Chapter 61: Induction
Cillin wasn’t actually assembling that quickly in front of Allen; he was much slower when compared to assembling in front of Mo Heng. The reason he slowed down was so that Allen’s eyes could follow his hand speed.
When Allen’s attention fell on his hands, Cillin’s assembling movements began to change little by little. His hand speed changed, following a specific pattern without Allen noticing at all. It was by coordinating this rhythm, parts jumping in the air at certain times and the orbit of his movements that he slowly dragged Allen’s consciousness into a whirlpool.
Cillin’s voice became deep and low as he said unhurriedly, “I have to finish assembling these parts today. This is the task my mentor had assigned me to. You can see that there are a lot of parts, aren’t they?”
Allen nodded, but his eyes were still lax and unfocused. He seemed to be in a state of half consciousness.
“Yeah, there are a lot of parts. Most of my time is spent on assembling these parts, and not much left for anything else.” Cillin’s hands did not stop, “My mentor, Professor Mo dislikes the idea of me participating in the Sector Championship…”
Although Allen was in a completely hypnotised state, and Cillin could totally draw out everyone in Seven Lights’ opinion and assumptions on Shadow X from Allen, he did not do it. He did not even touch on the topic of Shadow X at all. For someone like Allen, these keywords might trigger a rebound effect from Allen’s subconsciousness, hence giving himself away unnecessarily.
The human brain is a very strange thing. The people had only understood a small portion of the human brain, and even if the other party was hypnotised, one must not presume that they had complete control over their thoughts. A different person required a different solution. This was what Genya had told him when he taught Cillin hypnosis.
Therefore Cillin employed only indirect induction to mislead Allen. He kept talking to Allen about things that weren’t related to the main subject in question, causing Allen himself to come to a conclusion that there was no way Cillin was Shadow X.
Ka——
Allen woke up to the sound. His gaze was focused on a completely assembled machine placed on top of the desk. Cillin moved it into a huge box. There were already several identical machines wrapped in shockproof bags inside the box. Allen sweated as he read the dates written on the shockproof bags. It looked like Cillin was impossibly busy alright.
It was only when he looked at the time again that Allen realized that it had been more than two hours! When he recalled his memories, he only remembered Cillin’s movements as he assembled the machines. He had actually stared at Cillin assembling for two hours straight!
Although he was a little groggy, Allen still remembered the things Cillin had talked to him about and how he answered them. When he looked at the parts and assembled machines inside the study again, Allen believed that he had overthought things. There was no way Cillin was Shadow X; can’t you see just how busy he was?
Cillin swayed his arms around a little looking very tired, “That’s one more finished finally! Oh, right, are you hungry, Allen?”
While speaking, Cillin opened the storage cabinet in the study, but discovered that there was only a lone bag of red bean buns left inside it.
“Let’s go to the living room.”
“Er, Cillin, you don’t have to trouble yourself, I’ll be going after a chat.”
Cillin took out two bags of jerky from the kitchen’s cabinet and passed one to Allen, “Don’t give me that routine, since when are you a shy guy? C’mon, the jerky’s pretty tasty. Try it.”
“Thanks.” Allen accepted the cup and jerky Cillin passed over to him, paused for a moment before asking, “Cillin, you’ve logged onto the Sector Championship platform, haven’t you?”
“You want to ask about Shadow X, right?” Cillin cut Allen off, “I can tell you nothing about Shadow X. I’ve promised them.”
Cillin’s answer was ‘them’ and not ‘him’, so this caused Allen to be even more assured that Cillin wasn’t Shadow X. In Allen’s mind, ‘them’ should probably mean Knight and Shadow X.
Allen let out two dry laughs, “We’re just too curious, really. We didn’t even know there’s such a powerhouse in Seven Lights.”
“Let me tell you something. In fact, Shadow X and Knight are pretty familiar with each other. They just don’t see each other often.”
While he was speaking, Knight bounced his way down the stairsteps while humming a small tune. From the looks of it he had beaten Pride in the dogfight.
However, when he saw Allen sitting in the sitting in the living room, his face immediately fell, “What the hell is this situation?!”
Allen’s hands shivered the moment he saw Knight. He could feel the anger radiating from Knight’s body. Could it be that Knight really disliked visitors?
Allen carefully glanced at the serious-looking Knight. He really was pretty scary; it was no wonder those people didn’t dare to ask him directly, “Ahem… excuse me for the disturbance. I am here to see Cillin…”
“I gave him the jerky; he didn’t take it by himself. There are still plenty of them inside the cabinet, don’t be such a miser.” Cillin said calmly (T/N: says the guy who compensate a person’s mental manipulation with someone else’s riches~).
Allen: “…” Was that the point? I knew I thought too much about myself; my entire being couldn’t compete with a bag of jerky.
After staring dead-eyed at the jerky in Allen’s hands, Knight wobbled his way to the kitchen for some food of his own. He was obviously hungry after challenging Pride to a dogfight.
Allen immediately took the opportunity to bid Cillin goodbye while Knight went to the kitchen. The moment he saw Knight he felt prickles all over his body; the man’s aura was just too strong.
When Knight came back out he did not see Allen’s figure, “He left so quickly?”
“That aura of wangba of yours is too powerful. He couldn’t take it so he ran out right away.”
“What did you do to that kid?” Knight asked while sitting on the sofa, shaking his legs and chewing his jerky.
Cillin threw a slice of bread at him, “What do you mean what? Do I look like such a bad person?”
“Ceh——” Knight’s expression was filled with disdain, “You may look like a pretty straight person but it’s in fact the exact opposite. You’re always up to something, and those people who were swindled by you wouldn’t even know that they’re cheerfully counting the price of their own coffins!”
“Thank you for your praise.”
“You thought too much. I am just lamenting about my supernatural deductive abilities.”
Due to Cillin’s intentional misinformation, Allen really did exclude Cillin from suspicion. Seeing that Cillin wasn’t a good target either, the people of Seven Lights turned their sights somewhere else.
In truth, it couldn’t be said that Cillin had lied to Allen. It was just slightly one-sided.
He only said that Professor Mo dislikes the idea of Cillin participating in the Sector Championship, but he didn’t tell about whether he actually participated in the contest. As for that thing about him being very familiar with Knight but them not seeing each other often… It was the truth. Other than the mission prior to the Sector Championship, most of the times they had communicated with each other were on communicators. Even during the Sector Championship, for the last few days, the moment he finished competing in the match he would return to his own study and start on the assignments Mo Heng had left him. The time they saw each other everyday didn’t even reach an entire hour.
The crowd continued to twist and tangle themselves over Shadow X’s true identity, but the Sector Championship went on as usual. The next two matches was fought by Knight alone again, but during the final moments of a match Knight was forced to use the Thunderstorm Fist. It was only an incomplete and blurry punch with electric sparks on it, but it was enough to cause excitement in some students.
The further they went, the tougher the opponents they met. Although matchups were randomly assigned by the system, some of the veterans and teams with incredibly high win rate would still be kept away from each other so they didn’t face off each other too early. However, the fire of the Sector Championship combat tournaments were lit as the remaining thirty two teams made their appearances. This was because the matchups would now be drawn by the contestants themselves. It was possible that the best would fight against the best straight up during the first match.
There were twenty teams out of the thirty two remaining that were from Sector C, three from the ten trade Sectors and nine from from Sector B. Meanwhile, the opponents Cillin and Knight had to beat to become one of the sixteen teams left in the tournament hailed from the ten trade Sectors. They also had the best combat results out of the three teams from the ten trade Sectors. They had a perfect win streak just like Cillin and Knight.