The next morning, Wei Hongsi was jolted awake by his phone alarm. When he opened his eyes, lines of text glowing with a red light flooded his vision, instantly clearing the lingering haze from his brain.
[Being able to support oneself and no longer relying on the support of others to survive is a meager contribution made to human society.]
[Level Up: Level 0 (Parasite) → Level 1 (Non-Beneficial)]
[Function Unlocked: Personal Panel]
[Reward Obtained: Risk Warning (Level II)]
He slowly sat up in bed, staring at these lines of text that maintained a relatively fixed position in his field of view, his mind in disarray.
Yesterday afternoon, he had received a text message about his salary being deposited. After all the miscellaneous deductions, he took home 22K, a significant increase in income compared to last month's internship salary of only 4K.
Thus, he could be considered to have achieved personal financial independence, and from now on, he wouldn't have to rely on his parents' living allowance anymore.
So this was the correct way to "activate" the "system"? But why did it align so perfectly with that elementary school essay of his?
According to this level-up condition of the "system," if he had started working right after finishing his bachelor's degree, wouldn't he have been able to unlock it three years ago?
But the "system" wasn't officially online yesterday, so why was he able to receive the Risk Warning?
Or perhaps, the "system" actually activated at some point yesterday, but the information didn't refresh until he woke up today and could see the prompts?
If that were truly the case, then the sudden appearance of that Risk Warning skill would make sense.
These various thoughts swirled through Wei Hongsi's mind as the red text before his eyes vanished.
He tried calling it forth with his will, and sure enough, a panel materialized before his eyes.
[Level: Level 1 (Non-Beneficial)]
[Tip: Being able to support yourself is just the most basic requirement. Strive to become someone who truly contributes to human society!]
[Current Contribution Points: 20 points]
[Abilities: Age Recognition (Level II); Risk Warning (Level II)]
[Mission: Halt Paradise Beverages' plan to launch the Plan B on dynamic media (In Progress) (Countdown: 8 hours 59 minutes)]
Well, well. So the ability to see through others' ages was a power granted by the "system," just like the Risk Warning that appeared yesterday.
Otherwise, the skills he possessed were certainly more than just these two, yet they weren't displayed on the panel.
So, did this mean the "system" had been activated before, just running silently in the background?
That Paradise Beverages mission actually had a time limit. Calculating the time, the countdown would end before getting off work today. That should be manageable, right?
...
On the way to the company, Wei Hongsi kept looking around, searching for that fisherman's hat that had been frequently appearing before his eyes these past few days.
That essay written in the third grade of elementary school was given to him by the Eccentric Uncle; and the condition for leveling up and unlocking the "system" was written in that very essay.
Such a coincidence inevitably piqued his curiosity, making him really want to find the Eccentric Uncle and talk to him again.
However, he walked all the way to the company building without catching a glimpse of that uncle. It really was a case of wanting to avoid something but failing, and wanting to find something but being unable to.
Not long after starting work, he received a chat message on WD from Lu Jiaqi.
"Hello, Engineer Wei! Director Ji has sent over the new commission. Can you handle it now?"
Wei Hongsi replied, "Yes. Please ask Director Ji for the verification records he made. I can use them as a reference for analysis."
"Okay." Lu Jiaqi replied almost instantly. It seemed she was also well aware of what Ji Cheng had done last night.
A little over ten minutes later, Wei Hongsi received a new work task reminder on his WD. Lu Jiaqi also sent over the verification records made by Ji Cheng via personal chat.
This task was issued directly by the department director, bypassing the supervisor level. Similarly, when Wei Hongsi needed to provide feedback upwards, he also wouldn't have to go through a supervisor.
This was because Department Two had over a dozen workgroups and project teams of various sizes. Routine tasks were automatically assigned to groups by WD. To specifically assign this task to Wei Hongsi, the department director had to do it manually.
Wei Hongsi first submitted an application on WD to use the "Cognitive Mirroring System," then began classifying and preprocessing the materials and data for this task.
Not long after, the application was approved. Wei Hongsi's spirits lifted. He opened the authorized dedicated channel and connected to the mirroring system.
— Zhiwei Cognitive Mirroring System
— WD (Wisdom Dimension) - CMS (Cognitive Mirroring System) V4.3
He loaded the data package he had prepared yesterday into the system, performing reverse analysis on the eye-tracking data to reconstruct the subconscious trigger points of Plan B.
Once the operation began, the CMS interface flickered. The data visualization module transformed into streams of flowing colors, continuously rising and falling on the monitor.
Suddenly, several red spots of light materialized before Wei Hongsi's eyes, landing on the simulated data representing delta waves, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex, clearly marking those anomalies.
Was the "system" assisting with identification? Why did the style of these markers bear such a striking resemblance to the plan he was currently working on?
Seeing the abnormally enhanced delta waves in the EEG module, he suddenly recalled that yesterday morning, when he heard the Eccentric Uncle playing the tin whistle, his mind had experienced a momentary lapse, as if he had dozed off for a second.
Could it be that his delta waves had also experienced abnormal fluctuations at that time?
Subconscious hypnosis... stress-induced anxiety... psychological inhibition...
So that's it! Dissected like this, the triggering mechanism wasn't complex. But precisely because it was simple, it was highly effective.
However, using the dynamic visual form of an to precisely stimulate these specific types of Negative Valence Emotion in the subconscious... was that something achievable through traditional filming and editing methods? It would be more plausible if it was accomplished using some kind of AI for rendering and processing.
This was like crafting a set of precision gears where the margin of error needed to be controlled at the micrometer level. Doing it by hand was possible, but extremely difficult with a very high failure rate. Using a CNC machine, however, would be very simple.
As each data package was parsed, the number of test subjects exhibiting anomalies kept accumulating, exceeding thirty percent of the total. By the time the parsing was complete, this proportion had settled at 34%+.
Wei Hongsi wasn't sure what conversion rate for an could be considered successful, but it was certainly far lower than this number.
He skimmed through the verification records made by Ji Cheng, summarizing the data and comparing it with his analysis results. Considering the verification method and environment, they could be considered basically consistent.
Next, Wei Hongsi submitted the preprocessed Plan B to the CMS for forward simulation analysis.
Immediately, the three sets of anomaly data representing EEG delta waves, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex skyrocketed.
When the analysis was complete, the proportions for all three sets of data were above 80%.
Seeing this result, Wei Hongsi felt his scalp prickle. His carotid artery throbbed, and waves of spasms traveled up his spine.
How could this be?
How could this be!