This was only the second time Zhu Zhengwei had hypnotized someone in the real world. He found himself becoming increasingly skilled, having completely mastered his supernatural ability over "sleep and dreams."
But this ability was not invincible.
If things truly came to blows, forget firearms—even a knife could stab him to death. In essence, he was merely an ordinary person with a relatively strong body after twenty years of training.
"But they can't possibly find the real me. There's no way they could know I'm a first-year university student."
After all, there was a blind spot in their thinking. According to their memories, he was a senior older than their teacher, someone who had already lived for over a hundred years.
Soon, Zhu Zhengwei returned to school.
He secretly observed the other servers and found that there were basically no problems.
Even Zhang Xia, that young man, was still feeding his girlfriend while they were passionately in love, radiating the sour stench of romance as usual.
"How strange. None of these people have any problems, so why have only those elderly professors developed abnormalities? Do they remember things from that world?"
Zhu Zhengwei pondered silently, guessing at the reason those elderly people had developed abnormalities.
There were two possibilities.
1. They were too old, so their minds were unclear. This made it easier for the barrier between dreams and reality to become unstable, causing dreams to leak out.
Here was a simpler analogy.
When a computer gets too old, it becomes more likely to malfunction. Even its memory sticks become loose.
2. Another special aspect of these elderly people might be that they followed Zhang Zhi. Zhang Zhi had conducted some kind of experiment with them, resulting in the problem.
"But I'm more inclined toward the first possibility."
He took a deep breath, then changed his train of thought.
"But it might not necessarily be limited to the elderly. Some young people could develop abnormalities as well. After all, humans aren't machines. It's like getting vaccinated—there are always a few people who have abnormal reactions because they're allergic to the vaccine."
This was definitely not good news.
Even if the abnormality rate was only 0.1 percent, it would still become a major problem once the population base grew.
"I have to find a way to solve this problem."
He returned to his dormitory, pondering the road ahead, only to see his two idiot roommates still playing games together.
Zhu Zhengwei was speechless.
"From the time they enrolled until now, the two of them had been frantically competing with everyone else. They've already made it halfway through their first year, and now they've collapsed?"
But after thinking about it carefully, they had probably been cramming before the exams. After discovering that they had passed without failing, they had naturally been happy for a few days. After relaxing for a few more days, they would probably start competing again.
Given their personalities, once the holidays arrived, wouldn't they go completely overboard?
"Hey, you're back? Want to join us?" The two of them did not even turn their heads.
"Sure. Then I'll play a couple of rounds too!" Zhu Zhengwei rarely nodded and played two rounds with them to relax.
"Then we're going to take off!"
"With the two of us, Wolong and Phoenix, plus you, the Stinky Shoemaker, won't we be victorious from the very start?"
"Ah, this feels great!"
As a result, once he joined them, they won every battle.
And that was the result of him deliberately hiding his abilities.
Zhu Zhengwei discovered that as his Spiritual Power grew stronger, playing this kind of competitive game was nothing more than a matter of reaction speed, control, and awareness. It came to him effortlessly.
"I'm really on a roll today!"
The two were excited and called for another game, but Zhu Zhengwei no longer wanted to play.
He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
"The world nurtured by the Dream Egg has begun evolving life on its own. Civilization has restarted, technology has revived, and even the world's territory has begun expanding and evolving automatically."
"It was as if a Pangu giant in a dream had completely awakened, wielded a giant axe, slaughtered the three hundred demons of chaos and disorder in the dream, and viciously split open the Giant Egg of the world—Pangu Creates the World!"
Perhaps he was the creator of that world.
Zhu Zhengwei glanced at the world inside.
It was developing very slowly and peacefully.
Zhang Zhi had not made any major moves either. It would probably still be some time before he returned to leave another diary entry.
"I still have to continue perfecting the world."
Zhu Zhengwei thought for a moment.
"And if it keeps developing like this, it's far too slow! At this rate, won't Zhang Zhi's Longevity Diary take hundreds of years to reach the next era? I have to find a way to intensify the world's upheaval and formally push the extraordinary civilization inside it forward."
As for whether this was truly a four-dimensional world born above three-dimensional humanity, or whether it contained Four-dimensional Humans born from human consciousness, that was not particularly important to him at present.
"First, my main goal is still to harvest Chives and continue increasing the number of servers."
Zhu Zhengwei looked at the night sky outside the dormitory.
"To establish a massive Rational World Civilization Sandbox, I have to seek out and develop a large number of Mining Machine brains! Ideally, I'll gradually become the hidden master behind the Rational World concealed within the Surface World."
"Second, I'll try not to interfere with Earth's development in reality. I'll merely focus on 'seeking Mining Machines' and 'enriching the species gene pool,' while attempting to become a true immortal in reality and witness the course of humanity's long history."
But at present...
There were only four hundred servers in total, which was clearly not enough.
"There has to be a new Miner Recruitment method. Finding them one by one is far too troublesome, and the risks are too great."
"It might even cause another Legend of the Fierce Man incident. My next step should be to have them spread it themselves. Ideally, I'll develop a Mining Machine Installation Package that they can install for one another, eventually connecting it to the Mobile Internet."
Soon, an idea surfaced in his mind.
"And this installation package will be called the game Mortal World."
"Also, if it's a game, those abnormal people who remember some Fragmented Memory will think that the memories came from the game, completely eliminating this potential problem."
Zhu Zhengwei knew that players would always be the most qualified mining Chives.
But could they move around and live inside it?
No way!
Miners should obediently mine. He had no intention of giving them benefits.
"Lu Xun once said that a qualified businessman must learn to use one cent of investment to leverage a hundred yuan in profit."
Zhu Zhengwei sprang up from the bed like a carp, leaping to his feet. A bold idea suddenly appeared in his mind. He quickly opened his computer and searched for a solution, ultimately finding the most effortless plan:
A Shell Game.
Make a simple VR Real Scene Game.
The game's specific gameplay would be:
"Suppose I'm a lonely Chive, playing a game where I watch the scenery by the roadside."
Simple!
Practical!
This incredibly simple game would be like Minesweeper. Once you installed and ran it, you would seem to be playing a boring game of Minesweeper and idly looking at scenery. In reality, I would use your brain to occupy a large amount of CPU capacity and secretly mine in the background.
Feigning an attack in one direction while attacking in another.
Brilliant.
This preliminary plan was flawless.
"What are you doing? Writing a program again? Getting ready to farm Initial Accounts and exploit some freebies?"
Before long, Wang Jun noticed Zhu Zhengwei's little movements again. "Just like you. Can you bring me along?"
Zhu Zhengwei thought for a moment, coughed twice, and said solemnly, "By the way, there's a job in the group recently. Some big shot said he has a new game that needs testing. Do you two want to give it a try?"
"How much does it pay?"
"A lot."
"Then it's a deal."
"What kind is it?"
"A virtual VR game."
The two immediately exclaimed, "Holy crap, is it a major production?"
Although VR games were currently the mainstream trend in the gaming world, they were basically all made by major companies.
Their realism and graphics were excellent, but the biggest problem was that playing for too long caused headaches!
The immersive 3D visuals were beautiful, but they caused motion sickness too easily. How to prevent visual fatigue in the brain was a difficult problem that could not currently be avoided.
And this type of game offered no real benefit to ordinary people looking to exploit freebies. Thus, the two animals in the dormitory still focused mainly on old-fashioned console games and mobile games.
Zhu Zhengwei shook his head. "I heard it isn't a major production. It's an Immersive Movie Game. You play as a plant and interact within the game."
The two were stunned, then immediately understood.
It was just a story game!
You watched the characters' story, interacted with them, and chose different branches of the plot.
"Then sure. We've got another job." The two were quite happy.
"Exactly. Our slogan this time is: 'As long as we don't die from overworking, we'll work ourselves to death!' You two sleep first and get plenty of rest. I'll ask that big shot another day whether he can bring you along." Zhu Zhengwei began tricking them into going to sleep again.
Before long, the lights were off and they were resting.
Two bubbles appeared before his eyes.
He had not done anything to them before, but now they finally had a use.
"The first and second batches of one hundred servers were completely absorbed after Zhang Zhi and the others died of old age."
"The third batch of three hundred servers was directly slaughtered by rioting mobs during the chaotic era, who seized control and became the leaders of the Three Great Dynasties."
"The Fourth Batch of Servers has to be brought in now. Let me see how I should do it." Zhu Zhengwei began testing enthusiastically.
Before you continue