Chapter 113: The Parasitic Demon

"Directly forcing something contrary to the other party's cognition into their brain is still too crude," Funes said. "But human thought is very ambiguous; it can be manipulated through certain methods."

"The true purpose of the Soul Seed lies in its ability to solidify a certain thought, keeping it at a high priority level in the mind."

"For example, when we sign a confidentiality agreement, we have a high degree of recognition for the agreement in our hearts. If you use the Soul Seed at this moment to implant the command 'abide by the confidentiality agreement' into our minds, most people will not feel anything abnormal."

"And from then on, this agreement to abide by the confidentiality agreement will become the highest-priority guiding element whenever this matter is involved."

"Perhaps some people with very strong self-awareness will find that they value the confidentiality agreement excessively, but most of them can also find reasons to convince themselves, such as through penalty clauses."

"And even if a very small number of them discover that they are forced to abide by the agreement, because the agreement has termination conditions, he or she will be able to get rid of the constraints of this agreement one day, without giving up hope and walking down a dead end like personality fragmentation."

"Therefore, we believe that by using the second method, especially by using some relatively fair agreements as commands, we can ensure that the Soul Seed takes effect safely."

Murphy pondered. Compared to the first method, this application method was actually closer to the Thought Steel Brand or magical oaths in Murphy's cognition.

The first method, however, was more in line with its name "Soul Seed" or its spell "Slave Mark."

Although this seemed to weaken the effect of the Soul Seed, in fact, it was more in line with his original purpose for wanting to possess this spell.

He hadn't intended to rely on a spell to rule the world from the beginning.

When he asked Selica to find this spell, it was actually just to allow Muggles and the wizards who would participate in his research project in the future to keep secrets.

At that time, he had no choice but to use the Thorn Oath, but the Thorn Oath had major flaws—it required him to expend a portion of his magic power, and it was also difficult to effectively constrain wizards.

Now that he had the second method of the Soul Seed—let's just call it the Thought Steel Brand—he could ensure confidentiality through agreements.

Obviously, Funes also knew exactly what Murphy wanted to use the Soul Seed for, which was why he used the confidentiality agreement as an example.

However, there was still a problem here.

"Although the second method of the Soul Seed can ensure that one will not actively leak secrets, it has no defense against passive leaks. How should this point be solved?"

Upon hearing this, Funes and Omid Abbott looked at each other.

The two hesitated for a long while, and finally, as if they had made up their minds, Omid said: "Actually, there is also a passive constraint method to ensure that the command is executed."

"Do you still remember the plague bacillus in the village?"

"You mean..."

"Yes, we actually found the mechanism for the mutation of those germs. And we reproduced it in another organism."

"When we read Joachim's diary, we had a question, which was what exactly happened when Joachim used the Soul Seed on himself for the second time."

"Joachim used the Soul Seed on himself twice in total. The first time was to treat the villagers and prevent the plague from leaking out, and also to allow himself to hold on and not be defeated by the desperate reality."

"The second time was when he was also infected with the plague and was about to die. He used the Soul Seed on himself to make himself believe that 'the plague will not kill me'."

"Using two contradictory Soul Seeds might tear a person's spirit apart, but Joachim's two commands had a certain consistency, so they might not have caused too much contradiction, and even fusion occurred, so perhaps he didn't suffer too much damage from the spell the second time."

"However, just believing that 'the plague will not kill me' could not save him. This can be seen from the reality that he made the villagers believe they could be cured, but the villagers still died."

"But the spell took effect. He was not killed by the plague."

"This might be because, on one hand, the spell tampered with the definition of 'kill,' still considering the zombie and ghost-form Joachim as 'not killed.' On the other hand, the object of the spell's effect at that time was not just Joachim, but it also had an effect on the germs on him."

"The reason for the first factor might be that after Joachim used the Soul Seed for the first time, he made himself believe that he could cure the villagers. The power of this 'belief' formed an emotional core, making him ignore the deaths of those villagers and making him view the state of the villagers only as 'not yet cured'."

"The second factor might be because his command involved both himself and the plague, and his chaotic consciousness also treated the germs as a concrete enemy."

"In short, under the effect of the spell, the plague bacillus was screened."

"Those more lethal strains died off one after another, while the less toxic strains survived and learned to coexist with the zombified human body."

"Because they were the other party of the spell, they were continuously constrained by the spell. Perhaps it was also because of the fusion of Joachim's two Soul Seeds that they were given the command to 'cure the villagers and constrain the organisms from leaving the village'."

Murphy was a bit stunned. "That mysterious?"

Although Joachim had already written it mysteriously enough in his own diary, Omid's explanation was even more incredible.

"Of course, this process is just our rough guess, but what is certain is that the appearance of these germs that are controlled by the spell and can constrain the behavior of organisms is an accident."

"Joachim must have been in extreme despair at that time, and his spell condensed all his will. Therefore, its influence actually expanded to a level that ordinary spells could not affect at all, causing the germs to mutate."

"However, once the factors causing this mutation are determined, we might be able to replicate it."

"We did an experiment. We asked Professor Selica to release the Soul Seed on some yeast placed in a dish through a microscope, ordering them to only ferment the flour on one side dyed with red pigment, and not ferment the flour on the other side dyed with blue pigment."

"This command of course did not take effect," Omid said. "Because microorganisms cannot distinguish what is red and what is blue. They don't understand this command."

"Later we realized that the reason those plague bacilli could complete complex commands might be because of their symbiotic relationship with the human body."

"So we tried to do some experiments with certain symbiotic bacteria of gnomes, but none of them had any effect."

"Just when we were about to give up, epidemiologist Mr. Harada Toshisuke told us after reading the diary that Joachim might have developed a relatively rare secondary symptom after contracting the plague: meningitis."

"He said that the plague bacillus might have entered his cerebrospinal fluid through the lymphatic channels, affecting his sanity."

"We immediately realized that this might be the abnormality of that plague bacillus; it didn't just coexist with the human body, it even relied on the human brain to understand some things!"

"A bacterium actually used the brain of a higher animal to have the ability to recognize complex concepts!"

"This conjecture scared us to death!"

"Bacteria with consciousness! It's simply a parasitic demon!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 114 =====