Human Nature and Decisions

No way, that was possible too?

Not to mention the college student beside him, who was left dumbfounded and scalp-numb after hearing it. Even a certain "gaze" cast down from the void, sweeping across everything here from somewhere unseen, fell imperceptibly silent for a moment.

"Main God, show me this person's personal information first."

[Han Youwei... forty-seven years old... born in the countryside... deputy president and marketing director of a local branch of a Guangyi City bank... handled several business projects...]

He casually glanced over the information instantly compiled on the computer, noticing several details within it and studying them for quite some time.

The figure sitting quietly at the desk merely smiled.

"Sure enough, heroes abound in this world."

There was a hint of emotion in his voice.

But just as his words fell, a vague, strange sound arose nearby. Even the light around him seemed to become faintly warped and unstable.

"This user has voluntarily proposed borrowing one and repaying ten within one year. Based on a preliminary personality profile compiled from his life history and performance during the Newcomer Trial, he appears to have sincerely made this proposal. This compound interest rate may not even be the lowest rate he had anticipated."

"This man is taking a risk... Ignore him. Don't give him any response. Let him perform this one-man show by himself."

Li Yun shook his head unhurriedly.

"Anyone who made it through the Newcomer Trial naturally wouldn't be that naïve. Proposing such an idea in an unfamiliar environment that appears full of hidden danger was itself a gamble. This gentleman must know that, within the Main God Platform, his life was no longer entirely his own—that he was fish on the chopping block. Yet he still rashly proposed something that seemed reckless, even foolish."

"Main God, do you think he was really doing this for that unlikely 'loan'?"

"He was risking everything to probe your stance."

With a casual push of his glasses, the pen that had been writing on the paper in his hand finally came to a stop.

"I won't deny that, sometimes, luck alone can let a completely incompetent person climb step by step. But among those born in the countryside with no background whatsoever, how many men who could reach Mr. Han's position would be fools?"

He lazily stretched at length.

"Honestly, this matter isn't that complicated."

"Whether you agreed or rejected him, this subjective 'negotiation'—something outside your preset procedures and not merely a standard service response—would, in a sense, reveal a fact: you, the seemingly rigid Main God, could be negotiated with. You could be spoken to. You might even possess humanity, or perhaps there was simply a living person or some alien creature behind the scenes controlling all of this."

"And if he could vaguely confirm that on the spot, then this risky test would have been more than worthwhile for Mr. Han."

He stared at the personal photo on the laptop, specially highlighted below and labeled "Han Youwei"—a middle-aged man in a sun hat standing on the steps beside a flower bed, smiling toward the camera with several colleagues attending a team-building event. His dark complexion, every temporarily relaxed wrinkle on his face, every strand of white in his hair, were all clearly visible beneath the high-resolution lens.

It was obvious that he had indeed endured many hardships in the first half of his life, matching the personal records.

Li Yun's expression remained calm.

But after picking up the pen again, he did not immediately resume writing. Instead, as though suddenly interested, he examined the pen barrel in his hand.

Then, just as he had back in his school days, he began spinning the gel pen one-handed between his fingers, letting it whirl nimbly around them, circling and dancing through the air again and again without purpose.

"If you can be talked to, that means there is room for negotiation and maneuvering. Then you, the seemingly all-powerful Main God, no longer seem so unreachable and inscrutable."

"The ancients saw emperors residing high in their courts and deep within distant palaces, their faces hidden beneath hanging jade tassels, their every entrance and exit bound by ceremony, their forms obscured and their minds concealed. All of that was for one saying: 'Heavenly majesty is unfathomable.'"

"Because humanity means you can be studied, understood, and even exploited through your habits and weaknesses. And an old hand like President Han, whose work consists of dealing with all kinds of people, should be especially skilled at that..."

He let the pen flutter between his fingers like a butterfly for a long while. Then, as if suddenly tired of it, he quietly stopped.

Glancing once more at the half-page of densely written notes, marked by obvious traces of repeated crossing out and revision, the young man at the desk could not help shaking his head and chuckling softly for some reason.

"And let me ask you: if you had a loan outstanding, as the lender, would you want the borrower to stay alive and keep repaying the debt with interest, or would you just watch him sink to the bottom and disappear without a trace?"

"...You know as well as I do that, in human society, the person who owes money is sometimes the one with the initiative."

"He borrowed from you. Are you supposed to become his personal bodyguard and make sure he stays alive to repay it?"

He casually tapped the writing pad he had bought not long ago, though more than half its pages had already been torn away.

"Main God, humans are simple and complicated creatures. You cannot fully understand them just by looking at what they have done or said on the surface."

"I know that accommodating President Han's proposal and giving him such a 'loan,' thereby creating a clearer resource gap between users, would be like throwing a 'catfish' into the pond. It might better suit the stimulus effect we previously considered, indirectly accelerating the expansion of potential secondary channels."

"But that isn't how the calculation works."

"You lack humanity in the true sense. That is an advantage, but also a weakness. Take my advice: when it comes to these subtle details of grasping people's hearts, no matter how much you rely on information-based calculations, you cannot outplay old foxes like them."

"Of course, there is no need to scheme against them in the first place."

"You are the rule-maker, operator, and arbiter behind this Main God Game. Simply use the larger situation to suppress them. If you start calculating the unpredictability of human hearts with these people and let them drag you into their rhythm, that would be lowering yourself and losing your stature."

"Besides, even if he really borrowed one and repaid ten, do you think he would lose out?"

"One step ahead, every step ahead. During the initial accumulation of capital, the difficulty of going from one to ten has never been the same as going from ten to a hundred."

He delivered the conclusion calmly.

"He works in finance. Even I could hear those abacus beads clicking... So there's no need to pay attention to the overly impatient Mr. Han Youwei. Just continue according to the rules we established before."

Unexpectedly, that mechanical voice fell faintly silent for several breaths.

"Recorded. Additionally, Administrator, is this the 'wisdom' of humans that you mentioned before?"

"...Yes. Though, strictly speaking, it's only a little bit of wisdom from an ordinary corporate drone."

He sighed softly, sounding both emotional and utterly indifferent.

Even during the initial design and simulation of the Main God Game, he had proposed that, under the initial operating structure, a certain degree of hidden preferential treatment could be considered for a small number of outstanding "newcomers." He had even suggested actively creating "individual cases" to achieve publicity effects in certain areas, incorporating the idea into the vague reference guidelines.

Accordingly, Main God had, as expected, incorporated that suggestion into its "subjective" operating standards. Faced with a situation like this, it had even indirectly displayed a degree of "ambiguous evaluation" it should not have possessed...

But Li Yun understood clearly that this vaguely worded suggestion should only be an opportunity for circumstances to create heroes, a chance to go with the flow. It absolutely could not become a process whose standards could be vaguely inferred, or through which people could actively apply for "angel investment."

After all, in areas without explicit criteria, it was unrealistic to demand that an illusory consciousness whose development of "humanity" had been locked away by authorization commands could truly remain flawless and comprehensive in every respect...

He did not rush to do anything further. After pondering for a moment, Li Yun completely set aside what he was holding and raised another consideration himself.

"...Main God, during the second test, include my current identity in the normal invitation process as a randomly selected 'Visitor.'"

"Administrator, this is at least one test earlier than your previous personal identity deployment plan."

Faced with that question, he had no intention of arguing. He merely waved a hand casually.

"Mm, I have my reasons... Looking at things now, it may be better to go in and take a look sooner."

Today's minor incident had already sounded a small warning bell for him, concerning certain matters that Main God would ultimately be unable to handle.

That meant his entry in the third round—originally intended to occur after the Visitor base had grown larger, making it easier to disperse certain attention that might be drawn and obtain a suitable reason to conceal some of his own anomalies—would indeed have to be moved forward considerably.

But Li Yun had always understood one thing: a person's position and elevation would inevitably affect what he saw and heard.

Naturally, the enormous difference in perspective between an observer and someone personally experiencing events meant that the things and details they could truly notice would certainly differ.

Li Yun himself was not some genius strategist from a novel, clever beyond belief and able to calculate every possibility. Rather, he had once merely been an utterly ordinary young corporate worker, someone who would vanish without a trace once thrown into the vast sea of people.

Since he could not perceive the whole from the slightest sign or be flawless in every respect, he could only try manual intervention to fill in the gaps.

After all, these slight "flaws that were not quite flaws," which had already begun quietly revealing themselves in certain procedures, needed to be discovered and dealt with as early as possible. Otherwise, if they were simply left unchecked, they would likely ferment over time into some "fun" that no one would enjoy.

...Just as he understood himself, Li Yun had never doubted the unmatched patience and astonishing ingenuity humans possessed when trying to exploit loopholes.

He sighed.

Casually switching off the desk lamp, he sat motionless in the dim room for a long time, his hands propping up his chin. The curtains had long since been drawn, and he seemed to be resting with his eyes closed.

The light from the laptop screen reflected a cold glimmer across his lenses.

Only when the electronic clock on the screen silently flickered and the number changed to [1:00] did he finally open his eyes.

The dim light in the room seemed to brighten faintly for an instant.

"Judging by the time ratios of the various Newcomer Trials, it should be about time. First, compile the information report on the initial operation and let me see it."

"Understood."

As Li Yun raised a hand and closed the laptop, complicated annotated tables, statistical data, and dynamic analyses refreshed almost simultaneously across the illusory light screen that silently appeared before him—the same kind clearly used by the newcomers on the Main God Platform.

[...According to statistics, during the first round of testing for the "Main God Game," eight thousand invitations were sent through random sampling within the designated range. Of those invited, three thousand one hundred and fifty-seven actual participants selected "Yes," while the number of non-respondents...]

[...Based on the difficulty ratings of the corresponding illusory worlds, participants were randomly assigned in varying numbers to the twenty-five activated "Newcomer Trial" scenarios, with adjustments made to...]

[...Through detection of natural mental energy dissipation caused by changes in human emotional activity during this process, it has been confirmed that the acquisition efficiency in large-scale sample research...]

Under the dark indoor lighting, the charts and text quietly flowing across the pale indigo screen appeared especially striking.

As he reviewed the relevant information analysis and summaries, he listened to the key details deliberately highlighted by the voice beside him, comparing them with vague ideas and projected plans in his mind and verifying them one by one.

Even Li Yun, as he was now, had to admit that Main God's ability to grasp the bigger picture, establish necessary procedures, and handle everything from the macro level down to minute details was far beyond anything ordinary people could imagine.

If it had not used its astonishing information-processing abilities to take charge of nearly all the practical work beyond "establishing the general plan," and Li Yun had truly been left to handle these massive projects himself—projects whose actual contents became nearly incomprehensible once put into practice...

—He might as well keep dreaming.

It could only be said that, after obtaining the Azure Mirror, he had not let principles involving more direct benefits interfere with his decision. Instead, he had prioritized seeking this kind of "artificial intelligence" assistance as a starting point. Looking back now, it had truly been an excellent move.

Just like now.

Even though fewer than half of the people invited in the first round had selected "Yes," and some Visitors had later been eliminated and awakened after dying in their respective Newcomer Trials, leaving only a little over two thousand six hundred newcomers who successfully cleared them in the end—

None of that affected the fact that Main God had already obtained further verified results from the existing "group-scale testing"—

[...It has been confirmed that, provided certain intrinsic consciousness structures form hidden connections with the created "dream entities," the small amount of free mental energy naturally dissipated during normal mental fluctuations in living organisms can be intercepted and collected by Main God with almost no loss. This is consistent with the verification results obtained through experiments involving the Administrator and a small number of preselected "samples"...]

[...It has been confirmed that when scenario elements cause intense emotional fluctuations among "newcomers," there is a noticeable increase in mental energy dissipation... However, after emotional fluctuations subside, varying degrees of natural weakening in the overall consciousness response also occur in the short term... The specific fluctuation range remains unclear. The current experimental quantity is insufficient, and more sample data is required for research into the related effects...]

He did not pay excessive attention to the specific test verification details. His gaze merely swept rapidly over the simplified conclusions at the bottom of each research statistical report.

With a faint sense of familiarity, as though he had returned to his senior year of college and had no choice but to spend every day in the laboratory alongside graduate students with heavy dark circles while writing his thesis, Li Yun quickly confirmed the most important conclusion.

It matched one of the initial projections proposed after preliminary testing on Li Yun himself and a small number of "sample individuals"—once ordinary people formed hidden connections with a created "dream world," the tiny amount of mental energy naturally dissipated through their conscious activity could be directly captured and intercepted by Main God, much like the subtle and barely perceptible magnetic field effect of the human body.

Unlike the complex deposits within the Cluster Subconscious Sea, this free mental energy directly generated by the consciousness of still-living, active organisms generally did not contain overly intense characteristics of "personal consciousness information." In other words, it could be directly converted into usable standard blank mental energy with an extremely low loss rate.

This was undoubtedly good news.

Although, judging from the overall test group data, the mental energy naturally dissipated by each person was not especially significant, the source consisted of a vast number of individuals, and the process occurred constantly.

—During this first test run alone, across dozens of Newcomer Trial worlds lasting anywhere from half a day to three days, Main God had preliminarily gained nearly one hundred and forty thousand Standard Mental Energy. Although that was still less than the substantial expenditure expected for exchanges with the newcomers, it was undoubtedly an excellent beginning.

Such a virtually inexhaustible long-term source of income was of crucial importance to the current resource reserves, which had gradually begun to run low under Main God's projected expenditures.

At the very least, Li Yun could relax for now and would not need to hurry up and throw himself into the sea to blow bubbles while "working overtime."

In addition, Main God had deliberately highlighted certain information in red, emphasizing that each person's specific mental energy dissipation effect during the process was clearly connected to their "emotional state at the time," as well as their "individual mental strength"...

The implications were self-evident. It even indirectly confirmed the correctness of his earlier decision to choose the Main God Space category alone among the plans he had considered.

But clearly, with large-scale test conclusions now matching expectations, the most urgent matter to plan and handle next was first to further expand the quantity of Main God Game users who served as hidden sources of mental energy. Only afterward would it be time to consider raising the corresponding quality.

You had to eat one bite at a time, and walk one step at a time.

"If that's the case, then we'll have to pick up the pace a little more..."

After thinking for a long time, the figure at the desk finally removed his plain glasses and silently rubbed the bridge of his nose.