After exchanging so intel with Big Cat, Cheng Shi hung up and began his wish trial in an orderly fashion.
This was his first step toward the answer. No need for giant leaps — so there wasn't much pressure.
Cheng Shi sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and prayed with devotion.
"Cannot distinguish true from false, disregard reality from illusion.
Your faithful follower prays to You — open a trial...
A trial of 'witnessing the ceaseless conflict between the Kingdom of War and the Grand Tribunal'!"
A wash of crimson spread across his vision the mont the words left his mouth.
[Wish Trial (Free Conviction: Corruption) has been initiated]
[Matching teammates (1/6)]
[Trial Objective: Desire was never a sin. And even if it were, the one who judges should be yourself. (Ti Limit: 15 days)]
"?"
A Corruption trial?
This coincidental?
He hadn't even planned on investigating Corruption first, yet His trial ca knocking?
Cheng Shi blinked in mild surprise. To be fair, while Corruption's followers weren't exactly popular, His trials weren't usually that difficult.
The pass condition typically involved following hints to find a target and ensuring that target could openly embrace their own desires.
So Corruption trials actually offered considerable room for creative solutions.
Cheng Shi still vividly rembered a trial anecdote from the early days of the Faith Ga, shared on the chat channels. A rcy Lord had been matched into a trial bestowed by their own Benefactor. The target was an ascetic cultist on the verge of breaking a taboo. The team spent half a day locating the target, and the rcy Lord — moved by compassion — disrobed and joined the cultist in embracing their descent. The three-day trial was cleared in half a day and thirty seconds.
The story had kept players laughing for ages and was hailed as the go-to survival strat for Corruption trials.
But not every Corruption trial involved carnal pleasures. At least this one's hint didn't — and besides...
Fifteen days?! What the hell?!
A seven-day trial was already nerve-wracking enough. Double that and it seed like Corruption was worried His trials were too easy and players weren't dying fast enough.
Seeing no way to undo it, Cheng Shi's face went pitch black.
He felt like his little exploratory step had been shoved by an invisible hand into a giant leap.
[Match successful (6/6). Entering trial.]
Cheng Shi sighed and surrendered himself to the encroaching darkness, consciousness peeling away from reality.
...
Scorching sunlight was shredded by dense branches overhead, stubbornly casting dappled patches on the ground below.
On a narrow trail through thick forest, a convoy pushing through the heat brought a gust of sweltering wind to the silent woods.
They were moving fast. Wooden wheels rolled over leaf-strewn, uneven ground, jolting awake the people riding in the carts.
Cheng Shi's consciousness had barely returned when he heard a teammate's voice from the cart bed diagonally across from him.
"The Grand Tribunal. Forest County. Based on the plant species distribution, we're in the southern stretch of Forest County's woodlands — very close to the Boro Highlands in Twin Lakes County.
And we're still heading south. The convoy's banner is the Iron Law Knights. Visible length exceeds two miles front to back — a significant formation.
Judging by the ruts outside, we're in the rear-middle section of the convoy.
Though the Grand Tribunal frequently wages external campaigns, mobilizations at this scale are rare in the records.
So congratulations, everyone — we're likely conscripts from Katouting, a last-minute reinforcent force bound for the front lines, facing the War followers now trapped in the Grand Tribunal and Tower of Logic's final encirclent.
Our destination is most probably the Boro Highlands, north of Twin Lakes County.
As for what happened there — with an event that significant, I trust I don't need to elaborate.
Of course, if none of you have any idea what I'm talking about, then this fifteen-day trial is going to be exceptionally difficult."
Having finished, he began openly sizing up the other five teammates on the cart.
Faced with the man's nostril-first scrutiny, Cheng Shi wisely chose not to engage.
Sharp observation, clear logic, extensive knowledge, and encyclopedic mastery of the Land of Hope's history — those four qualities alone would have made this horse-faced male teammate an excellent asset.
Unfortunately, he was a Folly follower.
Folly followers — sa as ever, nostrils and all.
Cheng Shi lowered his head with a smile and began studying the others.
He sat at the right rear of the cart bed. Directly across from him was a young man who looked roughly his age, propping his chin on one hand as if leaning for support. But Cheng Shi could tell: the teammate was actually hiding the scar on his lower face.
Was he injured?
The crimson peeking between his fingers looked like a fresh wound. Setting the wound aside though, why did this person's brows and eyes give him an inexplicable sense of familiarity?
Cheng Shi frowned slightly. He noticed that the player's other hand — hidden behind his back — was constantly fidgeting, though he couldn't tell what it was doing.
Beside the young man sat the assertive Folly follower, who craned his elongated face around in a full sweep, unabashedly examining everyone's body as if searching for sothing.
Each of the six wore only thin undergarnts — perhaps due to the blistering heat. Six gleaming sets of armor sat piled in the center of the cart bed like an impassable boundary line, splitting left from right in stark division.
This trial held five n and one woman. The sole female sat to Cheng Shi's right — fair-skinned, dark-haired, with long hair cascading down, its motion just barely concealing the festering scar at the corner of her mouth.
Her appearance was unremarkable — nothing morable. If anything stood out, it was that since awakening, this female teammate hadn't made a single sound.
Next to her was a terrifying sight: a scabby head — scalp uneven and mottled with bloody stains, devoid of a single hair. A pair of vulture-like, darkly brooding eyes were locked onto the teammate directly across.
And the player sitting opposite was no beauty contest winner either — sparse, gray-white hair dotted a scalp that looked like a landscape of crevasses, giving the unsettling impression of an exposed brain.
"..."
'Hold on, guys — what is this? A looks-based matchmaking lobby?'
'I've heard of filtering upward, but never downward!'
'You all look like THIS — am I the odd one out?'
Cheng Shi began questioning his existence. Just as he was frowning and wondering what kind of trial this even was, two voices — utterly different in tone — struck everyone's ears simultaneously.
A venomous sneer from the scabby head. A startled gasp from the chin-covering young man across from Cheng Shi.
"Hey, stinking rat — happy to see ?"
"You're... Xiao Shi?"
At the first line, Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow. At the second, he broke into a grin.
Because he'd finally rembered who the man across from him was.
'Well, what do you know — a childhood playmate. It really has been...'
'Long ti no see.'
...
Reviews
All reviews (0)