The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 89: Mind Level

"And it's all because of what they brought back that night," Joel added. His eyes, set above a hooked nose, took on that appraising look again, as if trying to read something on Lu Li's face.

"What did they bring back?" Lu Li asked thoughtfully.

Valentine was about to say something, but Joel raised a hand to stop him. He said sternly, "If he doesn't know, and you tell him, you'll be harming him."

Those words reminded Lu Li of the door. "Why do you say that?"

"You don't know?"

"I've been an exorcist for less than two weeks," Lu Li answered honestly.

Joel frowned slightly. When he first met Lu Li, he had thought him a fairly experienced exorcist:

"Who's your mentor?"

Perhaps he meant the one who had trained Lu Li.

"Gades," Lu Li replied. "He helped me a great deal.""Gades... that guy. He must have squeezed a lot of money out of you." Unexpectedly, Joel knew Gades and seemed quite familiar with the money-obsessed exorcist. "Did he tell you that knowing too much isn't always a good thing?"

Lu Li nodded. "He warned me: the more you know, the faster you die."

The curious don't live long—at least, not in their world.

"Exactly," Joel spread his hands. "If you want, I can tell you, because I was sent to the Sentry Post specifically to help them deal with this. But are you prepared for your Mind Level to drop once you learn the details?"

"Mind Level?" Lu Li latched onto the unusual phrase. It sounded like some kind of indicator of mental health.

"You don't know? Oh, I almost forgot, that Gades doesn't have access to this kind of information yet." Joel shook his head, his brown eyes fixed on Lu Li. "So, I'm sorry, I can't tell you."

Lu Li wanted to know. It seemed the Mind Level was somehow connected to the door. Understanding the Mind Level might indirectly help him understand the door's mechanism.

"What if I agree to help you?" Lu Li proposed.

Joel shook his head slightly, rejecting Lu Li's offer. "Let me be blunt, you can't help with this matter..."

"I've encountered Richard before, and if he hadn't run so fast, I would have already dealt with him," Lu Li interrupted, his voice calm, without a trace of impatience to learn the truth. "I think that gives me an advantage."

Joel and Valentine exchanged a look. Joel rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Alright, as you said, we can give it a try," Joel raised his head, agreeing to Lu Li's proposal. "I'll tell you about the Mind Level, and then you'll come with us to see those people and try to help however you can."

"That seems to be against the rules," Valentine suddenly interjected, not wanting an outsider like Lu Li involved in this case.

Joel scoffed and leaned back in his chair. "He's helping your men right now, helping you not get fired from this job, and you're worried about some damn rules at a time like this?"

Valentine's face changed color several times before finally settling into a dejected expression. "You're right."

"Now, I'm going to tell our exorcist friend what the Mind Level is. Deputy Sheriff Valentine, would you kindly leave the office for a moment?"

Valentine froze. "Even I..."

"If information about the Mind Level were harmless, why wouldn't we just tell everyone about it?" Joel said with a shrug.

Valentine couldn't argue with that. He gritted his teeth, stood up from his chair, and left the office.

Only Lu Li and Joel remained in the office, sitting across from each other at the desk. Joel's gaze shifted from the door to Lu Li. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Do I look like I'm about to get up and leave?" Lu Li countered with a question of his own.

Joel stared at Lu Li for a long time, then slowly said, "People like you don't live long."

It wasn't a malicious curse, but a statement of fact.

"Better that than to die without understanding anything," Lu Li replied, and his words seemed to confirm what Joel had just said.

Joel smiled, but his expression quickly turned serious again. He sat up straight, a solemn look on his face. "Listen carefully. There's something I must warn you about. Once you learn about the Mind Level, you will inevitably step into the true nature of this world. We don't forbid sharing information about the Mind Level, but everyone who knows about it bears the risk. So, if you decide to tell someone else... first make sure they truly want to know, just as I've made sure with you."

"I understand."

The Mind Level, or sanity level. It was spoken of long ago, long before the Night's Watch existed, back when the first generation of spirit hunters was just emerging.

Originally, it referred to a person's mental state—and in a way, it still does. Diving, being in a dark room, a fire, a scare, the death of a loved one—all these things affect one's mental state. And the very first concept of the Mind Level described just that.

Until people gradually emerged from the darkness of ignorance, until sailing ships embarked on long voyages to explore the world, until they encountered something greater—the mysterious and bizarre real world.

In those days, the world wasn't as dangerous as it is now, and only a few encountered strange things. But without exception, all who survived an encounter with the unusual returned insane. In the best cases, their personalities changed, filled with negative emotions. In the worst, they simply lost their minds.

This prompted the first generation of spirit hunters to begin their research. And the first to propose a true theory of the Mind Level was a first-generation spirit hunter named Isaac Einstein.

He believed that everyone's Mind Level is different and depends on their character. For example, an outgoing person and a withdrawn person would react differently to the death of a friend, and the drop in their Mind Level would not be the same.

The Mind Level drops due to negative emotions, but it can be restored by positive ones, such as joy and pleasure.

This is the basis of character formation: the lower the Mind Level, the darker a person's character, and the closer they are to madness.

After establishing a model for a normal person's Mind Level, Einstein proposed a new theory: a series of intense negative emotions in a short period could lead to an irreversible lowering of the Mind Level's threshold. For example, if several family members die in a short span of time.

Einstein applied his new theory to a deeper level—to those strange creatures that roam this world. He discovered that the Mind Level of everyone who survived an encounter with them invariably plummeted, and even contact with the survivors, simply listening to their stories, would irreversibly lower the Mind Level of others.

No one knows where these strange creatures came from. Some say the realm of evil spirits intersects with our world; others believe they were always here, and human exploration simply awakened them.

Fifteen years after the Mind Level theory emerged, Isaac Einstein created the first Mind Level test, allowing people to materialize their mental state. The word "created" isn't entirely accurate. Strictly speaking, Einstein used the abilities of a particular Evil Spirit to materialize the Mind Level.

That is why knowing about the Mind Level carries a risk—the knowledge itself lowers your sanity.