The first step was to start by changing the mindset of the townspeople.
This required him to be able to use the power of the “pillar”.
Mu Sichen didn’t first become a god-level monster and use his god-level power and the townspeople’s faith to build the “Pillar”. His “Pillar” was gotten by “digging up the walls”.
He was also trying to figure out how to use the Pillar.
Fortunately, this was his power, and from the moment he entered the sanatorium, Mu Sichen had the feeling of being in the Pillar, and as long as he connected to the Pillar properly, he should be able to explore ways to use the Pillar.
Mu Sichen’s palm stroked over his left eye, he could utilize the ability he had dug up from the Big Eye.
He quietly closed his eyes, and images that he couldn’t normally see appeared in his left eye.
He “saw” a huge self-totem on the ground of the entire sanatorium, and everyone in the sanatorium, including Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo, had a point of light in their heart, which released a thin line, connecting to the self-totem.
The power of the Self Totem came from this.
Above the sky, there was a big-eyed totem, a huge three-pupil eye, shrouded in the sky above the sanatorium, watching it.
And above the self totem, the pattern belonging to the sky had become blurred.
Mu Sichen instantly understood what this image meant.
In the three days that he had been away from the game, the big eye’s power had begun to gradually erode the Self Totem.
If he didn’t return to the game, sooner or later, the big eye’s power would completely devour the Self Totem, and then the Pillar that he had worked so hard to steal would be reclaimed by the big eye.
At that time, their safe house would disappear.
Mu Sichen didn’t know what would happen to the offline players if the safe house disappeared. But thinking that the power of the game world could penetrate into the real world, he was sure that the three of them wouldn’t have a good ending.
Mu Sichen took a few steps towards the center of the hall, standing right in the middle of the totem and feeling its power.
This was already his pillar, as long as he calmed down and communicated, a lot of knowledge would automatically enter his mind.
The emotional energy of the people inside the pillar was needed to repair the patterns on his totem.
The Pillar urged Mu Sichen to increase the number of people in the field as much as possible, and to keep extracting emotional energy from them, otherwise the Pillar would collapse.
Perhaps it was because he had inherited the big eye’s Pillar, Mu Sichen’s Pillar, like the one in the sanatorium, was also devoid of emotion, it was just an automated and heartless machine, it only had one need, a constant supply of emotional energy.
This wasn’t his pillar, it was simply a bottomless pit that couldn’t be filled.
It was no wonder that in the sanatorium, the “pillar” and big-eye’s needs were completely different, the “pillar” didn’t care about the death of the volunteers, the “pillar” only wanted to increase the number of patients, to create more despair.
Mu Sichen had the feeling of being coerced by the Pillar, and a sense of urgency rose in his heart, wanting to squeeze “hope” from the townspeople at all costs to satisfy it.
He didn’t know if the big-eye had this kind of pain.
Mu Sichen opened his eyes and found the situation a bit difficult.
He didn’t want to give the townspeople in the realm too much expectation. Doing so would make the townspeople repeat their mistakes, and it would be no different from being under the rule of the Big Eye.
However, if the townspeople were to lose hope, the “pillars” without emotional energy would immediately collapse, and their previous efforts would be wasted.
Mu Sichen thought for a moment and felt that he should still find out about the situation of the residents in the sanatorium.
He asked, “Are you all still used to living in these few days? Are there any problems that need to be solved?”
The eyes on either cheek of the volunteer blinked a few times as he replied, “Life’s been pretty good, I just can’t get out of the sanatorium, and I kind of miss my friend who works at the food processing plant. Of course, I don’t have much of a relationship with him, it’s just that he brings back some food from the processing plant every time he gets off work, which is better than the town’s uniform handouts, and I’m kind of hungry. No, I don’t mean to say that the director is bad, it’s just that …… when will the food be handed out?”
Food, this was indeed something that Mu Sichen hadn’t thought about.
“How long has it been since you’ve eaten? Where did your food come from before?” Mu Sichen asked.
The volunteer said, “The food used to be regularly distributed by the Feathered Eye dependent and the Followers. We haven’t eaten for a day, and before that, there was still bread and milk in the stockpile, and we got by on a daily basis. But the stock is gone today, and we are at a loss as to what to do. The healers were discussing setting up an altar to ask the director for food.”
“Where is the altar?” Mu Sichen frowned.
“It’s on the seventh floor, in the room where the director fought with the feathered eye dependent earlier.” The volunteer said.
Mu Sichen vaguely felt that something was wrong and rushed up to the seventh floor with Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo.
They entered room 704 and saw that the large hole in the wall was still there, but the room had already been cleaned, and the hospital beds had been moved somewhere.
On the floor of the empty 704, a huge self totem had been painted by someone with red paint, and in the middle of the totem was bundled the tentacle-eyed volunteer who had pressed the button for the crowd in the elevator in the first place.
This image made Mu Sichen’s bl*ood almost flow backwards.
That totem that originally symbolized self-awareness was filled with evil, as if it was about to be contaminated by something.
“What are you doing?” Mu Sichen said to the medics who stood in a circle around the totem.
A person wearing a white lab coat and glasses was unusually surprised to see Mu Sichen and said, “Director, you’re back! You heard our prayers didn’t you? It seems that our call was effective, don’t be anxious, I’ll sacrifice this offering to you right here.”
“Enough!” It was rare for Mu Sichen to get angry, he came to the tentacle eyed man’s side and helped the man, who was continuously shedding tears, up, and asked with contained anger, “What are you doing?”
Dr. Glasses was full of innocence, and even said with some bewilderment, “Praying to you? It was you who told us to be hopeful. We have been waiting for You with hope, waiting for You to give us happiness and food. You never came, so it must have been because our hope wasn’t strong enough, and it must have been the fault of these ugly-born heretics, so we elected a heretical sacrifice to You.”
“Hahaha!” Mu Sichen laughed in anger, unable to speak for a moment.
He finally realized that the three days offline wasn’t the final time limit given to him by the system at all, it was the “pillar”, the final time limit that these townspeople could endure.
A few minutes later, these people would have sacrificed someone.
Mu Sichen looked at the ground full of evil self totems, as the Lord of Totems, he had a premonition.
If these people really sacrificed inside the Pillar, he would be contaminated in reverse.
He was right to return to the sanatorium.
god-level monsters could contaminate ordinary people, and in turn, once the number of believers reached an order of magnitude, they could similarly reverse contaminate god-level monsters.
Mu Sichen couldn’t help but have a suspicion, whether it was the big eye or Qin Zu, were they evil gods from the start?
Were they really not reverse-contaminated?
It was useless to blame the sanatorium crowd when things had come to this.
It was he who had done wrong.
He shouldn’t have rushed offline, he should have stayed in the sanatorium, experiencing life here and learning about the customs of the believers, instead of just leaving.
Inside the sanatorium weren’t the ordinary people in the real world that he knew so well. They were residents who had lived under the rule of the big eye for an unknown amount of time, and even though Mu Sichen had purified the spiritual pollution that the big eye had inflicted on them before, he was unable to change their habits.
They were already used to this life of praying to the Great Being for everything and purifying heretics at the drop of a hat.
Mu Sichen untied the tentacle eyed man, and he cried and grabbed Mu Sichen’s clothes, sobbing in a small voice: “Director, I’m really not a heretic.”
“I know.” Mu Sichen patted his shoulder soothingly, “It’s my fault.”
It was because he was too weak and negligent that he let all of this nearly happen.
It was also because he was already repulsed by these volunteers who had been contaminated by the big-eye and were extremely abnormal, so this emotion was conveyed to the “Pillar”, which affected the people in the sanatorium, causing everyone to discriminate against the man and tie him to the totem.
Such a situation couldn’t happen again.
Mu Sichen took a deep breath, communicated with the power of the pillar, and utilized the power of the pillar to send his words to the hearts of everyone in the sanatorium: “I’m not a god, I can’t give you hope. Hope should originate from the heart, from the self, from the longing for a better life, and is the source of all positive behavior.”
His words were as if they were law, inscribed in everyone’s heart through the power of the pillar.
This was the cornerstone that Mu Sichen had set for his town of hope.
Even though these words had the potential to shake the hearts within the sanatorium, potentially causing many people to lose hope in him and the pillar to lose its source of strength.
If that really happened, it would prove that this was the end of him, Mu Sichen was unworthy of controlling a pillar.
These words that subverted everyone’s previous perceptions caused confusion among the crowd, and the pattern symbolizing the ocean on the self-totem on the floor of the sanatorium faded into blurriness.
However, Mu Sichen’s firm belief also reached everyone’s heart with the strength of the pillar.
Fortunately, this was a world where one could pollute each other’s spirits, and as long as the power of the spirit was strong enough, it could infect others. Otherwise there was no way for empty words to move the hearts.
“Then … Sir, what is self? How can we have hope?” Dr. Glasses asked.
“What do you want now?” Mu Sichen asked.
“I want food, I’m hungry.” Dr. Glasses said.
Mu Sichen asked, “And after you’ve eaten?”
Dr. Glasses said, “To be able to leave the sanatorium and sleep beautifully at home. Then not having to hide in the house during the ‘daytime’, the town shouldn’t have so much fog, the future …… what is the future?”
Mentioning the future, Dr. Glasses suddenly got stuck.
Mu Sichen said, “All that you have said is hope, and the vision of a future that belongs to you is your self. But you shouldn’t pray to me; I am as weak as you are.”
“What shall we do without praying to you? Pray to the ‘pupil of the sky’?” Dr. Glasses asked.
As he asked this, the motif of the earth on his self totem blurred.
Faith was shaken and the cornerstone of the sanatorium was about to collapse.
Countless frustrations reached Mu Sichen through the pillar, and he was so wrapped up in despair that he could barely breathe, and the few times he tried to speak, he couldn’t.
At this moment, the zipper of the backpack was opened from the inside, and a small blue octopus doll slowly climbed out, its cold tentacles gently pressing against Mu Sichen’s forehead.
Sensible yet firm strength was injected into Mu Sichen’s body, allowing him to breathe smoothly all of a sudden.
Mu Sichen had the power to speak again.
“I will go looking for food,” Mu Sichen said in a loud voice, “but instead of sending it to you every day, I will find locations to store it and guide you to take the initiative to plant crops, develop animal husbandry, and use labor to fill your bellies.”
The crowd listened attentively to Mu Sichen’s words.
Mu Sichen continued, “I will also expel the ‘Pupil of the Sky’ from Tongzhi Town and return this town to you, so that you can have normal day and night again. But I won’t care about what happens after this. If you want to build the town, you have to recognize yourselves, know what you want, and use your own strength to build it.”
Mu Sichen wasn’t making empty promises to the residents of the sanatorium, this was something he had to do.
Just as Mu Sichen spoke the words related to hope, the system issued him a task.
[Congratulations to the player for formulating a spiritual philosophy for Hope Town, laying the foundation of the soul for a good and mutually supportive relationship between the town’s residents and the Lord. I hope the player can implant his self in everyone’s heart and make them hope for themselves.]
[Enacting Novice Quest Two: Occupy the Tongzhi Town Food Processing Plant and provide food for the player’s followers.]
[Novice mission three: Expel the “pupil in the sky” and occupy Tongzhi Town, laying down the first territory for Hope Town.]
[By completing Novice Quest 2, the Pillar of the Sanatorium can be repaired by rekindling the hope of the believers.]
[By completing Novice Mission 3, the player will have a safe half domain.]
The system issued two tasks one after another for Mu Sichen, both of which sounded like impossible tasks.
But Mu Sichen had to do them.
The pillar of the sanatorium had collapsed to the point where only the self Hand pattern remained, and their “Exit Game” button had disappeared once again.
Mu Sichen would try his best to take over the food processing plant and seize Tongzhi, but that was all he could do.
The rest was up to the residents of Tongzhi Town themselves.
Mu Sichen firmly told the townspeople, “I am not a god, and my relationship with you is only one of mutual benefit. You are providing emotional energy for me as well as for yourselves, constructing domains and protecting your homes. I, on the other hand, will continue to broaden the field of my activities for you, but I need you to provide me with support, and help me support the existence of the ‘pillar’ with your faith.”
How could you pray to others when life was your own?
Thanks for the chapter!!