Chapter 187: Tycoon Town (3)
The white light faded. Ji Ning opened her eyes and found herself in another square, dilapidated room.
The space was silent, and she didn't sense any danger.
She looked around, taking in the room's contents.
An old wooden desk, a blackboard covered in numbers, a piece of chalk, and a device displaying a countdown of 09:50.
On the floor lay a twelve-sided die identical to the one before. A circular indicator light on the wall beside it was dark and off.
Ji Ning approached the desk and looked at the contents written on the blackboard.
1035=1
2760=2
3805=3
4987=4
8019=
Ji Ning breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the square she had landed on was a puzzle-type checkpoint. Thankfully, it wasn't a survival-type.
As for why she suspected there were survival-type checkpoints, it was because Ji Ning figured the provided weapons couldn't just be for players to PK each other when they crossed paths.
According to the countdown device, she had ten minutes to solve the problem.
Calm and focused, Ji Ning stared at the seemingly random string of numbers, pondering what answer should fill the blank.
But it wasn't entirely without pattern. The single digit after the equals sign was always the same as the first digit of the four-digit number on the left.
However, Ji Ning instinctively felt that such an obvious clue was meant to be misleading.
She ignored that point and started with process of elimination.
Since the first four examples had nothing to do with addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, she first ruled out an arithmetic problem. If it wasn't arithmetic, then it was about finding a pattern.
Patterns were divided into internal and external patterns.
The sequence of these numbers was chaotic and random, lacking any internal pattern.
After staring at the numbers for only a short while, Ji Ning picked up the chalk without hesitation and wrote a "4" after 8019=.
Such a simple puzzle made Ji Ning wonder if it was related to the minimum number she had rolled.
The core of the problem was identifying the external pattern of the digits. The number filled in on the right side of the equals sign was the count of closed loops in the four-digit number on the left.
1035 had only one closed loop, 2760 had two, 3805 had three, so the answer for 8019 was 4.
The moment Ji Ning wrote down the answer, the three drawers under the wooden desk clicked unlocked.
She pulled them open one by one and saw the items inside.
From left to right, they were: "a steamed bun," "a glass marble," and "a feather." All were very ordinary and common things.
Not knowing if this was a multiple-choice or single-choice selection, Ji Ning thought for a moment, then treated it as a single choice and took the steamed bun.
Comparatively speaking, the steamed bun could satisfy hunger, making its use a bit more clear than the other two.
Afterwards, Ji Ning tried to take the other two items, but they seemed welded into the drawers, impossible to move.
She hesitated, put the steamed bun back, and tried to take the glass marble. This time, she retrieved it easily.
Conversely, the steamed bun was now the item she couldn't take.
After confirming the checkpoint reward was a single-choice option, Ji Ning put the glass marble back and still chose the steamed bun.
Seeing this reward option, a conjecture suddenly formed in her mind—once inside the Tycoon game, would there be a Hunger stat affecting player mobility?
Currently, this game had only revealed the tip of the iceberg. She didn't know what situations they would encounter later, so a little extra precaution was always good.
Ever since Ji Ning solved the puzzle correctly, the countdown device had stopped and remained still. She took her clearance reward, turned, walked to the die, and bent down to pick it up, only to find she couldn't lift it at all.
Coupled with the indicator light on the wall still being dark, Ji Ning guessed that even if a player completed the trial within a square, they still had to roll the die in order.
And there was probably another prerequisite: they had to wait until all players had passed their checkpoints before the dice-rolling could begin.
During the waiting period, Ji Ning returned to the desk and meticulously observed all the props that had appeared in the Tycoon game.
First was the old wooden desk she had noticed immediately. Its style and condition seemed quite detached from contemporary furniture.
Then there were the blackboard, the countdown timer, and the like—all somewhat old but not quite new.
The glass marble, one of the rewards, had color inside it; it was a piece from an old-fashioned Chinese checkers set.
Ji Ning leaned against the wall, fairy magic wand in her left hand and steamed bun in her right, quietly pondering why the props were these specific things.
After an unknown number of minutes, the indicator light on the wall finally lit up.
Ji Ning walked to the die, first poked it with a finger, and once she saw it roll a face from her push, she then picked it up with her arms and threw it.
This time, Ji Ning rolled a relatively large number—10.
She took a deep breath and waited for her second square jump.
After the sensation of teleportation faded, before Ji Ning even opened her eyes, she heard a cacophony of noise, high and low, like the low growls of some kind of animal. Her nose also caught a thick smell of blood and stench.
Almost at the same moment her brain registered the sounds and smells, her eyes opened, and she immediately saw a scene beyond her expectations.
This time, her location had transformed into a forest at night, except the forest seemed to be inside a cube with very distinct boundaries. The area was roughly the size of a football field.
In front of her was Qin Yanshu, holding a Tang dao, locked in a desperate life-or-death struggle against a pack of wolves with glowing green eyes.
Unlike reality, every wolf here was taller than a human, their gaping, blood-stinking maws large enough to swallow a big washbasin.
Ji Ning's heart stopped for a beat, not because of the terrifying wolves, but because… she and Qin Yanshu had landed on the same square…
Get instant access to all chapters now.
Post a Comment