Chapter 674: The Composite Art of Player Possession
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 674: The Composite Art of Player Possession
"Fine, two questions. Will you answer them? If you do, I'll answer two of yours in return. I promise to be fair."
"I hope you aren't lying to me." I closed my eyes as if gathering my thoughts, then opened them again. "I am not a Transcendent Witch, but my mentor is. Now, it's my turn to ask."
"Alright, go ahead."
"Why did you become a tutor for that cheap brother of mine?" I asked.
These players didn't belong to the Main World. Even though the bodies they controlled did, I couldn't use the Ley Line Identification Art to discern their true intentions.
Unless they held meetings offline, but players didn't need to do that. They had game accounts, friend panels, and even team panels. Communication through those channels left no trace upon the ley lines of the Main World.
Furthermore... even with the Ley Line Identification Art, I couldn't retrieve the contents of the "meeting" Fu Xinglan and the others had mentioned.
It was a pity that, as part of the Witch Academy "faction," they weren't privy to much information.
"Would you believe me if I said it was a coincidence?"
"Don't test my patience," I said, standing up. My voice was low and heavy, projecting utter dissatisfaction with her answer and her attitude.
But what shocked the player even more was that within her vision, her account connection was beginning to destabilize!
The shock didn't last long, however; this was "expected" behavior.
It was undoubtedly the work of the hand I had reached out—though she wasn't quite sure how I had managed it.
"I was just joking to lighten the mood! Why the 'mutual destruction' face? If you lose out on two answers at once, don't you think that's a bad deal?"
"You players must have obtained the answer to that question through other channels already. It's no secret. I don't know why you're asking me again—perhaps just for reconfirmation?" I questioned her with a firm tone. This served as my rebuttal that I wasn't losing out, as neither side had gained an advantage.
Of course, I said this to verify if the players had truly made contact with other Transcendent Academies or even revealed their secrets.
Through the information sharing of the Great Knowledge Seeds, I would know if any teaching assistant placed information into the Tree of Knowledge. While not every assistant did so, it only took one for me to be informed.
A while ago, a group of high-ranking members in the family had died without warning. The manner of their deaths matched the profile of a player being forced offline.
Something had definitely happened on the players' side.
"Look at you, getting all worked up! That's not it at all. And look, counting that last question, that makes one for you too. So now we're even, right?"
"You don't actually think I have a good temper, do you? You haven't answered my question!"
"Whether I answer or not isn't the point. The point is that you already have the answer in your heart. Besides, wasn't your answer to my question just as perfunctory?"
"You!"
"Now, it's my turn to ask a question... or would you rather end this game and finish me off?" At this moment, the player seemed to have seen through my "weakness." She was acting with total impunity, as if my threat to kill her was a mere bluff I wouldn't dare carry out.
Her behavior actually made me laugh out of sheer irritation.
"Perhaps you should know that I've had contact with the Real Protection Association in another small world. They revealed a great deal of information to me, and my methods are beyond your imagination..."
I spoke meaningless words to her while simultaneously agitating her Luck Threads. I needed more aggressive measures for a simple test.
As for the questions I asked, it didn't matter if she answered. Even if she told the truth, I would still have to wonder if she was playing me.
After all... a player "coincidentally" becoming a tutor to gain access to this place was far too suspicious.
If it wasn't a coincidence, then the implications were deep—how they found out, what they wanted, why they were doing it, and so on.
This was also why I had told the people from the Shi'an Bureau to strictly handle those two regarding their ties to the Descendant Sect.
In truth, I leaned toward the idea that those two were just an accidental coincidence, and the investigation was merely a side thought.
If I truly suspected them, I could just use the Ley Line Identification Art on them directly.
"You! What did you do?!"
The player finally began to panic. My rough handling had made her feel the instability of her account, and combined with my aggressive tactics, she likely guessed I was experimenting with something.
But it didn't matter, because I had already found a lead!
I had spent all this time primarily to familiarize myself with the function of Luck.
Though this brief window wasn't enough for deep research—even with my cognitive time sense, it was a bit tight—I had still gained significant insights.
I had figured out the players' "architectural model"!
I hadn't fully deciphered the arts represented by the Luck Threads, and even with the Mimicry Soul's assistance, I couldn't master it so quickly, but I understood what it represented.
The Luck Threads acted as a medium, transmitting information regarding the player's "operational actions."
Of course, it wasn't just a medium; it was also an anchor!
It anchored something else.
I didn't know its name, but if I had to describe it, it was a "power network."
Its form of existence was even more advanced than my Omni-Link Main Network Tree. After all, the Omni-Link Main Network Tree's power network transmitted ley energy, and its medium was a physical network of plant roots.
This power network, however, had no physical carrier. Or rather, the "network" itself was a form of "ultra-distance" transmission that relied on Luck as an anchor. There were only two understandable effects: the start point and the end point. The start point was likely the "Terminal of Myriad Worlds" in their world, and the end point was the character the player controlled.
There was likely an even more complex structure within it. After all, since players possessed different powers and forms of expression, there had to be a division of power.
However... this power felt more like a fixed usage in a customized mode. Those pixel-constructed weapons were the attack modes they used, somewhat similar to the profession systems and skill trees I had built for my own game players.
But this also reminded me of the modes where the dreamscape synchronized with the real environment by acquiring reality information after the dream depth merged with reality.
As long as I modified the "operational action" information, it would be equivalent to the player playing a game while I controlled their mouse and keyboard.
And the Mimicry Soul currently inside the player's body served as a convenient medium to take over the behavioral control of the character.
Having realized this, the only thing left was to find a way to "modify the information."
However, as someone who had once used Spirit Vision in a dream to discover information pathways and used runes to summarize Primitive Runes—thereby mastering dream modification spells—I had no reason to fail now.
With the Luck pathway so clearly exposed, I had every reason to find the Primitive Runes that could modify the information transmitted through it.
I was only modifying the information, not the Luck Threads themselves.
No matter how powerful their arts of Luck domination were, they ultimately needed to express information through the Luck Threads. Therefore, modifying the information at the terminal became a possibility.
I had now roughly grasped the "construction" of a player.
But there was still one more problem: I couldn't let her go for broke and destroy the account.
The Terminal of Myriad Worlds was in their world. While I didn't know if this player had the authority to touch it, what if she could delete the account with a single report?
I couldn't ignore that possibility.
"My patience has been worn thin. You seem to overvalue yourself, thinking you can still haggle with me. Who gave you such confidence? I wonder, if I help you destroy this account, will you still have the right to descend into this world again?"
I grabbed her by the throat. I was currently attempting to use my control over the Mimicry Soul to simulate the effect of the player losing her five senses. As a body cultivator, no one understood the body's senses better than I did.
Since the Mimicry Soul served as the medium for this character to control the body, there was naturally a way to influence the perception of the five senses.
The physical body is the foundation of perception for a body cultivator; for those who aren't, or for ordinary people, it is the "entirety" of their perception.
While I attempted to simulate the five senses, the process of researching the Primitive Runes that could modify "information transmission via Luck" also began.
However, it wasn't me who started it, but my clones.
Clones might not be helpful for thinking through the unknown—they might even scatter one's focus and energy—but for a pseudo-brute-force attempt guided by a mature line of reasoning that required no extra thought, only constant trial and error, the assistance they provided was immense!
Thus, it didn't take long before my clones provided me with several sets of potentially successful test Primitive Runes.
I used the period while I controlled the player's body to test them, seeing which Primitive Rune could achieve the level of information modification.
After only a few attempts, I succeeded.
I successfully modified the information of the player's "operational actions." It was an expected success, one that didn't even bring me a sense of achievement.
At this moment, the player was merely looking at her uncontrollable game vision with irritation. This person simply didn't play by the rules! She was moody, impulsive, and unpredictable—the title of "Witch" certainly fit her...
But she definitely wasn't going to give up this account just like that!
The number of game qualifications for this batch of world exploration was limited, and each account had only one life. If you died, everything was gone.
Perhaps only players who were truly driven to a dead end would tearfully delete their accounts, but she wanted to stick with this account until the very end.
Back to my perspective.
After mastering this modified Primitive Rune, the scattered techniques for usurping the player's power were gathered and organized into a fixed process. These techniques formed a composite art: "Player Possession."
Once the possession was complete, I only needed to maintain two things.
First, the Luck Threads must not be severed. This was the most critical part, as it was my pathway for controlling the player. Second, the power network must not be cut off; otherwise, a character without the player's combat power would be useless and unable to blend into the player community.
The only remaining constraint was the account itself. I didn't know if the player had the ability to directly destroy it, but seeing how some players committed suicide, they likely did.
Therefore, I needed to make her misunderstand one thing: that they were already dead, and the account was gone.
Even though the account actually still existed, it was best if they didn't know.
Perhaps... even if they did, it wouldn't be a problem. If I cast a wide enough net, some people would surely follow their ingrained habits and just quit the game without bothering to destroy the account.
As for whether I feared the game architects of their world pinpointing these accounts... I doubted they had the time.
Otherwise, an organization like the Real Protection Association wouldn't exist, nor would they allow members of such an anti-social group to cause trouble in the "game world."
In any case, it all came down to a "gamble."
If I lost, I lost nothing. If I won, I gained a player character!
But now was not the time for celebration.
I still needed to confirm some information—for instance, whether players could descend again, how many accounts they could hold, and if they needed to delete the previous one to get a new one.
Many of these questions were just feelers to probe the issue of account deletion, as that was the only part of this art where I was at someone else's mercy.
At this point, as if I had finished venting, I let the female player down. I paused the "possession behavior," but what she didn't know was that I could re-possess her at any moment I wished. She had no way to resist; it was as simple as pulling her Luck Threads to force her offline.
"Have you experienced my methods now? As long as you cannot defeat me or escape my grasp, you are nothing more than a fragile player to me. I can pull your plug whenever I want." I threw her to the ground, as if she were unworthy of sitting on the sofa to speak with me.
"Heh... reconnected? In the end, you still didn't kill me. You still want to get information and intelligence from me."
"You are the most stubborn player I've ever met," I said with another cold snort.
Since I had achieved my goal, I didn't mind playing along. Any intelligence gathered in the meantime was a profit for me.
"I'm flattered. But I've certainly seen the methods of a Calamity Witch. 'Pulling the plug'... what a vivid description. But this kind of torture is meaningless to me. Those flashy tricks and making my body twitch are all pointless, okay?"
"Whether it's pointless isn't for you to decide. Since you understand why I've spared you, there's no need for us to waste time on nonsense. I'm very interested in your game accounts and the game model of your world. Would you be interested in an exchange?"
"I still prefer the arrogant version of you from just now... Ah!"
Before she could finish her sentence, my fist slammed directly into the bridge of her nose!
The strike was so fast she couldn't react. By the time she shielded her pain synchronization, the instantaneous pain transmitted through the resonance had already sent her curling up on the ground in agony.
Even with the pain blocked, the phantom pain had been recorded by her main body. Furthermore, with her nose broken, a large amount of blood began to flow.
"Correct. I do care about the intelligence you possess. It's precisely because you think you've grasped my weakness that you've acted so recklessly. But..."
I paused for a moment, then stepped forward and grabbed her by the collar, hoisting her up.
"Through my constant testing, I've discovered that your attachment to this account is also far beyond my imagination!"
"I might not be able to force you, but I have other basic interrogation methods. You can turn off your senses, I don't care. I won't kill you; I'll just torture you until this account is half-dead and useless. Let's see who breaks first."
"Meeting you was a coincidence, but that doesn't mean I can't catch other players. I have plenty of opportunities; why waste time on you? Doing so is just a bit more troublesome, so your value has already depreciated."
"Your only value now is how much time and energy I would save compared to catching the next player. Once you exceed that limit, you're worthless."
My tone shifted from its previous passivity, every word carrying a sharp edge.
The player realized then that she had pushed things too far. And... she had a sinking feeling that this truly was the other woman's "bottom line."