"Hey everyone, I want you to hear me out. I'm Carl Brown, an alchemist from the Kingdom of Dawn. Not long ago, I saw a quest on the Quest Board from an elderly minor noble who'd lost all his relatives in the recent war. So he posted a quest looking for someone to help ease his loneliness and let him spend his final days in peace. So I created this—a talking crystal parrot."

As soon as you click on Reverse Merlin Carl Brown's video, you hear him earnestly explaining the backstory: "My crystal parrot can talk and chat, and its intelligence level keeps growing over time. More importantly, if you encounter someone you don't like, you can push it forward and it'll start going off with colorful language. And you don't have to feel embarrassed because, hey, it's just an alchemical product, right? After the crystal parrot finishes its rant, you can just explain to the person."

"Now, let me demonstrate the parrot's two main functions."

With that, Reverse Merlin Carl Brown started chatting with the crystal parrot.

"Hey, little guy, say hello to everyone!"

"Yo-ho~ Hey everyone, I'm Master Carl's brilliant creation, the talking crystal parrot! Don't let this fool you—I can keep you company till the end of time..."

"Why don't you explain your features."

"Yo-ho~ Hey everyone, I'm Master Carl's brilliant creation, the talking crystal parrot! Don't let this fool you—I can keep you company till the end of time..."

"I said, explain your features."

"Master Carl is a truly excellent alchemist..."

"I want you to explain your features. You should tell everyone that you can chat and ease loneliness and stuff. Got it?"

"..."

Over the next few minutes, Reverse Merlin Carl Brown perfectly demonstrated to viewers what "artificial stupidity" looked like. Almost every answer was completely off-topic. But you had to admit, this parrot was really chatty. The weirdest part was that whenever it encountered certain keywords, it would start cursing up a storm, and it could do it in dozens of different languages simultaneously.

Good thing Ren's video system didn't have content moderation—otherwise this video would never have made it through.

Even so, Master Carl nodded with satisfaction. "As you can all see, my crystal parrot has excellent logic and learning ability. With just a little training, it'll definitely be an outstanding companion. If that elderly noble had taken it home, he'd have something to chat with, something to teach like a grandson. But he rejected my work and even cursed me out. So tell me—doesn't he just not appreciate quality?"

In these early days of internet video, people were pretty accepting, and this Reverse Merlin Carl Brown actually had decent editing skills. The video was legitimately funny and quickly attracted some attention.

But soon, the comments section exploded.

"If I'm not mistaken, that elderly noble probably wasn't looking for this."

"Forget everything else—Master Carl's thinking is really something else!"

"This is wild. If you want an alchemical companion to ease loneliness, shouldn't you make a bigger, humanoid alchemical creation?"

"Ha ha ha, this is killing me. The crystal parrot's answers are completely random—is this supposed to be comedy?"

"Suggestion: turn it into a music box that doesn't need commands. Just make it sing."

"It's not completely useless. When you're bored, you could practice patience with this crystal parrot. Might help with meditation. Though now that I think about it, you could also put it at your treasure vault door, tell it a fake password, and let it play mind games with anyone trying to break in."

"Does Master Carl have other works? Let us see more!"

Watching his published video rack up likes and comments while his follower count shot up, Reverse Merlin Carl Brown nodded with satisfaction. "Some of these comments are kinda confusing, but since so many people are liking it, they must really appreciate my alchemical creations. Hmm, they want more? Well then, I'll go film some new videos!"

Master Carl's thought process had always been unique. Anyone else would probably figure out that people were gathering here just to watch the trainwreck. But Master Carl genuinely believed everyone appreciated his work—otherwise, why would they spend their valuable time on this?!

Right then, he headed toward his alchemical vault. This vault contained years of accumulated works—lots and lots of alchemical creations he thought were great but nobody else appreciated. Perfect time to show them off.

He wasn't trying to sell these alchemical creations—he didn't need the money anyway. His alchemical skills were solid. As long as he wasn't making up his own projects, his creations sold for good prices. He just wanted more people's recognition.

In a noble estate near the capital of the Kingdom of Dawn.

A young noble watching Reverse Merlin Carl Brown's video suddenly had his eyes light up. "That makes sense! Some things I can't say myself, but my toy—a silly-looking alchemical creation—totally can. It could even curse people out and that'd be fine. Nice, this Reverse Merlin Carl Brown has finally invented something interesting."

Clearly, he'd heard of Reverse Merlin Carl Brown's reputation. Or rather, any noble near the Kingdom of Dawn capital knew this guy's name. Countless nobles had been burned by him.

But maybe that made it even better—he'd have the perfect excuse. He could just blame Master Carl, saying alchemical creations made by Carl Brown inevitably have some side effects...

This young noble thought about the scenes he'd had to face these past few days—a bunch of so-called relatives interrogating him—and his head throbbed. Then imagining using the crystal parrot to handle all that, he couldn't help chuckling. He immediately opened a private message: "@Master Carl, I'd like to purchase your crystal parrot. My family's in the Dawn Kingdom capital—is that convenient? What's the price?"

Whether it was the noble's words that triggered some keyword or not, up in the Goddess of Magic's divine realm, Ren—who'd been rocking back and forth in his old man's chair—suddenly felt something and directly switched the screen in front of him to this video!

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