Lex sudah punya jawaban di benak. Bahkan sebelum ia benar-benar memulai pertimbangannya, jawabannya sudah ada. Tapi karena riwayatnya yang selalu mendorong diri ke situasi-situasi mengerikan yang seharusnya tidak ia campuri, Lex berusaha jadi lebih strategis. Ia akan memikirkan keputusannya dengan matang. Menganalisis keuntungan dan kerugian. Mengambil keputusan berdasarkan informasi.
Sampai sekarang berjalan lancar. Ia tetap terjebak dalam kekacauan mengerikan, tapi kesalahannya semakin berkurang, dan sebagian besar cuma semesta yang main-main dengannya.
Pada akhirnya, ia menyimpulkan apa pun yang dipilih, ia tidak akan bisa memperbaiki semua masalah. Ia hanya bisa lakukan yang terbaik.
Tapi, bukan berarti Lex percaya pada nasib sial, ia memutuskan untuk menunda keputusan santai saja sampai dia ke kamar, mandi teliti, kenakan pakaian terbaik, semprotkan Cologne, dan menenangkan pikiran.
Ya, Lex lakukan semua itu cuma karena mau, dan sama sekali bukan bentuk doa, berharap keputusan itu nanti tidak menggigit pinggangnya.
Jadi, dalam kondisi seolah akan kencan, Lex mengaktifkan otoritas sementara untuk menuliskan ulang operasi sistem.
Dia sendirian di kamar, jadi tidak ada banyak yang terjadi. Mesmo begitu, Lex merasakan persepsi waktunya berubah, seolah waktu bergerak sangat lamban. Sama seperti saat dia dapat misi pertama kali.
Antarmuka sistem Lex berkedip, lalu tiba-tiba berubah.
Notifikasi Baru: Otoritas ditulis ulang operasi sistem diberikan! Menampilkan daftar operasi sistem.
Waktu tersisa untuk mengubah operasi: 1:00!
Lex cuma punya satu menit, tapi dengan waktu yang terasa lambat, dia punya waktu lebih dari cukup.
Yang menarik justru daftar aturan yang dijadikan dasar operasi sistem. Ada jutaan, mungkin lebih. Jutaan adalah angka yang dia dapat setelah sekilas. Bahkan dengan waktu yang diperlambat, Lex tidak akan sempat menelusuri semuanya.
Setelah sedikit uji coba, Lex menyimpulkan dia tidak bisa membuat atau menghapus aturan sistem, hanya mengubahnya.
Lex juga coba cari cepat, dan menemukan bahwa dia bisa mencari aturan yang diinginkan.
Hal pertama yang dilakukannya adalah menelusuri aturan soal teleportasi, karena dia ingin kendali penuh atas cara teleportasi bekerja. Dengan ribuan aturan hanya untuk itu, menemukan yang tepat sudah repot, dan memikirkan cara mengubahnya tanpa menimbulkan masalah bukan hal mudah.
Faktanya, Lex butuh 31 detik untuk mengetahui apa dan bagaimana mengubahnya, yang baginya terasa seperti sebulan lebih. Masalahnya aturan-aturan itu licik, dan tidak ditulis dalam kata-kata. Fungsinya dikomunikasikan langsung.
Jadi, mengubah satu aturan sistem untuk hasil yang diinginkan tanpa merusak sistem secara keseluruhan jauh lebih sulit dari dugaan Lex. Dia tidak berani main-main.
Akhirnya, Lex tidak mendapatkan kendali penuh atas teleportasi seperti yang diharapkan. Dia hanya bisa mengubah jangkauan sistem dari mana saja di semesta, yang saat ini cara kerjanya, ke tempat yang sudah ditautkan sistem, yang jauh lebih sempit. Selain itu, dia bisa menyalakan dan mematikan teleportasi di wilayah-wilayah tersebut.
Tapi begitu dia paham apa yang mau dilakukan, Lex tidak langsung mengubahnya. Sebaliknya, dia mulai mencari aturan sistem yang berkaitan dengan pengguna. Karena sistem begitu takut melanggar aturannya, Lex ingin lihat sendiri apa isi aturan soal pengguna.
Karena sifat curiga bawaan, itu tidak membuat Lex sepenuhnya percaya pada sistem lagi, tapi setidaknya hatinya agak tenang jika dia temukan tidak ada yang aneh.
Masalahnya… jumlah aturan soal pengguna bahkan lebih banyak dari aturan teleportasi.
Dia duga butuh waktu lama verifikasi apakah benar-benar menguntungkan pengguna, tapi aturan paling pertama sudah membuatnya terhenti.
Semua pengguna sistem harus dipilih berdasarkan siapa yang mampu memberikan nilai hiburan tertinggi dalam area pencarian.
Lex terdiam, lalu menghela napas. Itu kriteria pilihan yang sangat belit, tapi setidaknya tidak jahat. Paling tidak, baik tahu kalau sistem menganggapnya menghibur.
Aturan berikutnya tidak sejelas yang pertama, dan dirancang meliputi skenario dan ras tak terhitung. Satu-satunya yang bisa Lex petik dari menelusuri ribuan aturan itu adalah setidaknya sistem tidak secara terang-terangan melawan pengguna.
Tapi itu tidak berarti semuanya begitu simpel. Lex sudah lama curiga kalau alasan dia selalu di pusat masalah ada kaitannya dengan sistem.
Setelah membaca aturan tak terhitung yang dijadikan landasan sistem, Lex menyimpulkan sistem setidaknya bertanggung jawab sebagian.
Bukan karena niat jahat, tapi aturan-aturan itu mendorong sistem mengarahkan pengguna ke area atau aktivitas dengan potensi hiburan tinggi.
Mengetahui ini, Lex sebenarnya tidak merasa dikhianati sistem. Kalau ada, dia merasa lega. Bagian besar kecurigaannya karena dia tidak paham kenapa seseorang membuat Midnight Inn sekuat itu, lalu menyerahkannya ke Lex.
Sekarang dia tahu ada orang yang belit, mungkin sangat tampan, yang mengatur penyebaran sistem dan menulis segala yang terjadi pada Lex. Atau, setidaknya menetapkan undang-undang kecil yang akhirnya mengakibatkan segalanya.
Mengetahui apa yang diinginkan sistem darinya benar-benar menurunkan ketidaksukaannya. Sekarang dia cuma harus terima kalau dia sumber hiburan bagi seseorang atau sesuatu yang lain.
Lex had an answer in mind. Even before he genuinely began his deliberation, he had an answer in mind. But due to his history of walking himself into terrible, horrible situations he had no business being in, Lex was trying to be more of a strategist. He would think his decisions through. He would analyze the pros and cons. He would make an informed decision.
So far, it was working out for him. He would still get into a terrible mess, but the blame for that was less and less his own fault, and mostly just the universe messing with him.
Ultimately, he came to the conclusion that no matter what he chose, he would not be able to fix all issues. He could only do what was best.
Yet, not that Lex believed in jinxing things, he decided to just casually delay the decision until he went to his room, took a thorough shower, put on his best clothes, sprayed some cologne, and calmed all his thoughts.
Yes, Lex was doing all this just because he felt like it, and not at all as a form of prayer, hoping the decision wouldn't come to bite him in the behind.
So it was in a state as if he was about to go on a date that Lex activated his temporary authority to rewrite system operations.
He was alone in his room at the time, so there was not much happening. Even so, Lex sensed his perception of time change, making it seem like time was moving incredibly slowly. It was just like when he got the quest in the first place.
Lex's system interface flickered on, and then suddenly changed.
New Notification: Authority granted to rewrite system operations! Displaying list of system operations.
Time remaining to change operations: 1:00!
Lex only had a minute to decide, but with how slowly time seemed to be going by, he had more than enough time.
What was interesting, instead, was to see the list of rules the system was operating under. There were millions of them, or possibly even more. Millions was the number he came to after a quick glance. Even with the time seemingly slowed down, Lex would not be able to go through them all.
Upon a little testing, Lex concluded that he could not create or delete any of the system rules, only amend them.
Lex also tried to do a quick search, and discovered that he could search through the system rules for the ones he wanted.
The first thing he did was go through the rules relating to teleportation, since he wanted to take full control over how the teleportation operated. Considering there were thousands of rules even just for that, finding the exact right one in itself was a huge hassle, and then thinking of the best way to convert it without causing any issues was no easy task.
In fact, it actually took Lex 31 seconds to figure out exactly what and how to change, which to him felt like a little over a month. The problem was that the rules were tricky, and not exactly written in words. Instead, their function was something directly communicated.
As such, altering just one system rule that would bring the desired result without breaking the whole system was a lot more challenging than Lex expected. He dared not treat it lightly.
Ultimately, Lex wouldn't gain as much control over the teleportation as he had liked. Instead, he could only change the reach of the system from anywhere in the universe, which is how it worked right now, to places that the system had linked to, which was a drastically smaller range. Moreover, he'd be able to turn the teleportation even in those regions on and off.
But once he had figured out what he wanted to do, Lex didn't immediately make the change. Instead, he began searching through the system's rules related to the user. Since the system was so afraid of breaking its rules, Lex wanted to see for himself what the rules stated about the user.
Due to his inherent suspicious nature, that wouldn't allow Lex to completely trust the systems once more, but at least his might would be somewhat set at ease if he discovered that there was nothing amiss.
The problem was… the number of rules pertaining to users was even greater than the number of rules related to teleportation.
He expected to take a long time to verify if they truly were in favor of the users, but the very first rule gave him a pause.
All system users must be selected based on who can provide the highest entertainment value within the search area.
Lex paused, and then sighed. That was one twisted criteria to choose system users on, but at least it wasn't malicious. At the very least, it was nice to know that the system found him entertaining.
The following rules were not as clear cut as the first one, and were instead made to encompass countless possible scenarios and races. The only thing that Lex could garner from going through thousands of those rules was that at least the system wasn't overtly against the system users.
But that did not mean everything was so straightforward either. Lex had long suspected that the reason he always found himself in the heart of trouble had something to do with the system.
After reading the countless rules that the system operated by, Lex could conclude that the system was at least partially responsible for it.
It was not out of malicious intentions, but the rules did nudge the system to direct the user towards areas or activities with high entertainment possibilities.
Learning this, Lex did not actually feel betrayed by the system. If anything he was relieved. A big part of his suspicion was due to the fact that he could not understand why someone would make something as powerful as the Midnight Inn, and then just hand it to Lex.
Now he knew that there was some twisted, probably devilishly handsome fellow, orchestrating the dispersal of systems and authoring all the things that were happening to Lex. Or, well, at least setting the bylaws that ultimately resulted in everything that happened.
Knowing what the system wanted from him actually lowered the negativity he had gathered towards it. Now he just had to accept the fact that he was a source of entertainment for someone or something else.
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