Stuck in a Chinese novel - Chapter 490
Chapter 490: The trial of Thirst
Chapter 490
Miles and miles, wherever the sight went, nothing but sand could be seen. There weren’t even sand dunes, but just the sand. An even land with nothing but hot scorching sand.
“There’s something strange here.” The man who had tried to create a problem with Wei Jun said.
“Yes,” The woman replied as she observed and said, “This sand feels abnormal. It’s hot, even for us.”
“On a scale from one to ten, describe.” Wei Jun suddenly chimed in.
“Why?” Song Huan asked.
“Just tell me.” Wei Jun said.
“Hmm, I think it’s about seven for me.” The man said.
“Same for me.” The ethereal woman said, and the other nodded as well. The strange point was that the heat was the same for everyone. Everyone said the same number, seven.
Even the mages.
“So the intensity of the heat is the same for everyone according to their levels.” The woman said.
“Yes.” Wei Jun replied before he asked, “Who feels thirsty?”
“What?” The man asked.
“Who feels thirsty?” Wei Jun asked.
“Now that you mention it, I do.” The woman said, and just as she did, everyone else nodded as well. The level of thirst was the same as well.
“Hohoho! We have a smart one among us!” The voice from before returned with the liveliness Wei Jun had felt in it before. It definitely didn’t belong to a dead person.
[He’s not]
[But it’s not him either]
Wei Jun remembered the detail but said nothing for now. He needed to focus more on the voice. Questioning the overseer and the exchange of information could come later.
“YES!”
“As you’ve deduced, this is a trial. The trial of thirst. I had initially thought of lowering everyone’s strength first and to make it the same for everyone, but where’s the fun in that, huh?”
“Let’s make this stage fun!!”
“The rules are simple!”
“Live for ten days on this stage!”
“Don’t worry, out in your world, ten days would be one, so this dungeon wouldn’t break!”
“BUT!!!!”
“That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be any penalties!!”
“For each of the participant who falls, ten S rank monsters would raid the outside world, so make sure you survive as many as you can!”
“Oh, and there’s a bag for everyone. You’ve got them right?”
“ENJOY!!!”
Suddenly, all information stopped. The voice hadn’t explained what the trial or the hardship would be. There were just these simple instructions.
“What is the trail?” The man couldn’t help but ask.
“Human nature.” Wei Jun replied.
“Human nature?” The woman asked.
“We’re feeling thirsty as time passes by.” Wei Jun said before he raised the bag in his hand and emptied out its contents. In the bag, there were water skins from the old times. Three in every bag.
“So the trial is whether or not we can endure the thirst or take it from our fellows and let them die, huh?” The man asked. He really did have a good head on his shoulders.
“Hand me your bottle.” Wei Jun said. The man didn’t think of it much and did so. Wei Jun took the bottle and tried to open it, but he couldn’t.
“So the bottles can only be opened when the owner dies, huh?” The man deduced, and Wei Jun nodded. Now it was cemented, the man was indeed quite intelligent, given his deductions so far. So much so that Wei Jun had to suspect his hot-headed behavior was an act.
“I don’t get it.” Natasha chimed in, “We’re all well above super humans, and the heat everyone feels varies due to their level. Don’t you think we can endure this for ten days?”
“My guess is that the heat would increase. When the boy mentioned the heat, and he heat I’m feeling now is slightly different in intensity.” The man replied.
“7.1, one could say.” Wei Jun added.
“Seven days, give or take. That’s how long we’ll last.” The man said.
“And the biggest threat is you guys since you’re the strongest.” Wei Jun said.
“So that’s why he said that.” The woman said. She referred to the dialogue said by the voice, where it said that the power levels of everyone were the same, instead of restricting them all to make it a fair game.
“Natasha, help me with something.” Wei Jun said.
“What?” Natasha asked. “Make a globe of water. You know water spells, right?” Wei Jun asked. Natasha nodded and raised her hands to cast the spell, but…
Sizzle!!!
As soon as the water came into existence, it evaporated in a second. It was so fast that Wei Jun couldn’t even blink properly.
“So there are no loopholes either.” Wei Jun mused.
[Of course, there aren’t]
[You think someone who thought of this trial wouldn’t have covered every scenario?]
‘Then why isn’t it working on me?’ Wei Jun asked.
That was the main point Wei Jun wanted to ask. Ever since he arrived in that trial, neither the heat nor the thirst, anything affected him.
[Because you’re the variable]
[Wei Jun was supposed to die a long time ago, remember?]
[You’re the variable no one could have accounted for]
[Not even the world’s destiny, let alone him who was a human when he constructed this dungeon of trials]
“How do you think we should go about it?” The man asked, and the striking detail was that he asked Wei Jun. Forgetting his prejudices, he asked Wei Jun purely for the sake of that mission.
“…” Wei Jun remained silent for a second and mulled over everything. He thought for a good time before he said.
“Considering he’s not lying and ten S rank monsters would indeed breach the city, and in doing so the empire, I have a feeling the damage would be catastrophic and the lives lost in that process would be tremendous as well. Even if the people on the outside managed to stop them, the damage would have been done.”
Everyone nodded at Wei Jun’s analysis but said nothing and simply waited for him to continue.
Wei Jun remained silent for a while once again before an annoying glint passed through his eyes that the strong ones didn’t miss, but most of the others did. Wei Jun glanced at Xin Huatao, and once again, only the strong ones could catch that glance, but once again, no one said anything.
In the end, Wei Jun sighed and said, “I think we can get through this one way. But that would involve all of you losing your power. More accurately, suppressing it.”
“Suppressing it?” The man asked.
“Mhm.” Wei Jun nodded. “Right now, the biggest threats are you guys, and then so is everyone else. What we can do now is bring everyone down to the mortal level, the human level, and then spread out. As far away from each other as we can. I have a feeling we won’t die from thirst, just feel like dying, so we’ll take everything from others.”
“If we can minimize that probability, then…”
Wei Jun went silent after that and let everyone come to a single conclusion on their own.
“So you mean to say you want to erase the risk factors thoroughly.” The woman asked.
“Yes.” Wei Jun replied.
“All right, let’s do that.” The man agreed. And one by one, so did the others. One thing Wei Jun noticed was that they followed his decision, which meant that although he wasn’t the strongest, the others acknowledged his intellect.
“But how will we do that?” Song Huan asked.
“You don’t know how to do that?” Wei Jun asked.
“No.” Song Huan simply replied, and so did the others.
[Cultivators these days, I tell you]
[This generation is hopeless]
‘Shut up and teach us.’ Wei Jun said.
[Sure]
[It’s a set of cultivation runes that one needs to follow and move their Qi accordingly]
[Even if they’re talentless beyond redemption, given they managed to achieve the grandmaster realm]
[They’ll be able to master this technique]
‘Good, then let’s begin.’ Wei Jun replied to the system before he turned to the others.
“I know how to do that, and I’ll teach over the course of the next few days. Keep in mind that this method will lock away your Qi, but you wouldn’t be able to reverse it. To reverse it, there’s another method, and I’ll only teach it to you guys when we’re done here.”
Everyone nodded since they had no qualms. There was a risk of Wei Jun utilizing this method to keep them under his control, but had he wanted that, he would have just let everyone fight it over.
Everyone could tell he didn’t want S rank beasts attacking the outside world, so his humanity was at a certain acceptable level.
And so, they began.
[What they need to do is interweave their Qi sets and then create round circles from them]
[This is a mage method to lock their circles in case they’re at the verge of exploding, and I revised it for Qi users]
[And then what they need to do is to make sure their Qi is pure as hell before binding their cores with it and setting these imprints on those circles to lock them away]
[And finally…]