Self

Self

The first step was to begin by changing the town residents' way of thinking.

To do that, he needed to be able to use the power of the "Pillar."

Mu Sichen had not first become a god-class monster and then used god-class power and the town residents' faith to build a "Pillar." His "Pillar" had been dug over with "Undermine."

Mu Sichen was still figuring out how to use the "Pillar."

Fortunately, this was his power. From the moment he entered the sanatorium, Mu Sichen had felt as if he were inside the "Pillar." As long as he properly connected to the "Pillar," he should be able to explore how to use it.

Mu Sichen brushed his palm over his left eye and thought he could use the ability he had dug away from Big Eye.

He quietly closed his eyes, and images that were normally invisible appeared in his left eye.

He "saw" a massive Self Totem covering the floor of the entire sanatorium. Every person inside, including Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo, had a point of light at their heart. Those points of light released fine threads that connected to the Self Totem.

That was the source of the Self Totem's power.

High above was Big Eye's totem. That huge three-pupiled eye hung over the sanatorium, watching it.

On the Self Totem, the pattern that belonged to Sky had already grown blurred.

Mu Sichen instantly understood what the image meant.

During the three days he had not been in the game, Big Eye's power had begun to gradually erode the Self Totem.

If he kept delaying his return to the game, Big Eye's power would completely devour the Self Totem sooner or later. Then the "Pillar" he had worked so hard to seize would be taken back by Big Eye.

When that happened, their Safe House would disappear.

Mu Sichen did not know what would happen to logged-out players like them if the Safe House disappeared. But when he thought of how the game world's power could seep into the real world, he doubted the three of them would come to any good end.

Mu Sichen walked a few steps toward the center of the hall and stood at the very center of the totem, sensing this power.

This was already his Pillar. As long as he calmed his mind and communicated with it, a great deal of knowledge would automatically enter his mind.

To repair the patterns on the Self Totem, he needed the emotional energy of the people inside the Pillar.

The "Pillar" urged Mu Sichen on, demanding that he increase the number of people in the domain as much as possible and continuously squeeze emotional energy out of them. Otherwise, the "Pillar" would collapse.

Perhaps because it had inherited Big Eye's "Pillar," Mu Sichen's "Pillar" was the same as the sanatorium's. It had no emotions. It was nothing more than a merciless machine that operated automatically, and it had only one demand: a steady, endless stream of emotional energy.

How was this his Pillar? It was clearly a bottomless pit that could never be filled.

No wonder back in the sanatorium, the needs of the "Pillar" and Big Eye had been entirely different. The "Pillar" did not care whether the volunteers lived or died. The "Pillar" only wanted to increase the number of patients and create more despair.

Mu Sichen felt as if he had been kidnapped by the "Pillar." A sense of urgency rose in his heart, making him want to throw caution aside and squeeze "Hope" from the town residents to satisfy the "Pillar."

He wondered if Big Eye suffered from this too.

Mu Sichen opened his eyes and felt the situation had become rather difficult.

He did not want to give the town residents in the domain too many expectations. Doing that would only make them repeat the same mistakes, and it would be no different from living under Big Eye's rule.

But if he simply dealt a blow to the town residents now and made them lose hope, the "Pillar," deprived of emotional energy, would immediately collapse. All their previous efforts would have been for nothing.

After thinking it over, Mu Sichen felt he should first learn more about the residents' situation inside the sanatorium.

He asked, "Have you been getting used to life these past few days? Are there any problems that need solving?"

The eyes on both sides of the volunteer's cheeks blinked a few times, and he answered, "Life has been fairly good. It's just that we can't leave the sanatorium, and I miss my friend who works at the Food Processing Plant a little. Of course, I'm not all that close to this friend. It's just that every time he gets off work, he can bring back some food from the Processing Plant. It's better than the town-issued rations, and I'm a little hungry. No, I don't mean the director is bad. It's just... when will food be handed out?"

Food. That really was something Mu Sichen had not paid attention to.

"How long has it been since you ate? Where did your food come from before?" Mu Sichen asked.

The volunteer said, "Before, all food was handed out regularly by the Feather-Eyed Apostle and the Followers. I've only gone one day without eating. There was still bread and milk in the warehouse before, and we took a set amount every day, so life was fine. But the stock ran out today, and we don't know what to do. The medical staff are discussing setting up an altar to ask the director to bestow food on us."

"Where is the altar?" Mu Sichen's brows drew together.

"On the seventh floor, in the room where the director fought the Feather-Eyed Apostle before," the volunteer said.

Mu Sichen faintly sensed that something was wrong. He took Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo and rushed up to the seventh floor.

They entered Room 704 and saw that the huge hole in the wall was still there, but the room had been cleaned. The hospital beds had been moved somewhere unknown.

On the empty floor of Room 704, someone had painted a huge Self Totem in red paint. In the middle of the totem, the tentacle-eyed volunteer who had pressed the elevator buttons for everyone back then was tied up.

The sight nearly made Mu Sichen's blood flow backward.

The totem that had originally symbolized self-awareness was now filled with something sinister, as if it were about to be contaminated by something.

"What are you doing?" Mu Sichen asked the medical staff standing in a circle around the totem.

A bespectacled man in a white coat saw Mu Sichen and said with exceptional delight, "Director, you're back! You heard our prayers, didn't you? It looks like our summons worked. Please don't worry. I will sacrifice this offering to you right away."

"Enough!" It was rare for Mu Sichen to get angry. He went to the tentacle-eyed volunteer's side, helped him up as he kept shedding tears, and asked with anger in his voice, "What are you doing?"

The bespectacled doctor said with an innocent face, even looking somewhat at a loss, "Praying to you? You were the one who told us to keep hope in our hearts. We have been waiting for you with hearts full of hope, waiting for you to bestow happiness and food on us. You still had not come, so our hope must not have been intense enough, and it must also have been the fault of these ugly Fallen. So we chose a Fallen to sacrifice to you."

"Hahaha!" Mu Sichen laughed in sheer fury and, for a moment, could not speak.

He finally understood. Those three days offline had not been the final time limit the System had given him at all. They had been the final limit of what the "Pillar," what these town residents, could endure.

If he had been a few minutes later, these people would have sacrificed the tentacle-eyed volunteer.

Mu Sichen looked at the sinister Self Totem on the floor. As the Master of the Totem, he had a premonition.

If these people really performed a sacrifice inside the "Pillar," he would suffer reverse contamination.

His feeling when he returned to the sanatorium had been right.

A god-class monster could contaminate ordinary people. Conversely, once the number of followers reached a certain scale, they could also reverse-contaminate a god-class monster.

Mu Sichen could not help forming a doubt. Whether it was Big Eye or Qin Zhou, had They been evil gods from the very beginning?

Had They really not been reverse-contaminated?

At this point, blaming the people in the sanatorium would be useless.

He was the one who had been wrong.

He should not have rushed to log out. He should have stayed inside the sanatorium, experienced life here, and learned the followers' customs and habits instead of simply leaving.

Inside the sanatorium, these were not ordinary people from the real society he knew. They were residents who had lived under Big Eye's rule for who knew how long. Even if Mu Sichen had previously purified Big Eye's mental contamination from them, he could not change their habits.

They were already used to living this way, praying to a Great Being for everything and purifying the Fallen at the slightest disagreement.

Mu Sichen untied the tentacle-eyed volunteer. The tentacle-eyed volunteer clutched Mu Sichen's clothes and sobbed quietly, "Director, I'm really not a Fallen."

"I know." Mu Sichen patted his shoulder soothingly. "It was my fault."

He was too weak and too careless, which was why all this had nearly happened.

It was also because he had always felt some rejection toward these volunteers, who had been contaminated by Big Eye and born with extremely abnormal appearances. That emotion had been transmitted to the "Pillar," and the "Pillar" had affected the people inside the sanatorium, which caused everyone to discriminate against the tentacle-eyed volunteer and tie him up on the totem.

This could not happen again.

Mu Sichen took a deep breath and communicated with the Pillar's power, using it to send his words into the hearts of everyone in the sanatorium. "I am not a god and cannot give you hope. Hope should come from the heart, from the self, from longing for a better life. It is the driving force behind every positive action."

His words were like an oracle, carved into everyone's heart through the Pillar's power.

This was the cornerstone Mu Sichen set for his Hope Town.

Even if this sentence might shake the hearts of the people inside the sanatorium, might make many of them lose hope in him, and might cause the Pillar to lose its source of power.

If that truly happened, then that would prove that he, Mu Sichen, had reached his limit and did not deserve to control a Pillar.

These words overturned everything everyone had understood before and left them confused. On the Self Totem across the sanatorium floor, the pattern symbolizing Ocean also gradually grew blurred.

But Mu Sichen's firm conviction was also transmitted into every person's heart through the Pillar's power.

Fortunately, this was a world where people could mentally contaminate one another. As long as mental power was strong enough, it could infect others. Otherwise, empty words could never move people's hearts.

"Then... Director, what is Self? How can we have hope?" the bespectacled doctor asked.

"What do you want right now?" Mu Sichen asked.

"I want food. I'm very hungry," the bespectacled doctor said.

Mu Sichen asked, "And after you eat your fill?"

The bespectacled doctor said, "To leave the sanatorium and sleep soundly at home. Then... then during 'Daylight,' not having to hide inside the house. For the town not to have so much fog. The Future... what is the Future?"

When he mentioned the Future, the bespectacled doctor suddenly froze.

Mu Sichen said, "Everything you just said is hope. And longing for a future that belongs to you is your Self. But you should not pray to me. I am weak, just like you."

"If we don't pray to you, what should we do? Pray to the 'Eye of the Sky' again?" the bespectacled doctor asked.

The moment he asked this, the Earth pattern on the Self Totem also gradually grew blurred.

Their faith was wavering, and the sanatorium's cornerstone was about to collapse.

Countless waves of Despondency traveled through the Pillar and reached Mu Sichen. He was wrapped in despair and could hardly breathe. Several times he wanted to speak, but no words came out.

Just then, the zipper of his backpack was opened from the inside. A blue Little Octopus plushie slowly crawled out, and its cool tentacle gently pressed against Mu Sichen's forehead.

A rational and resolute power flowed into Mu Sichen, and his breathing immediately eased.

Mu Sichen had the strength to speak again.

"I will go look for food," Mu Sichen said clearly, "but I will not hand it out to you every day. Instead, I will find where stored food is kept and guide you to actively plant crops and develop animal husbandry, so you can fill your own stomachs through labor."

Everyone listened seriously to Mu Sichen's words.

Mu Sichen continued, "I will also expel the 'Eye of the Sky' from the Town of the Eye, return this town to you, and let you regain normal Daylight and Night. But after that, I will not manage everything. If you want to build the town, you must recognize the self, know what you want, and use your own strength to build it."

Mu Sichen was not making empty promises to the residents of the sanatorium. This was something he had no choice but to do.

Just as Mu Sichen spoke these hope-related words like an oracle, the System issued him a mission.

[Congratulations, player. You have established a spiritual philosophy for Hope Town and laid the soul foundation for a positive mutual-assistance relationship between the town residents and their lord. May the player implant Self in every person's heart so that hope for oneself takes root in them.]

[Tutorial Quest Two issued: occupy the Town of the Eye Food Processing Plant and provide food for the player's Followers.]

[Tutorial Quest Three issued: expel the "Eye of the Sky," occupy the Town of the Eye, and establish Hope Town's first domain.]

[Complete Tutorial Quest Two and rekindle the followers' hope to repair the sanatorium's "Pillar."]

[Complete Tutorial Quest Three, and the player will possess a safe half-domain.]

The System issued Mu Sichen two missions in succession, and both sounded impossible to complete.

But Mu Sichen had no choice but to do them.

The sanatorium's Pillar had already collapsed until only the Hand of Self pattern remained, and their "Exit Game" button had disappeared again.

Mu Sichen would fight with everything he had to occupy the Food Processing Plant and seize the Town of the Eye, but that was all he could do.

The rest had to be left to the residents of the Town of the Eye themselves.

Mu Sichen told the town residents firmly, "I am not a god. The relationship between you and me is only one of mutual benefit. You provide emotional energy for me and for yourselves, build the domain, and protect your home. And I will continuously expand the range where you can move, but I need you to provide me with support and use your conviction to help me sustain the existence of the "Pillar.""

Life is your own; how can you pray to someone else?

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Author's Note:

Qin Zhou: Feeling a little down.

Mu Sichen pats the octopus's head: What's wrong? It's rare to see you unhappy.

Qin Zhou: I wish I had understood what you said sooner.

Mu Sichen smiles: It isn't too late to understand now.

(Today's sweet little skit is very serious!)