Chapter 1854: Breaking Defense, Analysis

After seeing Xia Duo appear, the originally unfocused eyes of Gulite instantly became sharp. He glared at Xia Duo, and a string of vicious words that should never have emerged from an Elf's mouth poured out all at once.

Without a doubt, before Xia Duo had even begun the formal interrogation, he had obtained his first piece of intelligence—this guy was involved with the Drow, or at the very least had spent some time in the Underdark; otherwise, how could he curse so fluently!

Xia Duo watched the other party with interest, as if the person currently cursing him wildly was not him at all. His calm, almost spectator-like attitude only further infuriated the other party.

All sorts of unspeakable remarks emerged from the other party's mouth once again.

Even though Xia Duo did not actually care about the wailing of a loser, listening to those elaborate curses still stirred up his temper, and he couldn't help but snort coldly, "Mere glibness!"

The truly difficult interrogation subjects are not the prisoners who keep shouting and cursing, but the prisoners who remain silent and say nothing at all.

Now that the other party was willing to speak, Xia Duo had no reason to be unhappy, but if he just kept cursing without providing any new information, that would not do.

However, he could "Chong Zhi Shi Jian" at any time; as long as the content didn't repeat, he could keep listening, just as if he were learning some mockery techniques.

Although Xia Duo had previously disguised himself as a Drow, there were not many opportunities that truly required him to curse out loud, and he had experienced very few.

The so-called experience is actually that the Drow language itself carries all kinds of insulting connotations; learning the Drow language (a variant of Elvish) is basically equivalent to possessing a basic Ziliaoku of mocking terms.

And this Gold Elf named "Gulite" before him was impressive in that he could use Elvish throughout to express a mocking effect no less than that of the Drow language, and perhaps even better.

If a real Elf had come to conduct the interrogation, they would likely have wasted their first few reset opportunities on this.

However, as time passed bit by bit, even though the various curses had not yet repeated, Gulite also realized the simple truth that saying too much leads to mistakes, so he just stared fiercely at Xia Duo and stopped cursing.

"Why stop cursing? You were quite spirited just a moment ago!"

When it was Xia Duo's turn, he didn't do anything else; he simply took the content Gulite had cursed with earlier, changed the target, and repeated it back.

Without a doubt, upon hearing the endless stream of curses coming from Xia Duo's mouth that were almost identical to his own just moments before, Gulite instantly broke down. Although he maintained a final shred of reason, he was panting heavily through his nostrils.

Seeing this, Xia Duo added fuel to the fire. Since he could "Chong Zhi Shi Jian" anyway, he didn't care about revealing his trump cards casually, "With just this bit of ability, you want to plot against the Crown King?"

Having at least studied while disguised as a Drow, Xia Duo's basic acting skills were quite decent. Although his heart was calm, he performed an expression of utter disdain very vividly.

"What do you know! If it weren't for—"

Gulite had only just said one sentence when he immediately realized he had been played. At the same time, he quickly calmed down, looked at Xia Duo coldly, and said nothing.

For Xia Duo, even a single sentence was enough to deduce many things. Without a doubt, the other party indeed had thoughts of plotting against the Crown King.

It was highly likely to be Crown King Wuweilun, and not just a raid to rob the library.

"Heh, you're finished, you're all finished!"

Xia Duo knew that if he continued to provoke him, he might be able to ask for something more, but now that the other party was on guard, it would be a waste of time. Moreover, one of his major purposes for being so urgent with the interrogation was to see what the specific process of "Time Loop" was like.

Identify speculated that it might be destroying the current "Projection of a Projection" and creating a new one, but what the actual situation was remained to be seen. Additionally, the most critical creation process also needed further investigation.

……

Next, Xia Duo withdrew his Perception without hesitation and cast 【Identify】 again. This time, he was not just simulating various usage effects on the static Magic Artifact, but focusing on the various feedbacks from the Magic Artifact during its use to the Identify sandbox.

This would further reveal to him the essence of this Consciousness Cage.

As the simulation sandbox construction was completed, Xia Duo additionally cast a Scrying spell, combining the special Domain of Magic Net control from the Xilin avatar, striving to Huanyuan the entire process from the most precise and comprehensive perspective.

Only then did he activate the reset function of the Consciousness Cage. In an instant, Xia Duo noticed that the glimmer representing Gulite's bit of Reality essence dimmed suddenly, and it failed to recover afterward.

It seems this consciousness Projection is not infinitely divisible!

But Xia Duo still couldn't see through the process of this reset; it was as if everything was wrapped in a black box, and he only knew the initial state and the end state.

As for the process in between, relying solely on the data from one reset process was not enough to accurately Huanyuan it; he might even need several attempts to Huanyuan it, and Xia Duo had no confidence in his heart.

After thinking about it, he decided to continue the verification. Waiting for a short while, he chose to enter the illusion within the Consciousness Cage at the same interval as before.

And he maintained exactly the same operations as before—

Transforming into Asuosi to appear before Gulite, then waiting for the other party's reaction.

As expected, the other party still chose to curse, but unexpectedly—the content of Gulite's cursing was exactly the same as before!

Gulite had no way of knowing what his other Consciousness Copy had experienced; everything was just the other party's instinctive reaction.

If it were someone else, they might not think there was anything wrong, but Xia Duo believed in the existence of free will. That is to say, even when facing the exact same scene, the reactions made by free will might be different.

If Gulite's initial cursing could be considered some kind of macro-inevitable reaction of free will, then if every subsequent curse, which was almost never repeated, was exactly the same as the previous "Time Loop," Xia Duo found it hard to believe that free will was at play here.

In other words, with all variables removed, the other party was nothing more than an artificial intelligence built from various memories and thought patterns!

It was similar to the Tower Spirit that Xia Duo created on the Main Plane.

It's just that when Netherese Mages create Tower Spirits, they deliberately erase part of the consciousness from the source of the spell cast; the Tower Spirit is not a complete Consciousness Copy of the Spellcaster.

But Gulite's was!

Only then did Xia Duo finally understand where the part he had vaguely felt was wrong lay—he had always ignored the existence of the self, assuming that the Consciousness Copy possessed a self, and that imprisoning the Consciousness Copy was equivalent to imprisoning the self.

But in reality, soul-consciousness-self are existences of completely different levels; the self is closer to a concept rather than something that actually exists.

Consciousness, like will, is an attribute of the soul. Through them, one can influence the self, but not in the Projection Plane—at least with Xia Duo's ability, he could completely allow the self to detach when this projection consciousness is imprisoned, thereby returning safely to the Main Plane.