novelraw Chapter 166: The Non-existent "Mentor"
Chapter 166: The Non-existent "Mentor"
Julian let out a low murmur filled with awe and doubt.
This sound caused the tightly wound strings in Lin Jie and William's hearts to vibrate with a dangerous hum.
Lin Jie whipped his head around and, through the dim light shrouded by mist, saw the face of his French partner.
His partner's body was trembling uncontrollably from the impact of an intense emotional shock.
His blue eyes were locked onto the thick fog ahead where nothing existed.
Within that void, he seemed to see the ultimate coordinate of his academic career and life's faith.
"Teacher... you... how are you here?"
Julian's lips moved soundlessly. His elegant and precise linguistic system had collapsed at this moment, reduced to a childlike, stammering mutter.
"You... weren't you supposed to be in the underground archives of the French Academy, organizing papyrus from the Eighteenth Dynasty?"
His question received no answer.But clearly, within his field of vision, that presence gave him a silent yet heavy response.
The initial shock and doubt on Julian's face were rapidly being replaced by a deeper emotion.
It was the immense pain and self-denial of an idealist whose faith was collapsing.
He slowly lowered his proud head. The lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses were misted over by the swamp's icy moisture.
He looked like a shattered sculpture, radiating fragility and disillusionment.
"You are right... Teacher..."
His voice was low, carrying an unmistakable, unresolvable bitterness. Every word seemed squeezed from a bleeding heart.
"I was wrong... I betrayed the true meaning of the Enlightenment. I abandoned the glorious mission of illuminating the world with reason and knowledge..."
"Yet I... yet I became obsessed with this savage, violent, meaningless adventure..."
"I... I have disappointed you..."
Lin Jie realized a situation more dangerous and tricky than when he himself was trapped in an illusion had occurred.
That UMA was "upgrading."
It was no longer simply mimicking the deep-seated yearnings within a target's heart.
After its failed attack, it had learned, through an unknown method within minutes, a more advanced and vicious attack strategy.
While mimicking, it also seized upon Julian's already shaken scholarly psyche following the Oberammergau incident.
It delivered a cruel, fatal second blow to his unhealed faith wound.
What Lin Jie faced earlier was an emotional kidnapping.
What Julian was encountering now was a public trial of his faith that was shattering his worldview.
The judge was none other than the spiritual father he deeply respected and felt unable to defy.
This attack was far deadlier than mere temptation because it didn't lure you into making a mistake;
it fundamentally negated the entire meaning of your existence.
"William!"
Lin Jie made a decisive call, growling at the veteran in front of him.
"Get ready to act! Use the old method!"
However, a rare hesitation appeared on William's face.
"Can't."
He shook his head, his eyes locked on Julian's despondent state.
"His situation is different from yours. When you were being tempted, your subconscious was still resisting."
"But now, he is willingly sinking. His will is actively welcoming that judgment."
"If I forcibly wake him now with violence, the immense mental conflict could very well destroy his brain!"
William's assessment was precise and deadly. They were caught in a dilemma, a deadlock.
Leave him be, and Julian's soul would be shattered by the false judgment, turning him into a walking corpse.
Force an intervention, and Julian's brain might not withstand the violent mental tear, turning him into an idiot.
What to do?
Force had failed.
An emotional appeal would have little effect on a scholar currently undergoing a confession of faith.
One choice remained.
To break this trial of faith, the best method was to prove it with another, more solid truth.
They had to prove that the judge was a counterfeit.
A reverse-thinking tactic influenced by the Doppelgänger battle surfaced in Lin Jie's mind.
He inversely utilized the UMA's "upgrade."
Since it had evolved from simple consciousness mimicry to being able to imitate the intellectual mimicry of a target's spiritual mentor,
Then it was bound to make a fatal mistake only a counterfeit would make: it might perfectly replicate the appearance of wisdom,
But it could not possess the vast knowledge itself, accumulated over decades of time.
"Julian!!"
Lin Jie roared at the French scholar lost in the abyss of self-denial.
"Look at me! Julian Belloc! You who call yourself the most erudite Curator in France!"
His shout successfully caused a faint ripple in Julian's unfocused gaze.
"I am going to ask your so-called 'Mentor' a question now!"
Lin Jie's voice was urgent and full of authority.
"A question for a truly great scholar who has spent a lifetime studying 18th-century Enlightenment thought, a walking encyclopedia who can recite all of Rousseau's works backwards, a real question!"
Each of his words hammered into Julian's wavering mind, forcibly injecting the instinct of a Knowledge Seeker.
Then Lin Jie took a deep breath, dredging up from the depths of his memory the recollections of the monumental works he had devoured countless times while writing his graduation thesis.
With a challenging and academically arrogant tone, he loudly questioned the empty, thick fog:
"May I ask, this esteemed 'Mentor' sir!"
"In Volume Seven of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiography *Confessions*, page 237 of the original French edition!"
"The second Latin footnote, sourced from the Roman poet Horace's *Satires*, which was cited to argue the core point that 'the innate goodness of human nature can be distorted by the corruption of social institutions'!"
"What, exactly, is its specific content?!"
The question was obscure, esoteric, and full of knowledge barriers. In truth, Lin Jie himself didn't know the answer. But the answer wasn't important;
the reaction was.
A scholar who hadn't spent years personally poring over and researching countless editions and texts could not answer.
A counterfeit that merely relied on reading Julian's consciousness to construct a false image could not possibly answer within a short time.
Sure enough.
The moment Lin Jie threw out the question,
Julian's face, twisted in painful penitence, suddenly stiffened.
His unfocused blue pupils instinctively turned toward the direction of the mentor he saw in his vision, the one he considered the embodiment of wisdom.
His subconscious was waiting.
Waiting for a perfect answer, delivered without hesitation as in past academic discussions.
However, what he saw was silence. Absolute silence, tinged with awkwardness and guilt.
The phantom of the mentor, lofty and judging his faith, when faced with this specific point of knowledge, displayed an unmistakable blankness and stupor on its dignified, wise face.
It was stunned. It never expected Lin Jie to ask such a question.
In that instant, the entire world froze in Julian's perception.
His subconscious, that of a Master-level scholar, immediately grasped the truth of it all.
The pillar of faith supporting his spiritual world had not collapsed.
What had collapsed was the despicable fraud standing before him, trying to judge his faith with a false idol.
"You..."
"You are not him!"
A roar erupted from the depths of Julian's throat. The mentor phantom that had haunted him shattered with a crash.
However, just as Julian broke free from the lethal mental control crisis, before he could even cast a grateful glance at Lin Jie,
The Swamp Tree Fiend hidden deep in the swamp, having failed its second mental attack, seemed to have exhausted all patience.
It finally decided to deal with this food resisting it in a more primitive way.
Without any warning,
The ground beneath Julian's feet, composed of dead grass and muck, suddenly sank downward.
As if a giant hand from below had pulled the support from under them.
"Bad! It's a trap!"
Lin Jie's warning only managed to trail off with a short, sharp sound.
The next second, the circular patch of ground they stood on, over five meters in diameter, collapsed like an elevator.
An irresistible suction force pulled from the pitch-black, bottomless pit below.
Even William, a top-tier warrior with a solid stance, seemed insignificant before this collapsing force.
He only had time to wind the climbing rope around his arm a few times to ensure the team wouldn't be scattered during the fall.
Then darkness swallowed the three of them, along with the last glimmer of light above.