What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 189: Need Deep Consideration

Through their conversation, he discovered that Tang Baona wasn’t actually angry. It was mostly in a joking manner, she didn’t even seem bothered by the misunderstanding from her co-workers when she accidentally played that sentence in the office.

After “extorting” ten meals from Xiang Kun, the expressions she sent seemed to him as if Tang Baona was rather “smug”.

Xiang Kun pondered a bit and thought that Tang Baona must believe in his integrity, knowing that he’s not that kind of man.

Yes, that should be the case.

Around 9 a.m., Xiang Kun packed the twelve Minion woodcarvings into a supermarket plastic bag and headed out. He planned to go to a crowded place to test their effect, to see if increasing the quantity would have any effect.

Previously, it seemed like these wood carvings, after his “Emotional Infusion”, could make him perceive the emotions of the closest people around when directly in touch with them, or if they were close enough.

However, their emotional influence on the people around could only happen after they fell deeply asleep. Xiang Kun suspected that the power of this kind of influence was not enough, so he wanted to use more identical “emotionally infused” carvings for testing, to try and see if he can influence others while they’re awake.

So, Xiang Kun went to the subway station, waited a bit, then got on the most crowded train. In this kind of environment, holding a plastic bag against others wouldn’t seem strange.

However, after boarding the train and starting to attune to the wood carvings, Xiang Kun was taken aback, finding himself wanting to slap his forehead.

He just now realized that he was not able to simultaneously attune to two or more “emotionally infused” items!

When he first started to attune to items that he had established “Super Sensory Contact” with, he lacked brain “threads”. Therefore, he could only focus on one item at a time. Afterwards, his brain got used to quietly handling in “multi-threading”, so the problem of simultaneous attunement became less significant.

In cases where the items of “Super Sensory Contact” were close at hand, he didn’t even need to attune, but could control them as if they were extensions of his limbs. This was like when he flipped coins, he didn’t need to deliberately attune but could control the coin to land on the side he wanted.

So, when he was attuning to “emotionally infused” items, since there were only three samples, and his attention was on perceiving dreamland, he didn’t consider simultaneous attunement. He only tested and found that these could influence dreamlands – a single item could only influence one person at a time and there was a “cooldown” for the same item to influence again.

But now, standing in the subway carriage, Xiang Kun realized that he’d overlooked this important issue before carving the twelve Minions. He’d just found out that he could only attune to one Minion wood carving at a time!

Even though all these wood carvings were “emotionally infused” with the same emotion, he couldn’t simultaneously attune to another!

So by his previous conjecture: the “emotionally infused” items could only work when he was attuning to them, it was as if he had a 12 -core processor and could only use one core at a time.

What’s the use of that?!

His idea of quality changes arising from quantity couldn’t be achieved at all.

Xiang Kun was a bit frustrated, had he made this “Twelve Minion Formation” for nothing?

Was it that he could not establish multiple connections simultaneously

because it involved “emotion”?

What frustrated him more was that he hadn’t considered this beforehand, it was actually a simple matter. He could just attune at the same time, before he carved the “Twelve Minions”, he had more than one “emotionally infused” item.

Xiang Kun quietly warned himself. He knew that, through various kinds of training, his brain was able to give several plans and solutions almost “instinctively” at the first moment when encountering problems, after a few evolutionary mutations triggered by drinking blood.

These plans and solutions were actually thought out by himself, but they came from the “inherent responsive” parts of his brain, trained intensively, so they didn’t require much “deep thinking.”

For most matters, these plans and solutions were already sufficiently well thought out, and there was no need to waste time on “deep thought,” just making a “choice” was enough.

But now, it seemed like these plans and solutions generated by his brain’s “inherent responses”, when faced with relatively simple situations, or environments that needed immediate reactions, it was fine to directly “select” and use one. However, if not, he still needed to devote more time to “deep thinking”.

Of course, for now, Xiang Kun hadn’t given up on his “Twelve Minions Formation”.

He began to sense these “minions” one by one, giving them each a number from “minion 1” to “minion 12”.

After sensing each of them in sequence, he indeed vaguely felt the emotions of those around him. From the perspective of emotion sensing, the twelve minions currently had no issues.

Then, Xiang Kun reached into the bag and felt a few of the minion woodcarvings, attempting to sense several at once through touch, but the attempt failed.

He tried again, using one minion as the base to sense the “emotion” of another minion, trying to “link” them together, but the attempt still failed.

Then he began to ponder, looking for a way to fuse the twelve minion woodcarvings into a whole?

But after thinking for a long time, he only had a vague direction, and no specific method of operation came to him.

So, he shifted his thinking again, wondering if he could make his own sensing work with a “delay”, or make the woodcarving’s function “delay” activation, with different delays, this could make them be “activated” at the same moment, and exert influence simultaneously.

Even if establishing a sensing connection and gaining emotional perception is not possible at the same time, as long as the twelve woodcarvings “activate” together, their impact on others’ emotions might be able to start working. But once again, he did not find a way…

Xiang Kun didn’t exit the subway. Since he was here already, he wanted to conduct some experiments. However, he moved to a more spacious and less crowded train and found a seat.

He held a minion woodcarving in his hand, then closed his eyes in a sleep-like posture. After some time, when a girl who appeared to be a university student sat beside him, he loosened his grip, letting the woodcarving fall to the ground, where it landed near the girl’s foot.

The girl looked down, picked up the minion, tapped Xiang Kun’s arm and handed him the woodcarving as he opened his eyes looking bewildered, “You dropped this.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Xiang Kun paused for a moment, then gratefully accepted it with an expression of gratitude.

In fact, the moment the girl’s hand touched the woodcarving, Xiang Kun began to establish a connection and sensed a faint sense of “curiosity” from her.

Xiang Kun concentrated his attention, trying to see if focusing his attention could strengthen his “sensing”, so that the woodcarving could better “stimulate” its ability to affect emotion, and assimilate her emotions to make her feel “happy” while she’s awake, not when she’s asleep.

However, until Xiang Kun reached out and took the woodcarving, the girl’s emotions remained unchanged, and there was no difference through the few seconds they both were in contact with the woodcarving.

“Did you make this minion woodcarving yourself?” The girl asked after returning the woodcarving.

All twelve of his woodcarvings were not finely polished as they were merely “tools”. As long as they worked for “emotion infusion”, they were good. So even though they clearly looked very rough and unlike finished products, it was reasonable for the girl to ask.

Xiang Kun glanced at her and quickly built her basic information in his mind:

Judging from her age and style of dress, she was likely a university student or recently graduated freelancer, especially since it was working hours on a weekday. Considering the stop she boarded the subway, it was likely that she attended ** University. She had just had a shower, applied some light makeup, and neatly painted her nails. However, there was a faint smell of oil paint on her. Given the creativity on her white cloth shoes, there was a high probability that she was an art student or related professional. She had been watching videos about handcrafts and dance on TikTok when she sat down, indicating her interest in these areas. Given the time and her careful dressing, she was probably going out to meet her boyfriend. Based on her manner and tone when picking up his carving and waking him, she seemed polite.

Most of this information Xiang Kun had instinctively gathered when the girl had entered the subway. He was just recalling and summarizing it now. Of course, he couldn’t guarantee all his guesses, but at least it was enough for him to build on for the upcoming conversation.

“Yes, I made it myself. I wanted to give it as a birthday gift, but it feels a bit off. So I wanted to take it to a friend to see what corrections need to be made, or if I should re-do it,” said Xiang Kun shyly and softly. He then showed the rest of the minions from his plastic bag to the girl.

The girl seemed interested and said as she examined each one, “Actually, your carvings are pretty good, just need some polishing and it’s all set. At least, I don’t see any problems. You’re giving this to a girl, right? I think she will love it.”

Whenever the girl picked up a woodcarving, Xiang Kun would immediately switch his sensing target. However, no matter how much he switched, his emotional perception clarity of the girl didn’t change much, and there were no signs of the woodcarving influencing the girl’s emotion.

Clearly, a single “emotion infused” woodcarving couldn’t produce much emotional impact on a person who was awake.

“Do you also like minions?” Xiang Kun prepared to change the strategy, trying to guide the girl’s emotion into a “happy” direction, and see whether the woodcarving can work more effectively if the target’s emotion leans towards the “same direction”..