Chapter 110: Two Methods (Edited)

Furness Bachman and Omid Abbot have been very happy recently.

The director somehow acquired many magical creatures, most of which possess some simple intelligence, and even many of them can speak—not in the way parrots mimic speech, but truly expressing their thoughts.

Even better, no one cares about the life and death of these non-human intelligent creatures.

Even the usually strict Professor Celica, who views them as oddities, had no comments on their experiments with goblins.

Excellent experimental materials, an experimental environment free from ethical constraints, and even the help of magic!

Two scientists in the fields of consciousness and cognition finally had the chance to directly intervene in their research subjects, which thrilled them both. Some experiments that would have been impossible to conduct were pulled out from the secret archives by the two.

In the past six months, they have almost been immersed in the joy of discovery and exploration every day.

Until Murphy started banging on the table in front of them, they suddenly realized.

Ah... right, the boss seemed to want us to research the mind seed, not to let us conduct basic research on consciousness and the brain! Oops, using the client's money for our own scientific experiments...

Caught red-handed, wouldn't they be in for a beating? Furness broke into a cold sweat in guilt, but they hadn't truly forgotten the ultimate goal of their research; they had just gone too far on some side tasks.

"Director, we have results, quite a few results."

"Okay," Murphy nodded, clearly not very convinced, "I just have one most important question, can I use the mind seed safely without worrying about its effects spreading unexpectedly?"

"Yes!" Furness immediately said.

"Hmm?" Murphy was skeptical.

"That's because," Furness noticed Murphy's doubt and immediately explained, "we discovered a phenomenon while using the mind seed on intelligent creatures like goblins."

"The mind seed actually has two methods of use."

"In fact, our past understanding of the mind seed belonged to the first method."

"What do you mean?" Murphy was intrigued.

"Our consciousness can roughly be divided into emotional and logical thinking modes."

"The cognition of things, the driving mode of thinking, the way of deciding actions, etc., can all be divided using this dichotomy."

"In the emotional mode, cognition is more direct, thinking is simpler and more subjective, and the driving force for action is very strong."

"In the logical mode, cognitive abilities lean more towards analysis, thinking is more complex, more objective, capable of processing more information, but the driving force for action is relatively weaker."

"The command form of the mind seed can also be realized through these two different modes."

"For example, in the first method, we can command a goblin to loathe drinking water. The goblin knows that drinking water is necessary and will force itself to drink water to sustain life, but due to the inner loathing, it might gradually decrease its water-drinking behavior and find various reasons to prove the correctness of not drinking water, eventually the goblin might die of thirst."

"In the second method, we can command a goblin not to drink water. In this case, the goblin's emotional pathway is clear, it still wants to drink water when thirsty, but its behavioral logic is blocked, it can't perform the action of drinking water, eventually, this goblin might go insane or even commit suicide due to this dilemma."

"The first method actually plants an irremovable and unavoidable high-priority concept in the emotional pathway." "This method encounters less resistance, is more likely to succeed, and its effects are very obvious, but its downside is that this irremovable concept gradually becomes the core of the subject's emotions."

"The subject will try countless times to resist and digest this core, but after failing, will treat this implanted concept as their deepest, most primal emotional driving force."

"This core will gradually absorb all other emotions of the subject to its vicinity and brand them with its own mark, thus becoming the top of the subject's emotional experience, controlling all of the subject's emotional experiences."

"Since emotional experience is the most fundamental component of personality and can guide and rewrite the direction of logic, it is almost impossible for the subject to defeat it on their own."

"It's like an incurable mental illness that consumes and assimilates a person's mind, ultimately turning a person into a fanatic of a certain concept."

This fits well with Murphy's understanding of the mind seed spell.

He has been hesitant to use the mind seed because he saw this trend.

Fanatics are uncontrollable and untrustworthy. For example, cursing someone to be loyal to oneself, turning him into a loyal lapdog is fine.

But what if he thinks none of the master's friends are worthy of his great master and kills them all? Fanatics lack logic, their actions unpredictable.

Fans often attract hate for their idols; fanatical minions can bring endless trouble to their masters.

Murphy really isn't planning to recruit a bunch of lunatics.

Is it fun being the director of an asylum?

Hmm... it seems to be fun indeed...

But this isn't Gotham; creating an Arkham and then having someone crazily press the nuclear launch button would be disastrous. Do we really want to live out the stories we've made up?

"What about the second method?"

"The second method involves setting a rule in the subject's logical chain."

"This method's effectiveness is far less than the first, and since logical and rational decision-making priorities are lower than emotions and instincts, it can likely be resisted."

"But, its common point with the first method is that the implanted rule is also irremovable and unavoidable. Any decision related to the rule must pass through its approval to be executed."

"Its flaw is obvious; it may lead to a contradiction in emotional cognition. Wanting to do something but being unable to, or not wanting to do something but having to, can bring great frustration."

"When a person continuously suffers from such frustration, some may choose to compromise, recording it as something that must be accustomed to, even gradually internalizing the rule into the emotional core, accepting this rule from the outside in."

"But some cannot accept this frustration, leading to mental or personality disorders, severe depression, or even the feeling of being unable to control one's own life, which can lead to suicide."

"That doesn't sound very good," Murphy said, "Is the method you mentioned for safely using the mind seed the second way?"

"Yes, but it requires some small techniques to use."

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