Chapter 5-5
“The situation is we are inside a bug of this realm,” Xuan said.
“A bug?” The rest repeated.
“You can think of it as a software bug.” Xuan adjusted his glasses. “The full explanation will be time-consuming so I am just going ask a simple question. Have you ever pondered on the theory of this realm in depth? Who created it? When was it created? Why was it created?”
Everyone nodded then shook their heads in sync. It was like they had practiced this answer a thousand times.
Zheng said with a bigger smile, “Dude, stop playing your game of words. We are still stunned from the messages. It’s crazy enough that the grandfather of Taoism and the first ancestor of humans are a Saint and Cultivator. Just get straight to the point and tell us what the messages mean.”
Xuan nodded. “God’s realm was created by the Saints and Cultivators as we already knew. For the two powers to work together, we can assume they stand on equal grounds or at least not far from each other. However, the Saints are perhaps stronger individually. There are two key points from the messages. First is humans in the old world are split into three factions by their locations and skin color. You know which faction we are in. Second is the origin of God’s realm. The Saints’ manipulation over energy and creation combined with the rune word technology of the Cultivators created this realm. Though as was written, the creators did not hold back in forging the future of humans but they still left some backdoors for their descendants.”
Xuan paused for a second before continuing. “There are no free lunches in this realm which our experiences have proven. The greater the danger, the greater the reward. You must complete a rank B mission to obtain the equivalent rank B reward. Luo YingLong’s Cultivation must have come from an equally difficult mission in a Cultivation themed world to obtain. Yet, what lies in front of us is a jackpot. You will only need to complete a rank B mission to obtain rewards in the S or even SS tier, which is why I call this a bug. This is the heritage left by our ancestors.”
In contrast to the delight on the team’s faces, Xuan frowned. “However, this gift isn’t so easily obtainable as you can imagine due to the alteration from the other two factions. This change may not be significant because they had to keep it under the table. But one simple change such as increasing the God’s power or halving the time limit can kill us.”
Zheng thought about it for a moment then said, “Hao 1’s power aside, don’t we have a lot of time? Seven days are enough to fly over the world on the Sky Stick. Jonathan has the Buddha head anyway. The battle wouldn’t last a whole week, right?”
“The battle itself wouldn’t last a whole week. But what if you consider the time required for matters beyond the battle?” Xuan looked over the message again. “There are two ways of activating this mission, obtaining the map or a part of the Buddha… Get it?”
“No.” Everyone shook their heads with no sense of embarrassment. ChengXiao murmured about answering a question with another question. Obviously, no one bothered trying to guess what Xuan was trying to say.
Xuan frowned again as he glanced over the group. “If things are like what Jonathan said, the Buddha head… or I should say, the Buddha is the key to entering the tomb, and the mission mentions any part of the Buddha, it is possible that the Buddha is split up into multiple parts. If we can’t gather all parts of the Buddha within seven days, we will get erased.”
Zheng met eyes with the team then asked, “We will still be in the movie after seven days. God will have to wait for the scoring at the end of the movie before killing us for having negative points. What if we complete the mission before the movie ends?”
“Yes, completing the mission. Do you see it now? This mission only awards ranked rewards and not points. We have fallen in the trap. The Saints of the white race removed the points from the reward. So it will be pointless even if we were to finish this mission after seven days after the penalty hit.”
The rest of the team fell into deep thoughts. Zheng entered the third stage and emulated HongLu’s thinking process. “This possibility is very likely as you just said. The Cultivators probably designed the mission this way so that teams could not complete it in seven days. Once the team lost 10000 points on each person, they will be forced to go kill Hao 1. I am guessing the original rewards for this mission contain 10000 points.”
Xuan nodded. “I am 80% certain of it. That’s why this bug is difficult to obtain. We can get wiped with one misstep.”
Zheng exhaled deeply. His hand reached for the hair in front of his forehead. “My emulation of HongLu’s thinking process is about sixty to seventy percent. Using his thinking, there are two solutions. One is to abandon this mission. We will look for the points from elsewhere. There must be more bonus missions in this world. If things become desperate, we can massacre a city to see if we will gain any points. There are dangers associated with other bonus missions and we might not obtain enough to cover the 10000 points. However, we still have a fifty percent chance of surviving.
“The second solution is to continue with this mission. In order to do so, we have to shock the world and gather great powers to search the Buddha for us. We also have to display overwhelming power to seize the Buddha. Which might mean destroying an army or even a country. There are two difficulties with this solution. How can we gather the powers to work for us, which include spies and agents to investigate any party who came in contact with the Buddha. And two, do we have the power to back up our goal? The risk is greater than the first solution. There’s a 70% chance of getting wiped. Logically, I would choose the first solution but…”
Zheng gave a bitter laugh. “For some reason, I think HongLu will choose the second solution without another thought.”
Xuan laughed. They wondered if he simply moved his face muscles or actually felt something. Then he nodded. “Right, same as my choice.”
“Well then. Rest for one hour then we will split into two groups. Group one head to the tomb and investigate the Buddha. Group two back to Shanghai… Let us flip this world over with our powers!” Zheng laughed and patted Xuan on the shoulder.