Xiu summoned the nightmare and rode off with Du Ze. The nightmare neighed, lifted its hooves and ran towards the statue's location.
When they arrived at the statue, nearly everyone was already there. As Du Ze dismounted from the back of the nightmare, his legs gave way and he almost tripped and fell. Due to the undead magic that Xiu cast on him, he cannot feel pain but his hands and feet are very limp and soft.
Xiu held Du Ze in his arms, letting Du Ze lean on him. Because of the Lich's death aura, no one dared to ask the gloomy Lich what was wrong with Du Ze. Xiu's dark eyes scanned the entire place. When he saw the clearly intoxicated first Mage God holding a jug of wine, the soul flames in Xiu's eyes shook slightly.
"Young man, we meet again. Little Honey told me what happened, hic, earlier." Antonio shook his jug and sigh with an unknown emotion: "I did not think you would be willing to save these little bastards ..."
The words of the first Mage God seemed to contain other meanings. Xiu's pale face was gloomy under the dim light. Antonio and Xiu looked at each other; the bleary eyes locked on the dark eyes. "They gave you their tickets, didn't they?"
Xiu did not avoid Antonio's eyes. He slowly nodded: "Yes."
The atmosphere suddenly became quite serious. Antonio was still looking at Xiu in the eyes while the gold mercenary team stood in the center, glancing back and forth with bewilderment at the two. In the middle of this volatile situation, Antonio suddenly drank a few mouthfuls of wine and sighed heavily: "Then there's no way."
The first Mage God stretched out his hand. Muir and the others were on guard but when they saw a black flame appear on Antonio's palm, they relaxed.
"Take this old man with you, too."
Du Ze watched as Xiu silently received Antonio's ticket, then glanced at the gold mercenary team and was enlightened.
Moe Lord: The plan succeeded.
With Antonio's help they didn't need to search the books for the answers or steal other people's checkpoints. Antonio was like a living encyclopedia; it seemed as though there were no questions that he couldn't answer. A group of people were powerleveled by the first Mage God and easily reached the last checkpoint. This time it was not a sphinx statue that greeted them, but rather a real sphinx. The beast was standing on the path but behind him was a void. It had the face of a beautiful woman. When it saw Du Ze and the others, it shook its wings and changed its posture so that it was sitting down.
"This is the last question and you only have one chance to answer." The beast with the lion's body and a human face said: "What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?"
Du Ze almost fell down in surprise. The last question was this simple! Who hasn't heard of that famous Greek myth? Everyone knows that the answer is "man."
"I've never heard of this kind of spirit beast ..." Rachel sighed: "I'm too ignorant."
"I think we need a detailed spirit beast encyclopedia now," Enoch said gloomily.
Honey pulled on Antonio's robe. "Does grandpa know what that is?"
"Little Honey, grandpa doesn't know everything." Antonio reluctantly opened the jug, drank a mouthful and sank into meditation.
Seeing everyone's reaction, the silly, cute reader realized that he was not on Earth. If one didn't know the answer beforehand, the riddle is really difficult. When he first heard this question, he couldn't answer it at all.
****! He has not had the benefit of spoilers for a long time!
"The answer is man."
Everyone looked at Du Ze. The black-haired young man, was pressing on his headphones and his expressionless face was strangely calm.
"I think the answer is human."
"You made the right choice."
The monster with a lion's body and a human face showed them a beautiful smile then burst into a golden powder which formed a long road into the void. Most of the people present did not know how to react but Enoch scratched head and asked Du Ze curiously: "Hey! Dude, how did you come up with the answer?"
Seeing that Xiu was also looking at him, Du Ze wanted to explain but as he was about to speak, he stopped and broke into a cold sweat – he seems to have underestimated the problem.
The sphinx said he "made the right choice" rather than "your answer is correct." The riddle referred to birth, maturity, and old age. On Earth, the only answer to this question is "man" but this is a different world where the beastkin, elf, and gnome are all possible answers to this question. The answer to the riddle is therefore no longer unique so you need to pick the one that is the most satisfying to the sphinx ...?
When he saw that the cold-faced Du Ze did not answer, Enoch just shrugged. He ran in front of the group, as was his habit, and told everyone to hurry up.
"Let's go, let's go. I think it's time to get out of this shithole. This thief's hunch is always accurate!"
Because in front of us is the BOSS, young man.
The path created by the golden powder was slowly dissipating. Thus, Du Ze and the others were again pushed onwards by the Tower of God. Du Ze was still thinking of that problem while he walked on the golden road. He's lucky that he selected the best answer, what would be the result if you chose another race as the answer?
— He isn't one of us; his heart will certainly be different.
That was when Du Ze finally realized that this was the human race's trial.
There were numerous clues: the story of Edward, the way the tower climbers fought each other, the setting of a library, the sphinx that symbolizes wisdom and knowledge, and, most obviously, the final riddle, they all pointed to the race whose characteristics could be summarized by this sentence:
[The Humans gave away their tolerance, received learning.]
The golden road's terminus was a medium-sized reading room. A man with long brown hair sat in a comfortable chair reading a book. Beside him was a long, slender wooden staff; the crystal ball at its top was emitting a soft light.
"There are three things in this world that others cannot steal. One is to the food that is already in one's stomach after eating it, second is is the book in one's brain that one has read, third is the dream hidden in one's heart." With some regret, the man closed the book and looked at them. "But my dream has been stripped away from me."
The man did not look old but his manner and the way he was reading made him look like he had experienced many vicissitudes.
"Welcome to the Temple of Wisdom, I am Soth, Lord Ruler of the gods of the human race."
****! It really was the trial of the human race. Du Ze looked at the god sitting on his chair who seemed to have no intention of fighting them. Based on the previous checkpoints, the BOSS fight should be a test of riddles and knowledge?
Translator's Note:
Ahahahahaha! Here we have the aftermath of the previous "harmonious health education" activity. Poor Du Ze's body is completely limp now and the others (except for Ariel) obviously know what they those two were up to but they were too intimidated by the Lich to even joke about it. I bet if Xiu was in gnome form the others would be like: *wink wink* *nudge nudge* "Oh, I see you two were busy *cough* .... doing a lot of .... *wink* research."
I notice not a lot of people left comments on the last chapter at the Ainushi website. Leave a comment here if you like. What did you think of the Lich Xiu X Du Ze scene? Good? Bad? Disappointing? Awesome? Would you like a popsicle?
"I prefer to use wisdom to solve things instead of force." He said: "A fool cannot survive, that is the law of the Temple of Wisdom. You have been asked a lot of questions, now it's your turn to ask me questions."
If you ask a good question, you can go through customs. Du Ze felt that the human race's BOSS was really very amiable. For a person to always be the examinee, only someone who has experienced it will know how painful it is.
"The rules are these – the questions you ask must be understandable and must be either factual or a theory that a few people know, or a widely know anecdote. The most important point is that you have to know the answer. If there is more than one correct answer, I just need to give one."
Ah, they were completely restricted. A silly, cute person was speechless. This is not scientific! Everytime a YY novel's protagonist encountered this type of test, wasn't he supposed to use the "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" type of question to stump his opponent?
However, the god was not finished explaining the rules.
"Both sides will have 10 minutes to answer questions. You can't talk about it with each other. You can choose three people to ask questions but ..." The god glanced at Du Ze and the gold mercenary team. "For the sake of my chosen race, I can give all the humans a chance to ask questions but the others will be forced to remain silent."
Du Ze was shocked by the eccentricity of the Lord God. With Antonio, Honey, Bart, Enoch, plus himself, there was a total of five people. Although Old John and the others cannot speak, they now have five chances to ask questions. The strongest in this game of question and answer is Antonio whose knowledge is the most profound among the group. But if the first Mage God fails, apart from Xiu who has the protagonist's halo, Du Ze can't imagine who else could come to their rescue.
Xiu glanced at the group and said to Soth: "Let all of the humans ask questions."
"Here are five humans -"
"No." Xiu interrupted the the god: "It's not just five humans."
As he spoke the last half, Xiu's voice changed from the hoarse voice of his Lich form to a pleasant-sounding young voice. To the amazement of Enoch, a handsome young man with blonde hair and blue eyes smiled at the god: "- I'm here."
Du Ze felt Xiu's hand in his turn soft and warm. He almost wanted to cover his face in embarrassment; he nearly forgot that Moe Lord had this cheat.
"... Well, you'll have six chances." Soth stared at Xiu with eyes full of a complex emotion. "Let's get started. Who wants to ask a question first?'
When the trial started, Violet suddenly felt that she had lost the power to speak. She held Alice's hand, worriedly watching Xiu and the others. The humans were all staring at each other, at a loss. Bart, the big guy, was sweating profusely; trying to think of a question that the god wouldn't be able to answer was too difficult and he would rather recklessly fight the god. Enoch was scratching his head as though he was trying to come up with a suitable question. Antonio and Xiu were the most relaxed of the group. One was drinking and the other was meditating with a thoughtful look on his face while holding his own silly, cute person by the back of his neck.
Du Ze was equipped by Xiu and began to desperately go over his memories. After nine years of compulsory education, including three years of hell that he spent studying for the college exams, he ought to be able to show his cool, domineering side.
But all I can come up with are some ridiculous brain teasers! QAQ
While some silly, cute person was silently paying tribute to his teachers, wanting to return to the time when he was in school, Honey strode forward. The little girl raised her head and spoke a riddle.
"There is a god of truth who always speaks the truth and a god of lies who only tells lies. Behind them are two doors; one leads to the upper realm and the other leads to the lower realm. You don't know who is the god of truth or the god of lies, and you can only ask one question. What question do you ask to find out which door leads to the upper realm?"
A high-level Western-style brain teaser that Du Ze had heard many times. A certain silly, cute person was stunned when he heard this riddle but the god just smiled and said: "I will ask this: If I asked which door leads to the upper realm, which door would the other god point to?"
Honey hadn't thought that her riddle would be instantly solved. She scrunched up her face, looking very annoyed.
Honey's riddle seems to have inspired Enoch. The thief said with gusto: "I also thought of a question. Five people want equal shares of a cake but you can only cut it three times, how do you cut it?"
"First cut one-fifth of the cake, then what remains is four-fifths of the cake. Slice the remainder in half to produce two-fifths. Stack those two-fifth slices then cut them in half again to produce one-fifth servings."
The god also answered this immediately, without hesitating. Du Ze felt Xiu's hand tighten. He turned to look and saw that Xiu seemed to be a bit speechless, as though this was an unexpected answer. Because they were in the BOSS stage now, Du Ze didn't want to ask Xiu about it.
"Eh, you can answer it so quickly? This clever thief thought about it for a long time." Hearing the god's answer, Enoch grabbed his short hair and said: "You could also kill one person with a slice then cut the cake into four pieces – "
... What a vicious riddle!
The first two questions were easily answered by Soth. Antonio gulped down a lot of wine then stepped forward and leaned over to touch Honey's hair.
"This old man will ask a riddle that is based on Honey's." Antonio took a deep breath. Even with his cheeks flushed from the wine, his eyes were clear. "There are three gods. Their names are 'True' 'False' and 'Random.' You don't know which god is which. The True god always speaks the truth; the False god always tells lies, the Random god will randomly say truth or lies. You need to find out which god is which. You can only ask three yes-no questions and you can only ask these questions to a god. The gods can understand you but they will only answer in their own language. In their language, 'yes' and 'no' are 'da' and 'ja' but you do not know which is which."
When Antonio had finished speaking, the whole group was silent. The riddle fused the puzzles of "unknown language," "truth and lies," and "randomness." For the first time, the god was deep in thought, and Du Ze was on tenterhooks.
As the minutes ticked by, Du Ze looked nervously at Soth who had pulled out paper and pen and was drawing a logic tree. It was nearly ten minutes, but before the time was up Soth smiled and said: "That's a good question. I almost ran out of time."
The god lifted his hand and the paper he wrote on flew into Antonio's hands.
"That's my answer."
Antonio read the paper in his hand then sighed and waved to Xiu. "This old man is helpless. He could only help you come to this point."
Xiu nodded his thanks to Antonio. Du Ze was still trying to think of countermeasures. His head hurt because he couldn't think of a way to beat this BOSS. Now the situation is bad because even the most promising member of their group, the first Mage God, has not been able to ask the god a question he can't answer. Other than Xiu, the remaining members of the group are merely cannon fodder. Bart can be regarded as useless this time. Du Ze decided to try his luck first.
As Du Ze walked up to the god and pressed on his headphones, he suddenly froze – why does he have to come up with a difficult riddle like Antonio did? His greatest strength does not lie in that but in his identity as someone who crossed over to this world.
He thought of a question that no one in the world could answer.
Absolutely no one
The god saw a black-haired youth looking up at him with a cold expression on his face.
"What is the true essence of this world?"