Chapter 112: Two Ways

Funes Bachmann and Omid Abbott have been very happy recently.

The Director doesn't know where he got many magical creatures. Most of them have some simple intelligence, and some of them can even speak, and it's not the kind of speaking like a parrot, they are really expressing their thoughts.

What's more wonderful is that no one cares about the life or death of these non-human intelligent creatures.

Even Professor Selica, who had always regarded the two of them as perverts, had no expression on them taking gnomes for experiments.

Excellent experimental materials, an experimental environment without ethical constraints, and even they can get the help of magic!

Two scientists in the fields of consciousness and cognition finally had the opportunity to conduct more direct interference with their research objects. This made the two excited, and some experiments that were absolutely impossible to conduct were turned over by the two from the secret file cabinet.

For the past half year, the two have been immersed in the fun of discovery and exploration almost every day.

It wasn't until Murphy started slapping the table in front of them that they suddenly woke up.

Ah... right, the boss seems to want us to research the Soul Seed, not let us do basic research on consciousness and the brain!

It's over. Taking the money of the Party A father to do his own little scientific experiments...

If this is caught, won't he be beaten up?

Funes had a cold sweat of guilt. Fortunately, they didn't really forget the final goal of the research, but just went too far on some side quests.

"Di, Director, we have results, there are quite a few results."

"Okay." Murphy nodded, obviously not very convinced. "I'll just ask one most important question: Can I safely use the Soul Seed without worrying about its effect expanding unexpectedly?"

"Yes!" Funes said immediately.

"Hmm?" Murphy questioned.

"It's like this," Funes noticed Murphy's suspicion and immediately explained: "In the process of using the Soul Seed on intelligent creatures like gnomes, we discovered a phenomenon."

"The Soul Seed actually has two ways of use."

"In fact, our past understanding of the Soul Seed all belongs to the first way of use."

"What do you mean?" Murphy was successfully aroused interest.

"Our consciousness can be roughly divided into two thinking modes: emotion and logic."

"Cognition of things, the driving mode of thinking, the decision-making mode of behavior, etc., can all be divided by this dichotomy."

"In the emotional mode, cognition is more direct, thinking mode is simpler and subjective, and behavioral drive is very strong."

"In the rational mode, cognitive ability is more biased toward analysis, thinking mode is more complex and objective, and can process more information, but behavioral drive is relatively weak."

"The command form of the Soul Seed can also be realized through these two different ways."

"For example, in the first way, we can order a gnome to hate drinking water. Although the gnome knows that drinking water is necessary and will force itself to drink water to maintain life, out of inner disgust, it may drink water less and less, and find various reasons for itself to prove the correctness of not drinking water. Eventually, the gnome may die of thirst."

"In the second way, we can order the gnome not to drink water. In this case, the gnome's emotional path is smooth. It still hopes to drink water when it is thirsty, but its behavioral logic is blocked. It cannot do the thing of drinking water. Eventually, this gnome may go crazy because of this predicament, or even commit suicide."

"In the first way, we are actually implanting an unerasable and unavoidable high-priority concept into its emotional path."

"This way encounters less resistance, is easier to succeed, and the effect is very obvious, but its disadvantage is that this unerasable concept will gradually become the subject's emotional core."

"The subject will, after countless attempts to resist and digest this core but fail, treat this implanted concept as its deepest and most primitive emotional drive."

"This core will gradually accumulate all other emotions of the subject near it and brand them with its own mark, thereby becoming the top of the subject's emotions and controlling all the subject's emotional experiences."

"And because emotional experience is the

"It is like an incurable mental illness that will erode and assimilate a person's mind, eventually turning them into a fanatic of a certain concept."

This actually aligns quite well with Murphy's understanding of the Soul Seed magic.

The reason he dared not use the Soul Seed casually was precisely because he had seen this trend.

Fanatics are uncontrollable and untrustworthy. For example, if you cast a spell on someone to make them loyal to you, it's fine if they become a loyal sycophant.

But what if they decide that their master's friends aren't worthy of their great master and kill them all?

Fanatics have no reason to speak of, much like gamblers or certain fans whose brains have been hijacked; their behavior lacks logic and is therefore impossible to predict.

Fans often bring disrepute to their idols, and fanatic underlings will also bring endless trouble to their masters.

Murphy really didn't intend to recruit a bunch of lunatics.

Is being the director of an insane asylum fun?

Hmm... it actually seems quite fun...

However, this isn't Gotham. If I create an Arkham, what if some brain-dead person goes and presses the nuclear launch button?

Do I really want to reenact the story I wrote for the diary?

"What about the second method?"

"The second method involves setting a rule within the logical chain of the recipient."

"The effectiveness of this method is far inferior to the first. In fact, because the priority of logical and rational decision-making is lower than that of emotion and instinct, it is very likely to be resisted."

"However, it shares a commonality with the first method: the implanted rule is also indestructible and impossible to bypass. Any decision-making related to the rule must be approved by that rule before it can be executed."

"Its flaw is obvious: it is very likely to lead to cognitive dissonance. Wanting to do something but being unable to, or not wanting to do something but being forced to, will bring a person great frustration."

"When a person continuously suffers from this frustration, some will choose to compromise, recording it as a matter they must get used to, or even gradually internalizing it into their emotional core, accepting the rule from the outside in."

"But some people cannot accept this frustration, leading to symptoms like mental or personality fragmentation, severe depression, or even suicide due to the feeling of being unable to control their own life."

"That doesn't sound very good either," Murphy said. "Is the safe way to use the Soul Seed that you mentioned just this second method?"

"Yes, but using it requires a few small tricks."

(End of chapter)