Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 249 New Skills

Things get interesting.

According to Levi's questioning of the rider, the rider recalled that they came to Clover Town to investigate his sister's death, not to find Alice. Or rather, the rider sought Levi's help because his family felt his sister's death was suspicious.

After that, Levi visited the Dunn family again and returned to Alice's room, which remained unchanged. However, the butler's explanation changed to, "The mistress has always wanted a child and was thinking that if she had a child, she would decorate her room like this."

Simply put, Alice's existence has completely vanished from the minds of the Dunn family. Even if Levi were to walk right in front of them with Alice, they wouldn't react at all.

Incidentally, Alice also didn't react at all, and even hid behind Levi somewhat shyly.

With things having come to this, Li Wei had no other choice but to return the paintings he had collected from the mine to the rider. The rider said he would bury them in his sister's grave, thus fulfilling a long-held wish.

As for Alice… naturally, she can only be taken home.

Who exactly is Alice?

Katie was completely baffled by this, and Levi had the same question, or rather, he didn't even think Alice was a "person".

After all, Alice's birth was quite counterintuitive. Generally, it takes ten months of pregnancy to give birth, but Alice was in Miss Dunn's womb for less than a month, strictly speaking. It would be strange to say that she was a normal person.

Not to mention, from the perspective of the "soul's vision," Alice's soul is not white like that of a normal human, but blue.

This was a color that Li Wei had never seen before. He only knew that some evil spirits were red, but this was the first time he had ever seen a blue soul.

Li Wei also tested Alice, and she demonstrated knowledge of cognition and upbringing. However, her memories of herself were ambiguous, or rather, she seemed to have completely forgotten everything that happened before she woke up. She only knew that Li Wei was her father and that she was Alice, but as for who Alice was before that, or where she came from, Alice herself had no idea.

Yes, at least that's what she said.

As for whether he was lying or not, Li Wei couldn't tell, although it seemed like he probably wasn't.

However, to be fair, this investigation was Levi's most costly one yet. His mech, worth thousands of pounds, was completely destroyed, and he even brought back an unknown burden. The Dunn family only offered him one hundred pounds as payment; of course, if it were the original "finding Alice" mission, they would probably have offered more.

But they no longer remember Alice, so Levi naturally can't ask for payment in that regard.

Then all that's left is the reward for completing the task.

[Mission "Disruption" Completed]

[Time consumed: s]

Survey efficiency: S

[Impact/Effect: S]

Overall Rating: SSS

[Lifespan +400, additional +200]

Hmm, judging from the reward lifespan... it's relatively difficult, but not extremely difficult? In other words, this thing is easier to deal with than the Disaster Messenger?

Li Wei is now using the Disaster Messenger as a benchmark for comparing the difficulty of missions.

That makes sense, the mission is for me to save people, not to fight to the death with that strange god, so the difficulty will naturally be lower.

[Gaining a special skill—Actor's Appearance]

[Actor Appearance (LV1): Can designate any object and transform it into your desired 'character'. Strength depends on popularity. Reduces lifespan by 10 minutes/second, proficiency 0%]

Oh, the long-unseen skill that reduces lifespan has reappeared.

But this skill... must belong to that god, right?

Currently, Li Wei has five skills that consume lifespan when used: [Soul Vision], [Death's Eye], [Disguise and Transformation], [Unconscious Control], and [Shadow Transfer].

Incidentally, Li Wei also discovered something else: the higher the level of these life-consuming skills, the less life-consuming they are.

For example, Li Wei's most frequently used skills, [Soul Vision] and [Death Eye], have now been upgraded to LV2.

What originally required a lifespan of 5 minutes/second and 10 minutes/second has now become 3 minutes/second and 8 minutes/second.

In other words, if Li Wei upgrades these skills to the maximum level, theoretically he wouldn't need to consume any more lifespan.

Hmm, but... the higher the proficiency level, the more times it requires to level up, and the lifespan consumed naturally increases with each use... How to put it... just thinking about it gives me a headache. Forget it, I don't want to think about it anymore.

However, what caught Li Wei's attention the most was a requirement in the [Actor Appearance] skill—the strength of which depends on popularity.

This immediately made Li Wei start to think.

He hadn't forgotten that the series of events, starting with the courtesan killer, were all closely related to his popularity among the public, especially the Imperial Bridge—a nursery rhyme that originally sounded ordinary, but which almost killed the Queen just because it spread in the foggy city.

And now, the skill [Actors Enter] directly proves Li Wei's guess—the strength of those monsters is indeed linked to their popularity.

Of course, Li Wei still needs to verify the specifics.

However, it's not difficult.

After renovating the tower, Li Wei designed a shooting range specifically for himself, mainly to observe the power of various weapons and test his skills. Currently, the training range is filled with all sorts of dolls, all of which were failed creations of Eileen. Since they were useless anyway, Li Wei decided to use them as targets.

Popularity is linked to strength, so let's try this first...

Li Wei thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers at one of the dolls leaning against the wall.

[Actors enter!]
The next moment, the puppet suddenly swayed and then transformed into a freak completely covered in a black cloak, wearing a mask and holding a sharp blade.

"Hehehe, women, where are the women! I'm going to tear all the women to pieces!"

The pervert yelled, then glared at Li Wei and leaped up—but the next moment, accompanied by a gunshot, a bullet pierced through the pervert's head, and when it hit the ground, it had already turned back into its original puppet form.

"So that's how it is. It's changed according to the public's opinion?"

Li Wei looked at the doll and murmured to himself. The doll he had just instructed to transform was naturally the socialite assassin he had first encountered. The reason Li Wei used it for the experiment was precisely because the socialite assassin was a prime example of the conflict between the truth and popular perception.

After all, Li Wei knew that the true face of the socialite killer was a modified monster, while the public's imagination of the socialite killer was that of a masked pervert.

It now appears that this image was clearly altered according to popular imagination rather than the truth.

That's normal, though. Actors are just performing, they're not actually becoming each other. Since it's acting, they'll definitely choose the image that the public is most familiar with.

Then try this one.

Li Wei pointed to another puppet and snapped his fingers. The puppet shook twice and then transformed into a bipedal velociraptor. It stared at Li Wei, cautiously approached, and then suddenly opened its mouth and bit Li Wei's arm.

"……………………This level of intensity isn't good enough. Is it really because it lacks popularity?"

Feeling the force on his arm, almost like a puppy biting, Li Wei frowned. He knew that the velociraptors in the movies were much stronger than this, but when it pounced on him, Li Wei noticed that the guy's limbs were weak and he looked like he needed to take kidney tonics because of back and knee pain.

Hmm, if we want this guy to be as fierce and powerful as in the movies, we have to make the public aware of its existence and believe that it's very powerful... Hmm?

Wait a minute, isn't this the same method those guys used?!
Li Wei then realized that if he wanted to create a dinosaur from scratch, the methods he would use would be basically the same as those people in the Holy Lord Church!

So here's the question: how did those guys know about this ability since they didn't have a system?
Or do they have it? No… probably not.

Or is this ability not unique to the god sealed in the mine, but a common ability possessed by the gods of this world?
Li Wei didn't think that the mine's religious group had any connection with the Holy Lord Church or the Luddites. After all, it didn't seem like it knew anything about the outside world, otherwise it wouldn't have been imprisoned for so many years.

Or is it that this kind of change in intensity through cognition is the underlying logic of all the gods in this world, the kind that every god can do?
To be honest, this ability isn't very useful.

Li Wei snapped his fingers again, and the velociraptor that was tearing at his arm disappeared quickly, without even tearing his clothes.

Sure enough, something that no one in this world knows about is very weak, even if it is conjured up; at best, it's just a facade.

Moreover, Li Wei discovered that these conjured things were beyond his control. Just like the name of the skill—[Actor's Appearance]—how the actor performed was entirely his own business, and he couldn't interfere with his performance.

In other words, how an actor acts depends entirely on the public's perception of their character.

So what would I be like?

Thinking of this, Li Wei looked at the puppet not far away, pondered for a moment... and then shook his head.

Forget it, this is too risky. It's better not to do it. After all, he doesn't know what kind of image or strength he has in the public eye.

But at least Li Wei was certain that it was definitely different from what he was currently experiencing.

(End of this chapter)