"Why isn't the Ruoshui flowing toward the stairs or down to the first floor?" Qingzhu stood atop a display case and craned his neck, watching the dark water halt at the stairwell as though blocked by an invisible wall, never spilling downward.
"The first and second floors are two distinct spaces. Don't let your eyes deceive you," Alicia explained, her pretty face grave.
"I know, I know..." Qingzhu answered testily, merely venting his agitation.
He was more terrified than anyone, because Yuanshi Tianzun's Stargazing had revealed a vision of him being swallowed by black waters, meeting his death in this crisis.
The five of them stood on top of the display cases, looking down at the slow, steady rise of the water. It had already reached knee level. Fortunately, the exhibition hall was expansive, so the flood rose at a gradual pace.
Huang Taiji straightened his spine and surveyed the hall, appearing to calculate something. After staring intently at the Pure Jade Vase for a moment, he concluded, "We have thirty to forty minutes."
"Godfather, you're an academic overachiever too, huh?" Zhang Yuanqing, a college student himself, remarked in surprise.
Huang Taiji nodded solemnly. "I have a higher degree than you."
Hearing that they still had some time, Alicia breathed a slight sigh of relief, then asked aloud, "How do we deal with the Ruoshui?"
As a Saint from the First District, Ruoshui lay completely outside her area of knowledge.
"We need Lin wood!" Zhang Yuanqing shared without holding back. "Only Lin wood can float upon Ruoshui. Aside from that, there is no other way. Escape arts can't cross it; they fail on the spot, and even astral projections can't float over."
"Lin wood?" Qingzhu thought for a few seconds before his face turned ghastly pale. "That's a Dominator-level material. I saw it in Baihui's material compendium. Lin wood is exceedingly rare, produced in only a handful of instances."
He gave a brief description of its features.
Xiao Yuan looked left and right, deducing, "Maybe there's Lin wood in one of the display cases. Since there's Ruoshui in this instance, there must be Lin wood."
Alicia instinctively reached for the Eye of the Wind, but remembered that Ruoshui drowned all things, quietly dismissing the thought.
Thankfully, they were all Saints with sharp vision. Dividing the labor among the five of them, they quickly inspected every cultural relic, but found nothing matching Qingzhu's description of Lin wood.
Huang Taiji shook his head. "There is no information on the relics, and the cases can't be opened. Even if there were Lin wood, we wouldn't be able to get it."
Watching the water slowly rise, anxiety crept through their hearts.
Xiao Yuan asked in a low voice, "Yuanshi, what do you think?"
The other three turned to look at Zhang Yuanqing, fixing their eyes on the prodigy renowned for conquering instances.
Zhang Yuanqing pondered for a moment, then cast his gaze toward the western side of the hall. "Let's ask that guy. It's the only relic in the hall capable of communication and providing information."
"That bastard is full of lies!" Qingzhu fumed.
Alicia took a different view. "I think it's worth trying. The mask answers every question. Didn't it say earlier that its answers alternate between true and false, truth first, then a lie? That makes it easy to test."
*In those ancient secrets, who knows which part was true and which was false...* Zhang Yuanqing called out loudly, "Mask, out of the three men here, who is the most handsome?"
From the display case in the western corner came the clay mask's chuckling, aged voice: "That young man in tattered clothes."
Among the three men, only Huang Taiji was dressed in rags, and his looks were plain as could be.
Zhang Yuanqing said, "That's a lie."
Qingzhu nodded in agreement.
Huang Taiji was speechless.
Zhang Yuanqing asked the exact same question again. This time, the answer was Qingzhu.
Zhang Yuanqing was somewhat reluctant to accept it, but scrutinizing Qingzhu's clean, handsome features, he had to admit he fell slightly short. Qingzhu was a Wood Monster with strong reproductive instincts, and to attract mates, Wood Monsters of his kind enjoyed aesthetic enhancements when leveling up.
Lingjun was the same way.
*The next answer will be a lie...* Zhang Yuanqing asked, "How do we neutralize the Ruoshui filling this room?"
He did not ask where the Lin wood was, because acquiring Lin wood would only allow them to float atop the Ruoshui without truly resolving the root crisis.
They still had to find the key and face subsequent dangers.
The clay mask's voice rang out: "Just find Lin wood!"
Zhang Yuanqing repeated the question: "How do we neutralize the Ruoshui filling this room?"
The clay mask gave a different answer: "Obtain the Scepter of Dionysus. It can reverse the vase and draw back the Ruoshui!"
*The Scepter of Dionysus?* Alicia's eyes lit up. Pointing toward the statue draped in ancient Greek attire to the north, she said, "It should be the staff held by that statue. In Greek mythology, the Dionysian scepter is topped with a pinecone and wrapped in grapevines, symbolizing fertility and harvest."
*The Alcoholic class can distort rules, turning positive to negative and reversing opposites. Yes, this is the correct answer...* Zhang Yuanqing followed up, "How do we obtain the scepter?"
"Just find Lin wood!"
Another false answer.
He asked again and received the true answer: "Obtain the fire dragon's eye. It grants immunity to 'Chaos,' preventing the wielder from falling under the scepter's influence."
"How do we obtain the fire dragon's eye?" Zhang Yuanqing asked twice in succession.
The first response was the same old "Just find Lin wood!" while the second was, "Pass the fire dragon's test by evading three blasts of flaming dragon breath."
*Evade dragon breath?* Zhang Yuanqing glanced at the Ruoshui flooding the hall, then at the cramped display cases. There was virtually no room to maneuver.
Not to mention the Ruoshui preventing them from nearing the dragon, standing on this tiny foothold meant a single breath would reduce him to ashes.
So Zhang Yuanqing asked how to evade the dragon breath.
The first reply was: "Leap between the display cases."
The second reply was: "Just find Lin wood."
The answer of Lin wood, which had been false every single time before, was finally the truth.
Zhang Yuanqing hurriedly asked, "How do we get Lin wood?"
After filtering out the false answer, they got the correct response: "Shatter the third display case in the second row, take the writing brush inside, and paint the Lin wood."
At this point, the method to resolve the instance's crisis was laid bare:
Break the case to obtain the brush, paint Lin wood, use the wood to pass the fire dragon's trial, and claim the eye. Then, hold the eye to take the Scepter of Dionysus, reverse the Pure Jade Vase, and retrieve the Ruoshui.
The disaster could then be resolved perfectly.
As for breaking the case, Zhang Yuanqing learned upon inquiry that the seals on the display cases had been lifted once the crisis was triggered. However, the instance imposed a restriction: out of the nine relics, they could only choose one, leaving them with just a single chance to break a case.
Yet a greater dilemma immediately arose: how were they supposed to reach the brush?
The case holding the "writing brush" sat several meters away from them. Ruoshui sank everything; not even a feather could float across.
Instinctively, Qingzhu turned toward the clay mask and shouted, "How do we retrieve the brush?"
The clay mask answered, "Don't know."
He asked again, but the answer remained unchanged.
After circling all the way back, they returned to the original question: how could they float on Ruoshui?
A dead end with no way out!
A wave of despair rippled through the group. Being driven onto the display cases had not plunged them into despair, because instances never featured completely unwinnable dead ends. But now, hopelessness took hold.
They had missed their window to solve it.
The proper procedure was to gather sufficient information from the clay mask before the Ruoshui flooded the hall, learn the solution, and break the case to grab the brush. Once forced atop the display cases by the rising water, they were trapped in checkmate.
*Fuck, what a malicious Spirit Realm, designing a trial like this...* Zhang Yuanqing sat down cross-legged and rubbed his face vigorously.
Xiao Yuan and the others fell silent, looking despondent.
*Could it be that I, Yuanshi Tianzun, Master Many Treasures, Sect Master Tongtian, will meet my demise in a killing trial today? I won't even get the chance to post a picture on Moments...* He joked inwardly to ease his fraying nerves.
Zhang Yuanqing opened his inventory and guild warehouse, scanning every item to seek a way out.
*The Sliding Tackle Shoes? No, they only work on flat ground. In an environment like this, I'll slide straight into the Ruoshui... The Perfect Human Skin? Have a yin corpse take the death for me, then leap across?*
*Theoretically, the moment I jump, I'll sink into the water. Jumping is an action that takes time; even if my speed approached teleportation, that interval still exists and cannot be reduced to zero, whereas the scapegoat effect only works once.*
Just then, his gaze landed on an item that had gathered dust for ages—the matchbox!
"I've got a way!" Zhang Yuanqing beamed with delight. Under the astonished and thrilled gazes of his four companions, he took out the matchbox and struck a match.
*Hiss!*
A flame flared up. Zhang Yuanqing made his wish: "I wish for the third display case in the second row to appear beneath me."
The flame swelled and rapidly burned out. The next instant, the bronze beast relic in the display case beneath Zhang Yuanqing's feet turned into a writing brush coated in black lacquer.
His wish had been carefully calculated. Wishing directly for Lin wood would inevitably fail because their predicament was Ruoshui, and Lin wood countered it.
That directly clashed with the rule that "it cannot immediately solve the current crisis."
By the same logic, he could not wish "to appear on top of the third display case in the second row," as crossing the Ruoshui likewise violated the restriction against directly bypassing the active dilemma.
Yet having the brush come to him neither resolved the crisis outright nor exceeded the matchbox's limits.
"As expected of the Item Tianzun!" Qingzhu was overjoyed, feeling as though he were riding an emotional roller coaster of wild peaks and valleys.
Huang Taiji and Xiao Yuan relaxed slightly.
Alicia beamed with delight. Besides his formidable combat strength, she—
Zhang Yuanqing smashed the glass of the display case with a punch. As this item lacked offensive properties, he picked it up directly. The prompt that appeared was not relic lore, but standard item information:
[Name: Pen of Creation]
[Type: Consumable]
[Function: Creation]
[Description: A brush capable of creating something from nothing. Anything drawn by it will become reality.]
[Note 1: Whatever the mind conceives, it can draw.]
[Note 2: Being a consumable, it carries no cost.]
*Can I draw the old crone out of it...* Zhang Yuanqing stored the Pen of Creation in his inventory to bind it, naturally mastering its usage.
Just as the note indicated, so long as he visualized the object's details in his mind, the brush could paint it into existence, provided it did not exceed its threshold.
Drawing the old crone was definitely out of the question.
Drawing upon his memories, Zhang Yuanqing sketched the small boat with slightly upturned prows that had floated on Ruoshui Lake back in the Zoo.
A burst of radiance flashed, and the skiff materialized, transforming into the two-meter-long boat from his recollection, while the Pen of Creation dissolved into flecks of light.
Zhang Yuanqing was nearly shoved off the display case by the boat, but he quickly sank his waist to steady himself and shoved the craft into the water.
He then hopped aboard and rowed the wooden oars, taking Xiao Yuan and the others onto the vessel.
Qingzhu took the initiative to grab the oars and handle rowing duties.
"Wait, don't rush!" Zhang Yuanqing retrieved the astrolabe and rested it on his knees. "Let me perform Stargazing first."
Now that they knew their "enemy" and the clear path through the trial, the visions shown by Stargazing would be far clearer.
A competent Stargazer had to make good use of divination, especially after learning the bitter lesson of triggering the Ruoshui crisis. He practically wished he could divine before taking every breath.
Channeling stellar power into the astrolabe, he activated its celestial constellations.
Zhang Yuanqing closed his eyes. Within the hazy vision, he saw the colossal dragon sculpture awaken, spewing scorching dragon breath that charred the wood-attributed Qingzhu into cinders.
He saw Huang Taiji step ahead of the rest to erect a barrier, sustaining gruesome burns all over his body.
He saw Alicia forced to flee the boat, sinking into the Ruoshui.
He saw Xiao Yuan scream as she was reduced to ashes.
Chapter 790