How Come You're Involved in Every Rotten Thing?

"I know you're in a bad situation. Your tragedy has scared away two of my teammates, who are very important to me as... 'assets'. So, you have to compensate me."

Cheng Shi twirled Scalpel in his hand, dragged a stool from the table, and placed it under his bottom.

Whether the players are Experiment prototypes or not is irrelevant. Even if they were before, they can no longer be after the players arrive. This Experiment background simply adds a layer of "chaos" to the Trials. Just as Li Yi said, it is His Will that drives everything.

Cheng Shi agreed with this statement, but why did Li Yi and Gao San still run away?

Because they had wanted to run away for a long time.

No one likes being controlled, especially by someone they can't fight back against. So these two con artists were always looking for an opportunity. When Therius revealed such a shocking secret about the Experiment, they seized the moment when they were both in a daze and ran away.

Cheng Shi didn't leave because he was fed up with the Prison Helmet he couldn't remove. Seeing that Therius was still sharing his thoughts, he reached out and interrupted the old man in front of him.

"I do enjoy listening to stories, but you have to settle my compensation first before we continue."

Therius understood Cheng Shi's meaning and knew his purpose in coming here. So he looked at Cheng Shi, nodded, and then took out a stone that shimmered with a dark black light from his pocket.

"?"

"The Tombstone Stone is produced in the underground ruins of a place where Faith Decay. It is a rare mineral deposit formed from the special stone material eroded by their Faith over millions of years."

To prevent the Prison Helmet from being broken by external forces, I added the 'Prosperity' vein to its construction. It will continuously circulate the power of 'Prosperity' until the 'Prosperity' vein is completely exhausted, but this period is not something a human can endure.

Therefore, the only way to remove it is with the power of Decay accumulated over a longer period of time.

Place this Tombstone Stone on your Prison Helmet, and soon you will be able to remove it with your own hands.

With that, Therius placed the stone on the table.

Cheng Shi hesitated for a moment, but ultimately did not dare to believe it completely. He first touched the stone with Scalpel until the Scalpel began to show signs of corrosion, only then did he confirm that it truly contained the power of [Decay].

Then he used two Scalpel as chopsticks to pick up the Tombstone Stone and bring it close to his Prison Helmet.

Before long, he felt the pressure on his neck lessen. Cheng Shi frowned and used the superhuman Divine Power of a Today's Warrior to hold the Prison Helmet in place.

Unexpectedly, with such a simple grab, the Prison Helmet that had troubled him for so long was torn apart as easily as brittle paper.

That's it?

Cheng Shi finally smiled; he had broken free from the shackles of [Order].

He quickly brushed all the fragments off his head, then suddenly looked at Therius with great patience and said:

"Very good, I'm satisfied with this compensation. Now you can continue your story."

Therius was genuinely taken aback by Cheng Shi's drastic change in attitude. He stared at Cheng Shi's face for a long time, pondered for a while, and then slowly spoke again:

"Although I am a devout Believer in the Life Church, I am also Scholar of the Tower of Reason. With the support of the Scholarly Council, the research I led has made rapid progress."

At that time, I was full of confidence and enthusiasm for the true Sprouted Divinity.

In a moment of impulsiveness, I made some decisions that I now deeply regret, namely...

I slice myself up and incubate them, then participate in Experiment with my slices to accelerate the Experiment.

However, what I never expected was that the Scholarly Council take a liking to another personality of mine. They saw greater hope in that crazy personality, so they poured more effort into him and cleansed him from an Experiment fragment into the real me.

And I, I became a dispensable Experiment slide..."

Yes, this is very much Tower of Reason, no, or rather, this is very much like the Scholarly Council.

Because that's just who they are.

When you are useful, you will receive generous support; but when you are useless, you will soon be abandoned by them, and may even become one of the "funds" for them to support the next star project.

Therius's story continues, and he, like an "old man left behind" who has not found anyone to confide in for a long time, slowly recounts all the stories about him and the Divinity Sprouting Experiment.

"At that time, I had almost given up, but I never expected that an invitation letter from the Grand Inquisition would save me from falling into the Abyss and give me the opportunity to continue my Experiment."

So, while everyone's attention was focused on the slice, I used all the resources I Tower of Reason to escape the Experiment. Disguised, I left Tusnat and came to Montrani. With the help of my patron, I rebuilt my Experiment and continued my research.

"Seriously, is the person you're waiting for arriving yet?"

"... not yet..."

"Alright, continue, while I still have patience." Cheng Shi waved his hand, signaling the Scholar to continue.

"... In order to continue the Experiment, the sponsor even pushed for the enactment of a law in the Gaoshan County and built a gladiatorial arena for this law, a place you should be very familiar with."

The Grand Inquisition's constitution forbids using prisoners for life Experiment, but the final showdown must be performed legally. So I crafted a Prison Helmet that no ordinary person could destroy for these Experiment subjects who were about to enter the arena.

In this way, the issue of Mutual Recognition can be disguised as a cognitive conflict among prisoners, exacerbating the conflict between the two sides.

The existence of the "final showdown" not only solved the funding problem for the Experiment, but also turned the Experiment into a legitimate and legal performance. Fueled by the "enthusiastic" enthusiasm of the Montrani people, they even hoped the courts would sentence more and more Death Sentence convicts to satisfy their growing need for entertainment.

Cheng Shi was speechless upon hearing this.

Yes, that's very much in line with the general public, because the general public is just a group of ordinary people who simply enjoy excitement.

They don't need to distinguish right from wrong, nor do they want to; they only want to use their limited energy to see enough fun.

"So the Experiment accelerated. Without my consent, the funder began rapidly expanding the scale of the Experiment, but manpower is limited. I alone could no longer support such a large-scale Experiment, so..."

"So you've gone down the same old path as in the Tower of Reason, starting to dissect yourself again." Cheng Shi was truly speechless this time. He looked at the "pathetic" Scholar in front of him with amusement, clicking his tongue in mockery, "You never learn, do you? That Therius outside the door probably wants to replace you, but you don't seem to be as afraid of him as you are of the one in the Tower of Reason who stole your identity..."

Oh, I see. You've learned your lesson. You tampered with your own Slice Experiment!

Therius smiled and said:

"Indeed, I tampered with the slicing and incubation process, using methods provided by my brothers in the Life Church within the Grand Inquisition to add some methods of death to the Experiment materials."

Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow. "What methods?"

"If my slice sees me, then based on the curse of 'Mutual Recognition', under the suppression of personality, he will die immediately and become Sacrifice of 'death'."

This is an offering to Him, and also a curse I begged for myself.

"..."

So, it seems you're involved here, sir/ the Great One on the Bone Throne?

How come you're involved in every messy thing?

Cheng Shi smacked his lips, understanding.

The curse was Therius's source of confidence; he was no longer afraid of the sliced replica, while the sliced replica was afraid of him.

No wonder the one outside didn't dare to come in.

No wonder that Slice Therius was so eager to take him to remove the helmet; perhaps the price of removing the helmet was to kill the prototype of this Experiment subject for him?

"Then what is the purpose of all this talk you've given me, and in such detail?"

I don't believe you're a good professor who enjoys answering the questions of confused people.

Who are you waiting for? Where is he?

Or perhaps you want me to do something for you?

Everything is negotiable, as long as...

"You're willing to pay more."