utilized Luck as a "medium," but when it came down to specific physical movements, it should be Soul Essence.
As I listened to her narration, her words suddenly became blurred, and her entire body went limp.
"What's happening?" I immediately stood up, acting panicked.
But internally, I was laughing. The hypothesis was correct!
"Wait, Sister Bai, don't come over yet." I glanced at Sister Bai, stopping her from approaching. Through the Great Knowledge Sharing Spell, I explained to her in that instant that I had caused this situation.
"Ah... ugh... mm..."
Right now, the Player could only make basic sounds; she couldn't even articulate a full word.
This was because her body was currently being occupied by my mimicry soul.
As I expected, the technique they used to dominate Luck wasn't the direct cause of the Player "character's" actions.
That Luck-utilizing technique influenced the Soul Essence! Then the Soul Essence took over the body to act.
What I was doing now was using the mimicry soul to relinquish the will to actively control the body, trying to see if I could reconnect with the Luck.
If I succeeded, I could use the mimicry soul to understand exactly how that Luck-manipulating technique influenced Soul Essence.
While I likely wouldn't be able to learn the technique itself, it was best to know one's enemy.
This technique was very likely related to that piece of [Transcendent Knowledge]. It was normal that I couldn't master it; it was like trying to do fine porcelain work without the right tools.
To use another example, if someone didn't have the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art, they wouldn't be able to master Soul Mimicry or Soul Depiction either—unless they possessed an alternative power that could substitute for it.
While I waited anxiously, the Player was also frantically and blindly operating her interface.
At this moment, her Game Vision was flashing error messages like crazy, indicating a loss of body control permissions.
"What is this piece of junk... move! All it does is report errors, damn piece of trash!"
While the Player was cursing, her game account was showing a reconnection screen. This was the longest "login" wait she had ever experienced!
But fortunately... the account successfully logged back in.
"Ah... ah, cough, cough, okay now?" After testing her voice, the Player was finally "back online."
It wasn't that Players couldn't log off; a permanent log-off meant account deletion, while a temporary log-off just meant losing control of the body.
"What was that about?" I frowned, taking the initiative to place the blame.
"Huh? Wasn't this your doing?"
"My doing? What are you thinking? I haven't squeezed the information I need out of you yet; why would I mess with you?" My aura didn't weaken in the slightest. I was betting on the fact that this girl had no idea what had actually happened.
Her life level and consciousness strength were at most those of an ordinary person. They could only observe direct changes in data, but they couldn't perceive specific underlying shifts.
"You really didn't do anything?" Now, the Player was the one losing confidence. "Anyway, this is definitely your fault. Maybe your power from earlier affected me! I know you have the ability to directly delete our Player accounts!"
"Think whatever you want. If you really believe that, then I've truly gained another method to deal with you Players. I'll have to find more Players to test and see which step went—"
"Uh..." She was choked up by my words, her expression turning quite ugly. If she really helped this Calamity Witch test out a method to target Players... she would be a traitor!
"No! It was my own problem! My side showed an account abnormality. The connection was unstable just now, so I had to reconnect!"
"Tsk..." I put on a look of disappointment to match her, but internally I was ecstatic.
Because just now, while waiting for her to recover, I had completed a Great Knowledge Sharing Spell link with the mimicry soul. To be safe, I had relinquished control over the mimicry soul, only maintaining the exchange of knowledge and information.
Under the effect of "Information Decoding," a derivation of the Ley Line Identification Art, a "Game Panel" appeared before me.
It was exactly what the Player saw in her Game Vision, but I was limited to seeing it; I couldn't control it myself.
After clearing up this "misunderstanding," the Player told me quite a bit.
Unfortunately, I couldn't use Heart Sense to tell if she was lying. Relying solely on tone and mannerisms left too many factors that could skew my judgment.
However... I recorded everything she said.
For example... a concept she mentioned: the Walled City.
She was an ordinary member of a super-large Walled City. This Walled City was a product designed with military bases as the prototype. Its design philosophy was to maximize the use of living space, creating a unique residential survival zone.
It could be compared to a densely packed residential area, but far more extreme.
The reason for this was... their world had a massive population, and individual living space was extremely scarce.
This fit perfectly with the Players' behavior of harvesting Soul Essence. A larger population meant more people could become Players to harvest more worlds.
"My story is over. It's quite cliché, isn't it?"
"It is indeed quite cliché," I nodded.
I hadn't gained much useful information from the story itself, only a slight understanding of their world and the living conditions of the bottom-layer people. At least I had a sense of their world's positioning now.
With a general range in mind, I felt more confident.
However... I couldn't rule out the possibility that she was lying to me. After all, I was lying to her too. Who could guarantee she wasn't a cunning fox?
The game world hadn't launched a full-scale invasion of the Main World yet, which meant the Players currently present had been filtered. In terms of quality... they were at least much higher than Players who knew nothing at all, though not that much higher.
At least... I hadn't heard of anyone from the Real Protection Association appearing in the Main World yet.
So, I couldn't afford to be careless.
"Now, it's my turn to ask you a question, right?"
"What? You're asking me? You're my prisoner right now. Do you think we're playing an information exchange game?" I retorted with dissatisfaction.
"Whatever. At worst, I'll just delete my account and run~"
"Hmph... fine, ask. I'll only answer what I think can be said. Don't think you can threaten me with logging off. Your only value to me lies in the potential that you might reveal information I'm interested in. If you firmly state you won't reveal anything, I'll kill you right now without hesitation. Let me warn you again: I'm the one in control here," I said in a low voice.
My serious tone was actually just to give her some room to exchange information.
Of course, the main goal was to stall for time.
I was thinking about how to take over, or rather "steal," a game account.
I wanted to reach a point where even if the other party's consciousness logged off, I could take over the account and seize that power.
The key point was still those Luck Threads. As long as they weren't severed, it was possible.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a good means of interfering with Luck yet. I might be able to manually interfere with Luck Threads in the shallow layers, but that was a different concept from using a technique to control them.
The reason I hadn't given up was that I knew the Players hadn't mastered this technique either.
They were all just beneficiaries and users of this perfected technique. So why couldn't I become a user too?
However, after forcibly taking the account, I needed to be careful of certain possibilities—like the other party trying to take it back, or... deleting the account entirely to go down together.
Then I would have worked for nothing, only gaining a bit of operational experience.
So now I had to act again. After researching the means to seize the account, I needed her to give up the idea of fighting me for it or proactively destroying it.
There was only one way to make her do that: make her "mistakenly believe" the account had already been deleted by me.
She had mentioned earlier that they knew I had the ability to directly destroy their accounts. So... that was the breakthrough.
But the risk was still high. After all, if my account were destroyed, I would still try to log in to see if it was true, just to give myself closure.
Therefore, I had to reinforce the idea that I could destroy their accounts until she believed it without a doubt!
Furthermore... if I did seize it, I would need to change the appearance to prevent Players who knew her from noticing anything amiss.
"Yes, yes, yes~ Then it's my turn to ask. I want to know... are you a Transcendent Witch? And... is your mentor a Transcendent Witch?"
"Hmm? That's two questions," I said in a low voice, but internally I grew wary.
That question again... These Players are really afraid of Transcendent Witches...
I previously learned from Fu Xinglan that there were shadows of other Transcendent Academies behind the Players... Could it be...