"...As long as we don't get caught, the ga continues, right?"
Hoenhem nodded, his expression returning to calm, "I understand. Then, I'll continue flipping."
He activated the Hand of Magic and flicked the coin.
Second round, tails.
Third round, tails.
The results of the subsequent rounds all had the side with the snow mountain facing up,
Claude grinned, his three arms dangling down, gently swaying with the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, "This ti, I won again.
It's two to two. Still, it's match point."
"..."
Hoenhem was silent, his eyes staring intently at the brass coin clutched by the Hand of Magic.
During these two rounds of flipping, he had already used over a dozen abilities including word spirit, prophecy, foreknowledge, prediction, super sensory, calculated everything before flicking the coin,
from the air density around, wind direction, wind speed, the force of the Hand of Magic, the contact point between the Hand of Magic and the coin, the trajectory of the coin's rotation, and which side would land face up.
No matter how you looked at it, the coin with its face up was absolutely the predetermined outco.
However, the result was inconceivably three consecutive snow mountain sides, and he didn't even know which step went wrong,
only feeling that the coin, upon being flicked into the air, naturally deviated slightly and chaotically from the predicted trajectory, and this marginally minute deviation eventually evolved into a completely different result.
What's going on?
Hoenhem raised his head, furrowing his brow, scrutinizing the unimpressive three-ard man in front of him.
The opponent cheated, this was a definite and certain fact,
the only two questions were the thod of cheating the opponent used and how he could gather evidence...
"What's wrong?"
Claude chuckled, "Is there a pattern on my face?"
"Nothing,"
Hoenhem said flatly, "Just that I've found a way to win."
"Oh?"
Claude raised an eyebrow, "Sounds confident. Then please continue flipping, let
see if you have the ability to walk out of this forest.
I'm still choosing tails, tails, tails."
"Sa as before, heads, tails, tails."
Hoenhem's expression was calm, with a heart as still as water, as the opponent opted again for three continuous faces: he again theoretically held a seven out of eight probability of winning.
But this round, he won't lose again.
Hoenhem gently closed the Book of Sand in his hand, deactivating the Hand of Magic, and used his palm to touch the brass alloy coin, placing the coin flat on the tip of his right index finger, and flicked it upwards forcefully with his thumb.
Clang—
The sound of the nail hitting the brass was clear and pleasant, the coin flipped and spun, with every line and gri upon it outlined under the surveillance of a magic formula.
————
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
On the flat ground below the rock pillar where the coin duel was taking place,
Ding Zhensi, in the cockpit of the Kui Ox cha, stood a short distance away, looking worriedly at the silent rock pillar platform.
Around him,
Amber lazily held a cloth sared with special ointnt, gently maintaining the Tidal ssenger's scimitar, cleaning the blood groove of the scimitar.
Liu Wu Dai stood with a bow and arrow in place, eyes closed, concentrating, lowering body energy consumption, with the jade bracelet on his wrist continually emitting a warm glow—that should be so kind of prophecy-type tool capable of detecting danger, extrely costly.
David had finished dissecting the wild boar's carcass, breaking it down into hundreds of pieces, placing them on a transparent plastic sheet, and at this mont, he was using bottled water from a storage device to clean the blood off his hands,
occasionally lifting his head, his gaze deeply directed towards the rock pillar platform.
"They've been there for three minutes and fifty-four seconds,"
David used the last bottle of water to wash off all the bloodstains, tossing the empty bottle back into the storage space, while saying to the other companions in a flat tone, "I'll go up and take a look in another minute."
The top layer of the rock pillar platform, is just infinitely close to the height that would continuously trigger lightning attack, attempting to climb would incur attacks from the rock pillar itself, while flying beside it would be struck by lightning.
"Mr. Hoenhem should be alright, right?"
Ding Zhensi couldn't help but ask, "There's been no sound for such a long ti."
"Should be okay."
David chuckled, "After all, it's just a ga guessing heads or tails, not a life-and-death battle."
"Don't worry, he ranked 4th in the previous individual strength ranking,"
Amber said leisurely, "There's not one weakling in the top twenty, and each in the top ten is even more monstrous than the last.
In sports competition scoring, you have to remove one lowest score and one highest score to take the average.
Hoenhem is that highest score.
His personal ability is definitely above the difficulty level average line of the script task developed based on our individual strengths this ti.
You might die, but he might not.
Besides, each of us carries an exit ticket as a reward from the last Gate War, if it really doesn't work, we can just bail."
"Ah..."
Ding Zhensi's face showed a strange expression, like, what's the deal with [you might die, but he might not], is this supposed to be comforting...
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
The dull and regular sound echoed once again,
everyone's eyes collectively turned to Li Ang, who had been knocking on the tree trunk nonstop with the Tyrant Halberd nearby since earlier.
"Uh... Brother Li?"
Ding Zhensi scratched his head, not entirely sure, "What are you doing?"
Li Ang, holding the Tyrant Halberd as he knocked on the tree, turned around and casually said, "Didn't I plant so trees in the Ant Forest earlier, just seeing if any of mine are in here."
Uh, actually, what he planted in the Ant Forest were things that looked like grass, Tamarisk trees...
Ding Zhensi held back the urge to complain but heard Li Ang continue, "This forest is quite odd."
"Hmm?" Ding Zhensi instinctively asked, "What's odd about it?"
"The types of trees."
Li Ang, holding the Tyrant Halberd with one hand, tapped on the trunk of a tall tree, "The bark is dark brown, with small longitudinal cracks, thick twigs, thick papery leaves, oblong or obovate.
This is a hairy-leafed purple tree of the blue fruit tree family in the myrtle order of the dicotyledons class."
"Eh?"
Ding Zhensi was stunned for a second or two before reacting, "This is a species found in the real world?"
"Hmm."
Li Ang nodded and said, "The real-world hairy-leaf purple tree only exists deep in the valley forests of Xishuangbanna at altitudes of 500-1100 ters. It's quite rare and classified as critically endangered."
"That's strange?"
Ding Zhensi pressed the control button, directing the AI to search information on the 'hairy-leaf purple tree' in the database on the Kui Ox cha while saying, "My cha's sensors have built-in scanning capabilities.
They can scan carriers such as plants, animals, minerals, buildings, text, and paintings. If there's matching information from the real world, it will automatically report.
The scanner couldn't detect it..."
"That's because this tree has mutated."
Li Ang casually said, "Wild hairy-leaf purple trees grow up to 25 to 30 ters, but this one reaches 40 ters,
and the shape of its male flowers and seeds differs significantly from both wild-grown and artificially cultivated hairy-leaf purple trees."
Liu Wu Dai frowned slightly, "Could it be that it looks similar but is actually a different type of plant?"
"I checked the cells of this tree, and the difference from the modern Xishuangbanna hairy-leaf purple tree samples I obtained long ago is minimal."
Li Ang calmly said, previously when he was managing the construction of the Automated Pet Box, he purchased a considerable number of rare animal and plant samples from nearly omnipotent stores in Ga Square, where money could buy access to nurous endangered species.
"Additionally,"
Li Ang pointed to the surrounding woodland with the Tyrant Halberd, "Kapok, magnolia, ginkgo, Dovetree... all are mutated types of species from the real world.
Besides, if I'm not mistaken, there are seed ferns, tongue ferns, Bennei tree ferns... these are all extinct gymnosperms that disappeared around the Permian-Triassic era."
"Extinct ancient plants?"
Ding Zhensi exclaid in astonishnt, "What's happening here?"
"Very little information, too many possibilities."
Li Ang retracted the Tyrant Halberd and said casually, "It's possible that this scripted world is set within a space-ti disrupted region.
Or perhaps the entire scripted world is akin to a closed ecosystem, specifically collecting odd species—based on that three-ard monster Claude's words, we can infer that this world's worldview is quite vast, with indigenous inhabitants possessing considerable power.
It might also be possible that we're currently in the universe drawn by a low-tier comic artist—out of convenience, the creator just grabbed so plant material from the internet as the background.
However, one thing is certain."
He paused, using the Long Spear to sweep the ground, clearing away accumulated dead leaves and branches to reveal the differently colored soil beneath, "This forest is indeed modular, with each area's positions changing periodically."
Beep—
The cockpit of the Kui Ox cha emitted a prompt tone, indicating that the intelligent AI had detected mutation species resembling real world ones under broadened conditions.
Extinct ancient plants...
Liu Wu Dai frowned slightly, looking at Ding Zhensi, and asked, "Does your cha have a processor onboard?
Since entering the script world, has the sun's position changed?"
"The position of the sun?"
Ding Zhensi frowned deeply, countless possibilities flashed through his mind, he abruptly lifted his head and manipulated the sensory scanner to observe the sky.
The sensor locked the sun's position in less than a second, calculated the sun's trajectory, corresponding to the rate of ti flow.
"Since we were transported into the script task, it's been almost thirty minutes."
Ding Zhensi looked at Liu Wu Dai and answered, "The sun's descent, the changes in our shadow angles, are just like the real-world spring equinox."
"I see..."
Liu Wu Dai turned to Li Ang, "These extinct plants require different sunlight, rainwater, temperature, humidity, soil conditions,
right?"
"Of course."
Li Ang smiled, nodding, "Seed ferns, tongue ferns, Bennei tree ferns, these gymnosperms were victims of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.
They were long replaced by angiosperms, if they hadn't continuously evolved, their environntal needs would differ vastly from modern plants."
"If there's a difference..."
Liu Wu Dai slowly said, "According to Claude, the position of each area in this forest changes, yet the plants don't seem to be doing so poorly.
This implies that the ti between position changes isn't long,
otherwise different kinds of plants would die due to extended environntal differences, or at the very least grow slowly, beco weak and withered..."
"Hmm."
Li Ang nodded, "I understand what you an.
Since the plants are growing well, there's a great possibility that the position changes in the forest's areas occur daily,
but then stop during a special, longer period.
Specifically, all plants and the soil beneath return to their original positions,
manifesting in these differently colored soils reuniting at that mont."
"Which ans,"
David, who had been listening intently, suddenly said, "We can take action at that mont without worrying about the forest position changes causing us to go around in circles?"
"Exactly."
Li Ang nodded, "Considering the environntal needs of these extinct gymnosperms differ greatly from other plants.
This forest's area might be larger than we imagine.
What Claude said about getting truly lost and unable to find a way out wasn't baseless, it's genuinely possible.
However, if our conclusion is correct, we can find the way out without requiring his guidance..."
"..."
Beside him, Ding Zhensi opened his mouth, still unable to comprehend how Li Ang transitioned from finding trees in Ant Forest to discovering the secret behind this imnse forest's positional changes.
What happened in between?
Why does this feel like missing a High School math lesson, falling asleep, then waking up to find the entire world changed?
"Wasn't this in vain?"
Ding Zhensi's Kui Ox cha raised its arm, pointing at the rock pillar platform, "The Killing Field Ga System placed an NPC at the forest entrance,
deliberately setting a gamble on finding a way out,
yet without the NPC, we could still find the way out.
So wasn't the system redundant?"
"Not redundant at all."
Li Ang smiled, "Think about it, Claude's appearance distracted us, giving us the patience to carefully observe our surroundings and uncover the issue.
And the system set a five-hour ti limit, which is a subtle hint—if besides winning the gamble, we can also find escape strategies through environntal observation,
then our hypothesized 'forest soil reuniting ti' must occur within 1-4 hours,
leaving players one or two hours of travel ti after finding the solution.
One puzzle, multiple solutions.
No matter if Hoenhem wins or not, we can escape. Winning is preferable, as we avoid clashing with the NPC and gain three pouches—
from the puzzle of finding our way through the forest, these pouches are likely to be key tools to ease future task troubles...
Ah, the gamble is over."
Accompanied by intense sounds, the rock pillar platform bearing Claude and Hoenhem slowly descended.
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