Animating All Beings

Zhou Yue's illusionary world.

"Su, Su..."

[Behavior Score -10 (Li Ang does not know the other party's name at this time, please follow the character behavior rules)]

[Your Behavior Score has dropped below the system threshold. You are temporarily unable to control your character's actions. Please follow the role-playing rules!]

Zhou Yue's breathing quickened. He instinctively wanted to reach out and greet her, but was intercepted by the role-playing system.

Looking at the familiar scene, tears welled up in Zhou Yue's eyes.

After Li Ang's main body completed the fixed dialogue segment, just as Zhou Yue turned around to leave, his foot suddenly slipped.

"Holy shit... Which bastard threw a banana peel here..."

Just as Zhou Yue cursed inwardly, a crisp, girlish voice came from behind him:

"Are you... alright?"

Su Di'er grinned brightly, then suddenly blinked in confusion.

"Strange..."

"Why do I feel like I've known an unlucky guy like you before?"

...

...

As the players entered their second playthrough, more of the hidden traps Lu Ze had laid began to reveal themselves.

Every Su Di'er the players encountered would harbor a sense of familiar deja vu.

The plot of the illusionary world continued to progress along the original storyline, but there were subtle changes in some minor details.

For example, in Zhou Qiaoling's second playthrough, the little beggars obeyed Su Di'er's every command and shared a very good relationship with her;

Or, for instance, Li Moran's Su Di'er inherited the Ice Lotus Mark from the first playthrough. Her talent in the way of the sword was absurdly high, giving her a unique and unparalleled advantage in cultivation...

...

The special memories between the players and Su Di'er were preserved in these minute aspects, constantly tugging at their heartstrings.

All of this, naturally, was Lu Ze's handiwork.

He had prepared this plan as early as when the illusionary world was first released.

During a multi-playthrough game, Easter eggs regarding special memories would trigger upon their first meeting.

However, as the game's plot unfolded, these special Easter eggs would gradually decrease.

Otherwise, if the memories of two playthroughs were fully connected, the computing power of the illusionary world would struggle to maintain real-time changes in the plot.

But after Lu Ze acquired the skill "Myriad Spirit Bestowal," he seemed to have found a new way forward.

Lu Ze had already pretty much figured out the mechanics of this skill. Simply put, it was the ability to bestow sentience.

The method of bestowing sentience upon NPCs wasn't exactly rare.

For instance, Lu Ze could repeatedly harvest Lin Huan's cyber soul using the Cyber Myriad Soul Banner, and then modify it with spells to simulate the character of Su Di'er.

Putting aside the time required to do so, what if it were a different game or a different character, and he couldn't find a soul with a similar personality?

Create one from scratch?

The difficulty of that would be no less than the goddess Nuwa forging humanity out of clay.

"Myriad Spirit Bestowal" perfectly solved this problem.

Moreover, as long as one's strength was sufficient, they could even bestow the exact same level of sentience upon all NPCs!

At this moment, what Lu Ze was researching was how to use "Myriad Spirit Bestowal" to further upgrade the characters in the illusionary world, thereby causing the multi-playthrough world to undergo a sublimation.

"Done! This way, Su Di'er's soul can continue to upgrade..."

Lu Ze smiled as he looked at the increasingly exquisite wisp of cyber soul in front of him.

This was a new generation soul he had forged after a breakthrough using "Myriad Spirit Bestowal." Its ability to link with the previous playthrough had been vastly strengthened.

"Now, which lucky guy should I test this on?"

Lu Ze muttered to himself, rubbing his chin as his divine sense constantly drifted through countless illusionary worlds.

Eventually, he locked onto Li Moran's illusionary world.

Ever since the system upgrade, emotional fluctuations would yield extremely high Demonic Value returns.

The greater the fluctuation, the higher the return.

For someone like Li Moran, who had always maintained a stoic, emotionless persona, the returns from harvesting his emotions would undoubtedly be the greatest.

"I choose you..."