"Wake up! Wake up!"
Half asleep and half awake, Lynn felt his face being slapped a few times.
He slowly opened his sleepy eyes.
Upon seeing clearly the scene before him, Lynn was instantly dumbfounded.
Who am I?
Where am I?
And...why am I not wearing a single piece of clothing?!
When Lynn realized he was stark naked and tied to a chair, he fell silent.
He was in another underground facility.
Around him were many ancient instruments, colorful gemstones, and Magic Matrices drawn on parchment, complex and obscure.
Not only that, on a stone table not far away, there lay an open Magic Book.
One of the pages had a pattern resembling vertical pupils, looking lifelike and spine-chilling.
It seemed as though it could penetrate his soul and impose some kind of suggestion on him.
Lynn vaguely remembered that this symbol seemed to belong to the Soul Sect, active in the Second and Third Eras.
Later, for some reason, it was declared a heresy by some empire and completely eradicated.
"You've finally woken up, Test Subject 126."
The previous voice came again.
Lynn looked around, but saw no one; the entire laboratory was empty.
Had he seen a ghost?
"Hey, I'm right here."
Finally, Lynn looked down and saw the small figure standing on the step below.
She was a girl around twelve or thirteen years old, wearing an inappropriately white lab coat, with messy brown hair at ear length, and a few freckles on her nose, watching him intently.
"Who are you?"
Lynn watched her warily, trying to close his legs together.
At the same time, he habitually opened his system.
[Character Name: Milani Valenara]
[Plot Level: D]
[Plot Deviation: 0.00%]
Sure enough, he then heard her introduce herself.
"My name is Milani, you can call me Lady Milani." The girl scratched her tousled hair and put her hands in her pockets, "Let's skip the unnecessary chatter. You should know why Princess Ivyst sent you here, right?"
Hearing this, memories from a short while ago flooded into Lynn's mind.
He gasped in shock.
Had he done something terrible?
It seemed like the villainous Imperial Princess was quite furious over his act of uncovering her mask.
Remembering the bone-chilling fear he felt at that time, Lynn couldn't help but shiver.
Honestly, some things are only appreciated after experiencing them; then one understands the joy of living.
Now, he'd rather run naked in the streets shouting "I'm gay" than face that furious woman again.
But for some reason, she had spared his life.
However, it seemed that there was no escaping the experiment mentioned earlier in the Underground Prison.
"Are you going to perform mind control on me?"
Lynn frowned.
Hearing this, the girl named Milani shook her head, "It's not that low-level trick of mind control; it's hypnosis, understand?"
"The abilities and magic related to mental interference are very scarce, currently known to mankind only includes Charm, Forget, Psychological Suggestion, etc., yet they are shunned by the mainstream Three Great Churches of the Saint Laurent Empire."
"And each of these abilities has its own drawbacks."
"For example, Charm easily triggers human desires, causing one to lose rationality; Psychological Suggestion, on the other hand, generally has weak effects, especially on those with steadfast wills."
"So research into the psyche is a very interesting subject; I have been trying to explore this field for a long time now."
"All things considered, my expectation from hypnosis is to completely control a person's body and mind, invisibly."
"Normally, a hypnotized individual behaves like any normal person, unaware of their state, but once the switch is triggered, they fall into a subconscious state and become utterly submissive to the hypnotist."
"Any command by the hypnotist turns into a thought imprint, branding itself on the mind of the hypnotized, even capable of radically altering their perception of the world and common sense."
"So, Test Subject 126, you should understand you are participating in an unprecedented grand experiment."
Milani suddenly tiptoed, gazing into Lynn's eyes solemnly.
Lynn twitched his mouth, "Can I refuse?"
"Of course not," Milani affectionately patted his head, then strapped a rudimentary helmet-like device onto his head, "Alright, save the whining for later. Now that you're awake, the experiment can begin."
While speaking, Milani walked over to a mud-stained stone slab.
It was meticulously engraved with the Eye of the Soul from the Magic Book, surrounded by various Magic Matrices, and several slots filled with Magic Stones.
The stone slab was connected to several obsolete devices, eventually leading to the helmet above Lynn's head.
"What the hell, it feels like sitting in an electric chair."
Lynn thought uncomfortably.
His fate was now in someone else's hands, yet he had no way to resist.
"May I ask, what happened to the previous 125 subjects?"
Lynn asked with a grimace.
Milani looked back and smiled, "Hehe."
Everything was left unsaid.
Seeing this, Lynn completely gave up on the idea of talking his way out.
The person in front of him seemed like a mad scientist, engrossed to the point where a few words from him were unlikely to change her mind.
Moreover, it was the princess's command.
No, he must rescue himself.
Thinking this, Lynn looked at his own body.
His hands and feet were shackled to the armrests, and his waist was tightly bound by several belts.
It seemed that Ivyst and the others were very cautious of him.
At this moment, he was just an ordinary person without any extraordinary abilities, unable to break free by strength alone.
With this thought, Lynn abandoned the idea of struggling and turned his gaze to his last hope.
"System!"
The next second, a light screen appeared in front of Lynn.
But it was different from the rudimentary interface he remembered.
This time, the system seemed to be completely open to him.
[Name: Lynn]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 17]
[Faith: None]
[Rank: None]
[Extraordinary Ability: None]
[Divine-given Factor: 0]
[Remaining System Points: 1]
The empty interface made Lynn feel somewhat embarrassed.
He remembered that his predecessor once followed one of the Three Great Churches of the Empire, the Heavenly Principle Church, and had 136 Divine-given Factors at his peak, making him one of the best among his peers.
However, now wasn't the time to reminisce about past glories but to focus on another matter.
"Why do I have 1 system point?"
He silently inquired the system.
[The host has successfully increased the plot deviation of the plot-level character 'Ivyst Laurent Alexini' to 0.01%, earning 1 system point as a reward.]
[Additionally, the host can spend points to draw various extraordinary abilities and enhance them, or ignite new Divine-given Factors to augment their power.]
Hearing this, Lynn was stunned.
Only this much for a plot-level character reward? Then how pitiful must E and F level be?
But on further thought, most people belong to E and F categories, even piling up a significant number.
Indeed, this system is defying the heavens.
In every sense.
And it wasn't for nothing that he'd been tortured for a whole half month.
After pondering for a few seconds, Lynn shifted his gaze to the right side of the system interface.
There, like a bas-relief, was a disc divided into thirty-six sectors, each engraved with an ancient and abstract symbol.
One of the symbols was familiar to him, resembling several twinkling stars connected together.
It was the exclusive symbol of the Heavenly Principle Church.
Could it be that every symbol pointed to a deity?
The original text never mentioned, how many were there?
With an uneasy heart, Lynn touched the pointer at the center of the bas-relief disc, and subsequently, a prompt appeared before him.
[Would you like to spend 1 system point to draw an ability?]
"Yes."
The next second, the bas-relief disc began to spin rapidly as if gone mad.
Meanwhile, Milani embedded various colored Magic Stones into the Eye of the Soul's stone slab, about to commence the final step.
So Lynn muttered in his mind.
Please, System bro, I've never asked you for anything in my life.
Give me a reliable ability!