Chapter 364 - 336 Watching the Movie

"Everyone thinks they’re unique, before going mad, everyone says that."

Jimmy’s voice had completely regained its strength, but the speed of his emotional fluctuations was a bit too fast.

Moreover, this excitement intensified with Lille’s operations:

The Cyber Modulator that Lille carried and the Super Dream Decoding Database were quite luxurious!

He could tell that it contained not only Vortex Gang’s integrated decoding database but also a military-grade sensory synchronization database!

To further enhance the experience, Lille had also used the fixed Super Dream chair that he normally used.

Adding to that, with the prosthetic on Lille’s body that closely resembled military technology from Si Anweisitan, the Super Dream reading experience was incredibly close to the recorder’s feelings!

Watching Lille sit in the chair, preparing to start the Super Dream, Jimmy was nearly drooling; he couldn’t wait to see what was about to happen!

David, who was beside him, was getting infected by Jimmy’s frenzy and even starting to sweat, while Man and the others looked visibly tense.

They had now understood some basic logic behind prosthetics — some physical reactions can’t be endured by mere willpower.

If your pain nerves conduct electricity, your brain will uncontrollably feel pain.

After all, human emotions are just a composite of chemical compounds and changes in electric currents.

Even if they believed Burger King was the biggest boss in the city, that didn’t mean he could simply oppose such reactions!

V and Jack exchanged glances, not understanding what there was to be nervous about.

The Super Dream Device started to operate.

Lille’s muscles suddenly began to twitch exaggeratedly!

The Super Dream, in order to replicate the protagonist’s experience, would directly stimulate the brain, and those with Si Anweisitan prosthetics, their bodies would also react accordingly!

Jimmy became increasingly excited: he couldn’t wait to see the famous Burger King shaking and wetting himself in the chair!

The atmosphere grew tenser, but...

What he imagined didn’t happen at all.

There was just a muscle twitch, and nothing else.

Honestly, the twitching of Lille’s muscles wasn’t even as intense as a cramp.

V suddenly asked, "How many people have these cyberpsychos in your films killed at most?"

Jimmy recited as if listing treasures: "The one with the most kills had 56, happened in the slums the year before last; the most exciting one killed 26 people!"

"That’s it?" V scratched his head.

"..."

Jimmy was already feeling edgy from not having seen the reactions he wanted from Lille, and V’s demeanor made him even more anxious. He instinctively wanted to retort.

But he suddenly couldn’t utter the words:

Taking into account combat difficulty, level of prosthetic enhancement, and other various data, the "main actor" in the disks, the most impressive one, supposedly killed 26 people.

That guy also had military-grade Si Anweisitan prosthetics, massacred 14 gang kids and 12 NCPD officers in the street, and was finally killed by the Terrorist Mobile Team.

But Burger King... it seems he crushed a James Norris with comparable combat capabilities at his debut.

Wait, one of the disks was that of James Norris!

Right! Those three guys, the outside world estimated they have each taken over 100 lives!

From the bottom to the top, these included Six Street Gang’s street goons, the elite thugs of the Tiger Claw Gang, Vortex Gang’s prosthetic maniacs, and corporate regular combat personnel, and even...

Even the Terrorist Mobile Team had suffered at their hands!

To be precise, they had even blown up armored Floating Cars!

They might have even fought Lizard Men.

His mind buzzing, Jimmy felt somewhat enlightened, but there was a feeling of blockage in his heart.

He switched angles to argue: "Madness isn’t quantified by the number of people killed; these disks include the entirety of the protagonist’s emotions, their pain, hatred, madness, and fervor all reaching extremes...

Emotions are complex, the suffering and repression of a lifetime explode in just a few short hours, like a burning flame.

In the Super Dream, you become that person; the fire will scald every single person indiscriminately, that’s why it’s thrilling."

After finishing, Jimmy took a breath, feeling that his explanation was quite artistic and that he had regained some ground.

V and Jack exchanged a glance, then said, "He... is special in that sense, by your definition; perhaps he’s non-flammable rubbish."

"I told you — all madmen think they are special!"

The two shrugged indifferently and started to hydrate with their drinks.

However, David and Man’s group had gained some new insights and became nervous once again.

And then...

Lille moved his hand!

He finally couldn’t control himself any longer!

Jimmy thought he was about to enjoy a good show, but saw Lille take out a Super Dream Disk, and quickly replaced it with another one.

After replacing it, he even frowned and muttered to himself: "A bit slow, speed it up."

Huh?

Jimmy’s head was buzzing.

He had just said that the outbreak of cyberpsychosis was like a brief and violent flame, but Lille actually wanted to make this outburst even more intense in his brain...

It was like fuel meant to burn for hours finishing in a few seconds; it wasn’t impossible, but the former is called burning, while the latter is called an explosion.

Forcing someone to watch Black Superdream was like roasting them over a fire, and Lille, it was as if he was saying:

These Black Superdreams are tasteless.

Jimmy’s mind finally cleared up a bit, and he strained to look at his console interface, where the screen showed that Lille wasn’t just speeding up.

He was also madly reversing back and forth, relishing certain key moments repeatedly—

Such abnormal behavior, could it be that Lille was nearing his limit?

Had he actually gone mad?

Jimmy consoled himself in his mind...

"Next one."

Lille changed the disk emotionlessly, without a ripple, and continued the repeated viewing mode.

His movements were just as calm and proficient, without even a tremor.

As Lille replaced one disk after another, Jimmy’s brain plunged into chaos.

"Ah, you really dare to bet, you brain-dead." V curled his lip, seeming rather annoyed that Lille was earning money so easily.

Jack chuckled, "We’ve all said it, he’s not like your actors."

...

[Evolution Heart: Strong stimulation from Super Dream Device eliminated]

Some people watch Super Dreams, their bodies trembling, limbs contorting, even frothing at the mouth and losing control of their bladder and bowels.

Some people watch Super Dreams as if they’re eating small bread rolls, and they eat both eagerly and rapidly.

Of course, it’s probably only Lille who treats it like eating small bread rolls.

Black Superdream indeed impacts the psyche powerfully, and as Jimmy said, human suffering can’t be quantified; it’s not about how many you kill or how many prosthetics you have, that doesn’t make the suffering greater.

A single original disk contains the full arc of a cyber mental illness sufferer from the onset of the disease and beginning to kill, to being lawfully dealt with by the Terrorist Mobile Team or being taken out by someone else.

The length varies, with a small portion exceeding two hours, but generally, the Terrorist Mobile Team manages to keep it within 30 minutes.

Their entire lives are utterly destroyed within a day or a few days; what’s left is the dregs that blaze into flames, scorching their souls, turning them into bombs, compelling them to vent the heat in all directions.

These unquantifiable emotions are recreated in the person experiencing the Super Dream, and with the editor’s manipulation, unnecessary distractions are filtered out, leaving behind the stimulation, magnifying it.

Ordinary nerves will feel the psychology of a madman, and they are permanently altered, becoming numb.

But for Lille, under his control, these scenes just flashed by like a rapid slideshow.

The intense emotions crowded together, changing from barely distinguishable to a complete, indescribable mess of emotional garbage. Indeed, a regular person would go mad.

Stimulating nerves to relive scenes, scenes intensify emotional reactions, and the emotions in turn deepen neural activity; this is a cyclic process.

For Lille, the whole chain does not hold, because he does not have intense emotional reactions to these scenes.

Lille’s fast forwarding wasn’t for enjoyment, it was purely after some comparisons, Lille knew that only the moments of most intense neural activity could give him some reference.

Each cyber mental illness case had a different cause and because they were equipped with different prosthetics, the neural changes varied slightly.

But since they all overclocked their prosthetics during an outbreak, this overclocking was regular, and while human thought would struggle to find a pattern in such situations, AI was adept at it.

The Super Dream Device tried to replicate the physical condition of a cyber mental illness on his body, these electrical stimulation requests all turned into data, which were recorded by Little Octopus—

Then a tentacle of Little Octopus scratched its head, and another gave Lille a scratch:

[Little Octopus: Big brother, how come you have no reaction at all?]

[Lille: What’s up? Should I have a reaction? Is the data incorrect?]

[Little Octopus: Not really, the data is correct... it’s just that you have no reaction whatsoever. ]

[Lille: Don’t worry about that, any progress?]

[Little Octopus: Uh, theoretically yes, but in practice, because you’re not quite human, I need to test it on others.]

[Lille: That means it’s settled.]

[Little Octopus: Big brother, are you hiding something from me? Are you not human?]

Out of increasing curiosity, Little Octopus started crawling on Lille—though it’s all programming, the process of data crawling really does resemble crawling over a body in Little Octopus’s new behavior pattern.

Lille, feeling the icy touch of tentacles on his head, his face darkening, grabbed it back into the core storage area.

[Little Octopus: Yikes! No!]

Ding—

The Cyber Modulator stopped outputting, Super Dream shut down, and Lille exited the last cyber mental illness sufferer’s world.

He looked towards Jimmy, who was dazed.

"Is that all?"

Jimmy numbly nodded—actually, there was more, but it was just junk originals given by others, which even he didn’t care for.

It was only greenhorns like David who enjoyed seeking thrills in those.

The real thrill was in those precious eleven original cyber mental illness disks.

Lille shook his head regretfully, "Then according to our bet, for each disk you endure, you have to pay me 10,000 euros, totaling 110,000.

I won’t ask where you’re getting them from, just send over any other disks—and don’t forget what I said."

[Transfer: +110,000 euros]

[Account balance: 120,000 euros]

110,000 was a minor issue to a worldview in tatters. After the sinister Black Superdream editor completed the transfer, he slumped into his chair, mind wandering—

His world seemed shattered, as if there truly were unique individuals.

Lille turned to the two bound mercenaries, "Now let’s discuss your matter."

Soviet mercenaries in Night City, Lille felt there might be more to this than meets the eye.