Chapter 813: Consciousness Pollution, Setting Things Right and Restoring the Original Source

Just as Xia Duo was about to launch a surprise attack in the manner of a Drow, he suddenly heard a voice from the void constantly issuing him a warning, telling him not to do so, though he did not know if it was an illusion.

Discovering the anomaly, Xia Duo became alert immediately; regardless of whether such a voice truly existed, it seemed that now was no longer the best time to launch a surprise attack.

Silently exiting Genite's Study, Xia Duo stopped in a patch of shadow in the courtyard outside; after calming down, he gradually realized where the problem lay.

It was likely the aftereffects left by that previous immersive experience of "Brandon's" memories, which allowed him to adapt to the Drow's way of thinking and conduct with almost no effort.

Perhaps his Conscious Mind still reminded him from time to time that he was Xia Duo, not Brandon, but the influence on his Subconscious was difficult to eliminate.

Consequently, when thinking of practicing, he chose to do so in the Drow way at the first instance, and his Conscious Mind did not even detect the slightest abnormality, simply assuming it was his own idea.

It was not until just before he acted that he realized with a start that perhaps it was his Subconscious in the void, unwilling to be polluted by the outside world!

After figuring this out, Xia Duo could not help but sigh; this Projection trip was truly full of unexpected incidents—first suffering in the Light Prison, then the perverted eye-straining sights, and now this Subconscious pollution; he wondered if any other unexpected situations would appear later!

However, the most urgent matter now was not so-called practicing, but resolving the issues with his consciousness as quickly as possible; thinking of this, Xia Duo immediately left the Genite Library without looking back.

Afterward, he retreated all the way until he was far from Domutos City, where he found a hidden location and entered his Personal Space.

If he did not want to leave this Projection Plane, only in his Personal Space could he avoid the influence brought by this Drow body to the greatest extent.

As for the existing consciousness pollution, Xia Duo was not without a plan.

This so-called pollution was nothing more than a large amount of information intermingling to organize certain specific thinking and behavioral logic; as long as he could clarify the root of it and trace back to his original self-cognition, he could very well avoid this pollution.

And this was exactly what Xia Duo excelled at.

With the Memory Retrospection ability, he could restore his thoughts and ideas from every moment in the past to the maximum extent, and for any bit of external information, he could "keep a record," without worrying about receiving unknown influences at any given time.

It was just that this ability had to be used frequently; it was like a computer backup on Earth—a time Node could only prove that it was safe before that time; if he wanted to back up again (confirm safety) later, he would need to re-examine the situation between the last backup and the current one.

Of course, a person's consciousness is always receiving the influence of external information at every moment, existing in a relatively stable, dynamic equilibrium state as a whole.

This state can be understood as a person's 【Personality】, or 【Mental Model】.

If the Soul is the hardware, then the Personality is likely the software running on this hardware.

Compared to the Soul, Xia Duo felt that the Personality could better represent a person's self.

……

Of course, since Personality is a relatively stable and dynamically balanced state of consciousness, Xia Duo did not actually reject changes to his Personality.

It was just that these changes had to be changes confirmed by his past Personality; if they were changes that had not been confirmed and accepted, they could only be classified as external pollution.

The saying "I examine myself three times a day" from the ancients of his hometown actually carried this meaning.

Once a person has cultivated a set of values they are relatively satisfied with, they will continue to operate in this mode in the future; but to continue operating stably, one must constantly introspect and maintain this mode.

Calling it change is actually less appropriate than calling it 【Autonomous Upgrade】.

Xia Duo was naturally relatively satisfied with his previous Personality state, and what was happening now was clearly not a so-called 【Autonomous Upgrade】.

Therefore, after realizing that the Drow memories had caused a considerable impact on him, he immediately abandoned his original plan and turned to self-introspection.

The self is the top priority; this concerns the question of whether a person is still themselves; all other problems are built on the foundation of "I am me."

If "I" become "not-I," then what meaning does everything else have!

……

In the hidden location, Xia Duo maintained the state where his Personal Space overlapped with the Projection Plane, effectively being in both the Personal Space and the Projection Plane simultaneously.

And for Memory Retrospection, as long as he could maintain the state of being in his Personal Space, it was enough to exclude the interference brought by the Projection body.

And not long before entering this Projection Plane, Xia Duo had just performed a full Memory Retrospection; of course, it was his first time, so it could be considered saving a Personality "backup."

His current retrospection started from that "backup."

During the time before entering the Projection Plane, there were no abnormalities, until he projected as the Drow "Brandon," and a large amount of external information continuously flooded into his memory, impacting his consciousness.

Retrospecting the past again, starting from the "backed up" Personality, Xia Duo re-examined it almost bit by bit, and soon he discovered how this information changed his Personality little by little.

In layman's terms, some information was automatically marked as "trusted files" by his Subconscious; as these "trusted files" accumulated, they automatically combined into something similar to a "virus"—that is, a thinking and behavioral mode that was different from his normal Personality and caused interference to it; to put it more bluntly, it was the "Brandon Personality."

And now, what Xia Duo had to do was to temporarily ignore the automatic judgments made by his Subconscious in the past and use his past "backup Personality" to perform active judgments again.

All of this was very time-consuming and laborious, almost no less than re-experiencing everything after entering the Projection Plane, and it was the kind that went into every detail, including all information from the perspective of all perceptions, including normal five senses, the Magic Net, and even intuition.

And among this, the most difficult part was not the life-worse-than-death experience in the Light Prison, but the time he spent immersively experiencing Brandon's memories.

Although the time passed in the Projection Plane was very short, and even negligible compared to the Main Plane, in Xia Duo's consciousness, he had experienced nearly hundreds of years of time.

During these hundreds of years, all information from Brandon's normal five senses, the Magic Net, and even intuition was received by him in its entirety.

With a large amount of information piling up, even with a conscious self-protection mechanism, it was difficult not to cause adverse effects on his consciousness.

Or rather, that Xia Duo was not assimilated into "Brandon" was already a miracle!

Perhaps it was because his experiences on Earth were too rich, or perhaps it was the new Soul State after his last Bloodline Awakening that played a positive role in stabilizing his consciousness.

But regardless, he was now going to set things right and restore the original source!