MoP: Ch. 155

---Third POV---

On Viktor's shoulder, Luminaris stared wide-eyed in terror:

"Ruthless undead!"

The undead were casually talking about executions like it was ordering takeout?

ProGamer_Daddy jumped up too.

"I can understand the Light Goddess without a translator?"

Luminaris' eyes widened even further.

"Who's the goddess?!"

Only the beastman on the ground, after a brief moment of shock, kept his wary gaze fixed on Viktor. He didn't spare the players or Luminaris even a glance.

Viktor calmed the two of them down:

"That was my doing. This beastman has a special identity. To make it easier for you to manage him, I've set up a communication channel between you two."

"This is just a test, so you can try it out."

As he spoke, he severed the communication link between them.

Though he had considered using a "kill one to warn the rest" approach for efficiency's sake, he was short-staffed after all.

He briefly explained his reasoning, "There's some misunderstanding between me and the beastmen. It's not impossible that he could be reformed. More importantly, he can use Transformation Magic."

"Transformation Magic?" ProGamer_Daddy perked up. "Is it hard to learn?"

"Few people bother learning it," Viktor corrected.

"Transformation Magic is the easiest training path for humans who take the Druid class. It was quite popular during the Age of Gods. But during the Age of Fallen Gods, Druids weren't favored. Human churches that could teach transformation gradually declined and vanished during the Faith Wars. This beastman might be one of the rare followers of such a church."

Druids relied mainly on transforming into animals, bears, leopards, eagles, sharks, etc., to fight. They were one of the rare all-rounded classes.

Once fully trained, they could possess the tankiness of a guardian, the attack power of a warrior, and the agility of a ranger, all depending on the environment. Some could even adapt to land, sea, and air, remarkably versatile.

The downside was that training was extremely dependent on natural environments. The first step to becoming a beast was to believe you were a beast.

After the Age of Fallen Gods, most uninhabited natural zones became breeding grounds for monsters. So Druids had a hard time advancing and gradually disappeared from history...

After hearing all that, ProGamer_Daddy suddenly understood.

"I see! So he's basically a rare class trainer? Then yeah, you definitely can't just kill him."

As for the weaknesses Viktor mentioned about the class, he completely ignored them. Whether a class was top-tier or complete garbage depended on players themselves to explore. How would you know if it sucked without trying?

His attitude instantly became enthusiastic.

"What do you need me to do?"

Viktor glanced at the angry beastman on the ground.

"Where's your human-powered generator?"

---

Ten minutes later, all the surrounding players were gathered in the open area in front of the weapons factory.

Since it was near the main street, many players who were just passing by got blocked and ended up stopping to look.

"Move it! Or I'll report you all for disturbing the city's peace!"

"What? Just because it's bigger than a village it's suddenly a city?"

"There aren't even vehicles in the game right now, what, a one-meter-wide path isn't enough for you?"

The passerby, rendered speechless, pushed through the crowd.

"Fine, I want to see what you're all gawking at. Huh? A hamster wheel?"

At the edge of the street stood a massive transparent oval-shaped wheel containing a beastman, spinning continuously.

Inside, the beastman, his mouth sealed shut, was bouncing and running nonstop due to the wheel's inertia. It looked like a perpetual treadmill.

Before long, he was drenched in sweat, his fur matted and his breathing labored. Every few seconds, he'd stumble slightly, nearly face-planting against the bumpy interior walls.

A nearby player, munching on some kind of seeds, quipped, "That's a feline beastman in there, right? Clearly, this should be called a Cat-tion Wheel!"

The passing player cringed so hard at the pun that his toes practically curled into the ground.

With a few explanations from others, he gradually understood where this contraption came from. So the beastman had failed to assassinate the faction leader and was now being used as a manual power generator as punishment?

The passerby froze for a moment, then suddenly realized, "Wait, Daddy actually got the generator working? Does that mean our game will have electricity now?"

At the front, in a small cleared-out area, ProGamer_Daddy walked back and forth, introducing the "hamster cage" and the tangled network of wires.

"Due to material limitations, the running-powered generator currently produces about 30 to 50 watt-hours of electricity."

"With this storage device here, all of that energy can be collected and used for research at the weapons factory!"

He patted the side of the "hamster cage." Inside, aside from the narrow walking path, the bumpy and uneven "walls" were clearly visible to the naked eye. If the beastman stopped running suddenly, he'd likely slam into the sides face-first, probably bleeding instantly.

The interior was lined with small metal protrusions, not enough to cause serious injury but definitely enough to make any impact painful. It was a masterclass in motivation through mild torture.

ProGamer_Daddy thumped his chest.

"Viktor, don't worry! As long as you can make sure he doesn't use any transformation spells, I guarantee he'll never get out of this cage."

"In the name of humanitarian treatment, our initial open-air sentence plan includes an 8-hour rest period, with three 5-hour power-generation shifts and 1 hour for meals."

"Quota-based generation. If he doesn't hit the quota, he works overtime. If he finishes early, he gets extra rest. What do you think?"

Viktor looked at the thick wires on the ground and the roughly carved basic rune array on the "hamster cage." He nodded in approval. "Not bad. Let's go with your plan."

He had to admit, the creativity of these players was truly impressive. They'd actually figured out how to make working electric wires. And they'd even learned rune crafting without him noticing?

The efficiency was almost touching.

ProGamer_Daddy lit up with joy.

"See? I knew I had the talent to be a prison warden."

He had even adjusted the workload and power quota specifically because feline beastmen were much faster than humans. The math was all there, optimal energy output with minimal resource waste.

Then he shook his head.

"It's a shame that electricity is less stable and harder to source than magic power. This engine is just a prototype, with poor energy conversion efficiency. Otherwise, we could mass-produce them as real equipment, instead of using them as torture devices... By the way, Viktor, how did you know I had this thing?"

"Because the goblins in the room next to mine disappeared," Viktor replied flatly.

The goblins he'd been raising for over half a month suddenly vanished, then ProGamer_Daddy's SAN value dropped sharply. All he had to do was check the logs to know what happened.

The players behind them instantly caught on and started shouting:

"This guy's inhuman!"

"Goblins are so cu—uh, not cute. Still, how could you use them for hard labor?!"

"Good thing he didn't find zombies. Otherwise, he might've invented a perpetual motion machine!"

"Hey, hey!" ProGamer_Daddy protested. "What are you guys even imagining?!"

"It was the NPC who said the goblins ate too much and were useless. They asked me for help, so I came up with a way for them to earn their own food. I was doing a proper quest. The goblins just couldn't handle pressure at their young age. They worked for two days, tried to escape, accidentally broke a power line, and... anyway, it's not my fault! I was more upset about losing the electricity!"

The crowd's response was a chorus of disbelieving boos.

Viktor smiled but said nothing. He actually believed it. Because ProGamer_Daddy's SAN value loss wasn't from maliciously abusing the goblins, it was due to an extremely low moral baseline when it came to "efficient resource management."

At that moment, Booze, who had returned once again, pushed to the front of the crowd and shouted, "Viktor! I need to ask you something important! A player is about to get beaten to death for two-timing!"

"Two-timing?!"

"Spill the details!"

"How far has it gone?"

"There are always clueless newbie players bold enough to challenge the authority of SAN!"

The atmosphere around them instantly boiled over. This was far more entertaining than any pedal-powered generator. The crowd quickly gathered, leaving the "hamster cage" aside.

Seeing this, Viktor couldn't ignore it any longer.

After some effort, he brought Booze, who clearly had the potential to be a top-tier drama writer, into the weapons factory. The outside scene was left for ProGamer_Daddy to handle.

Holding the translator Viktor gave him, ProGamer_Daddy asked, "That's it? You don't need me to help interrogate him?"

After all, it was the game's first assassination attempt. At least follow some procedures to show that it's being taken seriously, right?

Viktor looked back.

"How do you know I haven't already interrogated him?"

ProGamer_Daddy was stunned for a moment, then suddenly understood and gave a thumbs-up.

"Got it. The all-powerful magic!"

Now that he was sure the guy had no more hidden tricks, he could deal with him freely. Perfect, he was quite interested in transformation magic...

---

Luckily, the expanded weapons factory had plenty of empty rooms. They cleared one out, using Zycotl to move the wooden furniture away and clean the space.

The first thing Viktor said after sitting down was: "This time, you better ask everything in one go."

Having returned once again, Booze looked awkward.

"This time for sure, definitely."

He obediently paid Viktor an even higher consultation fee than before.

"Do you know what the Siren Romance System is?"

"Garble got bound to two of them at once and is now being tortured by both."

He had just logged off to report to NeverShowOff, only to be bombarded with panicked messages explaining Garble's current crisis. That's when he realized what he'd forgotten to mention. To avoid Garble losing all progress after painstakingly infiltrating the casino, he told Viktor everything.

Viktor was surprised.

"Siren Romance System? Of course I know."

To be precise, the source of that system was Viktor himself. He'd been in Aeltia for hundreds of years, wishing for a system wasn't a new thing for him.

Eventually, an avatar of the Love Goddess, still unsealed within him at the time, stole his inspiration. That information reached her main body, which finally resulted in the creation of the so-called Siren Romance System.

Her followers were usually emotionally intense, magically gifted races. Sirens made up the majority.

Whether due to a flaw in the Sea God's creation process or evolution caused by their low fertility, sirens developed the trait of not having a defined gender until adulthood and had highly sensitive emotional instincts.

They secreted dopamine easily, fell in love fast, and had a hard time moving on. In short: hopeless romantics.

The Siren Romance System was designed to solve this problem.

Any siren who pledged to the Love Goddess could easily receive a Romance System. Once implanted into the target they had feelings for, the love-struck siren and the system-bound target would appear to be in a mutual relationship.

This way, the siren's romantic urges were satisfied, and their faith in the Love Goddess became more devout. Both the siren's learning speed and the amount of divine power she received would grow significantly.

Truly, a win-win solution, except for the poor soul who became the target.

"The Siren Romance System isn't essentially different from the well-established 'Faith–Divine Power' system used by the gods."

"You can think of it as a miniature divine artifact that allows limited access to the Love Goddess's divine power."

The difference was that traditional faith systems use divine power to enhance the follower's learning speed. The Siren Romance System, however, directly converted divine power into real punishments like "electric shocks" or "burning flames" to threaten the system host into doing what it's told.

But the return ratio was the same: with just 1% effort, the god could gain 500% return in power from the faithful.

Booze was stunned.

"You can do that?! Who gave the Love Goddess this shady borderland-tier system idea? Isn't that just making life harder for herself?!"

"Ahem, maybe something got lost in translation along the way..."

Viktor, who had hidden the fact that he was the system's originator, corrected him a bit sheepishly.

Back then, he'd been having a rough time in another world. His system wish had gone from "give me an ability to become a god" all the way down to "Just help me with anything, please."

Who knew the Love Goddess, Flovia, would interpret it as "forcibly control others"? And to her credit, she really made something of it. Eventually, she used it to recruit a large number of siren followers.

"Then why is the goddess using electric shocks as punishment? Isn't that outside her authority?" Booze kept asking.

"Divine wars end with gods stealing each other's domains. It's perfectly normal that Flovia holds parts of the Thunder and Fire Gods' authorities."

That might be true, but Booze still couldn't wrap his head around it. The Fire God was one of the Thirteen Ancient Gods, how could he lose domain powers to a newcomer like that?

Before Booze could finish lamenting, Viktor shifted the topic.

"Siren falling in love with non-sirens isn't unheard of, but they're a magically gifted race. They have standards."

"I honestly didn't expect you guys to end up as targets for the romance system."

After all, the players' max level was only that of beginner mages. Even the most average siren, with no special bloodline, was born with beginner mage-level power, and had physical strength far beyond humans.

They had no reason at all to fall for players.

In his memory, the player named Garble was the silent, ruthless type. Not exactly a smooth talker. Could it be that he's secretly a natural chick magnet, and LootGoblin wasn't just a meme?

Booze looked deeply conflicted.

"Who would want to get bound by that kind of system?"

"Do you know how to remove it?"

"Nope." Viktor answered bluntly.

"The system in the siren's possession is just the final product at the end of the whole system chain. It's symbiotic with the host."

"Its main function isn't those little punishments, but the deep-rooted parasitic system embedded in the host's brain."

"Hidden, tenacious, incredibly resilient. That's what makes it so troublesome."

"You'd probably have to scramble the host's brain matter just to find it."

Booze nearly jumped out of his seat.

"The system is alive?!"

Viktor nodded grimly.

"I told you, there was a misunderstanding when Flovia designed it."

This world's tech level was abysmal. Even the gods weren't much better.

So when Flovia got her hands on Viktor's system idea, the "solution" she came up with was... to create a bug, purely bred from divine power, and give it partial control over divine energy, making it act as the system.

To survive and reproduce, even after Flovia had died for 600 years, these bugs remained her best weapons.

And now, thinking of Garble's brain, where two such bugs were crawling through the folds of his cortex...

Booze got goosebumps all over.

He quickly asked, "Isn't there a way to remove them without scrambling the host's brain?!"

"Nope."

Viktor answered without even pausing.

"If you want to deal with them via the host, that's the only option."

"This is Flovia's proudest creation. You should be grateful there's even a way to take them down with you."

"Unless... you find the system's main brain, the birthplace of these bugs. Their external brain."

"If you can crush that in your hand, then you become the next system master. And with the system no longer a threat, that's considered a clean resolution."