Chapter 2397: The Battle of the Bats (Part 16)

"... That's how it is." Schiller stood at the front of the conference room, pointing to some words on the screen, "Dr. Holder mentioned in his paper that among 8,000 people surveyed, 70% described having had an imaginary friend with a very specific character setting, and 90% mentioned that they would imagine a voice to comfort themselves when they felt lost."

"That is indeed the case." A red-haired doctor sitting at the head of the table tapped the table lightly with a pen and said, "I think everyone here should have had similar experiences. We will imagine another self to comfort ourselves under various circumstances. This is actually a protective mechanism of the brain."

"Then the problem is not here." An old doctor with a gray beard said, "This young man named David, because of the special nature of his life experience, his childhood was inevitably more turbulent than others, which might have caused him a certain mental stimulation, which made his brain have to stimulate more self-protective mechanisms."

"But this is completely not up to the level of dissociative identity disorder." A female doctor wearing glasses pushed her glasses, looked at the medical record in her hand, and said, "I didn't see any accidents that might cause stimulation in David's known childhood experiences."

"That terrorist attack." A doctor prompted, "It definitely counts as a major trauma."

"But the time point is far later than the appearance of his childhood personality." A black doctor rubbed his chin and said, "This shows that before the terrorist attack, David's spirit was not stable, and the terrorist attack was just the last straw that broke the camel's back."

The old doctor sighed lightly, paused, and said, "We must separate all elements to correctly find the key."

All the doctors stopped looking at him. Obviously, many of the doctors here were once students under this old professor.

"Imaginary friends, dissociative identity disorder, terrorist attacks, superpower personalities—these are clearly four things."

Someone started taking notes, and the old professor continued, "Which of these four things are normal, which are abnormal, and whether there is a causal relationship between them—only by figuring out these two questions can we find the key to cracking David's mental world."

"I think so too." Schiller pointed to the screen again and said, "Before I started presiding over this consultation, I had already printed out the details about these four questions. Everyone can turn to page 6 of the consultation materials in their hands..."

The sound of turning pages made the room even quieter. Everyone looked at the materials very seriously and carefully. It wasn't until more than ten minutes later that there was movement.

"I think most people's argument is that imaginary friends are completely normal. Any association David had with people and objects during his childhood should not be classified into the pathological category." One of the doctors spoke up.

Everyone nodded, and then another doctor spoke, "David did not show very obvious characteristics of dissociative identity disorder during his childhood. He never claimed to anyone around him that he was another person, which shows that the pathological characteristics of dissociative identity disorder were not obvious at this time."

"But this does not mean that the disease progression of dissociative identity disorder has not started." The female doctor opposite him looked at the medical record and said, "I have done more research in this area. Many patients with dissociative identity disorder do not feel that they have split during the initial stage of personality splitting, so they will not tell anyone about their symptoms."

"But in fact, they have already started to have symptoms of auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, memory loss, loss of control of limbs, and even shock and coma."

"But we didn't see this in the investigation report."

"Some patients perform very inconspicuously until they get sick." The female doctor continued, "Especially in the process of transition from childhood to youth, they usually cannot accurately describe their symptoms because they have already endured great mental pressure, and they have no way to seek medical treatment because they do not have complete capacity for civil conduct."

"I support Serin's view." The black doctor thought and said, "David's dissociative identity disorder will not be caused by one stimulation. I guess his spirit was not very stable by nature. In the process of growing up, his parents did not pay enough attention to him, leading to failure to seek medical treatment in time, and it deteriorated to an uncontrollable point after the terrorist attack case."

"This argument is supported by the vast majority of people and is also the most likely situation." Schiller said, "Although having imaginary friends is a very normal thing, if the number is too large and the thinking is too frequent, leading to affecting normal thinking, perhaps it can also corroborate the argument that David's mental state was not stable since childhood."

"Can you contact his relatives?" Someone asked.

"Obviously not. His stepfather died in the terrorist attack case. Three years after he was sent to the Mutant Research Association, his mother also died of cancer, and his biological father did not participate in his growth process and knew nothing."

The doctors sighed one after another, but continued, "Then only the most critical question remains: the relationship between dissociative identity disorder and superpower personalities."

"There is a huge doubt here." The old professor proposed, "If he is a mutant and suffers from dissociative identity disorder, how can his mutant ability happen to be that the separated personalities have various superpowers? What is the probability of this?"

"Very small, professor." A male doctor pinched his eyebrows and said, "My research direction is biased toward social investigation. Facts have proved that the spirit of mutants is indeed less stable than ordinary people."

Schiller coughed heavily, the black doctor obviously showed an expression of dissatisfaction, and the male doctor who said this waved his hand and said, "Listen to me, this is not entirely their own problem. On the contrary, the reason why the spirit of most mutants is unstable is because the mutant abilities they possess will attract unkind eyes from people around them, which leads to them always living in displacement."

"Without a stable living environment, it is difficult to establish a stable personality, and it is difficult to have a stable mental state."

The male doctor continued to state his conclusion, "Under normal circumstances, an unstable mental state will lead to their mutant abilities getting out of control, which is also the culprit for many mutant disasters, so I have always opposed the strict Mutant Isolation Act, which will only lead to further deterioration of the situation."

"But regardless of whether the mental state is stable or not, the mental state of mutants has no effect on the type of their mutant abilities." The male doctor looked at the information in his hand and said, "If a mutant's ability is fire, then a mental breakdown will only make his fire ability out of control, igniting a large area, and will not make him suddenly become a mutant who controls ice."

"This is very reasonable." The male doctor nodded and said, "We, I mean the mutant abilities possessed by mutants, come from the X-gene. In the case that the X-gene does not change, the type and intensity of abilities usually do not change."

"Then it excludes the fact that David suddenly had the mutant ability to bestow various personalities with superpowers because he suffered from dissociative identity disorder. That is to say, this is a complete coincidence." The female doctor's tone revealed doubt, "It just so happens that there is a mutant whose ability is to bestow other personalities with superpowers, and he just happens to have an unstable mental state, just happens to suffer from dissociative identity disorder, and then it became what it is now."

"How can there be so many coincidences?" Someone immediately refuted her and said.

"I also think this is not a coincidence." The black doctor said, "As a mutant, I can be responsible for saying that there will not be any mutant whose mutant ability is to bestow his own other personalities with abilities. This does not conform to our long-term investigation of mutant abilities."

"I have also printed out the classification investigation data of mutant abilities. Everyone can turn the data to the back." Schiller said.

Everyone started to read the data again. This time, the time was a bit long because the data was too complicated. After people began to have research on mutants, countless experts in various subjects launched various studies. Just the classification of mutant abilities has several arguments.

Although Schiller has summarized several mainstream school classification methods quite concisely, it is still very long and complicated.

However, the people sitting here are not simple characters. Those who can be invited by Schiller to consult are naturally experts. They soon found the common points of abilities under these classification methods, that is, all mutant abilities are more inclined to directly influence themselves or the world.

If you want to achieve a certain purpose, such as the mutant ability derived from making a place hot or cold, it must be the shortest path within the limits of cosmic rules, such as directly lighting a fire or directly turning into ice, rather than giving a mutant the ability to turn into stones and mud, and let him build a stove.

This is also easy to understand. The X-gene is a gene, not an artificial intelligence. It cannot subjectively understand the extent to which humans have developed, and then formulate a certain way of ability expression based on evolution and development. It is relatively natural and primitive.

From this perspective, producing a mutant ability that bestows one's own split personalities with superpowers is not so scientific, because the X-gene obviously should not be able to understand what dissociative identity disorder is.

"Then assuming that bestowing one's own personalities with superpowers is not David's mutant ability, what is his mutant ability?" Schiller asked.

Everyone started to think, because this is obviously not a question that can be answered very simply. In the eyes of this group of experts, David's original ability might just be a mediocre answer like fire control or ice control, which cannot be accepted, because there is no clue to explain why such abilities can evolve into bestowing so many personalities with superpowers. This is illogical.

Everyone started a fierce discussion. Everyone put forward the possibilities they thought of, until the atmosphere in the whole room became hotter than a hot pot.

Schiller stood in front and listened quietly. He had some guesses about David's situation, but he still needed the inspiration of professionals.

And the wisdom of the crowd really lived up to its name. One of the conjectures attracted the attention of most people. The black doctor speculated based on a certain known mutant ability that Legion might be the possessor of some kind of mental ability.

Regardless of what this ability is specifically, it must be very powerful, and because of its nature, it will be interfered with by an unstable mental state, especially by dissociative identity disorder.

This coincides with Schiller's speculation. Schiller believes that David's mutant ability is very likely to be unimaginable, extremely strong mental power, and because of dissociative identity disorder, his mental power is divided into several parts, becoming the superpower of each personality. ===== CHAPTER 2398 =====