A Psychiatrist's Bizarre Game Journey / Dream of the Mist

"Oh, right, I have another question."

Zhou Ke'er continued, "In the world of faith, I've discovered that some of those believers are actually dead beyond any doubt. Can the dead still offer faith as believers?"

Of course.

Chen Tian laughed out loud: "Even things like faith crystals can exist, so isn't it normal that the faith originally provided by the dead won't dissipate? In fact, during the process of a believer's faith, the faith generated is already solidified into a certain form of energy, so what was originally gained won't automatically be lost. It's just that dead believers won't generate faith anymore—and, most importantly... where do you think those so-called resurrection spells come from?"

In their faith, believers also upload and store their "personal data" into the "terminal" of their divine faith world. Simply copying and retrieving this data—regardless of philosophical questions like whether the copied person is actually the original—is sufficient to constitute a resurrection. However, the cost and gain are disproportionate, so virtually no person or god would actually do this.

Zhou Ke'er listened to Chen Tian's words as if they were a profound discourse, nodding thoughtfully and saying, "Why does it sound like the existence of gods has suddenly become sci-fi when you talk about it like that? 'Data terminals' have even come up, isn't that amazing?"

"It's just a metaphor. Is there anything else?"

Chen Tian leaned back against the headboard, reaching for the book she had just put down. Clearly, after the initial shock, she had quickly calmed down—after all, it was Zhou Ke'er, and it was normal for something strange to happen.

Besides, speaking of being abnormal, this person, possessed by an existence from the old era, and now even studying at some ridiculously absurd "Academy of Gods," is clearly not a normal person. There's nothing to be surprised about.

"The last few questions, the last few questions."

Zhou Ke'er quickly pressed on, "What if a believer changes their mind? What if they no longer want to believe in their original god and they apostatize? Will that have any impact on the faith that originated from them?"

"Oh? If you bring this up, I'm wide awake. It's definitely a topic worth exploring."

Chen Tian immediately sat up again, putting down her book: "Logically speaking, purely from a logical and theoretical perspective, the original belief has been solidified into an energy form, so whether the believer continues to believe should not have any impact on it. But here comes a very idealistic point—when a believer stops believing and converts to another religion, the original belief will disappear."

My personal understanding is that the energy generated by a believer through faith is stored in their own "data" within the world of faith. When they convert to another deity, it means they voluntarily and autonomously delete the "data" that was originally "uploaded" to you—it's like deleting the database and running away. Naturally, the faith stored within it also disappears.

Zhou Ke'er scratched his head. He had only asked for a conclusion, but he hadn't expected Chen Tian to give such a long answer.

In short, this means that after gaining a believer's faith, killing the believer will not change or disappear the faith, but if the believer changes their faith, it will disappear.

Wow, isn't it obvious what to do then? Just kill all the fish in the pond when there's nothing to be sure about!

Zhou Ke'er said she completely understands!

------------

804. Power, and the Ghostly City (Part 12)

"However, there is one thing I am quite curious about."

Seeing that Zhou Ke'er seemed to be thinking, Chen Tian waited a while and then continued, "Regardless of what system your 'god' belongs to—after all, your self-made godhood is likely not related to any system—what is the authority of your 'god'?"

Zhou Ke'er was taken aback for a moment upon hearing this, "Power? What do you mean?"

Chen Tian explained, “It’s a kind of fundamental power unique to your divine office. For example, in the legends of the old era, the god-king Zeus had the power to control lightning, the god of death was in charge of death, the god of marriage was in charge of marriage... and so on, powers that belong exclusively to your divine office.”

Zhou Ke'er frowned and thought for a moment, then shook her head: "I don't know? There's absolutely no such indication... Maybe I haven't discovered what the authority of this divine office is yet?"

Although she thought it was a ridiculous thing, the fact that Zhou Ke'er became a god was already ridiculous from beginning to end, so even if she heard such an answer, Chen Tian was not surprised at all.

Chen Tian had no choice but to continue explaining: "No, normally speaking, anyone who becomes a god must possess some kind of authority, otherwise, how could they be called a god? There are only two possibilities now. One is that you are indeed a one-in-a-million special individual who, even as a god, has no authority and is just an empty shell with a divine position but no power. The other is that you think you have become a god, and from the outside, the power of faith you possess is enough to become a god, and even the world of faith has been created, but in fact, you have not truly become a god yet."

Zhou Ke'er once again felt her lack of theoretical knowledge. After making up her mind to come to the Divine Academy to make up for it, she asked again, "What does this mean? You haven't truly become a god yet?"

"This is also related to one of the topics I study. The authority possessed by the gods is actually related to what believers believe. Looking at the legends of the Old Age, with the change of times, there are even cases where the same god has completely different descriptions of authority as the believers change. This may be the reason why the authority of gods changes."

My understanding is that the divine position of a deity is an empty shell constructed from pure faith, while divine office and authority are the depiction of faith itself within this empty shell, ultimately forming a complete god.

Chen Tian's eyes lit up as she talked about this, and she went on and on, clearly not only a homebody but also an academic fanatic: "And your current situation perfectly matches my expectations. It's because you have too few followers, and it seems... they don't think you have any 'authority' or any specific power, right? In other words, your current divine position is just an empty shell formed by a massive amount of faith power, and the most important finishing touch has not been taken at all."

Zhou Ke'er exclaimed in surprise, "Is that so? What if I lied to my followers and said I was omniscient and omnipotent? Could I really be omniscient and omnipotent?"

Chen Tian rolled her eyes: "There were gods in the old era who did the same thing, like God. But what happened? Even with such widespread faith, He couldn't truly achieve omniscience and omnipotence. He could only barely reach a state that was greatly weakened. With your current faith... if you really claim to be omniscience and omnipotent, you can probably only be used as a weather forecaster."

"Huh? That can't be right. Don't I have a belief in the will of the world? That means my faith power is at least as much as the power of a world, while God's faith hasn't even spread throughout the entire world—thinking about it this way, don't I have more faith than Him?"

Zhou Ke'er asked confidently.

Chen Tian couldn't help but laugh at him: "You're dreaming too much. There are differences between worlds. First of all, the main world in this game isn't even as prestigious as reality, let alone the secondary world, which isn't even as prestigious as the main world. The creator god of a lower-level world is at most on the verge of becoming a main god in the eyes of a higher-level world. If you go into reality, who knows how much your status will drop. Just dream about it, don't take it seriously."

"How can they still be engaging in global discrimination..."

Zhou Ke'er clicked her tongue, mumbled a couple of things, and then fell silent.

In short, he's now just an empty shell with the title of god, but without any divine authority or power. It's a case of being caught between a rock and a hard place. Basically, all the faith power comes from that guy, but now his fate is unknown—Nyaruko said she'd dealt with him, could she have already killed him?

Well, it's not something that's too urgent for Zhou Ke'er right now. If she doesn't have the authority, so be it. She can just use her divine power directly.

"Alright, is there anything else you want to ask?"

Chen Tian sat up, got off the bed, and stretched: "I've got an inspiration. I might as well do some research along this line of thought."

Zhou Ke'er looked at Chen Tian with respect, then immediately took her leave: "That's all, you go ahead and do your work, I'll go get some water now."

Without bothering Chen Tian any longer, Zhou Ke'er used the academy wristwatch to return to the ghost city.

He walked stealthily through the streets, and, combining the intelligence he had just learned, began to ponder whether his previous plan was still feasible.

In general, developing more followers is never a bad idea. After all, nobody knows what Mo Bugui's current situation is. If he's dead, that's fine; at least the massive amount of faith power won't disappear, and everything else can be planned for later. But if he's not dead, there's the possibility of him betraying his faith. If that happens, Zhou Ke'er, having lost almost all of her faith, will probably fall from her divine position instantly. Therefore, besides the faith provided by Mo Bugui, we need to gather at least enough faith power to support him in reaching the first rank of godhood.

However, the plan had to be changed. The previous plan was too vague because it didn't pay much attention to the concept of "authority." So the core purpose of the entire plan was just to acquire "faith," without spreading the message about what kind of "power" he possessed. In this way, even if he collected a lot of faith power, it would just be an empty shell.

Therefore, the immediate priority is to first identify a relatively easy-to-achieve and practical authority, and then try to spread this belief in order to acquire such authority.

This will affect the implementation of his next series of plans in the ghost city.

Just then, the huge screen on the outside of the shopping mall building next to the street, which was originally playing advertisements, suddenly switched to broadcasting a live news broadcast—it looked like a "clarification press conference" by the police.

------------

805. Ghostly City (Thirteen)

Those guys were clearly prepared. They didn't spout any meaningless long-winded speeches, but after a few brief opening remarks, they handed the stage over to Sato Nagi and the gunshot wounded Inspector Hashimoto.

The incident happened this morning, and they're already holding a press conference this afternoon. Clearly, these guys are rushing things and simplifying everything. In short, they're in a hurry.

Zhou Ke'er originally thought that she would be able to finish preparing by tomorrow at least, since she needed to carefully consider her speech. However, these guys gave up on that and skipped the lengthy clarification session, directly throwing out the key points.

When such bombshell news is revealed before anyone has a chance to react, it's easy to subconsciously follow their line of reasoning without having time to question it.

It's such a pity. If Zhou Ke'er hadn't prepared a backup plan, they might have actually succeeded.

Inspector Sato Nagi walked to the front of the stage with a cold face, signaled to the other police officers to show the gunshot wound on Inspector Hashimoto's leg, who was placed on a stretcher, and said succinctly: "This is Inspector Hashimoto. I believe that even people who do not know him should know him from the live broadcast of that so-called 'victim' Sadako."

You may have developed many misunderstandings about our police officers due to her highly misleading live broadcast footage and incitement, but I must tell you, you have fallen into her trap. Looking at the entire incident this morning, aren't there obvious flaws? Our injured Inspector Hashimoto is the best proof of that.

Look closely, at the gunshot wound on his leg. This isn't just a routine incident of a police officer being injured; it proves that monsters have mastered methods to harm humans using tools. Behind the so-called "victim's" out-of-context livestream, the truth is actually this…”

"laugh…"

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but roll her eyes quietly and stopped watching the so-called clarification press conference.

That's it?

Zhou Ke'er had really overestimated their intelligence. She had initially thought they were acting under the guidance of a master, but it seems she had completely misjudged the situation. Their fragmented statement lacked focus and failed to clarify anything whatsoever.

Furthermore, the reason for the clarification was exactly what Zhou Ke'er had initially predicted—their actions had already been completely exposed to Zhou Ke'er and Zhenzi. Even if they had initially acted with an air of "I won't turn back until I hit a brick wall," they could have used a different method of clarification at the press conference, catching everyone off guard.

So they were just really in a hurry, so they basically didn't do any preparation and just held an emergency meeting in the afternoon, throwing out the excuses that they hadn't thought of or perfected yet.

It's fair to say that the police officers in this ghost city... don't have as much experience as those in the real world? So they're probably lacking in experience.

That's an unfair victory.

Zhou Ke'er felt a little bored. That's it? As long as the video obtained by the newspaper is released, it will be a decisive blow.

The rules for victory have been established.

However, there's nothing to be happy about; this is merely the first step in plunging the city into chaos. At most, it will only cause some conflicts and misunderstandings between wealthy individuals and law enforcement officers, and such minor conflicts are the easiest to resolve.

Next, we need to bring out some... even more explosive news.

For example...

Zhou Ke'er is ready to twist the vanguard of the police force—Inspector Sato Nagi—to his side.

He then returned to the Slit-Mouthed Woman's house, told her and Sadako some important things, and then went directly to the police department to wait.

Sure enough, just as he expected, everything that followed happened very quickly. He went home, and when he rushed back here, he happened to catch another urgent news broadcast on the mall's large screen across the street.

Good, well-paced, skipping the tedious police clarification press conference and jumping straight to the climax. It's just a pity there wasn't a bucket of popcorn, otherwise Zhou Ke'er would definitely have enjoyed it very much.

Under the eerie influence that Zhou Ke'er left on the newspaper owner, the TV station's executives indeed gave their application the green light all the way, and even immediately and seamlessly connected their program with the police officers' press conference.

The public, who had just heard the shocking news and hadn't even had time to panic or discuss it, were still standing in their original spots when the program was interrupted again on the screen.

A man who appeared to be a presenter wiped the cold sweat from his brow with trembling hands, forced a smile, and said, "A reporter from the Fiknius newspaper has brought us a very, very important breaking news report. Of course, our station is merely providing a channel for reporting and does not guarantee the veracity of this report, nor does the reporter's statement represent any opinion of our station. Now, please welcome this reporter."

After rattling off this long string of words at lightning speed, the host scurried off the stage as if fleeing—indeed, who wouldn't be terrified in that situation? He was doing a perfectly good job as a host, and you're making him do something so dangerous? What if he gets targeted and assassinated?

However, the host's unusual behavior conveniently drew the attention of all the viewers, making them temporarily stop thinking about and discussing the content of the previous clarification press conference, and instead focus on the current emergency report—what could have made such a well-trained professional host so frightened and lose his composure?

Soon, the paparazzi who had been lucky enough to get the broken phone earlier, dressed in a suit and looking like he was going to his death, walked to the front of the stage and said in a trembling voice, "The news I'm going to report to you today... I don't need to go into details. It's a video, and you'll understand once you watch it. As for why I chose this time to report it urgently, you'll understand once you watch the video."

As soon as he finished speaking, the screen behind him instantly switched to a video feed, and then the live stream switched to a video.

At first, people looked at the somewhat blurry and shaky footage, which was obviously filmed secretly, and were not clear on what the video was trying to say. But soon, the next scene surprised them all.

Inspector Sato Nagi, who had just made a righteous and indignant statement, appeared cold-faced in the footage. Without hesitation, he raised his hand and fired a shot at his colleague next to him, and even tried to shift the blame to the ghost in order to frame him.

As expected, the release of this video caused an uproar throughout the city.

------------

806. Ghost City (XIV)

What followed was a natural progression: after the truth was exposed, Sato Nagi, who had just issued a clarification statement on behalf of the police, was immediately arrested and imprisoned on charges of intentional injury and false accusation.

There's nothing we can do about it. We can't just immediately target the reporter and the newspaper that exposed the incident; that would be blatantly telling the public, "I have a problem, so what? Come and get me!"

The only solution is to pin all the blame on Sato Nagi, throw her in jail, hold a press conference, and absolve herself of all responsibility, making all the mistakes hers. Then, quickly have her executed; a dead person can't say anything—besides, she didn't really have anything to say anyway; it was her own fault for doing something wrong, so it's perfectly normal for her to take the blame.

As for the process in between, Zhou Ke'er had already easily infiltrated the police station, using stealth mode to observe and follow along.

And right now, he is in the cell where Sato Nagi is being held.

The police station's efficiency is truly astounding. While others follow a complete procedure of filing a case, investigation, prosecution, trial, and execution, they skipped the first four steps entirely, arresting her on the spot and preparing to execute her. This procedure is utterly unjust.

They even provided her with a special single cell, probably to prevent her from saying anything inappropriate that might be overheard by someone with ulterior motives and cause trouble.

However, this did make things convenient for Zhou Ke'er.