The Tricks and the Spectacle

Trait: Research a Ghost

Tag: [Ghost], [Unknown], [Unscientific]

Synopsis: Researchers in the Asgari City are commissioned to work with a batch of incredibly peculiar samples, which have a rather comical name—Ghosts.

Researchers were baffled by the samples encased in Preservative Film. The test results suggested they were bioenergy polymers, but they had bizarre shapes and incomprehensible "intellectual" behaviors.

Researchers exhausted all their knowledge and sacrificed countless hairs, yet they still could not understand how these pure energy entities could exhibit stable yet diverse appearances, or how they could display highly intelligent behavior with a uniform structure.

What they found even more difficult to understand was how Preservative Film could bind this energy source, and how chocolate could affect it.

The circle of researchers is not large, and it is not uncommon for them to ask their teachers for help when they encounter something they don't understand. However, when they run into their seniors and juniors who work in other companies' research institutes on their way to their teachers' homes, everything seems to become awkward.

However, due to confidentiality agreements, all inquiries about other people's projects ultimately received only one answer—

"Research? I 'Research a Ghost!"

Thus, an Urban Legend gradually began to circulate among researchers.

Those who don't understand will only think this is a complaint about the research not going well, but those who know the inside story will smile knowingly.

Power: [Difficult to understand]

Real World Rules: [Research Obstacle]

A seemingly unremarkable Supernatural Tale Entry, [Knowledge] has very low income and flame intensity, doesn't even produce any Companion Phantom, and even the Real World Rules only descend upon research institutes that are encountering difficulties, adding to their chaos...

However, the strength of Supernatural Tale Entry depends on its powers, and the only power of the flawed Trait "[Research a Ghost]" is a high-end item that Feng Xue willingly diverted [Knowledge] from the income of other Weird Tale to support.

[Difficult to understand], as the name suggests, means that it is difficult to understand rationally. As a power, it can even prevent people from calculating 1+1.

However, this ability is somewhat different from intellectual impairment, because in its core principle, it doesn't make people so stupid that they don't know 1+1=2, but rather that they can't understand the meaning of 1+1 from the problem itself.

Of course, following the convention of scrutinizing the wording in matters related to Weird Tale, the power here is "difficult" to understand, not "incomprehensible." Therefore, even if the power is exercised, some intelligent people can still understand what 1+1 means through meticulous logical reasoning and deliberation, and then give the answer 2, but they are ultimately a minority.

In a sense, if the owner of this Supernatural Tale Entry were to be more diligent, it could even become a terrifying enemy of civilization. Under its shadow, apart from a chosen one who can succeed at everything on the first try, no laboratory could expect to produce any results.

However, while its power is formidable, it also has a drawback: this power is "targeted." For example, if Feng Xue wants people to be confused about "why the pigeon is so big," she must first make the other person see the "big pigeon."

"In other words, it can also be a kind of 'incomprehensible' Weird Tale story? Doesn't that just counter the Hundred Tales?!"

Feeling the power provided by the new Trait, Feng Xue unhesitatingly piled all the [Knowledge] she didn't need into it, directly maxing out her daily enhancement limit.

"The scope is a bit small, but the upper limit is quite high. Hmm, is it because the researchers are of higher quality that they can better understand the mystery of ghosts? It seems that the amount of knowledge provided by the person providing the [knowledge] also has a different impact on the Weird Tale."

Looking at the flames, which were stronger than when they had first formed, Feng Xue couldn't help but sigh, "This isn't something that's hard to understand."

Take weapons, for example. The perception of what constitutes "powerful" is clearly different among ordinary people, military enthusiasts, and experts.

A Black Technology electromagnetic gun, if shown to the average person, would only seem impressive but incomprehensible, with no way of understanding what the data represents. Some amateur scientists might even comment, "So what? Even Bilibili content creators can make that." As a result, the generated Trait would be limited to the feel of weapons in TV dramas and movies (like being hit by an anti-materiel sniper rifle and still having a chance to say your last words), and its power might not even be as great as real firearms.

If military enthusiasts were to see this, they could compare the muzzle velocity, projectile caliber, and weapon weight, concluding that this thing's power is almost comparable to that of a cannon. Even a glancing blow would leave a person with no intact body. If this were to form Trait, it would naturally have the power that a weapon should possess.

But what if weapons experts saw it? These professionals, who have dedicated their lives to this field, would realize that this thing's energy efficiency, material strength, and even its underlying principles are all exceptional. Even if its power is essentially inferior to that of an infantry gun, in the eyes of weapons experts, it is no longer just a simple weapon. And the Trait generated under the influence of such understanding would naturally have an astronomical upper limit.

However, in some awkward situations, cognition and strength are often inversely proportional, because the number of ordinary people is far greater than that of experts. If we want to increase the upper limit of Trait, we have to find a way to restrict the circulation of Trait and limit them to a small number of people.

"However, it's not that simple. For example, martial arts is the opposite; people who don't practice martial High Martial bar too high, while those who do practice martial arts tend to lower it..."

Feng Xue quickly discovered the misconception and also realized the subtle differences between how experts raise the upper limit and how ordinary people raise the upper limit.

"Is this what they mean by 'the layman sees the spectacle, the expert sees the details'?" Feng Xue realized something and began to make some minor adjustments to the Weird Tale she was running.

According to this theory, the Weird Tale he creates now are all extremely "exciting." Could he perhaps add some "tricks" to the details to attract the attention of "experts"?

Dunn did a good job in this regard. Take the Trait "[Research a Ghost]" for example. The shock that Preservative Film and chocolate brought to the researchers far exceeded the intelligence of the ghost.

However, to effectively showcase these qualities, it's crucial to consider exactly who the experts you're targeting are.

George Augustus could attract all kinds of light and heavy industries, so what he needed to do was to destroy those weapons in ways that seemed exciting and thrilling to ordinary people, but were incomprehensible to experts—he did a good job of forcibly prying open the head of the War Bishop and stuffing a grenade in it before, but he had to go even further.

As for the other side...

It seems the shock of the manual demolition wasn't enough for the experts?