Actually, once you accept the setting of these cross-dressing muscle-bound black customers, there's nothing overly flamboyant about them. All five are stylists at a nearby barbershop and have a long-standing collaboration with The Lustrous Club. Many of those exotic hairstyles adorning the neon signs outside the club are their handiwork.
After a night of hard work, they stopped by for breakfast and a drink before heading back to their capsule hotel for rest.
"Buddy, you need to up your hairstyle game.""Come on over to Flying Scissors Barbershop. We'll hook you up with the trendiest cut, and there's plenty of eye candy to enjoy."
Heath sat at the edge of the bar, maintaining a professional smile, engaging in the banter:"Miss Ayane told me to grow my hair out first. Maybe then I won't just resemble your dad; I might even look like your mom."
The five burst into laughter. Heath understood their style and needs. Such a remark could be risky with others, but here it brought them closer.
"A full breakfast with a mom and dad to boot—what a deal," laughed Old Dog Jackson, slapping the counter.
Heath laughed along, but a sudden development in his mind nearly shattered his composure.
Above the 【Database】 option on the electronic panel, the area that was previously hazy now displayed a clear progress bar, like an energy gauge filled with purple energy, indicating 86%.
A cheat code? Or the sub-personality?
While attending to his customers, Heath kept an eye on the progress bar, soon noticing a correlation.
It wasn't just a number increasing over time; it seemed every time the customers laughed and enjoyed themselves, the energy increased.
He watched as the bar filled from 86% to 90%, then to 95%...
Could it be...
Heath suddenly remembered how he had crossed over: chatting with female clients on the computer, making them happy, but then the computer electrocuted him... Clearly, the progress of this program increased as he made his customers happy.
Psychologist value? ×Male escort value? √
After a while, Old Dog Jackson and his crew left Fish Pond satisfied, promising to return. In half an hour, they'd spent over six hundred Liuguang dollars, leaving Devin pleased.
Simultaneously, Heath witnessed the progress bar hit 100%, the panel's light flashing erratically.
Next to the progress bar, a 【Start】 button became visible, with several prompts popping up:
"One program on the console has been activated""This program is used for data recovery""When the progress bar reaches 100%, the program can be initiated. If not initiated, the energy will continue to stack, elevating the progress bar to a higher tier for a one-time recovery of more data. Upon initiation, the progress bar energy resets to zero""There are seven tiers for the progress bar: Tier 1 (Purple), Tier 2 (Indigo), Tier 3 (Blue), Tier 4 (Green), Tier 5 (Yellow), Tier 6 (Orange), Hyper-speed Tier (Red)""Current tier: Tier 1 at 100%"
Confused, Heath looked at the full purple progress bar and the selectable 【Start】 button.
Data recovery? Recover what data?
"Devin, I'm going to the restroom!"
"You have five minutes, or you're dead," Devin barked, vigilant against any slacking off.
A vampiric taskmaster indeed, but Heath didn't mind this time, hurrying down the corridor.
Perfect timing—if something happened in the restroom, someone would come to the rescue.
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Passing through the hallway, Heath entered the cramped restroom, closed the door, and looked at himself in the wall-mounted mirror above the sink. Not bad-looking, just down on his luck.
He turned on the faucet and washed his face vigorously, the water rushing loudly.
After freshening up and feeling a bit clearer, he cautiously pressed the 【Start】 button on the electronic panel.
In a moment, the entire panel sparkled erratically, the purple progress bar bursting into blinding light.
Caught off guard, Heath felt his entire brain flipping over. He lost gravity, lost his senses, submerged in a bizarre ocean of data—countless chaotic shapes, lines, images, and texts, all composed of endless zeroes and ones.
He passed through shapes, entered segments of footage, became clusters of text...
Was he really going to die next to a toilet?
Fearing the worst, he then saw the light subside, the progress bar cleared, back to 0%.
【New data activated】
Breathing lightly, Heath saw the database and compiler options light up, available for selection.
Pondering, he clicked on the database.
Inside, there was indeed a data file, an image filled with text. He opened it to look.
【Long, long ago, in an era where people's wishes could still come true, there was a king...】
"What the actual hell!"
Heath's emotions surged as he read the text. This image was precisely the first page of the chapter "The Call to Adventure" from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," down to the letter.
It reminded him of implicit memory.
He had read "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" thoroughly, but his explicit memory only retained the general meaning and particularly striking sentences. He couldn't possibly recall a page verbatim like this.
Psychology suggests that every word he had read became an implicit memory, stored somewhere in the brain.
Implicit memories affect us at the subconscious level, and even we can't easily access them.
If he could retrieve implicit memories, they would appear exactly like this—intact, word for word.
Theoretically, every nurse one sees as a baby in the hospital is also deeply embedded in the brain.
"That sea during the data recovery must have been a sea of data, right? No idea how much data there is, it feels endless—is it all my implicit memory?"
Heath recalled the electrocution by his computer—pain was certain, and his head buzzed and tingled.
But there was another sensation, similar to what he felt diving into the sea of data, as if countless internet data streams flooded his brain... Were those also becoming implicit memories?
And this was data?
The very program data that the hero-dreaming sub-personality craved?
Heath noticed the file's suffix read "suitable for Hero profession system users," clearly indicating yes.
The file had an option, "Compile into Hero profession system data packet," but when he pressed it, a prompt appeared:
"Insufficient data volume to form the lowest level data packet"
Heath contemplated the page from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and the progress bar, now reset and needing to accumulate male escort value again.
Time to sort this out!
He could earn male escort value by healing others until the console's program progress bar reached 100%. Then, he could continue to elevate it to another tier or initiate the program at tier one.
The program could recover a certain volume of implicit memory data, which was then stored in the database.
Next, when there was enough data, it could be compiled into a data packet through the compiler.
So, what's the use of a data packet?
Considering the current situation, there were two possibilities:
One, this was a golden ticket—he might strike it rich, and everyone's happy.
Two, he had a mental issue—the sub-personality was up to something...
If it's the former, Heath only had more mysteries to ponder.
If it's the latter, the more he thought, the more it seemed to make sense.
Implicit memories about learning, about subconscious formation... That sub-personality indeed wanted to grow and thrive...
Data packets seemed to be food for nurturing demons.
That female sub-personality, lurking in his subconscious, stirring up trouble with consoles, male escort values, programs, data, and all that jazz, forcing him to call and feed her again...
Her sole purpose was to devour his implicit memories and experiences, to grow and strengthen.
The more he thought, the more Heath was chilled by the sub-personality's restlessness and malice.
What to do if that was the case?
Before he could think further, the restroom door was pounded on, and Devin's angry voice came through:
"Five minutes are up! Even iron would be done now, and the tap's still running. You want to drown or be castrated? That crazy woman called, wants you to pick up, get out here now!"
Lorna, the commander? Heath sighed in resignation. Perhaps it was a golden ticket, or maybe dissociative identity disorder, or a false transmigration—he hadn't crossed over but had developed reduplicative paramnesia...
He was in no position to save himself.