Life Game In Other World
Chapter 564: Everyone, I need a favor from you. (Super long Chapter, asking for monthly passes)

Chapter 564: Chapter 564: Everyone, I need a favor from you. (Super long Chapter, asking for monthly passes)

The twisted, mad state instantly engulfed He Ao’s entire sea of consciousness.

He Ao calmed his consciousness, emptied his mind, and then reached out to touch the insane consciousness coming from Jess’s body.

The Secret Medicines Jess obtained from F-level to D-level all came from the Mysterious Person, who added some unknown ingredients to these medicines and did not tell Jess that he needed to fully master the power of the Talent Sequences before moving on to the next level.

From Jess’s memories, it seemed that the Mysterious Person was even intentionally prompting Jess to advance before he had fully mastered his powers.

This led to each of Jess’s promotions planting hidden dangers— the farther he went, the greater the tendency towards madness, and the Secret Medicines from the Mysterious Person seemed to contain some substance that could enhance inspiration.

From the arcane knowledge that He Ao understood, the more one tended towards madness, the higher the sensitivity to the mystic world was and the higher the insight, although He Ao did not know the principle behind it.

But every time Jess was dominated by madness, and with the influence of the substances that enhanced inspiration in the Secret Medicine, Jess’s insight would rise to a terrifying extent.

Many problems that were impossible to grasp in a rational state would be divinely resolved as if by Grace.

Although Jess felt many times upon reflection that his behavior in a state of madness was unreasonable, beyond common sense.

But Jess, who was in the grip of madness, only felt the joy of having glimpsed the Truth of the world.

It seemed as if a Divine Being was revealing the essence of the world to him, hand in hand.

In that state, the whole person would be in a trance and excited, prying into the unknowable, prying into the unthinkable. All the secrets seemed to have nowhere to hide, and all difficulties would be easily resolved.

Divine whispers in the ear, space and time unfolding before the eyes.

The world is exactly so, the world should be so.

Now, it was He Ao’s turn to experience this feeling.

However, unlike the storm and waves of madness in Jess’s memories, where he drifted along like flotsam, He Ao stood at the very center of this mad whirlwind, like a reef standing tall for a thousand years, immovable.

There were actually very few of Jess’s memories from his times of madness; he could only clearly remember roughly what he had done and recall the feeling, but not the specifics of what had happened.

Memories of madness were like a dream that would fade and disappear like slowly drying droplets when one woke.

He Ao raised his head and looked around.

At this moment, his ears were filled with chaotic, background-noise-like murmurs, similar to the murmurs heard when Super Memory was activated, but more jumbled and contaminating to the spirit.

The scenery within his field of vision also began showing bizarre changes, mysterious, twisted lines rippled throughout the space.

These lines were full of vast temptations, as if they were the very essence of this world. Gazing at them, He Ao felt his body becoming restless, his flesh beginning to squirm imperceptibly out of his control.

His body was trying to unfold into a form suited to this unknowable essence.

In He Ao’s consciousness, this seemed acceptable, as if it were only natural.

But he still shifted his gaze away from these twisted lines, focusing on the patterns around him.

Although his perception was affected to some extent, He Ao’s rationale persisted; he was well aware that such ’alignment with the essence of the world’ was nothing but absolute madness, a transformation into a monster.

His current state was like having a lucid dream, where his logic was the logic of the dream, yet he was acutely aware that he was dreaming.

In theory, under such a degree of confusion of consciousness, Jess should have already transformed into a mad monster since he did not possess He Ao’s strong resistance to contamination.

Indeed, it was the case, but Jess had something else that served as the anchor of his humanity and last piece of rationality which was his hatred towards the Mysterious Person.

It was unknown whether this anchor point was intentionally left by the Mysterious Person or was an unintended consequence.

Behind these two scenarios lay indications of how much the Mysterious Person understood arcane knowledge.

After all, strong emotions or obsessions can act as anchor points for one’s reason and humanity in the midst of madness, a concept He Ao analyzed after accepting Jess’s memories.

Nothing related was found in the arcane knowledge he had learned before.

Before this, he had always believed that ordinary people, once mired in cognitive errors or contamination, would inevitably fall into madness.

Jess’s situation proved that even those stepping into madness might still have ways to maintain their humanity and self-cognition.

This might be knowledge that could only be understood at a deeper, higher level.

However, He Ao had no time to delve further into this issue at the moment; the purple lines that covered the walls, floor, and ceiling caught his eye, swiftly coming together in his mind.

His mind was like a circuit that had been reconnected after a fracture, all knowledge now flowed without obstruction.

Just now, when he looked at these patterns, he had to carefully analyze the function of each part of the pattern and deconstruct it as a huge Array. But at this moment, looking at these patterns was like solving a child’s math problem, with answers naturally appearing in his mind without the need for analysis.

At the same time, He Ao also felt that in this state, his Soul Power was rapidly depleting.

This ’inspiration’ gained while peering into the essence of madness doesn’t come without a cost—it greatly overdraws the soul.

And the weaker the soul, the higher the likelihood of it being devoured by madness.

To be precise, the causality here should be that the erosion of madness enabled Jess to see things that normally couldn’t be seen, which in turn accelerated the depletion of Jess’s soul, further hastening the progress of his madness.

This powerful ’inspiration’ is just a byproduct of the invasion of madness.

This inspiration was uncontrollable for Jess. He could only try to maintain his last vestiges of sanity with hatred and obsession, but he couldn’t control the pace of his descent into madness, nor did he know when he would awaken from it.

However, He Ao still had some resistance to madness, and this level of insanity was not enough to erode his reason.

Therefore, he could freely choose to release or suppress the state of madness, turning the ’inspiration’ that came with it into an active skill.

Of course, standing on the border between madness and sanity, he wouldn’t experience the same high level of inspiration as Jess did when fully engulfed by insanity, but for He Ao at the moment, it was enough.

Before this, He Ao had other Copy World characters that had fallen into madness.

For example, his novice Copy World character Yezola was an Evil God Priest who had completely succumbed to madness. In previous instances when seeking help from friends, he had weathered the corrupting blows, but none of those Copy World characters showed such terrifyingly heightened inspiration.

Jess probably had other special characteristics.

He Ao raised his ax and placed it on the patterns in front of the door, flickering with purple brilliance.

At this moment, without any need for analysis or understanding, he could comprehend the function of these Array structures, knowing the use of every single line.

The Array on this door was separate from those on the walls and floor; the soul it absorbed was only used to maintain the integrity of this door.

It was probably designed this way to prevent the opening and closing of the door from damaging the Array.

While there were intricate patterns on the door connecting with the overall Array, in reality, only a few pathways played a key role in communication.

He Ao monitored these Arrays’ operational pathways, raised the bone ax in his hand, and chopped into the edge of the stone door, severing a purple line that linked the door and the wall on the left.

The originally powerful and indestructible purple patterns, which remained intact even after several fierce blows from Arent, were easily cut off by him.

Then, he raised the ax again, carefully severing several other connecting patterns between the door and the walls.

As the last pattern was cut off, the entire giant stone door trembled, and its brilliance dimmed significantly.

Then He Ao lifted his ax, striking at the center of the stone door, severing two closely joined lines.

Boom——

Accompanying a violent tremor, the stone door, which had just been battered by Arent and was full of cracks but still remained un-deformed, suddenly collapsed, with scattered stones falling like a violent rain.

A huge cloud of dust rose, and He Ao’s figure passed through these broken stones, stepping through the door.

And then he stopped in his tracks.

Behind the hazy dust, a dazzling array like a dense and meticulously ordered spider web covered the entire space.

These patterns, like stars in the night sky, continuously flickered with purple light, illuminating the space as bright as daytime even without any lamps.

He Ao looked around, observing that in this space connecting two floors, apart from the surrounding walls, there were no pillars— it was as empty as a Giant Dragon’s cave.

Then, He Ao focused on these flickering lights; realizing something, he activated his Super Memory to look around.

Dense Shadows spread down from the ceiling of this space, blending into the vast area and into those flickering purple patterns.

The entire space was one gigantic Array, one that was in continuous operation.

And those Shadows most likely came from the mental patients on the floor above; the sixth floor above this space housed those patients who seemed to have already lost their sense of self, and on the ninth to thirteenth floors above, there were even more ’mental patients’.

The nurse had said that the mental patients on the sixth floor were dangerous.

But considering the state of those patients and the secret thoughts that had been invading He Ao since he entered the building,

the sixth floor might not be housing dangerous patients but rather those who had been completely transformed into suitable ’Sacrifice’.

As for whose "feed" it is.

He Ao’s gaze fell on those flickering arrays.

The answer was self-evident.

The hidden entity, dormant within, seemed to be trying to assimilate the consciousness of everyone in the psychiatric hospital.

Just as Arent had said, this psychiatric hospital was a giant cultivation farm, and the people living inside were "livestock."

Not fully mature livestock resided on the higher floors, while those that had fully matured were moved downwards, confined on the sixth floor to become "feed."

At this moment, He Ao was able to clearly discern the operational structure of these arrays to the greatest extent.

Whether it was the Gene Potion or the arrays created by Jess’s father, their purpose was only one.

That was to simulate and attempt to replace the ritual used to acquire power in the mystical knowledge.

And all rituals involved equivalent exchange.

To gain power, one had to give something in return.

From what He Ao observed, those who had taken the Gene Potion, after death, all invariably surrendered their life and soul, and the price they had to pay was most likely even more.

After all, the life and soul of an ordinary person were not enough to exchange for C-level powers.

But no matter what, that was the Gene Potion, which required living users who could naturally make some sacrifices.

The array before He Ao, however, was lifeless and could operate on its own. This array couldn’t just conjure up a price out of thin air, and without a price, there could be no Grace.

Therefore, someone needed to serve as the "price."

And these "patients" living in the psychiatric hospital were the "price" prepared for the Sacrifice.

He Ao slowly stepped forward, watching these flickering arrays.

In his observation, this array seemed not fully completed, with obvious defects.

Because in the original mystical knowledge, the conductor of the ritual had to be highly involved in it to receive the Graceful power.

The array and the Gene Potion were both simplified rituals, both requiring an operator, and that person was the final beneficiary.

For the Gene Potion, it was the person who took it.

This array, however, was strange.

It was set to operate naturally. The psychiatric patients were used as the price to obtain the Grace; they were highly involved in the operation of the array, but they were not the true beneficiaries.

He Ao was quick. He crossed the entire space in an extremely short time and arrived at the innermost part of the space.

There, stood a stone platform with purple patterns covering it, and on the platform lay a wooden box, a little over one meter in length, similarly engraved with dense purple patterns.

Although Jess’s memories did not include those patterns that seemed to be created by Jess’s father, they did contain memories related to this wooden box.

It was a time when Jess had gone to his father’s lab for some materials and saw this box placed on his father’s desk.

At that time, the box emitted a vague allure, drawing Jess to touch it, unaware of what it was.

Later, after learning some mystical knowledge, he realized that this box might be made of some Transcendent wood.

He had not touched the box then, as his father, who had hurried back, stopped him.

He had also asked his father what it was, to which his father replied that it was just ’a box left here by a friend.’

After that, Jess never saw the box again.

He once treated it as an important clue for investigating his father’s accidental death but ultimately found no leads.

He Ao had not expected to see this box here again.

The array engraved on this box had only one function, to represent the conductor of the ritual and the beneficiary of the ritual.

In other words, this space, this psychiatric hospital, was all in service to this wooden box.

Jess had never considered that the beneficiary of a ritual could be an inanimate object because he hadn’t solved the problem that the beneficiary must be the conductor of the ritual, the main participant.

How could an inanimate object lead a ritual?

Yet Jess’s father’s Array seemed to have solved this problem, but only halfway.

From this wooden box and the patterns around it, Jess’s father had constructed an Array structure that simulated the conductor of a ritual with an inanimate object.

But Jess’s father hadn’t solved another problem: that the conductor of the ritual must be its main participant.

In fact, this was also the position of the one who paid the price, which had to be a living being.

And that was the flaw in this giant Array; at the edge of the Array, there were some ’patches’ that were clearly weaker than the original Array’s structure.

These ’patches’ transferred the price that should’ve been paid by the ritual conductor onto those ’patients’ in the mental hospital, allowing the wooden box at the conductor’s position to receive the ’Grace.’

But this patch didn’t solve all the problems.

He Ao reached out and touched the wooden box, the allure that had once attracted Jess had completely dissipated, leaving only densely packed, constantly flickering patterns.

This wooden box was indeed just a box, and inside the box was what had accumulated over the past decade or so, the ’Grace’ amassed by the large Array.

But this Grace couldn’t be taken out.

Because the Array wasn’t complete.

To sacrifice others, to gain power without paying any price oneself, this patched-up Array couldn’t do that.

The item inside the box was likely connected to that hidden entity.

The cultivation system of the mental hospital called ’the breeding ground’ must also be part of this patch on the Array, and the encroachment of that hidden entity was actually trying to make the price converge with the ’beneficiary’ inside the box.

It was attempting to disguise the price as the beneficiary to fulfill the conditions for conducting the ritual.

This method was successful, but only halfway.

He Ao let his Divine Sense spread through his fingertips into the wooden box, where he sensed a violent and powerful energy surging like volcanic lava.

The moment He Ao tried to open this wooden box, that powerful energy would burst forth, destroying everything nearby.

This proved that the Array had taken effect, and the item inside the wooden box had indeed obtained great power.

But this power was uncontrollable.

Theoretically, these energies would explode the moment they entered the wooden box, unable to be retained, but the creator of the Array used a clever method to maintain the energy’s stability.

The Array on the surface of the wooden box flickered, serving both as a marker for the wooden box as the ritual conductor and as a complete Ritual Array.

This ingenious design kept the energy within the wooden box under the impression that the ritual wasn’t over yet and was still ongoing.

This Array maintained the energy’s stability within the wooden box, ensuring this power wouldn’t explode immediately, but it also couldn’t utilize this power.

Unless someone could complete the Array’s defects, complete the ritual, and let these energies naturally pour into the wooden box.

He Ao gazed at the wooden box, thinking that he should take it with him right away.

Taking the wooden box meant that the vast Array would lose its conductor, and it would collapse immediately.

Taking the wooden box would put an end to the cruel ritual here.

He Ao turned to glance at the collapsed gate fragments and the Shadow emerging from beneath the floor, pulling himself back from the brink of madness.

After contemplating for a moment, he dashed out of the hall and jumped into the elevator shaft.

At that moment, the elevator was at the basement level.

He Ao hung in front of the first-floor elevator doors, pried open the doors, and burst out.

He saw again those patients and nurses in the lobby on the first floor.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I need your help with something,"

he said, eyeing those people.