Chapter 111: The Parasitic Demon (Edited)

"Directly instilling something contrary to the other party's cognition into their brain is too crude," Furness said, "But human thought is very ambiguous and can be manipulated in some ways."

"The true purpose of the mind seed is to solidify a thought, maintaining it at a high priority level in the mind."

"For example, when we sign a confidentiality agreement, we have a high level of acceptance in our hearts. If you use the mind seed at this moment to implant the command 'adhere to the confidentiality agreement' into our minds, most people wouldn't feel anything abnormal."

"And later, this adherence to the confidentiality agreement becomes the highest priority guiding element when it comes to this matter."

"Perhaps some people with strong self-awareness will find themselves overemphasizing the confidentiality agreement, but they can mostly find reasons to convince themselves from aspects such as penalty clauses."

"And even among the very few who realize that adhering to the agreement is forced, the fact that the agreement has termination conditions allows them or her to hope to one day break free from the constraints of the agreement without giving up hope and heading towards a dead end like personality split."

"Therefore, we believe that using the second method, especially commanding through relatively fair agreements, can ensure the safe effectiveness of the mind seed."

Murphy pondered, compared to the first method, this application is more akin to what Murphy knows as thought branding or magical oaths.

The first method, on the other hand, aligns more with its name "mind seed" or its spell "slave brand."

Although this seems to weaken the effect of the mind seed, in fact, it's more in line with his initial purpose of wanting this spell.

He hadn't intended to use a spell to rule the world from the beginning.

When he asked Celica to find this spell, it was actually just to ensure that Muggles and wizards who would participate in his research plan could keep secrets.

He had to use the Thorn Oath at the time, which has significant flaws—it requires him to expend some of his magic power, and it's difficult to effectively constrain wizards.

Now with the second method of the mind seed—let's call it thought branding for now—he can ensure secrecy through agreements.

Obviously, Furness was well aware of what Murphy intended to use the mind seed for, hence the example of the confidentiality agreement.

However, there's still a problem.

"Although the second method of the mind seed can ensure no active leaks, it has no defense against passive leaks. How can this be solved?"

Furness and Omid Abbot exchanged glances.

After hesitating for a while, as if they had made a decision, Omid said, "Actually, there is a passive constraint method to ensure command execution."

"Do you remember the plague bacillus in the village?"

"You mean..."

"Yes, we've also found the mechanism of those bacteria's mutation and replicated it in another organism."

"When we read Joachim's diary, we had a question: what exactly happened the second time Joachim used the mind seed on himself."

"Joachim used the mind seed on himself twice. The first time was to treat the villagers and prevent the plague from leaking, also to keep himself going and not be defeated by the despair of reality."

"The second time was when he was infected with the plague and about to die. He used the mind seed on himself, making himself believe 'the plague will not kill me.'"

"Using two contradictory mind seeds might tear a person's spirit apart, but Joachim's two commands had a certain consistency, possibly not causing too much contradiction, even merging. So the second time, he might not have suffered too much damage from the spell."

"However, merely believing 'the plague will not kill me' couldn't save him. This can be seen from the reality that he made the villagers believe they could be cured, but the villagers still died."

"But the spell worked. He was not killed by the plague."

"This might be partly because the spell altered the definition of 'kill,' considering the zombie and ghost forms of Joachim as 'not killed.' On the other hand, the target of the spell at the time was not just Joachim but also affected the bacteria on him."

"The reason for the first aspect might be because after Joachim first used the mind seed, making himself believe he could cure the villagers, this 'belief' power formed an emotional core, making him overlook the death of those villagers, considering the villagers' state as merely 'not cured.'"

"The second aspect might be because his command involved both himself and the plague, and his confused consciousness treated the bacteria as a tangible enemy."

"In any case, under the spell's influence, the plague bacillus was selected."

"The more lethal strains died off, while the less toxic ones survived and learned to coexist with the zombified human body."

"Since they were also a target of the spell, they continued to be constrained by the spell, possibly also due to the fusion of Joachim's two mind seeds, being given the command 'cure the villagers and restrain the organisms from leaving the village.'"

Murphy was a bit stunned after listening, "That's so mystical?"

Although Joachim's diary was mystical enough, Omid's explanation was even more inconceivable.

"Of course, this process is just our rough guess, but what can be sure is, the appearance of these bacteria, which can constrain organism behavior and are controlled by the spell, was an accident."

"Joachim must have been in extreme despair at the time. His spell gathered all his willpower. Thus, its influence unexpectedly expanded to a level that ordinary spells could not affect, causing the bacteria to mutate."

"However, once we identified the factors causing this mutation, we might be able to replicate it."

"We conducted an experiment. We asked Professor Celica to release the mind seed on some yeast in a petri dish under a microscope, commanding them to ferment only the side of the flour dyed with red dye, not the side dyed with blue."

"Of course, the command didn't work," Omid said, "because microorganisms can't differentiate what is red and what is blue. They don't understand the command."

"Later, we realized that the reason those plague bacilli could fulfill complex commands might be due to their symbiotic relationship with the human body."

"So, we tried some experiments with certain symbiotic fungi of goblins, but none worked."

"Just when we were about to give up, infectious disease specialist Dr. Toshiyuki Harada, after reading the diary, told us that Joachim might have developed a rare secondary symptom after contracting the plague, meningitis."

"He said the plague bacillus might have entered his cerebrospinal fluid through the lymphatic system, affecting his mind."

"We immediately realized that this might be the peculiarity of that strain of plague bacillus, not just coexisting with the human body, but even relying on the human brain to understand some concepts!"

"A bacterium, using the brain of a higher organism, gained the ability to comprehend complex concepts!"

"This hypothesis terrified us!"

"Conscious bacteria! It's like a parasitic demon!"

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