Chapter 39: Black Mage Yang: Going Out
October 16th, Earth time, 10:00 AM.
A low-key-looking convoy drove into a research institute hidden among the mountains in Province G. After completing the handover with the director of the institute, a group of soldiers in training uniforms deftly carried the patient beds and life-sustaining equipment sent by the convoy into the institute.
This group of patients were sent here from a vegetative sanatorium in Province G. A number of medical staff came with the patients. After settling the patients, the medical staff were called to the second conference room of the institute to listen to the report issued by the institute.
These party members and medical staff who were notified at short notice and were forced by their superiors to participate in a certain plan, none of them could explain clearly on the way to what the leaders intended them to do; it was not until they met the researchers in this mysterious institute that they suddenly realized and immediately became excited - all of them were experts in the field of brain science and neuroscience. Could it be that the country has made a breakthrough in the pathological research and medical research on vegetative patients? !
…Until they saw those weird motorcycle helmets, these new medical staff thought that what they would see and use on patients would be some large medical equipment or some new medicine…
Anyway… when the medical staff saw that these experts actually put these “devices” that looked like motorcycle helmets on the patients with impaired consciousness who were divided into groups according to the time of coma, their faces twitched…
“This… Director Lu, what on earth is this…?” The director of the sanatorium, a doctor with poor research papers but rich clinical experience, could not help but look at Lu Yiyun, the head of the research institute and director of the Brain Intelligence Center, with an inquiring look.
Lu Yiyun didn't waste any words. He directly handed the medical record of a patient to the dean and took him to see the patient...
"Gong Minglan, 19 years old, is a survivor of a major car accident in K Province in June this year. She fell into a coma due to a brain impact and has been in a coma for four months and eight days." Lu Yiyun pointed to the patient on the bed inside the observation room and introduced to the dean, "After adopting a special treatment plan, the patient's micro-electroencephalogram can respond to the names of relatives, hometown, school name, and even the names of classmates and teachers from the language level. Our judgment is that the patient's cognitive nerves and sensory nerves have recovered to a certain extent, and the recovery of consciousness level is predicted to be good."
The dean looked through the patient's EEG records and was so excited that he could hardly speak.
Lu Yiyun's expression did not seem to be relaxed, and his brows were still furrowed. "We only have seven helmets available for treatment, and based on our observations so far, the shorter the coma period of the patient, the greater the effect... Dean Gu, please forgive our difficulties."
Dean Gu was blocked by Lu Yiyu before he could even finish his words. He was stunned and couldn't help but smile bitterly.
This means that limited treatment methods can only be used on patients who are most likely to be cured, right?
Lu Yiyun knew that the dean, who had been engaged in clinical treatment of vegetative patients for many years, was unwilling to give up, so he handed him a thick file bag: "For patients with impaired consciousness for more than a certain number of years, even with special treatment plans, there is no change in micro-electroencephalogram imaging... We have really tried our best."
One helmet was destroyed during the disassembly, Lu Yiyun "wasted" a helmet when trying it on, and after Ji Tang allocated a helmet, the remaining seven helmets have been concentrated for clinical experiments on patients.
As long as the patients showed slight reactions in their brain waves while wearing the helmet, the expert group did not give up and kept trying to wear the helmet on time, hoping that the subtle mental stimulation produced by the helmet would play a role in the patient's recovery; but for patients who had no micro-brain wave reactions after wearing the helmet, the expert group was really powerless.
The human soul is invisible to the people on Earth. So far, human exploration of the spiritual and soul realms has been limited to the study of the response of neurons in the human brain.
The expert group could not understand the working principle of the non-disassembled device in the helmet and why it could have a positive stimulating effect on the micro-waves of human brain neurons, but this did not prevent the expert group from trying their best to utilize this "special treatment" to contribute to human medicine.
Every year, about 100,000 people in China fall into a coma due to craniocerebral trauma, cerebral stroke, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and other diseases, and then enter a long-term state of impaired consciousness. It goes without saying that the domestic need for treatment in this area is urgent.
Every patient who wakes up means a family can be saved.
It is precisely under this urgent need that the expert group not only blocked any domestic collective from spying on the "target", but also adopted the most conservative "non-contact" strategy.
The reason is very simple. With the intelligence and understanding of the "target" currently available to the expert group, even the most unsophisticated person can find out that the "target" seems to be an abnormal person who is quite casual (willful), quite unconventional (does things recklessly), and whose psychological age fluctuates between young people and old people (he has the playful mentality of young people, but is very patient and can survive better than a perennial fugitive).
Most importantly, the target's material needs are quite low even by ordinary people's standards.
A three-year-old child knows how to fake cry to blackmail his parents for benefits, but "Target", which holds "black technology" that exceeds the current technological level on Earth, does not take any profit-making actions, and even insists on non-profitability in the "game" it "operates".
After comprehensive consideration, the expert group came to a unified analysis opinion:
1. The behavior of "target" should be carried out around a certain unknown "specific purpose" that is limited by the requirements of the "target" itself.
Second: This “specific purpose” does not conflict with the expert group’s purpose of applying helmets in the medical field.
3: This "specific purpose" is very important to the target, so important that the target ignores all external temptations.
This conclusion gave everyone in the expert group a headache, and also made the expert group's psychological portrayal of the "target" even more confusing. Even Yin Zhengliang, a professor of criminal psychology at Huaxia Public Security University and an expert in related fields in the expert group, did not dare to pat his chest to determine whether this guy was a cunning and shrewd person, or a young man with an empty mind and no thoughts...
In short... no matter what the purpose of the "target" is, for the expert group, the safest option is to stabilize the other party as much as possible and let the other party stay in the country with peace of mind.
The expert group needs to maintain stable cooperation with this mysterious "target" at this stage, and slowly explore routes and methods that both sides do not reject in the cooperation to gradually expand the space for cooperation. Under this general principle, the expert group will try its best to meet the other party's demands within a reasonable range.
Of course, if the "target" has bad intentions and suddenly reveals his true intentions at some point... well, the Shiwan Mountains in Province G are a good place to hide high-tech weapons, and the ground forces have already deployed several regiments to the mountainous areas around Anshi for training and exercises...
Yang Qiu didn't know that the small courtyard where he rented was under satellite surveillance around the clock, and he didn't know that his regular coordinates had appeared in some confidential documents...
Of course, even if Yang Qiu knew, he wouldn't care. He was very satisfied with the countermeasures and policies that the expert group had developed specifically for him. He also never considered causing trouble on Earth - how could such a big stage in the alien world not be enough for him?
While the scientific faction of the expert group was working with clinical experts to study the principles and rules of "special treatment" methods for positive stimulation of patients, Yang Qiu was sitting quietly in the town hall of Exile Town with a cup of flower and fruit tea, observing the players in the tunnel.
Inside the tunnel, a player had just failed the "mental test" assessment. He squatted down with his head in his hands, cursing the dog planner. The player's relatives and friends were surrounding him.
Yang Qiu was as steady as an old dog and looked at the next challenger calmly.
The player with the ID "Phantom" was a little nervous after seeing his good friend fail, but he still walked into the "examination room", a huge magic circle with a very fantasy style.
About half a minute later, Huan Ling cursed loudly, "Fuck!" and retreated with his hands covering his head...
Yang Qiu had a blank expression on his face, and turned his attention to the next challenger, the European sturgeon, who had challenged many times and failed repeatedly...
Beluga is the first tier group to gain friendly reputation with Yang Qiu.
The second tier is those who have a brilliant writing style, do not increase entropy, and only those who work hard can succeed (Jiang Wei).
Huanling and Mingfeng Chunpu, whose upgrades were not as fast as those in front, are in the third echelon.
Until the third echelon, the two good friends who followed Lahong and had helped in the breakthrough mission of "The Birth of the Undead Race" had enough reputation and started to do the mission, the first two echelons still failed to successfully achieve the "Magic Apprentice Job Change·First Kill" achievement...
I won’t mention how many cute and crying posts Ouyang posted. Friends who believe in writing with great talent, entropy does not increase, and only hard work can lead to success all angrily posted many posts on the player forum to complain for their friends and accuse the job transfer tasks of being unfair.
Among them was his elder sister Yang Ying... She kept criticizing the planning and the production team, calling them crappy, which made Yang Qiu laugh and cry.
As for this matter, Yang Qiu really couldn't explain it, and he certainly couldn't reduce the difficulty.
The magic of this world is poisonous. Even if the players only project their souls through the branding matrix and stay safely on the earth, they will not be infected by the crazy factors in the magic. However, as long as they use meditation to absorb magic in this plane, they will definitely be disturbed.
Because the players are just projected projections, the negative impact of magic is actually similar to people being disgusted by watching B-level movies or being scared by watching horror movies. But it is also a non-positive impact after all, so those players who want to play the magic system must pass the test before they can change their jobs and learn (implant) professional skills.
The principle of the test is very simple. Yang Qiu set up a visual deception array in the tunnel that illusionists are good at (the source of magic powder is the big-leaf vines raised for him by players who increase his reputation), input a certain amount of magic power, and achieve an internal cycle with magic power and the visual deception array that illusionists use to cause trouble. He also placed his own test questions: "Randomly Arrange 100 Questions, Instant Selection, Impact Operation" with an extremely high refresh frequency, which is almost the same as serious mental pollution.
When players activate "Basic Meditation" in the tunnel as required by the task, the abundant spiritual pollution in the abundant magic power will mercilessly impact the players' sensory nerves, forcing them to answer questions instinctively in seconds under high pressure.
The questions are of course very simple. For example, the first question of the 100 questions randomly given to the player Huanling who failed the challenge just now is a scene where a strong man snatches a child's lollipop, and the player is asked to choose who to help...
Question 2: When rioters are burning, killing and looting in the streets, should you immediately notify the sheriff or join them?
Question 3: If an old man falls down, should you go over to help him up or rush over and step on him happily?
Question 4: When a little kid is sitting on the side of the road eating snacks, do you rush over, snatch the snacks from him, throw them on the ground, and then step on them in front of the kid?
…and so on.
These 100 questions can be easily answered by any primary school student who is not born antisocial or comes from a sick family environment and has normal world outlook, values and values. If a normal person on earth were asked to do these questions in another environment, he would probably get a lot of cold stares and people would doubt whether the person who set the questions had a hole in his brain.
However, it is not so easy to answer these 100 stupid questions correctly under the pressure of high-density mental pollution. It requires players to have a certain degree of stress resistance and be able to stay sober and rational and make correct choices under high-pressure environments and strong mental interference.
So far... the one with the highest progress in the challenge is Ou Yan. In the last challenge, this player successfully made it to question 81, but failed at question 82. This time Ou Yan came to challenge again, and even Yang Qiu had more expectations for him.
The "mental experiment" that can only be seen by standing in the visual deception array developed by the illusionist and his gang of old perverts, the European Sturgeon, with a calm mind and tense nerves, endured the high pressure and the noise interference of mental pollution (the player actually cannot understand the magical language of the alien world. The reason why he can communicate with NPCs is that both parties are related in the branding matrix, so the unknown whispers sound like noise with strong emotional appeal to the player), and quickly completed the questions.
Sixty questions...seventy questions...seventy-five questions...
The people waiting in line for the challenge, such as Miaobishenghua, Entropy does not increase, and Only hard work can win, all focused their attention on the sturgeon, which had been standing steadily for more than two and a half minutes without failing.
The time limit for answering the stupid multiple-choice questions in the experiment is two seconds. How many seconds you can stand within that time is equivalent to answering the question correctly in half the number of seconds.
As Ouyang persisted longer, Huanling and Mingfeng Chunpu, who had just failed, couldn't help but look over.
Three and a half minutes later, the beluga skeleton standing in the formation shook its body, made a snapping sound, and pulled its lower jaw downward, revealing a smile that was scary but not surprising to the players...
"Boss ! Give me the tutorial!" He was so good at writing & entropy didn't increase, he immediately jumped up to hug his thigh.
In the town hall, Yang Qiu, who was indeed a little worried that players would give up the bright profession of mage, also showed a relieved smile...
"very good."
Yang Qiu put down his teacup and stood up. He took out a bag full of magic powder watered by the players' sweat from his space ring, which had been enriched a lot, and sprinkled it around his chair.
The magic circles of the illusionist are very useful, but if he wants to cross the black magic route, he has to consume magic powder...
After setting up a miniature version of the illusionist's circle, another "Yang Qiu" appeared on the chair.
If a specific light and shadow is constructed using an array to make a projection and a mental imprint is left inside the projection, the caster can also control the projection through the imprint link. As long as there is no actual contact, the projection is no different from a real person - that's why illusionists are all old perverts. These guys can even create projections for a long time to replace their real bodies, making it impossible for those who want to assassinate them to even find their real bodies.
Leaving the projection behind to deal with the players, Yang Qiu put away the magic powder, activated the subspace barrier to hide his body, left the town hall, summoned the undead horse - which was not as handsome as the one he had released for the players to compete for before - and left the town with confidence.
After riding a horse in the wilderness for a while, Ouyang came down surrounded by players to hand in the task. So Yang Qiu hurried on the road while using his mind to control his own projection and baptized Ouyang's job change - in fact, he made a long dialogue plot to force Ouyang to stand still, and then manually implanted the magic rune of "Magic Apprentice", which can be learned in the first job change, into the player's character.
No matter which profession you change, you must go to the town hall to "accept the baptism and blessing of the undead race resurrection mentor" at the last stage. This is the reason...
While hurrying on the road and dealing with the players with his mind divided, ten hours later Yang Qiu crossed the western part of the Tarantan Wasteland and arrived at the Principality of Shiga further west.
When it comes to choosing "civilian NPCs", Yang Qiu would rather choose the Principality of Shiga, which believes in the Goddess of Prosperity, than the citizens of the Rhine Kingdom who believe in the Gold Coin Lady... The worship of gods in this world still has a great influence on believers. Compared with the unscrupulous Rhine Kingdom, the Principality of Shiga has a much better reputation.
Of course, the reason why the Goddess of Prosperity has a good reputation is mainly because this righteous god likes to stay inland and never sends messengers to run around... If the messenger's activities are as large as Ms. Gold Coin's, and it is always inevitable to compete with other righteous gods, then her reputation will not be so good.
The Principality of Shega, which is mainly composed of farming people, also has a fairly developed handicraft industry and low-end manufacturing industry. It is a must-pass place for caravans from several neighboring countries. In summer, the border cities of the Principality of Shega are always bustling.
Well, this refers to the border cities near the Sorenson Mountains and border cities in other directions. If it is on the side of the Tarantan Wasteland, there is almost no decent town on the entire border...
In the eastern border of the Principality of Shiga, the most popular town is Kamor, where almost all the small and medium-sized landowners (country nobles) within a hundred miles live, as well as the servants who serve these country nobles.
Yang Qiu dismounted his mount not far from the town, maintained the subspace barrier, and calmly walked through the city gate and entered the town in front of the patrolling soldiers outside the town of Camor.
Due to the relatively high density of "upper class people", the atmosphere in the town of Camor is quite good and the spirit is quite civilized. The laughter of young girls can be heard from the carriages coming and going on the main road. Most pedestrians walking on the roadside are relaxed, well-spoken, and decently dressed. There are many ladies with long skirts covering their ankles. The streets are clean and refreshing, and there is almost no garbage in conspicuous places. The shops on the street dare to use large pieces of glass with quite high purity as windows, and display the goods that ordinary people may not be able to afford even if they save for several months.
If Yang Qiu had not just passed by a few villages where the farmers were half-dressed, Yang Qiu would have thought that the townspeople of Kamoer were the national image representatives of this country...
After turning into the back streets and alleys, within two minutes of walking, you can no longer see the well-dressed gentlemen or the ladies in long skirts that cover their ankles.
The narrow and winding alleys are like a maze, and the houses are low and densely packed. The low-lying areas on the stone-paved ground are always filled with smelly sewage. The women who sit under the eaves of their houses and chat have patched skirts that can barely cover their knees.
After going a few minutes deeper, the road surface no longer had stone slabs, only mud that had been soaked by rain and repeatedly trampled into various potholes. Red brick houses became a minority, and more residences were replaced by wooden sheds.
All the roofs of the wooden sheds and open spaces near the river were used to hang long clotheslines made of wooden stakes and ropes, on which cloth of varying lengths were hung to dry.
The weaving industry is the livelihood of the non-upper class residents of the town of Camor.
The climate of Camor is similar to that of Tarantin, with hot summers, plenty of sunshine, and a large temperature difference between day and night, which is just right for growing cotton.
In order to grow cotton more efficiently, the land-owning Camorre nobles had long formed an alliance and adopted various means to seize the land of the free people or to transform the free people from farmers into cotton farmers.
But large-scale cotton cultivation does not require so many farmers. At least outside the picking season, the nobles do not need to support these guys who are particularly greedy and fertile. So... these farmers, who once believed in the "hard work leads to wealth" doctrine of the goddess of prosperity like the nobles and had diligently cultivated the land for thousands of years, suddenly became residents of the town and became "free weavers."
"——This place hasn't changed much either."
Standing in front of the area where the "free weavers" lived, Yang Qiu, who had passed by this place more than a hundred years ago, shook his head.
Compared to the life of a craftsman who had to work in the fields, pick cotton for the nobles during the picking season, and receive cotton cloth from the nobles' stewards at other times, it was obviously a little easier.
But whether it is true freedom...that depends on one's opinion.
I can only say that compared to the old European way of exploitation where workers were put into factories and turned into corpses in just three years, these "free weavers" in Kamoer are better off...
"Anyway... let's find some people who can do the job first."
Yang Qiu looked around, selected a target, and walked straight over...
In the slums, in front of a tall building that stood out from the crowd and had a wine glass sign hanging in front of the door, several sturdy men with fierce looks were squatting under the steps gambling with dice.
Yang Qiu walked around these people, stepped onto the stairs and entered the big house.
This big house is obviously not an ordinary bar... Apart from the counter, the wine table, and the wine barrels that fill the walls, there is also a long gambling table with many people around it.
Gamblers are a rare group that is even noisier than players. Yang Qiu stood on the first floor for a while and then went up the stairs to the second floor.
There are many private rooms on the second floor. From some of them, the shouts of gamblers can be heard, while from others, the passionate flirting of men and women can be heard.
Yang Qiu listened at the door of each private room. When he passed one of them, he heard a man's suppressed angry scolding coming from inside.
Yang Qiu paused, pushed the door open, and then closed it casually.
There were quite a few people in the private room. Several middle-aged men dressed as respectably as the pedestrians on the street were sitting behind a coffee table with wine bottles and glasses on it. There were also several people who looked like thugs standing casually in the corners of the room.
The door was suddenly opened and then suddenly closed, causing everyone in the room to stop talking.
A thug near the door came over in confusion, opened the door and checked outside the corridor, then locked the door again. He turned to his boss and shook his head, indicating that there were no suspicious people.
So the several middle-aged men who looked respectable sitting on the sofa continued their conversation ...
Yang Qiu stood by patiently and listened quietly for about ten minutes.
Then… he suddenly appeared, grabbed the hair of a middle-aged man with a ruddy face and a handsome appearance, and slammed the man's face against the coffee table…
“Who is it?!”
"stop!"
The other people who were also sitting on the sofa were all horrified and hastily stepped back. However, the brainless thugs didn't think much and rushed forward to subdue Yang Qiu.
Yang Qiu ignored them and cast a subspace barrier over the entire room, restricting the movements of everyone in the room. He then pulled out a metal rod and carefully and intently smashed the bones of the man's hands from the elbow down...
As everyone in the room stared in amazement, Yang Qiu helped the man who had fainted from the pain to lie flat on the sofa. He then stood up straight, looked at the stunned crowd, and nodded politely: "Good day, gentlemen."
A fat man who looked somewhat similar to the man whose hands were crippled wanted to raise his hands to accuse Yang Qiu of his atrocities, but unfortunately he couldn't do it. He kept looking sideways at his cousin, suppressing his anger and fear and trembling as he spoke: "Who are you, why did you cripple my brother?!"
"Nice to meet you, you can call me Yang." Yang Qiu nodded slightly to the fat man.
"I ask you why you want to destroy my brother!!" The fat man was so angry that his fat was shaking.
"Of course it's because of this gentleman's accusation." Yang Qiu raised his hand and pointed at another well-dressed man. "This gentleman accused your brother of deceiving their underage sister and causing her to become pregnant. Isn't this the reason why you are here to discuss this matter?"
The gentlemen and thugs present all rolled their eyes and looked in horror at the man Yang Qiu pointed out.
This old man also had a look of confusion on his face... Although he was very happy to see his enemy being destroyed, he really didn't know Yang Qiu.
Yang Qiu had no intention of trying to establish a relationship with this man, and said calmly: "I don't know this gentleman, nor do I know any of you, but my personal rule is... if I encounter any scum who attacks a boy or girl, it is necessary to break his hands or legs depending on the severity of the consequences of his behavior to ensure that this kind of person will find it difficult to commit crimes again."
Everyone: “???”
"Generally speaking, I would choose to do it in front of the prisoner's immediate family to ensure sufficient deterrent effect. This time it's been too long since I last took action, so I was a little impulsive," Yang Qiu added.
“Ah——!” The fat man whose family was quite powerful in the lower and middle classes of Camor suddenly screamed in shock, “You, you—could you be the legendary nightmare butcher who broke into Sir Hans’s mansion and broke his hands and feet in public?!”
Yang Qiu's face immediately fell: "Be careful with your words, I have never acknowledged that title."
