[ Task List:

- 'Merging of Techniques' - 7897 SSP ]

After seeing a price that surpassed the fullness of my current 'wallet' appear, I immediately thought it might be actually good this way. After all, in half of the times you try something you are uncertain about, being stopped early turns out to be actually dodging a bullet…

Besides, no matter how much I steeled my resolve it wouldn't make points pop out of nowhere, so I might as well put the points into buying more of the few things that caught my eyes as well as things that I might require in the future.

However, the notif that followed turned this particular line of thinking of mine upside down!

[ A special discount for first-time use of the 'Knowledge Processing Center' has been applied! Tasklist updated! ]

[ Task List:

- 'Merging of Techniques' - 6318 SSP ]

'This kind of situation…'

The 'Knowledge Processing Center' didn't mention anything about a first-time discount before even though it kept stressing on the point that this was the very first task it had, yet it only pulled out the 20% discount after making me almost give up a plan of mine and made it possible once more…

'Is it the case of another playful AI?'

Since it didn't seem like I could directly communicate with this so-called 'Knowledge Processing Center', or at least it didn't seem like it wanted to communicate for the time being, I could only put the speculations I had aside, since it only seemed like a child playing the 'devil's temptation'.

The reason I even thought about it from that angle was only because I experienced Long's obvious desire for more stat points, which made it sense that the second 'shy' AI could just be using this simple trick to make it very reasonable for me to use over 80% of my points by revealing a fake unreachable price at the beginning.

Of course, whether that was the truth or the AI was just lagging didn't really matter, others may be affected by such psychological plays, but I obviously wasn't, I planned on giving this plan of mine a try as long as I had enough points to cover the cost anyway, otherwise, I wouldn't even spend a single one no matter how many 'temptations' were played…

[ Would you like to confirm and commence the task? ]

Hearing the timely notif, I didn't transmit anything as I stayed silent for a second before opening my mouth…

"How long does it take for tasks to be done, Long?"

Having already had my doubts about this 'Knowledge Processing Center' that was over my head, I decided to confirm the risky points first, otherwise, it would be very unsavory to see my points consumed only to have to wait for the next stage to pick up my merged technique…

{The task completion is, of course, instantaneous. If that wasn't the case this guy wouldn't have specific requirements for opening as well as be capable of gobbling up so many points!}

'Yup, suspicious.'

Even disregarding the way that Long referred to the 'Knowledge Processing Center' as it was his way of talking that sometimes gave life to objects, the quick glint of jealousy that sparked in his eyes was too obvious of a clue, but...

'Yes, confirm.'

Having another playful AI that was bound to the system space didn't mean much as long as it did its work in the correct way. I was already burning with anticipation to receive the result as I transmitted my confirmation…

[ Confirmation acknowledged - Task commencing! ]

'Let's see if it really…'

[ Task completed successfully! Directly transmitting the task's result! ]

'Ugh!'

A jolt incomparable to the one I felt during the brain scan took over my head as I felt slightly overwhelmed for a second, but my head suddenly felt cool all-over and the pain came to a stop, however… that wasn't all.

Maybe because my head was used to getting a large amount of information transferred into it by now, I gained some sort of resilience which caused me to quickly nullify the pain this time, but what followed couldn't be explained the same way… after all, this was a completely new experience!

My brain felt like it shut down for a second, and a trance overtook me before I fell into a cross-legged position as all my 'Telekinetic Force' gushed towards my heart…

`~~`~~`~~`

"Owww…"

When I finally came to, a headache that I hadn't got in a very long while threatened to split my head in two, my last recent thoughts only reached my mind a few seconds later as I quickly understood the source of the headache…

'This is… overdrawn mentality…?'

My so-called 'Mind Space' that was always full like an ocean even though it was so 'large' was now more like a desert that lacked any presence of 'water'...

This did indeed coincide with what I remembered about my mental energy rushing all in one direction, the point was that the last thing I remembered was trying to direct it when it finally reached its destination.

Everything else seemed blurry and my headache was still in action, the first thing I wanted to do was to check what happened inside my heart, but the lack of mental energy meant that I couldn't use 'inner sight'...

As such, I did the next thing on my 'waking-up from stuff like fainting' list. Checking time.

'Almost two hours…'

I already knew that this all happened due to the information influx into my head, but whenever I tried to check the received technique, my headache worsened, this was obviously another one of the symptoms for mentality overdrawing…

'Ugh… there should be at least something like that…'

Being in this uncomfortable state, I could only try to hold back from thinking so as to limit the pain, which was quite the hard thing to do considering my nature, as I quickly opened the shop list and quickly started scrolling.

'There it is!'

Seeing the item that I hardly remembered being really there in the middle of the list, I rejoiced as I quickly tapped to purchase it without even looking at the price, before… the headache worsened due to my excitement.