Chapter 176 Trails and Errors

As Li Ang plummeted to the ground, he preemptively stepped on the invisible steps generated by the Ladder to Heaven skill, using them as a buffer to land without making a sound.

However, the mutated creature that was tilling the field suddenly took a half step back, as if it could "see" Li Ang, its shock unmissable.

It stood frozen in place for a full five seconds before snapping out of its daze, trembling all over.

Taking another half step back, it frantically picked up the rusty longsword with its most robust green arm and slashed it at Li Ang.

The verdant arm was extremely strong, but the skill with which it exerted force and wielded the sword could only be described as "clumsy."

Li Ang didn't dodge or evade. He casually swung his long spear, and with a "clang,"

the longsword in the mutated creature's hand was cleanly knocked away, spinning and embedding itself into the wall, its hilt still trembling.

Disarmed,

the mutated creature actually began to tremble all over, as if petrified by fear. It retreated several steps,

then suddenly turned around, abandoning the sword.

It fled for its life, heading toward the doorway.

It's running away? Without even a struggle?

Do I look that scary?

A hint of doubt flashed in Li Ang's eyes.

He had seen at least a thousand script monsters,

ranging from the violent and ferocious to the ghostly and eerie,

but this was the first time he had encountered one so timid and cowardly.

Li Ang frowned slightly and landed on the ground. He hadn't really intended to kill it directly; otherwise, he would have just opened fire or used Disintegration.

In this script mission, almost all the creatures he had encountered could resist the mind-reading effect of the Seeker of Secrets title skill. He didn't know if this was how the script was designed or if they all had mental protection attributes.

However, the mutated creature before him didn't have such strong mental defenses and could have its secrets discovered by the Seeker of Secrets title skill.

The previous mind-reading result had shown 【So lonely】,

but after Li Ang appeared,

the mind-reading result changed to 【So scared】.

The mutated monster looks so terrifying, but its personality is so cowardly...

Li Ang shook his head, held his revolver in his left hand, and carried his long spear in his right, chasing after the mutated creature's retreating figure.

With his speed, he could easily catch up to it at any time,

and end the life of this outwardly strong but inwardly weak mutated creature with a single spear thrust,

or control it with a variety of psychic abilities,

such as Stun, Clone, or Dominate.

Letting it escape was simply because Li Ang wanted to see where it would run to—this area seemed to be particularly vast.

Having a guide who knew the terrain would definitely be better than exploring alone—after all, drones and scout bugs were unusable.

Li Ang followed behind it for a distance.

The mutated creature had clearly lived in this area for a long time. The path it chose while fleeing in panic was quite complicated, theoretically allowing it to use forks in the road and blind spots to shake off pursuers.

It even deliberately entered rooms with traps to try and stop Li Ang.

However, Li Ang had already left spores carrying the power of the Swamp God on it,

and cast the Suggestion psychic ability on it.

Suggestion was a level two skill in the psychic enchantment skill tree, and its effect was to induce the target to act according to the suggested instructions.

Under the influence of the Suggestion effect, the mutated creature would involuntarily flee and try to go to what it perceived to be a safe place. Li Ang only needed to follow behind it, maintain the psionic effect, and track its location with the spores,

to find the location most likely to trigger the plot.

To maintain the sense of oppression on the mutated creature, create a feeling of fear, and enhance the effect of the Suggestion skill,

Li Ang intermittently laughed maniacally behind it, shouting, "Run, cry, scream, and then die."

If it ran too slowly or got tired, he would symbolically quicken his pace, shorten the distance between them,

and use his mouth to simulate various noises, such as the sound of a chainsaw or a machine gun.

Like an evil villain, he chased the mutated creature all the way, casually took out his walkie-talkie, pressed the button, and connected to the communication channel.

Li Ang: 【Hello? Is anyone else there?】

Ding Zhensi: 【I'm here. Why did you disconnect just now?】

Li Ang: 【I've got a strange monster here, outwardly strong but inwardly weak. It's not strong, and I'm chasing it right now. How's it going on your end?】

Ding Zhensi: 【You can still chase monsters for fun? Never mind, I'm still in that sealed room with the statue. There are no doors or windows or anything like that, just a wall with a bunch of puzzles on it.】

Li Ang: 【Puzzles?】

Ding Zhensi: 【Yeah, the entire wall is covered with a large number of stone bricks. These stone bricks are different shapes, kind of like Tetris blocks, pieced together. Only the square stone brick at the very top is white; the rest are all black. At the very bottom, there's a square gap that's exactly the same size as the white stone brick.】

Ding Zhensi briefly described the situation in his room. Li Ang said without hesitation, "Huarong Road?"

"Yeah."

Ding Zhensi replied, "I already tested it. I can't leave the room by force. It seems I'm required to solve an intelligence game similar to Huarong Road on the wall.

If it were an ordinary hero, they might also face the dual predicament of dwindling oxygen levels and slowed thinking as time passes.

Luckily, I brought an oxygen tank..."

Li Ang casually asked, "Can you solve it?"

"Yes."

Ding Zhensi said confidently, "Although I'm not very smart myself,

the Kui Niu mecha I'm piloting is equipped with the most advanced computer processor.

Even the Lan Ke chess game can be brute-forced and crushed with exaggerated computing power.

It's just a Huarong Road game. I'll solve it for you in minutes."

Why can you say you have a low IQ with such confidence?

Using someone else's AI to play puzzle games, and you're so proud of it.

Are you the legendary talented but immoral type?

Li Ang's eyes twitched. He almost blurted out a sarcastic comment.

However, he had similar experiences in the past—using the AI chess software on his phone to find roadside chess stalls and earn ten or twenty yuan, so he didn't really say anything.

Just as Ding Zhensi was using the Kui Niu mecha to solve the Huarong Road puzzle, Liu Wudai's walkie-talkie signal also connected to the network.

Her room didn't have any direct danger.

According to her description, she was in a well-shaped, vast space, filled with stone staircases that were freely rotating, changing direction, and separating.

She had to observe carefully, seize the opportunity, and use the gaps in the stairs' rapid rotation to

climb all the way to the top of the space—where there was a window emitting white light, which should be the exit.

This level of predicament naturally couldn't stump Liu Wudai.

She was light and agile, jumping back and forth between the staircases. She probably wouldn't be trapped for long.

Li Ang summarized the current situation of the three of them: they were all teleported to locations that were dangerous but not fatal.

They could escape the predicament using their own abilities.

"According to the prompts we heard earlier from the surrounding environment, the so-called trial should be about going to one room after another, constantly looking for a way up, right?"

Li Ang said in the walkie-talkie channel, "Until we climb to the top floor and get a reward or something."

"I wonder where Hoenheim and the others are."

Ding Zhensi said, "There's no signal from them on the walkie-talkie. They may be outside the 10km communication range, or they may be in a space that can shield communications,

or they may have encountered a strong opponent or a deadly room and don't have time to take out their walkie-talkies to communicate..."

Li Ang thought for a moment and said, "The walkie-talkie's battery capacity can maintain talk time for a maximum of three hours.

We didn't use much power in the underground palace before. We have at least, at the very least, more than an hour left.

For now, let's continue to keep it turned on. During the exploration process, we'll continuously describe the rooms we see along the way to others.

It would be best if we could draw a rough map of this entire building based on each person's route and the rooms they pass through so we can regroup as soon as possible.

We'll save the power and use it sparingly when there are only thirty minutes of talk time left."

"Yeah."

Liu Wudai agreed. Players were quite agile and could move quickly. They would only stop and think when encountering puzzles.

The prompt said to go up, so we can assume that this place is divided into different floors, and there may be more than one passage leading to the upper floors, with multiple solutions.

We probably won't get stuck and die on a certain floor.

"Hoenheim and the others haven't connected to the walkie-talkie communication network yet."

Li Ang pondered for a moment and said, "Here's what I'll do. When I'm moving, I'll leave arrow marks at intersections and on walls to mark my route.

If you're moving upwards, you can follow the marks to find me and regroup."

"Good idea."

Ding Zhensi agreed, "But what if we encounter repeating roads or dead ends? Won't that have a negative impact on Hoenheim and the others' journey?"

"We can record the current time next to the mark,

or we can use more complex patterns, even maps or text, to make notations."

Li Ang casually said, "It's like how thieves leave secret theft codes on the walls near residential buildings.

A tilted square pattern indicates that no one lives there,

and a horizontal '日' character with vertical lines extending from both sides indicates danger and needs to be avoided.

Of course, we don't need to be so complicated. We can just leave written descriptions and time records on the walls and doors.

Hoenheim and the others will naturally understand what's going on when they see them."

Li Ang had specifically learned the symbols used by thieves and pickpockets in the past.

However, the meanings of these symbols were not fixed.

Different theft gangs had their own habits and would use special codes according to the agreement, and only members of the gang could understand the specific meaning.

Of course, in today's real world, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, all connected to the Skynet monitoring system, which is uniformly managed by intelligent AI.

Thieves and theft gangs

are immediately marked as dangerous targets by Skynet AI as soon as they leave a mark in front of a residential home. A continuous tracking is launched,

and the birth address, growth experience, and past few months of activity of the marked person are automatically traced back.

If it can be determined that they are thieves, then arrest warrants are directly issued to the jurisdiction.

The gang will be arrested and thrown into prison in minutes.

For the theft profession that has been passed down for thousands of years, the Skynet monitoring system is simply a dimensionality reduction strike.

Ordinary thieves simply have no room to start, and almost all civilian equipment is now developing in the direction of networking—from small phones to large bicycles and electric vehicles.

The massive computing power of computers can greatly make up for the shortage of police force, not to mention that the Special Affairs Bureau is already developing intelligent robots that can be deployed to various positions.

Li Ang's wandering thoughts returned to his senses.

Those special skills that he had spent energy learning in the past,

such as opening locks, cryptography, and underworld slang,

were now all useless.

However, he didn't feel much regret—this was the inevitability of the times.

After the comprehensive deployment of monitoring systems, the vast majority of people will be under the surveillance of intelligent AI.

It will become increasingly difficult to hide secrets or use special skills to do some gray-area activities.

Probably, Li Ang's disguise will also be exposed sooner or later.

He just didn't know whether he would actively reveal his identity or be exposed by someone or some organization else.

In Li Ang's mind, the worry about his identity being exposed flashed by.

With his current strength, even if his identity were completely exposed, it wouldn't be a big problem.

Besides, he had given Wang Congshan "that" item, so he didn't have to worry about the latter's personal safety being threatened.

Since Ding Zhensi's Kui Niu mecha had photo printing and text spraying functions, and Liu Wudai and Li Ang also had their own skills that could conveniently and quickly leave marks,

after a brief discussion, the three of them set off toward the upper space, leaving pattern marks during the exploration process.

They weren't worried that the pattern marks they left would be tampered with by the monsters in the script mission, misleading later arrivals—

The pattern marks were just a substitute for the walkie-talkie if contact couldn't be made.

As long as Hoenheim and the others could free up their hands and re-establish communication, they could quickly regroup without relying on pattern marks.

"Hoenheim's walkie-talkie seems to have quite a few hidden features."

While leisurely chasing the mutated creature, Li Ang chatted casually on the walkie-talkie channel, "It even has a frequency modulation broadcast function."

Ding Zhensi said, "The broadcast function probably won't work in the script world, since there's no radio station here."

"Tsk."

Li Ang clicked his tongue a little regretfully. He was quite curious to hear what the broadcast programs of the alien world would be like. "The background setting of this script world is quite diverse and complex.

With their level of technology, developing a radio station shouldn't be difficult.

Hmm... I was reminded of the time I took the CET-6 English test a long time ago."

"Li-ge, you took the CET-6 test?"

Ding Zhensi was a little surprised.

"I did."

Li Ang said naturally, "My grandfather is old and has poor hearing,

so I very孝顺 (xiào shùn, filial) sent him a set of English listening practice books,

to help him improve his hearing.

But he was too unhelpful and just couldn't learn,

so I had to learn it myself first, wanting to help him.

But the CET-6 listening comprehension was really too difficult. As I listened, I tuned to 92.1 MHz and switched to the Tianjin Crosstalk Radio channel."

"..."

Ding Zhensi clicked his tongue and said nothing.

"Later, I thought about it. The best way to learn English is to be reincarnated and learn it from birth."

Li Ang chatted casually. Suddenly, the mutated creature in front of him flashed into a dark door,

and a strong gust of wind swept straight toward his face.