Hearts and Decisions

No, that was an option too?

Never mind the college student beside him, who was left dumbfounded and with his scalp tingling upon hearing this. Even a certain "gaze" cast down from the void, sweeping over everything here from some unseen realm, fell silent for an imperceptible 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 Guangyi City's regional bank... handled several business projects...]

He casually glanced over the information instantly gathered on the computer, noting several details and studying them for quite some time.

The figure seated quietly at the table merely smiled.

"Sure enough, heroes are as numerous as carp crossing the river."

There was a hint of emotion in his voice.

But the moment 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 information and performance during the Newcomer Trial, he likely proposed this idea sincerely. This compound interest rate may not even be the minimum he had envisioned.]

"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 naive. Proposing such an idea in an unfamiliar environment that seemed fraught with hidden dangers was itself a gamble. This gentleman couldn't possibly be unaware 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 really think he wanted that unlikely 'loan'?"

"He was risking it all to sound you out."

Casually pushing up his glasses, the person finally stopped the pen that had been writing across the paper.

"I don't deny that, at times, luck alone can allow a completely incompetent person to climb step by step. But among those who came from the countryside with no background and managed to reach President Han's position, how many could possibly be fools?"

He lazily stretched at length.

"Actually, this matter isn't all that complicated."

"Whether you agreed to him or refused him, that subjective 'negotiation'—which lay outside the preset procedures and wasn't a simple service response—could, in a sense, reveal one fact: you, the seemingly rigid Main God, could be negotiated with, could be spoken to, might even possess humanity, or perhaps there was simply a living person or some alien creature behind the scenes controlling all this."

"And if he could vaguely confirm that on the spot, then this risky probe would have been far too worthwhile for President Han."

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

It was obvious that he had indeed endured plenty of hardship during the first half of his life, matching the information in his profile.

Li Yun's expression remained calm.

But after picking up his pen again, he did not immediately resume writing. Instead, as if a sudden whim had struck him, he examined the pen barrel in his hand.

Then, just as he used to during his student days, he began spinning the gel pen between the fingers of one hand, letting it nimbly whirl around his fingertips, circling through the air again and again in a futile dance.

"If you can be spoken to, that means there's room for negotiation and maneuvering. Then you, Main God, who seem to rule everything, no longer appear quite so untouchable or unfathomable."

"In ancient times, emperors dwelled high in court and deep within distant palaces. They wore beaded crowns, observed ceremony whenever they came and went, concealed their forms and hid their spirits—all for the sake of making their 'heavenly majesty unfathomable.'"

"Having humanity means you can be studied, understood, and even have your habits and weaknesses exploited in turn. And veterans like President Han, whose work revolves around dealing with all kinds of people, should naturally be among the best at such skills..."

After letting the pen flutter up and down between his fingers like a butterfly for a long while, he seemed to suddenly grow tired and quietly stopped.

Glancing once more at the page already covered with dense writing and obvious traces of repeated revisions, the young man at the desk could not help shaking his head. For some reason, he smiled softly again.

"Besides, let me ask you this. If you had a loan still outstanding, as the lender, would you rather the borrower stay alive and keep repaying the debt with interest, or simply watch him sink to the bottom and vanish 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 money. Are you supposed to become his personal safety nanny and wait for him to repay it alive and well?"

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

"Main God, people are simple and complicated creatures. You can't fully encompass them merely by looking at what they have done or said on the surface."

"I know that if we followed President Han's wishes and gave him such a 'loan,' thereby creating a clearer resource gap among the users, it would be like throwing a 'catfish' into the pond. It might better fit the catalyst effect we previously considered, indirectly accelerating the expansion of potential secondary channels."

"But that isn't how this account should be calculated."

"You don't possess humanity in the true sense. That's an advantage, but also a disadvantage. Take my advice: when it comes to the finer details of grasping people's hearts, no matter how much you rely on calculations based on information, you won't outplay old foxes like them."

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

"You are the maker, operator, and judge of the rules behind this Main God Game. Just use the larger situation to suppress them. If you start competing with these people over the unpredictability of human hearts and get dragged into their rhythm, that would be lowering yourself and losing your stature."

"Besides, even if it really were borrowing one and repaying ten, do you think he would lose out?"

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

He rendered his conclusion calmly.

"He works in finance, after all. He was rattling those abacus beads loudly enough for even me to hear... So there's no need to pay attention to the overly impatient Mr. Han Youwei. Just continue according to the procedures we set before."

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

[Recorded. Additionally, Administrator, is this the "wisdom" belonging to humans that you mentioned before?]

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

The person sighed softly, sounding both emotional and utterly indifferent.

Even during the initial design and deduction of the Main God Game, he had proactively suggested that, under the early operational structure, certain 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 specific areas, incorporating the idea into the vague reference recommendations.

Correspondingly, Main God had unsurprisingly incorporated this suggestion into its "subjective-oriented" operational standards. When faced with a situation like this, it had even indirectly displayed a degree of "vague judgment" that should not have existed...

But Li Yun understood very clearly that this vaguely worded recommendation should only be an opportunity for circumstances to create heroes, a chance to go with the flow. It could never become a process whose standards people might vaguely figure out, much less one through which they could actively apply for "angel investment."

Ultimately, in areas without clear standards of judgment, and for an illusory consciousness whose development of its "humanity" had been locked down by authority directives, one could not demand true perfection or comprehensive consideration in every respect...

Without rushing to do anything further, Li Yun pondered for a moment before completely setting down what he held and raising another consideration.

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

[Administrator, this is at least one test earlier than your previous plan for arranging your personal identity.]

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

"Mm, I have my reasons... At present, it might be better to go in and take a look sooner."

Today's minor incident had already sounded a small warning for him, concerning certain areas where Main God would ultimately fall short.

This meant that his entry in the third round—which had originally been scheduled for when the base number of "tourists" would be larger, making it easier to disperse any attention drawn in and effectively conceal himself, while taking advantage of the opportunity to obtain reasons that could cover up certain abnormalities—would indeed have to be moved up considerably.

But Li Yun had always understood one thing: the position and height at which a person stood would inevitably affect what he saw and heard.

And 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 monstrous genius from a novel, a sage who could calculate everything without error. If anything, he had once merely been an ordinary young corporate worker, so unremarkable that he would disappear entirely once thrown into the vast sea of humanity.

Since he could not notice the slightest detail or be flawless, he could only try manual handling and make up for omissions.

After all, judging from the current situation, these minor "flaws that were not quite flaws," which had already begun quietly revealing themselves in certain procedures, needed to be discovered and dealt with as soon as possible. Otherwise, if they were simply allowed to continue unchecked, they would likely ferment over time into some "fun" that no one would find pleasant.

...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 darkness for a long while with his chin propped in both hands, as though resting with his eyes closed. The room had already had its curtains drawn, and the fading light made it even dimmer.

He let the glow from the notebook's screen reflect a cold sliver of light across his lenses.

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

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

"Judging by the time ratios in the Newcomer Trials, it should be about time. First, show me the statistical report from the initial operation."

"Understood."

As Li Yun raised his hand and closed the notebook, intricate annotation tables, statistical data, and dynamic analyses almost simultaneously refreshed across the illusory screen that quietly appeared before him—clearly the same model 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, three thousand one hundred and fifty-seven actual participants selected "Yes," while the number of those who did not respond was...]

[...Based on the difficulty evaluations of the corresponding illusory worlds, they were randomly assigned in varying numbers to the twenty-five activated "Newcomer Trial" scenarios, and the corresponding...]

[...Based on the detection of natural mental energy dissipation resulting from changes in human emotional activity during this process, the acquisition efficiency in large-scale sample research has been confirmed...]

Under the dim indoor lighting, the charts and text flowing silently across the pale indigo screen appeared especially conspicuous.

As he examined the relevant information analyses and summaries, he listened to the voice beside him deliberately explain several key points. He compared them with the vague ideas, plans, and predictions in his mind, verifying them one by one.

Even Li Yun had to admit that Main God's ability to grasp the overall situation, establish proper procedures, and handle everything from the broadest view to the smallest details had reached heights far beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

If it had not used its astonishing capabilities in the information domain to oversee nearly all the work of translating the plan into reality, aside from "establishing the general strategy," and Li Yun had truly needed to handle these massive projects himself—projects whose concrete contents became incomprehensible the moment they were put into practice...

—He might as well keep dreaming.

All he could say was that, after obtaining the Azure Mirror, he had not been distracted by the principles of more direct benefits. Instead, he had prioritized seeking this kind of "artificial intelligence"-like starting assistance. Looking back now, that had indeed been an excellent move.

Just like now.

Although fewer than half of the "invitees" in the first group of invitations had selected "Yes," and some "tourists" had later been eliminated and awakened due to dying in the dream during the actual Newcomer Trials, leaving only a little over two thousand six hundred "newcomers" who had successfully cleared them...

None of that affected the fact that Main God had already obtained further verified results through the current "large-scale group testing" process—

[...It has been confirmed that, provided a hidden connection is formed between portions of an individual's intrinsic consciousness structure and the constructed "dream subject," a small amount of free mental energy naturally dissipated during normal mental fluctuations in real organisms can be intercepted and collected by the "Main God" with almost no loss. This is consistent with the verification results obtained from experiments conducted on the "Administrator" and a small number of preselected "samples"...]

[...It has been confirmed that when scenario elements cause intense emotional fluctuations in "newcomers," there is a noticeable increase in mental energy dissipation... However, once emotional fluctuations recede, this also causes varying degrees of temporary natural weakening in overall consciousness responses... The specific range of fluctuation remains unclear. The current number of experiments 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 information. His eyes merely swept rapidly across the simplified conclusions at the bottom of each research-oriented statistical report.

With the familiar feeling of having returned to his senior year in college, when he had been forced to spend every day in the laboratory alongside graduate student seniors with heavy dark circles while writing his graduation thesis, Li Yun quickly confirmed the most important conclusion.

It matched one of the original projections made through preliminary tests on Li Yun himself and a small number of "sample individuals"—once ordinary people formed a hidden connection with the constructed "dream world," the small amount of mental energy naturally dissipated through their consciousness activities could be directly captured and intercepted by Main God, much like the subtle and difficult-to-detect magnetic field effect surrounding every human body.

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

This was undoubtedly good news.

Although the mental energy each person normally dissipated was not especially noticeable when considered individually, the number of individual sources was enormous, and the process occurred naturally at every moment.

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

With such a virtually inexhaustible long-term source of income, it held vital significance for the "resource reserves," which had begun to gradually run low under Main God's planned expenditures.

At the very least, Li Yun could breathe a temporary sigh of relief and no longer had to hurry up and throw himself into the sea to blow bubbles while "working overtime."

Additionally, Main God had deliberately highlighted certain information in red, emphasizing that each person's specific mental energy dissipation effect during this 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 decision to choose the Main God Space category alone from among the existing projected plans.

But evidently, with large-scale test conclusions that matched expectations now in hand, the most urgent matter to plan and address next was first expanding the "quantity" of the Main God Game user base, which served as a hidden source of mental energy. Only after that would they 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 again..."

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