This feeling, was really both sour and brought on the anxiety of having taken out a bad online loan.
The stronger Qin Zu was, the more uneasy Mu Sichen became.
He wouldn’t simply believe that Qin Zu was a selfless, godlike monster like Pangu or Nuwa just because of the title “Guardian god of Humanity”.
From what he had seen and heard in Tongzhi Town, Mu Sichen knew that dealing with these “gods” came with a price.
Admittedly, in his dealings with Qin Zu, Qin Zu had also gained some of his followers, but looking at these silver glittering ego stickers, Mu Sichen felt that the followers he had transformed didn’t seem to be enough to pay back the interest on the ego stickers.
Even though he was uneasy, Mu Sichen still didn’t go soft and transformed ten volunteers in one breath before stopping.
After all, compared to the unknown price Qin Zu might charge in the future, it was still more important to solve the current crisis as soon as possible.
With ten self stickers in hand, Mu Sichen let out a slight sigh of relief.
With these self stickers, they could at least keep their spirits from collapsing.
These were self stickers that were gleaned from the power lent to him directly by Qin Zu, they were even more powerful than the self stickers he had previously obtained by brainwashing his followers with the radio, according to the level, if the level of the self stickers that Mu Sichen had obtained with his own energy value was 1, the self stickers that were produced by the radio brainwashing was 10, and the self stickers that he had obtained by using Qin Zu’s Totem was at least level 30.
With these self stickers, even if he went to look straight at Big Eyes, he could at least last 10 seconds.
But it was only a mere 10 seconds.
Wasn’t the strength gap a bit too great? Mu Sichen couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.
“Is that enough?” Chi Lian opened the office door and poked her head in, “Do we need to trick someone into coming in again?”
“No need.” Mu Sichen said.
In fact, he had a vague feeling that these self-stickers weren’t enough, but he hadn’t found the existence of the “pillars” yet, the timing wasn’t ripe, it wasn’t time for a big battle, they still needed to keep a low profile.
Converting ten volunteers was the limit, any more and their actions would be discovered.
Mu Sichen put away the crossaxe.
After the crossaxe returned to the weapon bar, Mu Sichen’s energy blue bar number returned to normal, and the number changed to “4”.
Mu Sichen put a self sticker with silver light on the back of his neck, and with a flash of silver light, the tattoo disappeared into the back of his neck, and his energy blue bar instantly filled up, and the number changed to “300”.
[Congratulations to the player for finally finding a way to upgrade, using one of the cornerstone level self stickers, the player’s level is promoted from level 1 to level 2, unlocking the self sticker level.]
[Self-sticker levels: Cornerstone, Pillar, Hidden Star, Sheltering Sun, and Mithril. Self-stickers below Cornerstone Grade are all Scrap Paper Grade and have no effect of leveling up.]]
Below level 10, you can use Cornerstone level self-stickers to upgrade.
The general game upgrades were done by fighting small monsters and doing quests to gain experience to upgrade. However, when Mu Sichen used his crossaxe to fight small monsters, the only thing he upgraded was the crossaxe, but he was unable to gain experience and could only get self stickers.
Mu Sichen had been thinking about ways to upgrade and raise the energy value limit, but he never had a clue.
He could only analyze based on his rich gaming experience and thought that the way to upgrade was still to be found from fighting monsters and doing quests.
However, the newbie quests enacted by the system were too difficult to be completed by a level 1 newbie player, and one had to upgrade before being able to complete the quests.
Excluding the upgrading method of doing quests, the only way left to upgrade was to fight monsters.
Unlike the traditional fighting monsters that directly dropped experience, he would only generate self stickers for fighting monsters. Thus, Mu Sichen felt that no matter if it was a way to upgrade or a way to quickly recover his energy value, it would probably still have to fall on the self stickers.
This was also the reason why he had to borrow Qin Zu’s power to attack the volunteers before acting.
After getting the self stickers, Mu Sichen tried to use them to upgrade, and this time it worked.
The experiment turned out to be successful, but it also made Mu Sichen feel that the road ahead was slim.
The self-stickers that contained such a huge amount of power were only the lowest grade, and the self-stickers that he could create himself were only at the level of scrap paper.
This meant that currently, if he wanted to upgrade, he could only borrow Qin Zu’s power.
This feeling of having one’s life pinched in the palm of another’s hand was really bad.
Mu Sichen suppressed the anxiety in his heart and looked at the ten volunteers who had changed their states.
“You are Admiral Qin’s emissary, please feel free to command us.” The ten proselytizing volunteers, wearing “patient” badges, said to Mu Sichen.
“Wow, Captain you’re too good, we’ve added so many companions at once, our chances of winning have increased so much!” Chi Lian said happily as she closed the office door.
But after she carefully looked at the proselytizers’ badges, her originally giddy expression instantly turned into a bitter expression as she said glumly, “Why are they all patients? What we’re missing is fellow volunteers, right? Isn’t it a waste of effort?”
Mu Sichen said, “No, the conditions for our action have been met.”
He called for Chi Lian and ten patients and asked Chi Lian, “Do you know how to register patient information? Get a patient to be credited to Ke Yi.”
The doctor only needed to get nine patients to be discharged, and Ke Yi had already tricked eight, so as long as he registered one under Chi Lian, she could meet the conditions for discharge.
Now that Chi Lian had replaced Ke Yi, she could be discharged in Ke Yi’s place when the conditions were met.
She would be able to register her own patient information, but Mu Sichen was worried that her cut-and-paste skills would be ineffective once she had registered her real personal information. Chi Lian’s ability was important, so it would be better to register other patients’ information just to be on the safe side.
“I know, just register and fingerprint on Ke Yi’s exclusive form, and then Ke Yi will sign at the end.” Chi Lian said.
The ten proselytizers were exceptionally well-behaved and cooperative, and with a wave of Mu Sichen’s hand, one of the proselytizers stepped out and filled in his information on the registration form Chi Lian took out.
This action, made Mu Sichen a little uncomfortable.
Shen Jiyue in order to destroy the “pillar” voluntarily be contaminated, it was his choice, he was willing to sacrifice for his own ambition. Mu Sichen’s felt heartache over Shen Jiyue’s sacrifice, admired his choice, wanted to save him, but wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.
Because Shen Jiyue made his choice, he knew exactly what he was doing, he also knew the consequences of doing so, he was willing to bear the consequences.
But these proselytizers, they lacked autonomy from start to finish.
They became followers of Qin Zu like they were hypnotized, and listened to his commands like a walking corpse, asking him what to do. They immediately carried out the task mechanically without asking if it was dangerous.
They had become very useful “tools”, and Mu Sichen was the person who used these “tools”.
Mu Sichen wasn’t a “saintly mother” who disregarded the overall situation. In a situation where his own life was in danger and several teammates were willing to trust him with their lives, Mu Sichen wouldn’t stop acting because of this inner discomfort.
He shouldered the trust and life of two people, not qualified to be capricious.
But Mu Sichen had to remember this discomfort.
He couldn’t see these volunteers as “tools” just because they had been brainwashed by Big Eyes and turned into monsters. Once he thought this way, it was the same as he agreed with the underlying logic of this world, and would fall deeper and deeper.
The guilt was heavy, but it had to be carried.
Only then would he be the ordinary student Mu Sichen in the real world, not the cold-blooded person in the bizarre world.
After the proselytizer filled out the information, Ji Lian hesitated at the signature.
“Captain Mu, my handwriting is different from Ke Yi’s, it may not be effective, maybe she has to write it herself.” Chi Lian said.
“You can use your cutting ability to paste the name on this diary.” Mu Sichen pointed to the handwritten name on her journal.
“But my energy value is zeroed out, it’ll take 120 energy value to use the skill once.” Chi Lian said with difficulty.
“You don’t have to worry about that, I can lend it to you.” Mu Sichen said, “You can use my energy value as long as you sincerely ask me to help you in your heart. But don’t use it now, wait until I say ‘sign’ before you perform the skill. Keep this journal and registration form with you, so that you can easily sign at any time.”
Once the name was signed, Ke Yi had reached the condition for discharge, and there was a possibility that changes would immediately occur on Chi Lian. Mu Sichen was currently wasn’t prepared for everything, it was best to wait until everything was ready before writing this signature.
“So the 20 energy value from before was something you lent me!” Chi Lian’s eyes were full of trust, “You saved me once again when I didn’t know it!”
Mu Sichen: “……”
Being looked at so trustingly by Ji Lian, not only did he not gain a sense of accomplishment or vanity, instead he had the feeling that the already small amount of money in his wallet had flown away.
“I can lend it to you, but you can’t just borrow it.” Mu Sichen said, “I have to perform skills as well, and this isn’t quite enough, so you can borrow it when I tell you to, okay?”
“Understood!” Chi Lian said.
On second thought, she asked, “Captain Mu, how much energy do you have? Is it enough for me to use my skills again? I can get a volunteer companion!”
Mu Sichen had 300 energy, just enough for Chi Lian to use her skill twice, once to change a badge and once to write her signature.
It seemed like he had upgraded this time specifically to provide Chi Lian with energy value to use.
“Yes, we can use it twice, but we have to choose a suitable teammate to become a volunteer, and these people don’t qualify.” Mu Sichen said.
The proselytizers were trustworthy, one command and one action, very obedient, Mu Sichen even asked for some information about the volunteers.
There was no such thing as discharge for the volunteers, they had to assist the doctors in curing the patients, for every patient they discharged, the volunteers would be given a pair of eyes, when the number of eyes reached 10 pairs or more, they could be promoted and become followers, rotating to work in other positions, this was also an alternative discharge.
These proselytizers were obedient and knew everything, but Mu Sichen wanted a teammate with the ability to think on his own, even if he wasn’t that obedient.
“If only I hadn’t gotten separated from Cheng Xubo, he just happens to be a teammate.” Chi Lian said.
Cheng Xubo was the cart player who had been saved by Mu Sichen.
“Maybe he’s here too.” Mu Sichen said.
He wasn’t holding out hope that Cheng Xubo would come to the sanatorium, but was speculating based on reality.
Yao Wangping, him, and Chi Lian, even though they had set off in the same direction, they had all gotten lost in the middle of the journey due to the fog, yet they managed to come to the sanatorium successively without any coincidence, and surprisingly didn’t get lost along the way.
This made Mu Sichen have a suspicion, maybe it wasn’t that they had a good sense of direction and didn’t get lost, but the Sanatorium was attracting them to go there.
If the “Pillar” wanted to maintain its operation, it needed a constant flow of people, so maybe the “Pillar” itself had the power to attract people.
“Really?” Chi Lian didn’t doubt Mu Sichen’s words, “That would be great, I wonder what his status will be?”
“It should be a family member.” Mu Sichen said.
The self sticker he got after waking up Cheng Xubo, he didn’t give it to Cheng Xubo, but used it on himself to stabilize the SAN value that was falling at that time.
Cheng Xubo didn’t have a self sticker, didn’t fulfill the conditions to become his believer, wasn’t a heretic, and wasn’t a believer of Big Eyes, so naturally, he would be defaulted as a family member by the sanatorium.
“It’s a pity that there’s no cell phone here, and the system doesn’t have the ability to add friends, or else we could send a message to ask him.” Chi Lian sighed, “This place is too backward.”
“It doesn’t matter if we can’t find him, we still have time, we can look for someone trustworthy within the sanatorium.” Mu Sichen said.
On top of that, he needed to look for ways to replenish the rules.
It was time to continue exploring the sanatorium.
He instructed the ten proselytizers, “After we leave, lock the doors to your rooms and try not to let anyone other than us in.”
The proselytizers nodded..
“Also, watch this patient on the floor, don’t let her escape.” Mu Sichen pointed at the real doctor on the floor, Ke Yi.
The proselytizers obediently responded.
Mu Sichen was relieved to leave the office, and as soon as he left the door, he heard the sound of the room door being locked.
This feeling of having obedient subordinates was too good to be true, it was really easy to inflate.
Mu Sichen covered his heart and kept reminding himself to keep a normal person’s heart, to abstain from arrogance and not to be disturbed by this world.
Exploring the sanatorium became a lot easier for Mu Sichen with the attending physician as a companion.
Chi Lian took Ke Yi’s chart records, found out which patients she was responsible for, and swaggered Mu Sichen around to check out the wards.
Since Mu Sichen could only move around on floors 1, 4, and 7, Chi Lian took him to check out the three patients on the fourth floor first.
These three patients and their families were in pretty bad shape.
When they saw Chi Lian, they froze for a moment at first, then when they saw the name on Chi Lian’s badge, their attitude immediately became different.
The patients showed a certain degree of mania, and even though they were bound by chains, they still smashed everything they could touch in their hands at Chi Lian, and one patient even raised his hospital bed to attack Chi Lian.
Luckily, there was Mu Sichen and the family members.
The family members were very obedient, they cooperated by turning out the ropes, and together with Mu Sichen, they tied the patient firmly to the bed, and also assured Chi Lian that they would take good care of the patient and treat him as soon as possible.
These family members all had varying degrees of contamination on their bodies, their attitudes were submissive but their eyes were filled with anxiety, they very much hoped that the doctor could come up with a way to treat the patient, they wanted to get rid of their family member status as soon as possible and become followers.
Chi Lian said in shock as she walked out of the ward, “No wonder this hospital needs so many volunteers, the patients are so manic, without volunteers, the family members alone can’t subdue the patient at all.”
“Yes,” Mu Sichen thoughtfully said,”I also understand, patients, family members, volunteers, and doctors are checks and balances on each other, indeed one is indispensable.”
“It’s impossible to find a reliable volunteer teammate on the 4th floor, let’s go to the 1st floor and take a look.” Chi Lian suggested.
The two of them rode the elevator together to the 1st floor, and only just walked to the first floor lobby when they saw a person standing in front of the sanatorium’s management rules with a pen in hand, writing supplementary rules.
This person was none other than Cheng Xubo.