My Hamster Has Become a Spirit

"Action points? This game has a stamina limit too?"

Mu You paused, then tapped the entry for "action points."

[Action points: The energy a Fool must expend to travel through the Star Spirit World. Each death and each branching choice you encounter costs one action point. Once your action points run out, you cannot act.

Current action points: 0/5. Action points automatically replenish to the maximum at midnight each day. They can also be restored using lifespan, at a rate of one year per action point. Would you like to exchange?]

"No, no, no!"

Mu You hurriedly tapped no.

Seriously, spending anything else was one thing, but spending his life?

One extra step cost a whole year of his life. Who could afford that?

But how exactly were these action points calculated?

Puzzled, Mu You studied the explanation in the text: each death and each branching choice he encountered cost one action point.

He had actually died twice just now, and he had tapped at least five or six choices. Surely that added up to more than five action points?

Did choices like "yes or no" not count?

Mu You couldn't figure it out, so he put it aside for now.

He checked the time. It was only six in the evening, still a long way from midnight. He definitely wouldn't be playing any more today.

Mu You exited the game and went to pull down the shop's roller shutter.

Then he eagerly took out the Magic Wand, ready to try the three spells he had just learned.

The first, Sure Shot, required a ranged weapon, and his shop certainly had nothing like that.

But he could test the other two spells right away.

Mu You went to the pet display area and picked up a hamster cage.

An adorable little hamster named Seventeen lived inside. He had bought it just two months ago.

Unfortunately, this little thing was dumb as a brick. Despite daily training, it still hadn't learned to lie on his palm or do its business in a designated spot, which gave Mu You quite a headache.

And so, it had the honor of becoming Mu You's first spellcasting subject!

The poor little hamster had no idea what it was about to experience. It was still nosing around its cage, sniffing here and there for food.

Mu You carried the cage into the main room and reached for the Magic Wand in his pocket.

After a moment's thought, however, he went to the front counter, found his camera, and set it up facing the cage.

He still didn't know what would happen when he cast magic. In any case, he would try recording it first.

With the camera set up and the angle adjusted, Mu You took out the Magic Wand, exhaled, aimed its tip at the hamster, and softly recited the Animal Speech spell.

"Vala... dupe... mogu... ores!"

The syllables were such a tongue twister that it took Mu You a full five seconds to finish.

Once he finished, a faint speck of light appeared at the tip of the Magic Wand and swiftly sank into the hamster's head.

The hamster abruptly stopped, frozen in place as though it had received an electric shock.

Only after two or three seconds did it move again. It raised its little head to look at Mu You, its face suddenly filled with an almost human eagerness.

"Want something to eat?" Mu You asked experimentally, holding a bag of nuts.

The hamster actually nodded over and over!

Mu You drew in a sharp breath.

Mu You himself was stunned. Wasn't the effect a little too obvious? One wave of the Magic Wand, and it could understand human speech!

"Do as I say, and I'll give you something to eat."

"Squeak, squeak!"

The little hamster nodded furiously.

Mu You then began giving the hamster various common commands.

It understood most of them immediately. For those it didn't understand, Mu You demonstrated with gestures, and it quickly learned to imitate him quite convincingly.

Ten minutes later.

"Lie on my palm... lie down... roll over... do a push-up... run two laps on the wheel... act cute..."

Whenever Mu You gave a command, the hamster immediately obeyed, then hurried to the side of the cage and waited for food with its little black eyes wide open. It refused to perform the next command until it was fed.

It even managed push-ups and somersaults-movements that should have been almost impossible for a hamster-though its form was less than perfect!

How amazing was that?

Calling this hamster a "spirit" now wouldn't have been an exaggeration at all!

Next, Mu You tested the Trap Spell.

He found a discarded wooden board in the storeroom, placed it in an open area, and cast the spell on it.

The Magic Wand swept through the air.

The next second, the board turned into a flat, circular trap. Its color almost blended into the surrounding floor; without looking closely, he couldn't tell anything was there.

With the trap ready, Mu You let Seventeen out of its cage and ordered it to walk over.

The little hamster obediently approached the trap, but the moment it stepped across its boundary...

Snap!

The trap instantly closed, turning into a spherical cage with decorative cutouts that held the hamster securely inside.

Startled, the little hamster frantically slapped the cage with its front paws. Its little eyes turned toward Mu You in a plea for help as it squeaked nonstop, looking ready to burst into tears.

Mu You hurried over to rescue it.

But the cage proved far sturdier than he had expected. It took considerable effort just to pry open a narrow gap.

The little hamster scrambled through the gap, all four legs flailing, then lay on Mu You's palm, still shaken. It gave him a resentful look, its humanlike expression making its feelings perfectly clear: I trusted you so much, and you made me step into a trap?

Then it folded its front legs and turned its head away in a sulk, like a wronged little wife. Only after Mu You fed it an entire small bag of nuts and promised never to trick it again did he manage to soothe it.

That concluded the tests of both spells. Their effects had been astonishing beyond his expectations.

After returning the hamster to its cage, Mu You went over, took down the camera, and checked the playback.

Both the Magic Wand and the magical light had been recorded normally.

So only relics are invisible to ordinary people? Mu You thought.

After watching the later footage of the little hamster acting cute, he suddenly realized this might be an opportunity!

After some thought, Mu You transferred the video to his computer and cut it up, deleting all the hocus-pocus footage and keeping only the shots of the hamster following various commands in its cage.

Next, he found some older videos he had recorded of the same hamster, cut out a few clips, and added them in, finally producing a thirty-second video.

The first half showed the hamster before training: clumsy in every way, pooping everywhere, and barely acknowledging its owner.

The second half showed the results of the training he had just completed.

The contrast between the two was absolutely brutal!

After adding subtitles, visual effects, and sound effects, Mu You titled it "How to Train a Hamster in Ten Minutes" and posted the video on his Bilibili account.

He wasn't a major creator on Bilibili, but he had accumulated over twenty thousand followers over the years. Considering the quality of this video, Mu You figured its view count wouldn't be too low.