Aside from Herta's leave slips, which came with a special reward mechanism, Bai Luan rarely used the vacation time from the other two geniuses.
The main reason was that for him now, handling the daily work of assisting the geniuses was no longer as chaotic and stressful as it was in the beginning.
A considerable amount of time (for Bai Luan) had passed since he first participated in the development of the simulated universe.
During these years, he did not stagnate; instead, he grew rapidly while working with the geniuses. His knowledge reserves, problem-solving abilities, and mindset were all incomparable to before.
Therefore, Bai Luan still maintained a hoarder-like preference for the increasing number of leave slips from Screwllum and Ruan Mei.
Watching the stack of paper representing potential free time grow thicker brought a peculiar sense of security and satisfaction.
The hoarder mouse was pleased.
However, as the number of leave slips Bai Luan hoarded gradually approached a striking scale, Screwllum and Ruan Mei, the issuers of these slips, couldn't help but feel a subtle unease.
They were very worried that Bai Luan's insane hoarding was preparation for some earth-shattering plan—for example, cashing in all his leave slips at once to take a super long vacation lasting several decades.
Although the original intention of the leave slips was to ensure Bai Luan got sufficient rest and avoided overwork... but resting for decades at once?
What was the difference between that and unilaterally declaring 'we're done'?
They both knew that Herta, with her unique advantages, had successfully found an efficient way to consume Bai Luan's leave slips.
But both Screwllum and Ruan Mei knew perfectly well—Herta's method was completely irreplicable.
That was her exclusive privilege.
Moreover, if they tried to replicate it, the consequence would most likely not be the consumption of Bai Luan's leave slips, but rather triggering Herta into a yawning warning state.
Simply put, for the harmony of the project team, it was best not to do that.
Therefore, the two geniuses had to find another way, a new path of their own that could gently guide Bai Luan to use his leave slips.
After all, the speed of their research progress with Bai Luan's assistance versus without it was a world of difference.
Bai Luan's trait of always precisely understanding their intentions, and even often bursting with unexpected inspirations, had long become an indispensable part of their scientific research.
Although rationally knowing the possibility was minuscule, a thought occasionally popped up uncontrollably.
If one day, Bai Luan was kicked out by Herta.
Then the next second, he would either appear on Screwllum's planet or in Ruan Mei's laboratory.
Of course, this scenario could only exist in fantasy for now.
Since Herta herself had no worries about this matter, the topic of "how to prevent Bai Luan's potential long-term disappearance risk due to hoarding leave slips" fell on Screwllum and Ruan Mei's shoulders.
After a serious discussion and analysis, the two geniuses finally came to the simplest and most direct conclusion—why not just ask directly.
This was undoubtedly the most efficient way.
When Bai Luan saw Screwllum and Ruan Mei coming together, their faces showing a mixed expression of concern and inquiry, his first reaction was a tightening in his heart. He subconsciously thought it was another boomerang project result he had long forgotten, flying across time and space, precisely hitting him on the back of his head.
He was as nervous as Diavolo under the Golden Experience Requiem at the time.
He was just short of saying, 'Don't come near me!'
However, after patiently listening to their intentions, he was somewhat dumbfounded.
It really was becoming more and more like gacha pulls.
Now it felt like the game developers themselves were cautiously asking players, 'Why aren't you willing to spend the gacha resources we've given you?'
"You two... why do you look like you're afraid I'll pack up and run away?"
Screwllum and Ruan Mei exchanged glances, both reading the same answer in each other's eyes:
They were indeed a little afraid of that.
Bai Luan was simply too useful.
That kind of efficiency and tacit understanding, once experienced, made it impossible to go back to how things were before, enough to make any researcher pursuing ultimate efficiency dependent.
Although it wasn't to the point where they couldn't function without him, it would feel very uncomfortable.
It was truly a case of 'once you've used it, you can't go back'.
This statement sounds a bit strange, but the meaning is conveyed.
Although he found it somewhat amusing internally, Bai Luan also understood that for Screwllum and Ruan Mei, two geniuses, to specifically seek him out for this matter showed how much they valued it.
He reined in his smile and decided to treat the problem seriously.
In all fairness, as long as it wasn't the intensity of being shoved into the Little Black Room to grind the simulated universe dlc, engaging in academic discussions and exchanges with these two geniuses was actually quite an enjoyable experience for Bai Luan.
Sometimes, that feeling of clashing minds reminded him of aimlessly chatting and fantasizing with his best friends when he was a child, only the difference was:
Here, their wild ideas could actually be put into practice and become reality.
A random idea he casually threw out could very likely boomerang back to him one day in the future as a complete, quite challenging project direction.
When discussing with Screwllum, he could freely explore the infinite possibilities of sentient machines, commonly known as 'talking big'.
Assuming various extreme or ideal conditions, what forms and consciousnesses of mechanical civilizations would emerge.
One of their most frequent topics of discussion was how to guide stray sentient machines back on track, and how to pave a brighter path for the development of sentient machines at the source.
Of course, their conversations weren't always such grand narratives.
Bai Luan would occasionally chat about fun things with Screwllum, such as enthusiastically describing how five mechs with different functions could combine to form a super-sized, incredibly powerful robot.
Although whenever something like "I'll form the head!" was mentioned during combination, Screwllum's characteristic, steady electronic tone would always undergo some extremely subtle, indescribable changes.
His interactions with Ruan Mei, on the other hand, revolved more around the mysteries of the path and the art of creating life.
Compared to the abstract and grand power of the path, Bai Luan was privately more interested in creating creatures.
After all, one of his childhood dreams was to own his own Pokémon.
And in the bizarre world of honkai: star rail, with Ruan Mei's technology, perfectly recreating such a fantastical creature was not impossible.
Who wouldn't want a cute Pikachu that could unleash a hundred thousand volts at any time?
MiHoYo doesn't do it because they're worried about copyright issues.
I don't have to worry about that here—no matter how powerful the copyright holder is, could they really cross the boundaries of the universe to discuss infringement with me?
However, when he enthusiastically described Pokémon and their unique concept of evolution to Ruan Mei, he did successfully pique the strong interest of this genius in the field of life sciences.
She was fascinated by the idea of organisms achieving phased evolution by accumulating experience or meeting specific conditions, and is currently trying to reproduce this mechanism.
According to Bai Luan, if Ruan Mei's experiment succeeds, she might apply this technology to the project of creating an Emanator.
For example, adding different path powers to the Propagation Emanator used as a research subject, and observing what distinct evolutionary branches would result.
Bai Luan had more or less participated in assisting with the core projects of both geniuses, so he was quite aware of their recent research directions.
But at this moment, his thoughts needed to be pulled back from those interesting research projects.
The primary task at hand was how to alleviate the anxiety the two geniuses had about the leave slips he had hoarded.
At the very least, he needed to provide a reasonable and effective way to steadily consume these leave slips.
How to give it... Bai Luan pondered for a moment, his gaze shifting between Screwllum and the cool-tempered Ruan Mei.
A slightly eccentric, yet inexplicably plausible
idea emerged.
He cleared his throat and, with a somewhat tentative tone, asked:
"Um... are you two interested in making videos?"
...