Interlude: Plans, Review, Manifestation

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The golden afterglow of the setting sun streamed through the window into the study, its soft light illuminating a clock with a stark, modern minimalist design.

At that moment, the clock's hour hand had already pointed at six. Accompanied by the ticking of its hands, the entire study felt especially peaceful and comfortable.

"Click."

Suddenly, an incongruous sound came from beneath the clock. Then, with a creak, the safe below it was slowly opened.

Several stacks of documents and notebooks were neatly arranged on the upper shelf of the safe, while bundles of Grand Alliance banknotes, several artworks, jewelry, and a few gold bars had been casually tossed onto the lower shelf.

The next moment, a hand reached into the safe. After rummaging around for a while, it quickly grabbed a black notebook.

"Found it." Xia Lun pulled the notebook from the safe, then returned to his seat behind the desk.

There were still thirty minutes before the information panel finished upgrading.

Xia Lun had no intention of idly waiting for half an hour. He planned to use those thirty minutes to write in his private diary and carefully review his performance in the scenario.

Whether before or after transmigrating, he had always maintained the habit of reviewing his actions. He firmly believed that only by rationally reviewing emotional experience could it truly benefit him.

In other words, Xia Lun believed that review was the foundation of continuous improvement.

"First, organize the information."

Muttering to himself, he flipped the black notebook open to a blank page in the middle and wrote the words "Foresight Club."

"1. According to the detectives' findings, the name Foresight Club first originated in conspiracy theories from Greyroad State. Believers in those theories thought that the Grand Alliance government had already been controlled by aliens, and those controlled by aliens called themselves Foresighters."

Xia Lun paused his pen, picked up a photograph from beside him, and pasted it onto the page.

"2. The symbol of the Foresight Club is shown above. At first glance, it appears to be several interlocking triangles, but its inner core uses visual disparity to create an effect of an endless loop, with its beginning connected to its end."

"3. Bird, a director of Jade Pharmaceuticals, may be connected to the Foresight Club. His daughter came to seek my help in mid-Fogwinter. She believes Bird has either been mentally controlled or replaced."

Xia Lun's pen paused slightly before he continued writing.

"For some reason, I feel that Bird's daughter looks very familiar. That is strange and requires attention."

"That is all the relevant information organized so far."

Xia Lun put down his pen, flipped several pages forward in the black notebook, and soon found this year's "Planning Page."

Quite a lot had already been written on the Planning Page, but overall, it could be divided into three sections: "Short-Term Goals," "Mid-Term Goals," and "Long-Term Goals."

Xia Lun's eyes shifted slightly, and he drew a large checkmark after "Cure my illness" under "Mid-Term Goals."

Then he spun his pen and began writing rapidly.

"Short-Term Goals: Rest well and adjust my physical condition (); enter dreams and obtain the Nonhuman Toughness specialty through memories (); complete the special memory Courtly Tournament (); find an opportunity to meet the information broker White Line and sell or buy game-related items ()."

"Mid-Term Goals: Cure my illness (√)."

"Long-Term Goals: Find the truth behind my illness (); use the game to obtain supernatural powers or reap some benefits ()."

Xia Lun nodded and carefully read through it once before closing the black notebook and returning it to the safe.

Next, he took a brand-new notebook with a brown cover from the bookshelf and opened it.

"Time to review." He muttered as he began writing.

"First scenario: Sea Battle Royale."

"Process: Omitted."

"Oddity: 1. How exactly did I enter the game scenario? Without a doubt, the game Investigator is far from an ordinary game. Rather than a game, it is more like transmigration."

"But if that is the case, then it is strange that the Underwater Breathing Potion I took after entering the scenario for the first time became ineffective. If I had transmigrated physically, then I should have retained both my illness status and the Underwater Breathing Potion status. Yet in the end, I retained only the illness status and not the Underwater Breathing Potion status."

"That is quite strange. If I transmigrated as a soul, then why did I still retain the illness status?"

Xia Lun frowned slightly and continued writing.

"Perhaps the lung disease I had existed on the soul level?" As he wrote, Xia Lun's pen paused again. "Forget it. In any case, I've already cured it. I can think about this later."

"Oddity 2: the Erroneous Occult Knowledge that appeared among the redeemable specialty memories. I, Monster, the first mate's trusted Bearded Pirate, and Daolunte, the rotten-faced sailor who rebelled at the end, all possessed this strange specialty memory. There may be a hidden clue behind it."

"I feel like I'm already very close to the truth. I just need to change my way of thinking, or perhaps I need some inspiration..."

The next moment, Xia Lun's eyes darkened as he deliberately activated Heightened Focus.

The flow of time suddenly slowed. In an instant, countless chaotic thoughts and hazy flashes of inspiration seemed to be placed beneath the sun, becoming exceptionally clear.

Xia Lun felt as though his head had become a transparent lens, while his attention became the sun. Past memories and inspiration turned into layers of halos refracted through that lens, clear and lucid.

Within a few fleeting moments, enormous amounts of information and speculation passed through his mind. Relying only on his subconscious, he arranged and combined the tangled information and hypotheses, continually filtering them. Gradually, a line of thought with a complete logical chain emerged like a gemstone illuminated by sunlight.

"If that's the case... but... conversely... yet overall..." He rested his elbows on the table, pressing his fingertips together into a point. "I see. I get it now."

—Human rational thought relied on the sentence structures of language. At that moment, Xia Lun's thoughts were moving at extreme speed, so he only needed to mutter those structural cue words to keep his thinking sufficiently clear.

"Boom..."

The next instant, Xia Lun exited the Heightened Focus state. He picked up his pen again and rapidly wrote in his diary.

"Based on what Monster said to me during the final battle, it can be inferred that my original self in the scenario knew Monster. Meanwhile, from the specialty memory Erroneous Occult Knowledge, it can be deduced that I was Monster's occult apprentice under my 'mentor.' Aside from that, Daolunte, the rotten-faced sailor, and the first mate's trusted Bearded Pirate were probably Monster's apprentices as well."

"This hypothesis can explain the timing of the first mate's faction's coup—it was Bearded Pirate who incited the first mate to make his move."

"Under such circumstances, there was no conflict between Monster and me at all. We may even have been secret allies. Therefore, the normal game flow should have been to resist pirate tyranny with Monster's help, coordinating from within and without to survive six days. Hmm, from that perspective, the first round of this game was actually quite easy..."

"But because I was too nervous, I went completely berserk and attacked Monster right away, seriously injuring him. After that, I allied with Geliide, held votes, and used other methods to become the pirates' leader. That meant all my moves directly switched my faction. Hmm, so that was probably why the difficulty of this round became so absurd."

"From a certain perspective, the high difficulty of this scenario was entirely my own fault—it was a bloody disaster caused by 'What are you looking at?' 'Looking at you, so what?'"

The corner of Xia Lun's mouth twitched slightly as he continued writing.

"I need to learn from this. I can't go so berserk next time."

"But if I reflect more deeply, the reason I went berserk was probably because I had spent too long in Whitewash City. This place has made me lose my trust in strangers and unfamiliar Monsters. After all, most citizens of Whitewash City follow the preemptive principle of 'strike first or suffer later.'"

"Ah, Whitewash City!"

He shook his head, told himself a bad joke, and continued writing.

"However, from the perspective of the final gains, my berserk behavior actually brought me greater rewards. Whether it was killing Monster, obtaining the Prayerbook of the Drowned, or earning the pirates' recognition, none of those things could have been obtained through the normal route."

"So overall, attacking Monster berserkly from the start was not entirely a bad thing. After all, I cured my lung disease."

His pen scratched across the paper. As black ink continued soaking into the white pages, time quietly passed.

When Xia Lun put down his pen, the minute hand had already pointed at five. It was now 6:25.

He silently called up the information panel and discovered that there were still six minutes until its upgrade was complete.

"The timing is just right. I can clear my mind for a bit." Xia Lun closed the red notebook, stuffed it into the safe, and gently shut the safe door.

After finishing all that, he returned to his chair, closed his eyes, focused on his breathing, and began meditating.

Cold air slowly flowed into his nostrils, warmed by his body temperature, and traveled down his trachea into his lungs.

Xia Lun quietly felt his chest expand. The invisible substance filled the capillaries of his lungs, while his aching fatigue drifted away along with the moving air.

Within that unsteady flow of air, his mind gradually emptied. Memories, thoughts, inspiration, and stray distractions were all like bubbles rising to the surface, vanishing in an instant...

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration cut through his mind.

Wait, can I manifest items in reality?