Pressing forward and beating up three more suits of armor along the way, it took them twenty minutes to finally reach the end of the palace. Aside from their group, the fastest of the other teams was barely halfway through.
At the end of the palace stood eight small doors, each fronted by a teleportation array. Dense rows of text were carved into every door.
Ding Shi waved a hand. "Su Su." He was Illiterate.
Su Su stepped forward, examined the writing for a moment, and turned around. "I can't read it." She simply couldn't make sense of Greek.
Wang Meng said, "Let me."
Su Su and Ding Shi stepped aside. Wang Meng clasped his hands together and rapidly formed hand seals—weaving seals, weaving seals, and weaving more seals...
Ding Shi let out a long yawn, flicked away a tear from the corner of his eye with his pinky, and stared at Wang Meng in complete despair of life. What kind of hand seal took a full minute to weave? If an enemy threw a punch, you'd be weaving seals; if an enemy threw a second punch, you'd still be weaving seals...
Wang Meng's eyes snapped open. Dropping onto one knee, he slammed his palm onto the floor. "Ninjutsu: Great Summoning Technique!"
With his palm as the center, a dense pattern of glyphs spread out in all directions. A massive plume of white smoke materialized out of thin air, then burst apart.
Ding Shi rubbed his eyes and stared at the empty floor. Where was it? He looked toward Wang Meng, only to see him wearing a grave, solemn expression.
Su Su looked at Ding Shi: What's the deal?
Ding Shi spread his hands: I don't see anything either. Did he summon a ghost?
Wang Meng lowered his head, pressing his face right up against the floor. Ding Shi squatted down and squinted, finally spotting a tiny grey ant. The little ant was tapping Wang Meng's nose with its antennae, seemingly communicating with him in some way.
Looking down on a tiny ant came naturally, but it did seem somewhat intriguing. The little ant was clearly not a combat pet, but as a reconnaissance pet, it couldn't have been more fitting.
After a moment, the little ant vanished into a puff of white smoke. Wang Meng stood up and took a deep breath.
Ding Shi asked gingerly, "What's the situation?"
Wang Meng said, "I asked it which door we should take."
Ding Shi asked, "And what did it say?"
Wang Meng said, "It said it didn't know."
Ding Shi asked, "And then?"
Wang Meng said, "That's it." Taking a stride forward, he casually entered Door 1.
Ding Shi and Su Su traded glances, rolled their eyes together at Door 1, and stepped in after him.
Behind Door 1 lay a long passageway. Swinging axes hung overhead, spears abruptly thrust from the walls, floor tiles collapsed without warning, and bursts of raging fire and hidden projectiles erupted throughout. At the end lay a trench roughly ten meters wide.
"Something's not right," Ding Shi said.
Wang Meng asked, "What's not right?"
Ding Shi said, "There's blazing fire here, and there were candles outside. Why did we need to push deeper into the palace at all? Wasn't our purpose in coming here to get fire? Couldn't we have just taken a candle and left?"
Wang Meng thought about it for a moment, then looked at Su Su. "Even though I feel like something's off, what he's saying sounds awfully reasonable."
Where there's a Wolong, there's bound to be a Fengchu.
Su Su reminded them, "The candles will burn out, and the flames here will extinguish too. Did we bring anything that can preserve a fire seed?"
With Su Su's words, the three fell into deep contemplation: without an item to preserve the fire seed, could they even take one away?
Whatever!
Ding Shi said, "I'll go first." With that, his body darted forward, narrowly evading the spears and dodging the hidden projectiles. He came to a halt on a green tile, raging flames swirling around him. Ding Shi broke into a wild sprint again, leaped to kick off a protruding stone lion head on the wall, and bounded over the collapsed section.
Fifteen seconds later, Ding Shi reached the other side safe and sound.
Wang Meng and Su Su were astounded. That fast? He had covered a hundred and fifty meters in fifteen seconds. Particularly during the iron ball chase in the latter half, Ding Shi had run fast enough to leave afterimages. Though unclocked, he had unquestionably covered the final thirty meters at a terrifying pace well under six seconds per hundred meters. What did that mean? It meant Ding Shi's running speed had reached sixty kilometers per hour.
Remembering the introduction to Pure Origin Force in the newspaper, Su Su had a flash of realization. "Is Ding Shi taking the Pure Origin Force route? Did he just pour all his Origin Force into Agility?"
Wang Meng said, "A trash build." In simple terms, Pure Origin Force boosted Strength or Agility for a short time by consuming massive amounts of stamina.
Su Su looked at Wang Meng in shock and doubt: He's trash? Then what does that make me?
Wang Meng asked, "Can you make it across?"
Su Su nodded. "I can, but I'll need to break it into three stages." By watching Ding Shi clear the run, she had spotted three safe zones.
Su Su asked, "What about you?"
Wang Meng said, "I can, but I might get hurt in the final stage." The final stage was being chased down by a massive black boulder.
Su Su said, "Then I'll go first, and you can observe a bit more."
Wang Meng said, "Alright."
The final thirty meters was a downward slope. Once a player set foot upon it, a massive black boulder would drop behind them, constantly accelerating with gravity as it rolled forward to crush the player's back. Past those thirty meters lay a ten-meter-wide trench, with over a dozen handprints carved into the walls on either side of the trench's edge.
Once a player entered the final thirty meters, the massive black boulder was triggered. The player had to sprint to the edge of the trench and brake, then immediately find the handprint best matching their hand size and press their palm into it. A stone bridge would then extend from the far side across the trench. The closer the match between hand and print, the faster the stone bridge would extend.
Ding Shi had chosen the closest-fitting handprint; the moment he placed his left hand against it, the bridge formed in a single second.
Theoretically, the black boulder couldn't catch up to a player, so the player faced two critical challenges: first, braking in time—fail to stop, and down into the trench you went; second, finding the best-matching handprint in the shortest possible time.
Su Su began her run. With Ding Shi having set the example, she smoothly made it to the final thirty meters.
Ding Shi shouted, "Su Su, don't look back! Keep your own pace!"
Whether she didn't hear him or just didn't listen, Su Su glanced back at the massive black boulder while running. Her foot tripped, and her body lurched violently forward.
Ding Shi called out anxiously, "Hit the deck! Drop, drop, drop!"
Gritting her teeth, Su Su abandoned all attempts to maintain balance. She dropped flat, using her backside and back as brakes, rolled five or six times, and halted right at the edge of the trench.
Ding Shi called out, "Right wall, left hand, third handprint from the top!"
Scrambling up on hands and knees with no time to think, Su Su pressed her left hand onto the third handprint on the right-hand wall. A stone bridge extended from Ding Shi's side toward Su Su, connecting across in one second. Su Su dashed across the stone slab, reaching the platform on the far side in just a few strides. The instant her feet touched down, the massive black boulder smashed through the stone bridge and plummeted into the trench.
A lingering wave of terror washed over Su Su, and she couldn't help reaching out to hug Ding Shi for a sense of security. Ding Shi shoved her away in disgust. He wasn't her boyfriend; he had just helped her, and now he had to endure a hug from her? Wouldn't that be pure ingratitude on her part?
As Wang Meng prepared to make his run, Ding Shi began stirring up trouble. "The handprint that best fits Wang Meng's right hand should be the bottommost one on the left."
Suspecting nothing, Su Su nodded earnestly.
Wang Meng cleared the obstacles all the way to the final thirty meters. Su Su shouted at the top of her lungs, "Wang Meng, your right hand matches the bottommost handprint on the left wall!"
Wang Meng kept sprinting wildly like a young bull. Su Su cried out in panic, "Brake! Brake, Wang Meng, slow down! You won't be able to stop!" Seeing Wang Meng reach the edge of the trench without slowing down in the slightest, Su Su clapped a hand over her eyes.
At the edge of the trench, Wang Meng leapt. His body sailed clean over the chasm, and he rolled twice on the ground to absorb the impact, landing safely on the other side.
Ding Shi felt a twinge of regret—he should have thrown a flying knife the moment Wang Meng took off. But doing so would have broken his promise. Keeping promises was a trait that sometimes acted as a shackle for Ding Shi, and sometimes as a boon.
The greatest challenge of this trial for Wang Meng had been finding the matching handprint in the shortest time possible, as observation was his weak point. Thus, Wang Meng had chosen another path entirely: jumping straight across the trench.
Wasting no words, the three teleported out of the scene.
Chapter 70