The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

"…I will carefully consider it." Jin smiled at the foreign girl and thanked her for her patronage. The other three Fire Shamans also gave their praise to Jin, especially Jasmin who suffered the most in the fight as she hadn't been prepared for it being so intensely real.

"If I didn't know that it was just a dungeon instance, it might seriously have given me PTSD," Jasmin mentioned in a casual way, but Jin knew that the System had been ensuring that such symptoms were being sniffed out from their memories.

Apparently, Pei and the System (with a little tinkering from Kraft) had come out with a sort of spell that would purposely manipulate the memories of the user.

Because the experience the customers received was undoubtedly real, it was necessary for there to be such a filter to prevent the customers from developing possible symptoms of PTSD, anxiety or other traumas from merely playing dungeons.

The way the spell worked was by changing the way the memory was being perceived. Instead of fear, the System would replace the memory to be invoked by adrenaline, especially when both emotions were two sides of the same coin. By tweaking the body's response from flight to fight, they would wish to relive those memories again instead of being afraid of them.

Through such memory replacement process, the System made the customers hunger for more fight. All of this had the positive side effect that it innately increased their desire to play more of Jin's dungeons.

That was one of the reasons why it was much easier for Jin to retain customers as compared to his competitor. The pricing restructures, the content of the dungeons, this passive brainwashing, attractive prizes and the inclusion of many other support services. It all adds up to increase the probability of his customers returning after trying it out.

It was never just one particular factor, and he had to constantly review his methods until he made a name for himself. The route to becoming the Number One Dungeon Supplier was not laid with flowers on the side of the road.

Yet, this particular tweaking of the memory was a double edged sword.

When Jin was informed by Pei and the System about it, he was horrified and worried that it might create a compulsive addiction. He didn't want to be the cause behind his customers turning into adrenaline junkies who could potentially lead to deviancy if not managed correctly.

Worst case, what if he was responsible for acts like murdering people just to get that kick of adrenaline back when fighting monsters would no longer be sufficient to satiate the feeling of victory in the long run.

His concerns were valid, especially with his dungeons now much more affordable, which would lead to cultivators experiencing them more frequently. In view of this potential setback, Pei collaborated with the System and Devilman to slowly tweaked the most intense moments in the cultivator's memories instead of the entire memory itself.

Kraft had jokingly dubbed it the "Enforced Nostalgia Filter" as the rest of the memory was left untouched.

Yet this process eventually placed a strain to the processing speed due to the amount of analysis that the System required to do to pick the most intense moments but Jin made it a point to emphasise to the System that it was a priority to manage their customers properly.

That was why most if not all customers had to visit the Luxury Recovery Instance regardless of victory. (For those who were defeated, they would definitely be in there to recover.)

Remember how Jin created rewards for those victory achievements or the statistics of one would perform? It was all projected in a room in the Luxury Recovery Instance, and the cultivators had to stay there for at least a minute (or until the System was done secretly tweaking the necessary memories) before they were allowed to leave.

Most cultivators thought it was just a new store feature to show the highlights of the battle and allow them to show off with a bit of boasting about how well each of them did. But they never knew it was a room to make sure that they would not turn out to be potential murderers (at the very least, lower that particular probability)

For now, the brainwashing was simple, and with the lack of Psychics, it gave the System a consistent load of data to improve its methods and create a process even more efficient than ever. Even Yang Ling, who was a decent mental arts magician was subjected to it, and Pei personally made a presence to ensure the memory could be swap without her noticing it.

It only further gave the System the confidence to do this process with ease. And because of the data it collected, the System also noted that it did not have to do this on a regular basis as the body eventually climatized to the way of battling.

Given the feedback, it was sufficient to do the filter process for the first dew runs when the cultivator was still fresh and new to the whole realistic dungeoneering procedure.

After that, the System only had to monitor the cultivator's vitals and tweak accordingly. Else, it would not touch the memories unless necessary because it also knew that excessive tinkering would definitely have its consequences.

For example, the Halloween dungeon instance was meant to incite fear instead adrenaline so the System left those cultivators' memories alone only making sure it would not leave a drastic memory of trauma.

With thousands of cultivators coming in and out for dungeons, even the System could learn, adapt and differentiate when it required the filter procedure.

——

"Well, I am glad that you've enjoyed my dungeon. If you are itching for one more, please don't let me stop you!" Jin answered gleefully with a plastic smile for the moment when he heard PTSD, though the group did not notice at all since they were all excited to enter the redemption store to check out what kind of rewards they could get.

"Boss, thank you for the dungeon. It was hard, but it was damn enjoyable!" Bu Dong thanked Jin for creating the dimensional instance.

"When you have good company, anything is fun. I will review the customer's comments and make sure I have something that can cater to every grade of cultivator some way or another. " Jin said and at the same time hinted to Bu Dong that he might have a Mecha Raid soon.

"Is it something to do with Supa Robot Warz? Or are you genuinely making a Mecha Instance?" Bu Dong asked with delight.

"Maybe something of both? I was thinking of allowing people who play the mini game a lot to have dibs on the new Mecha Instance… Maybe a little more advantage than the rest" Jin answered, and Bu Dong eyes were glittering.

"You better make your words count! Because I am going to grind more with Deng Long and we get that first clear right off the bat!" Bu Dong said as he thanked Boss Jin once again and went into the Redemption store.

"Sure." Jin grinned as he waved goodbye to Bu Dong and then looked at the time on his watch. Just when he thought he experienced a time crunch making the Tree Mall, the Feast he was making pushed it to another level.