Chapter 473 — The Value of Technology

Due to excessive indulgence in the Sleepers' dark arts, compounded by long years of frustration on the path of magic and the aftereffects of neurosurgery, the old mage's mind had spiraled out of control over the past decade and more, deteriorating to the point where he could maintain relative sanity only within the mental network. The humility, obedience, and quick thinking he displayed before Gao Yang were entirely because the mental network completed his mind; once severed from it, he was scarcely better than a madman.

But Daniel's mental state was not beyond saving.

Gao Yang had once taught him knowledge related to the magic net and advanced mathematical materials. In the process, Gao Yang discovered that learning new knowledge and making progress on research projects generated positive emotions that substantially alleviated Daniel's mental instability. After confirming this change, he made an attempt:

He copied the patterns from the tentacles of the sea demon Tyr in her kraken form, and gave those patterns to Daniel.

He wanted to see how Daniel's mental state would change upon contact with those eerie patterns.

Tyr's kraken form had left a deep impression on Gao Yang—that colossal body, the countless tentacles winding and growing, the bizarre and lurid form. It had overturned, for the first time, Gao Yang's fixed impression of her as "that lazy, neurotic salted-fish spirit." And the few special tentacles the sea demon Tyr possessed were what Gao Yang remembered most vividly.

Indescribable patterns, an overwhelming capacity for mental contamination, the property of directly rewriting the minds of mortals—one could say that if not for the effects of those patterns being so overwhelmingly positive and so utterly comical, Gao Yang would have immediately classified Tyr's kraken tentacles as one of the hallmarks of an evil god.

And even though Tyr's patterns were so comical in effect that she seemed nothing like an evil god, Gao Yang could not help but associate that thing with divinity—because he had heard Tyr mention it: the original sea demons had no such kraken form. Their kraken form was an imitation of the "giant squid" of the deep sea.

Though he did not understand why those salted-fish spirits, in imitating a deep-sea evil god, had ended up imitating themselves into deep-sea comedy gods, this was, after all, something possibly connected to divinity. Gao Yang could not afford to treat it carelessly. He wanted to test whether those patterns still had effects once separated from the body, wanted to test how great those effects were—yet he had found no suitable test subject in the territory, until during one session when he was setting a unit test for Daniel, inspiration struck and he thought of the old mage's mental state.

There was no more suitable test subject than Daniel—powerful in his own right, so there was little worry about accidents; a Long Slumber cultist, so his mental resistance was high; and more importantly, his mind was already quite abnormal, leaving him barely a step away from the disabled when severed from the mental network, and thus very much in need of treatment...

Still, this was, after all, a double agent he had gone to great pains to cultivate, and Gao Yang worried that once the old mage came into contact with those patterns suspected to be the work of evil gods, he might lose control. So he had issued many warnings in advance, explaining the danger of those patterns and the abnormal reactions they might provoke, and instructed Daniel that each contact with the patterns must not exceed half an hour, and that the moment any bizarre, absurd thought surfaced in his mind (such as a desire to go dig up a giant squid), he must immediately break off...

Now it seemed the old mage had indeed followed his instructions to the letter.

Gao Yang listened closely as Daniel reported the changes that had come over him, and at the end he let out a long breath—

After coming into contact with those insane patterns, the old mage looked altogether more spirited.

"Go back and keep testing those patterns. When conditions are ripe, you may let your apprentice come into contact with them too, but mind your safety. Also, it would be best not to let anyone besides you and your apprentice discover those patterns, to avoid unnecessary trouble," Gao Yang said, rising to his feet, his figure gradually fading in the virtual space. "I will contact you again."

Daniel rose as well and bowed deeply: "Yes, my lord."

The mental network connection severed, and after a brief dizziness and the illusion of weightlessness, the sights of the real world returned to Gao Song's vision.

He saw that Hetty was sitting across the desk from him, except she had slumped over the table and fallen fast asleep, breathing softly and evenly.

Gao Yang did not wake his eldest granddaughter from her slumber—he knew Hetty had been truly exhausted lately, and she needed rest.

Typhon...

"Everyone is developing," Gao Yang could not help muttering softly, "and no one will ever stop..."