Chapter 673: The Possibility of Usurping Player Power
Leaving that house and returning to Sister Bai’s home was just a matter of a few steps.
Even I didn’t expect things to be resolved so easily.
Of course, this was also my first experience as a teaching assistant, and I vividly felt how terrifying the status and significance it represented could be. At least in the outside world, it absolutely existed above everyone else.
I believe it won’t be long before what I did spreads around, especially since the high-ranking officials of the Security Bureau are all from the Academy, creating a natural web of connections among alumni.
In the outside world, the stability of a person’s status largely depends on their connections and relationships.
So, when something involves a teaching assistant, they will surely try their best to verify it.
However, I don’t mind if others come to know about this, nor am I afraid of anyone plotting against me with this matter, even if it means scheming or underhanded tactics.
After all, I learned from Fu Xinglan and the others that players were targeting me. They can throw whatever plans they have at me… I’m also curious to know what my weaknesses really are.
“Alright, the show is over. Do you have anything to say?” I placed the player I caught on the ground and released the seal on her mouth.
“Catastrophe Witch… I didn’t expect someone as powerful as you to have such a terrible childhood?” Once she adapted to speaking, this player seemed quite relaxed, still gossiping about the earlier events.
“Yeah, it’s something that can’t be controlled. My original family won’t change just because I don’t like them; they will only change in accordance with my own growth. From your tone, your life seems pretty chaotic too?” I sat on the sofa, crossed my legs, and looked at the player inquiringly.
“Do you want to know? Then can you let me go? I’ve been in this state for a long time; it’s really bothersome, and I don’t think I can slip away from your grasp.” This player negotiated, “If you let me sit comfortably, I’d be more than happy to share my story with you. How about that? You must be quite interested, right?”
“Hmm… Alright~” I examined the player, seemingly contemplating something, and eventually nodded in agreement.
“Then please release me; you don’t know how boring it is to be in a perception block for too long.”
“Oh really?” While trying some things out, I released her seal.
Sister Bai watched leisurely from the side, not minding what I was doing since as long as she was present, there wouldn’t be any accidents.
Of course, what I referred to as attempting isn’t just helping her to remove the seal; I was trying to experiment with things beyond my previous understanding.
With my mastery of the Mimetic Soul technique and Reincarnation Rebirth Spell, I became curious about the player’s “life stance.”
Coupled with the concept of a Fortune Alchemist and the Fortune Alchemy they wield, I’ve come to realize one thing.
That is, fortune can also be utilized as a resource. This method of players descending— isn’t it a technique that uses fortune?
So, I wondered about another possibility… Can players be made into clones by me?
I don’t know.
But I am attempting.
One thing I can confirm is that if a player dies, I can use their “corpse” to create a clone of myself with the Reincarnation Rebirth Spell and the Mimetic Soul technique, though such a clone would have no significance.
This clone would have no “changes” or “differences” from the clones I made previously; whether I have one more or one less is completely irrelevant.
Thus, I searched for meaningful methods and tried to usurp their gameplay qualifications.
Since players themselves cannot be confined, sealed, or killed, this approach surely comes with a price.
That is, the “characters” controlled by players aren’t truly them. Since they place themselves outside for their safety, this gives me the scope to operate.
I do not believe the game world evenly distributes the power of [Extraordinary Knowledge] to everyone.
Therefore, I deduced that players only have the right to use this power, but not to control it.
Since it is a “temporarily assigned authority” of power distributed by the subject, it can certainly be stripped away.
“Now you can move your body and tell me about yourself.” I smiled as I spoke.
However, while I said that, I was doing something else internally, which was perceiving the other person’s emotions through Heart Sense.
Theoretically, once a person becomes a player, they’re already dead in a sense— or rather, their consciousness has died, leaving mere fragments of soul material to allow the player to take over the body.
Such individuals lack Heart Sense, so even though a Body Cultivation master cannot see the Thread of Fortune, they can still sense the player’s abnormality; it feels like conversing with a corpse. However, the other party’s emotions and body language seem very natural.
This also means I could directly use the Mimetic Soul technique on the player before me to shape a mimetic soul that controls this body without additional spellcasting materials, since she has “orphaned” soul material within her. This way, I can contest control over the body.
“Hey, did you really undo the seal completely? Why can’t my legs move?”
“Is it? I’m really sorry; I was in a rush and feared you might have some means to escape too quickly, so the seal might not have been completely undone.” I snapped my fingers and released the seal on her legs, “How about now? Is there anything unusual?”
“Hmm… It seems fine now.” The female player moved her body around and then sat down casually, looking a bit worn out.
“Well then… start your performance and tell me your story.” A barely noticeable smile appeared on my lips as I gestured for her to proceed.
It seemed she didn’t notice the abnormality of the soul material within her, which intrigued me. As a player, her control over the body relies on the medium of fortune, but the specific movements of the body should be tied to the soul material.
Just as I was listening to her narrative, her words suddenly became muddled, and then her entire body went limp.
“What’s going on?” I immediately stood up, feigning panic.
But internally, I was laughing; my hypothesis was confirmed!
“Wait, Sister Bai, don’t come over yet.” I turned my head to stop Sister Bai from approaching and explained to her through the Grand Knowledge Sharing Spell that this situation was caused by me.
“Ah… um…”
At this moment, the player could only make the most basic sounds and could not articulate a complete word.
Because at this moment, her body had been occupied by the Mimetic Soul.
Just as I suspected, the techniques they wielded do not directly drive the actions of the player’s “character,” but rather influence the soul material! Then, the soul material takes over the body to act.
What I was doing now was using the Mimetic Soul to abandon the intent of self-control over the body and attempting to see if I could reconnect with fortune.
If I succeeded in doing so, then I could understand how that technique manipulating fortune influences soul material through the Mimetic Soul.
Though there’s a high probability I won’t be able to learn this technique, knowing oneself and knowing the enemy is crucial.
This technique could be related to that [Extraordinary Knowledge]; it’s perfectly normal that I can’t master it. It’s like trying to do porcelain work without having the right tools.
Another example, if someone didn’t possess the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell, they likewise couldn’t master the Mimetic Soul, Soul Drawing, and other such techniques, unless… they mastered other powers that could serve as substitutes.
As I anxiously waited, this player was also frantically trying to operate her character.
At this moment, her game interface was going haywire, indicating a loss of body control permissions.
“What the heck is this… Move already! All it does is give error messages, d*mn it!”
As she cursed, her game account displayed a reconnecting message, and this was the longest she had ever waited to “log in”!
Fortunately… the account successfully logged in again.
“Ah… ah, cough cough, am I back?” After a bit of vocal testing, the player finally “came back online.”
Players are not unable to log off; permanently logging off means account cancellation. Temporarily logging off just means losing control over their body.
“What’s going on with you?” At this moment, I wrinkled my brows and took the lead in blaming her.
“Hmm? Isn’t this your doing?”
“My doing? What are you talking about? I haven’t even pried the information I need out of your mouth, why would I do anything to you?” At this moment, my tone was unwavering, betting on this person not knowing what had happened.
The intensity of the consciousness of the other party was at most that of an ordinary person; they could only observe direct data fluctuations but couldn’t sense specific changes.
“You really didn’t do anything to me?” At this moment, the player seemed to grow unsure, “Anyway, this must be your fault! Maybe your power influenced me earlier! I know you have the ability to directly delete our accounts!”
“Think whatever you want. If you really think so, then I now have another method to target you players. I can find more players to test and see which step is the problematic one…”
“Uh…” At this moment, she was choked by my words, and her expression became somewhat awkward. If she truly cooperates with this Catastrophe Witch to discover some methods against them players… then she’d be a sinner!
“No! It’s my own problem! My account shows an exception; the connection was unstable earlier, and I reconnected!”
“Tsk…” I acted regretful but was actually overjoyed inside.
Because just now, while waiting for her to recover, I completed the connection of the Grand Knowledge Sharing Spell with the Mimetic Soul. However, to be safe, I gave up the control over the Mimetic Soul, retaining only the information exchange.
Under the influence of the derived “information interpretation” effect of the Earth Vein Identification Technique, a “game panel” formed in front of me.
It looked like what players saw in their game interface, but I could only observe and not control it myself.
After clearing up this “misunderstanding,” the player spoke to me about quite a bit.
But unfortunately, I couldn’t use Heart Sense to discern if she was lying. Simply relying on her tone and manner of speaking for judgment was influenced by too many factors.
However… I recorded everything she said.
For example… a concept she mentioned, a castle city.
She was an ordinary member living in an oversized castle city, designed as a product based on a military base. Its design philosophy is to maximize living space, creating a unique survival area for residents.
It’s akin to a densely constructed residential area but even more exaggerated.
The reason for this is… there are a vast number of people in their world, making personal living space extremely scarce.
This aligns well with the current situation regarding players collecting soul material; more people allow more to become players and harvest more from the world.
“My story is finished; it’s quite cliché, isn’t it?”
“Indeed, it’s very cliché.” I nodded.
From this story, I didn’t gain much useful information, but I did obtain a glimpse into their world, learning about the living conditions of those at the bottom and at least understanding their world a bit better.
With this rough outline, I felt more assured.
However… this doesn’t rule out the possibility that she is lying to me. After all, I’m also deceiving her. Who dares to guarantee that she is not a cunning fox?
Now that the game world hasn’t launched a large-scale invasion of the main world, it indicates that the remaining players have been filtered, and in terms of quality… they’re at least much higher than players who don’t know anything, even if not drastically.
At the very least… I haven’t heard of anyone from the Real Protection Association appearing in the main world.
So, many things cannot be treated lightly.
“Now, it’s my turn to ask you a question, right?”
“What? You want to ask me? You’re my prisoner now; do you think we’re playing a game of information exchange?” I directly rebuffed her, clearly unhappy.
“Whatever, at worst, I’ll delete my account and run away~”
“Hmph~ Then ask away; I’ll only answer what I think I can say. Don’t think you can threaten me with going offline. Your only value to me lies in the potential of sharing information I’m interested in. If you firmly state that you won’t disclose anything, then I’ll k*ll you now without hesitation. I warn you again, the initiative is in my hands.” I said in a deep voice.
The reason my tone turned serious was merely to give her an opportunity for an information exchange.
Of course, the primary goal was to buy time.
I was contemplating how to take over or “steal” the game account.
I wanted to achieve a state where, even if the other party’s consciousness went offline, I could still take over this account and seize that power.
The key point still lies on the Thread of Fortune; as long as it isn’t severed, there’s a possibility.
Unfortunately, I currently lack effective means to interfere with fortune. I might be able to manually intervene with the shallow layers of the Thread of Fortune, but that’s different from manipulating it with a technique.
My reason for not giving up is that I know players also do not possess this technique.
They are merely beneficiaries and users of such perfected techniques, so why can’t I become a user?
However, after forcibly taking over this account, I also need to be wary of potential issues, such as the other party reclaiming it or… completely deleting the account.
Then I’d have worked for nothing, merely gaining some operational experience.
So, I now have to perform again. Once I develop the means to forcibly take over this account, I need her to abandon any ideas of continuing to resist me or actively destroying the account.
There’s only one way to make her do this: make her “mistakenly believe” that the account has already been canceled.
Just now, she also revealed information to me indicating they know I possess the ability to directly delete their accounts, so… this is a breakthrough point.
However, the risks remain high since if the account is indeed deleted, I would also attempt to log in to see if it’s true, allowing myself to completely give up hope.
So I must deepen this method of being able to delete their accounts, making her believe it without a doubt!
Additionally… if I manage to successfully take it over, I need to change my appearance to avoid being discovered by players familiar with her.
“Yes, yes, yes~ Now it’s my turn to ask you. I want to know, are you… an Extraordinary Witch, and… is your instructor an Extraordinary Witch?”
“Hmm? That’s two questions.” I said in a deep voice, but my inner alertness heightened.
Here comes that question again… players really fear Extraordinary Witches…
Previously from Fu Xinglan, I learned that players have shadows of other Extraordinary Academies behind them… could it be…
