Life Game In Other World
Chapter 592: So That’s How It Is (Extra Large - for Monthly Votes)

Chapter 592: Chapter 592: So That’s How It Is (Extra Large Chapter for Monthly Votes)

The sun was tilting westward, drawing close to dusk.

Heish had long since departed, and He Ao sat at the doorstep bathed in sunlight, distant sounds of cheering faintly carrying over.

Yet his gaze was fixed intently upon the wooden box in his hands.

As the final trace was drawn, a purple glow that shimmered on the surface of the wooden box connected into a complete Array.

He Ao released his hand, the blood at his fingertips slowly congealing.

His C-level robust Recovery Ability caused him several times during the drawing process to encounter the situation where the wounds would heal halfway through, forcing him to reopen the cut on his finger.

And as he drew his finger away, the purple radiance on the wooden box seemed to solidify on its surface.

Shortly after, the light dimmed slowly, and then gradually brightened once more, twinkling like breath itself.

With each twinkle, the overall brightness of the glow would dim slightly.

He Ao’s attention converged on the intricate Array teeming with countless details.

The Array on this wooden box was originally incomplete, designed to Deceive the power gathering within the box, making it believe the ritual was still active, stabilizing it to prevent any outburst.

Latterly, in Jess’s parents’ old house, He Ao, using the knowledge passed down from Jess’s father combined with his own understanding of Arrays, improved part of the Array to facilitate stable operation with the aid of the energy inside the wooden box.

Of course, the function of the improved Array was still "Deception".

However, after He Ao’s improvement, the Array became more stable. The wooden box could store energy for a longer time, and it would allow He Ao to open a small gap to release some energy, then close the box again without destroying the outside Array with the violent energy as before, when opening the box meant immediate destruction.

At that time, He Ao didn’t use the knowledge left by Jess’s father to directly perfect the Array on the wooden box.

One reason was that the knowledge left by Jess’s father was purely academic, non-directional, purely the type that could drive the structure of the Array towards the completion of the ritual.

This complete ritual was intended for an unknown and secretive existence, and in the past, people sacrificed in the ritual were also "synchronized" with this secluded being.

If he had directly perfected the Array, that would have been tantamount to aiding this secretive existence in completing the ritual.

He Ao didn’t know how this mysterious entity intended to use the energy inside the wooden box, though it was in his possession, but for safety’s sake, it was best not to follow the adversary’s train of thought; one could inadvertently end up doing a bride’s work for someone else.

Another reason was that when He Ao was improving the Array, he was surrounded by the schemes of Mysterious Persons, the "tentacles" of that secretive existence. If he had been rash in his drawing, he likely would have let the valuable knowledge that Jess’s father had strived to preserve leak to the Mysterious Person.

Under these two circumstances, he only made a simple improvement to the Array at that time.

In fact, He Ao had a suspicion all along: his departure from the mental hospital all the way to Jess’s parents’ residence had been too smooth, and after toppling the Mysterious Person’s tentacle, theoretically, the Mysterious Person should have known he was home, but he didn’t take any action during the process.

While this could be explained by a shortage of manpower, there was another possible explanation: the Mysterious Person wanted to use him to improve the Array on the wooden box.

Therefore, He Ao had always been meticulous in dealing with the wooden box.

In theory, if the Mysterious Person was indeed facing Jess, this stratagem could likely have succeeded.

Because even if Jess had come to understand all the knowledge about the Array, he couldn’t have mastered it quickly, meaning he couldn’t modify the Array.

So he faced only two choices: either give up the wooden box or perfect the Array on the box.

However, abandoning the wooden box would lead to the energy leaking out and causing disaster. Being a good-hearted person, Jess would absolutely not neglect this wooden box, so in reality, Jess had no other choice.

Even suspecting that the Mysterious Person might be exploiting him, upon acquiring the supplementary Array knowledge, it was highly probable that he would use this knowledge to stabilize the energy within the wooden box, thereby fulfilling the Mysterious Person’s objective.

In many previous instances, the Mysterious Person had manipulated Jess in this manner, forcing him, like a puppet, to proceed according to his design.

Unfortunately, this time, he was facing He Ao,

The uncontrollable fits of madness that Jess originally couldn’t handle, He Ao could.

On this foundation, He Ao could utilize his manic state to directly peer into the ’Truth’ of the Array, mastering the knowledge of the Array in a short time, thus possessing the capability to freely modify the Array.

Of course, mere ability to modify the Array wasn’t enough; a substantial body of occult knowledge was required to know how to alter the Array in a way that would resolve the situation.

Conveniently, He Ao possessed a bit of that occult knowledge.

Throughout the slightly more than a day he’d been carrying the box, he’d been pondering how to modify the Array.

He Ao cradled the wooden box and walked out of the room and onto the corridor.

The building was on the edge of the Zarote Area, and from there he could see a massive open-air square in the distance.

The square was no small place and could accommodate thousands of people moving freely, but at this moment it was completely overrun by a dense mass of figures swarming like ants.

They blanketed the ground like clouds, covering the entire square.

Mountainous cheers echoed under the sky, audible even to He Ao from such distance, sounding like a constant background noise of the world.

As dusk fell, Dasanc had been speaking for a day, yet an endless stream of people continued to arrive along the distant streets, one after another.

The screens on the surrounding buildings were still displaying Ned’s campaign ads, but these brightly lit screens looked so dim under the sunlight.

As soon as the crowd got a bit larger, Heish went to protect Dasanc.

At noon, Dasanc had a brush with a hidden gun in the crowd. If Heish hadn’t pulled him away in time, the bullet would have pierced his temple, shattering his head into pieces.

However, after that attempt, Dasanc didn’t flee to safety; instead, his figure stood steadfastly on the most prominent platform.

Shortly thereafter, Christos went to Eranster Palace, at the invitation of the Vitland City government, leaving the venue.

According to the messages Heish sent to He Ao, the Vitland City government had already been looking for Christos many times, but he had not left.

Until that sniper attack.

At this moment, the Vitland people left in the square were no longer there for Christos of Dawn City; their focus was now on Dasanc of Vitland.

He Ao withdrew his gaze from the square and looked at the wooden box in his hand.

The glow of the wooden box was unusually dim.

This was because the energy inside the box was being transformed by a stable Array into the final product.

The Array on the wooden box had changed significantly from its original form, and even more so from the one Jess’s father had envisioned.

He Ao retained most of Jess’s father’s conceptual design, deconstructed the core approach of his father’s perfected stabilization Array, and then, based on this, nested something else.

He turned back to look at the wall of the room, where, drawn in extremely light lines, was an array of bizarre and incredibly complex patterns forming a huge Array,

the Control Array engraved on the Velora.

This was the Array designed by the Angel trying to descend into the main world to control Transcendent items. Later, He Ao modified it slightly, changing the Array’s direction from the Angel to ’K’, thereby gaining control over the Velora.

However, He Ao didn’t quite understand how this Array worked or why, so he carefully studied it while in Jess’s frenzied state.

Though in that frenzied state, He Ao’s understanding of unfamiliar knowledge unrelated to the Gene Potion ritual was much slower, it was still far quicker than if he had to figure it out on his own.

Soon, He Ao roughly figured out the core principle of this Array.

Then he discovered a problem: the Array had to be engraved onto a physical Transcendent item to be effective, but the energy in the box lacked a physical form.

At that point, he thought of an Array created by Jess’s father, capable of inscribing information into the tentacles through the emitted energy.

He blended these two Arrays into a new structure and then nested it around the periphery of the original Array in the wooden box.

In this way, as the energy in the box was transformed into the final product by the Array, the control Array targeting ’K’ would also be inscribed into the interior of the product.

And He Ao gained an unexpected advantage: since the Control Array was fully integrated into the final product, it would persist unless the product was completely damaged.

The only flaw in this set of Arrays was its complexity, consuming a lot of blood. He Ao had to drink several large bowls of Recovery Potion prepared by Heish just to manage the bleeding.

Of course, He Ao didn’t use all his own blood; on his way back from the wilderness, he had hunted several C-level exotic beasts and extracted their core blood for use in the Array.

However, the most central part of the Array targeting ’K’ worked best when drawn with He Ao’s own blood, creating a sort of ritualistic effect and increasing the likelihood of the Array’s successful inscription.

Now, as the glow from the wooden box gradually faded, He Ao felt the chaotic and violent Qi emanating from the box was stabilizing, signifying that the contents of the box were becoming stable.

"Hey, hey, hey, Uncle Jess, can you hear me?"

While He Ao was focused on the diminishing glow of the wooden box, a communication request came into his earpiece from Vianne.

"I can hear you, go ahead."

He Ao tucked away the wooden box, turned, and entered the room, placing his hand on the wall where he had etched the Control Array.

In fact, the Array was not complete; it contained only some key structures that he had sketched out for easy reference.

He placed his hand on the wall and gave it a gentle swipe, and as a bit of dust fell to the floor, the patch of the wall his hand had passed over returned to smoothness.

"Uncle Jess, didn’t you tell me this morning to check if Trison Corporation is using the Phoenix System under a different name in other areas?"

Vianne said excitedly over the phone, "Guess what I found?"

This morning, just after he had returned to the city, He Ao had sent a message to Vianne, asking her to investigate this matter.

If the Phoenix System truly wasn’t profitable, then its existence would raise the costs and revenues of Trison Corporation, lowering the profit margin of the entire group. The impact on stock prices would be enormous, and it’s unlikely the consortium would allow this to happen.

"Trison Corporation is profiting from the Phoenix System?"

He Ao said with a smile.

"Exactly!!!"

Vianne spoke rapidly, "Didn’t you help me find a large number of papers on the Phoenix System?

"I read these papers carefully and realized that the most core part of the system is actually data processing and information analysis verification. It determines the authenticity of information through a complex comparison and accounting process, ensuring the authenticity and compliance of the voting users’ information at the software level, and preventing interference from external software or different communication device operating systems from causing deviations during the information transmission process.

"The voting system is just a facade. In fact, what the Phoenix System does is collect and process information, and then I went to look at all the commercial service offerings Trison Corporation has on sale. I found that Trison Corporation has a lot of commercial service projects for data collection and processing.

"The prices of these services vary, with monthly fees ranging from one hundred federal coins to ten thousand federal coins,"

"However, most of these services support new users trying them for free or at a low price for three days. So I created some dummy accounts to pose as new users, purchased some of these service projects at different levels, and then used algorithms to test the accuracy of these services, comparing them with some of the experimental data of the Phoenix System that I had found in the papers.

"Then I discovered that those projects with a monthly service fee above one thousand federal coins had data feedback results highly similar to the experimental data of the Phoenix System. I have reason to suspect that these service projects are using a weakened version of the Phoenix System."

"It’s also possible that they are using the Phoenix System itself,"

He Ao continued as he wiped away the Array from the wall, "Trison Corporation could have simply used software algorithms to grant different businesses different levels of access. In this way, there would be no need to develop a separate weakened system, or to configure additional servers and maintain security barriers.

"After all, the Phoenix System is actually operational only on the one or two days that elections are held. The frequency of use is not high, so in this way, they can save a substantial amount of costs and optimize the use of resources."

"That could be possible," Vianne replied, "But then why would they claim that the Phoenix System is developed exclusively for the Federation and used only for the Federation and various local elections? They’re also making money by selling this system."

"How else would they get the Federal Central Government and various municipal governments to provide high usage fees?"

He Ao laughed, "The federal and municipal governments help them offset the costs, so everything they earn themselves is pure profit."

"Sounds like something they would do."

Vianne’s sigh came through on the other end, and after a pause, she asked again, "Uncle Jess, is there anything else you need me to do?"

"Well,"

He Ao walked into the bathroom, washing his hands while contemplating, "If Trison Corporation’s services are indeed tapping into the Phoenix System, then we have more samples to refer to than just the election voting results."

He paused, "Vianne, I need to think this through and gather some things for study. When I need the expertise of a tech specialist like you, I’ll trouble you again."

"Okay," Vianne said with a laugh, "I’ve already sent the research report to your email. Uncle Jess, you can contact me anytime if you have questions. I’m going to eat now, bye."

"Bye."

He Ao placed the wooden box on the table and hung up the phone.

Then he opened the research report Vianne had sent to his email. The report was informal and brief, but it included a lot of Vianne’s complete test data and the various commercial services Trison Corporation might have been using the Phoenix System for.

He Ao thought for a moment, pressed his earphone, and said, "Eve, help me collect all information on these commercial services provided by Trison Corporation that are mentioned in this email."

"Okay."

Eve’s voice sounded softly.

The Phoenix System might not be entirely flawless; over the years, as long as the data is sufficiently vast, some defects are bound to be revealed.

Of course, it is highly likely that Trison Corporation would quickly fix these deficiencies.

He Ao lowered his head, looking at the wooden box on the table.

The sky had already grown gradually dim, and the glow on the wooden box, too, had walked towards its final Silence Concealment.

The energy hidden in the wooden box was already about to finish its transformation.

He Ao caressed the wooden box.

The object housed within this wooden box was the first thing the Mysterious Person had attempted to create. After it failed due to Jess’s father’s resistance, the Mysterious Person then turned to attempt creating the Gene Potion.

It was the Mysterious Person’s first choice, containing the Mysterious Person’s original goal.

He Ao placed his hand on the lid of the wooden box, waiting for that brilliance to extinguish at last.

During this time, he finished the last bowl of Recovery Potion sent by Heish, maintaining his body in a comparatively good state.

When the bright moon appeared behind the buildings flickering with light, the radiance atop the wooden box finally dimmed completely and merged into the quiet, dark night.

And with the dimming of the light came that moment.

In the pitch-black sky, it was as though some invisible shadow had surfaced.

A piercingly cold breeze swept across He Ao’s cheeks.

He Ao activated Super Memory and lifted his head.

A vast, chaotic, and illusory shadow enveloped the entire heavens, with purple mist spreading from all directions.

Those thoughts that plunged into the soul rang once again deep in He Ao’s mind.

Fine beads of blood seeped from his skin, draping his surroundings in a dim red.

A terrifying consciousness surged within that illusory shadow, becoming clearer and clearer, as if a person in slumber was attempting to awaken from endless chaos, while that purple mist in the sky madly surged towards the wooden box before He Ao.

The tranquil wooden box vibrated violently as if buzzing.

He Ao watched this bizarre scene, cracked a smile, and fresh blood oozed over his pearly white teeth from his gums.

He watched that terrifying illusory shadow, watched the purple mist that devoured everything and opened his mouth,

"Retreat!"

The buzzing wooden box stilled in an instant, and the rushing purple mist, as if driven by some expulsion, scattered in all directions.

Buzz—

A horrifying explosion echoed in He Ao’s mind.

The thoughts eroding the depths of his soul seemed to have had something important snatched away; the wrathful will, as fierce as flames, tore at He Ao’s soul with unrestrained vehemence.

Two streams of bloody tears overflowed from the corners of He Ao’s eyes.

Yet his body remained unflinchingly steady as he gazed ahead.

A massive, illusory tentacle split from the shadow in the sky, extending towards He Ao.

Like an angry giant hand reaching for He Ao’s throat.

But the giant hand never touched He Ao’s body, and the terrifying consciousness trying to awaken from slumber also failed to rouse.

Endless chaos engulfed everything, swathed the frenzied consciousness, and forcibly returned it to its eternal slumber; the colossal illusory shadow also dissipated beneath the stars.

Just like the first time He Ao ’saw’ it in the psychiatric hospital.

He Ao watched the shadow disappear, watched the stars’ brilliance once again spread across the room.

He lowered his head, gazing at the wooden box before him, as the ultimate mystery was finally unveiled at this moment.

"So that’s how it is."

He closed down Super Memory, leaned forward, resting on the edge of the table, and slowly opened the wooden box before him.

What entered his line of sight was the empty interior of the wooden box.