Chapter 388: Pressing Forward Through the Geometric Maze
When Lin Sanjiu spun around and jumped back to face the intruder, she showed some hint of a feline"s agility and precision.
As she tightened her jaw, she glared straight at the intruder with her large amber eyes.
From a glance, Lin Sanjiu could see that the intruder wasn"t a resident of Red Nautilus.
The residents from Red Nautilus had a very particular vibe that made them stand out. Since they dwelled in a highly developed city, their horizon was broader. They were very friendly, and their outfits were so bizarre that the word odd was a modest description to represent their daily costume. However, due to several reasons, such as fluctuation and unstable supply of resources, problems faced when applying for visas, and tyranny dictators.h.i.+p, most—if not all—of the residents of Red Nautilus were relatively sensitive, and they always had the anxious expression on their face.
The intruder that stood in front of her, however, didn"t have any of those characteristics, and instead, he seemed to be pretty lax.
He was wearing a plain colored, not-so-clean trench coat that covered him like an enlarged bamboo hat from his neck to his ankles, leaving only a pair of black canvas shoes exposed to the air. His skin was fair. He had a pair of bright red lips, two distinct brows, and two bright beady eyes. There were a few veins that bulged from the back of his palm, and when he tilted his head, his bob-cut style hair cascaded down, making it even more difficult to distinguish his true gender.
From a first glance, this young lad had a typical look. The only thing that wasn"t normal was his two pointy, elf-like ears. That particular detail stood out and confirmed Lin Sanjiu"s conjecture that, like her, he had also been altered after going through the distorting mirror.
Lin Sanjiu couldn"t tell whether or not he came into this pocket dimension via Red Nautilus, or if he came from another apocalyptic world. She had never heard anyone mentioning this person to her before. The thing that worried her the most was that she couldn"t gauge his combat capabilities.
He wasn"t a gloomy, deep person like Puppeteer, nor he was a rough, brilliant person like Hei Zeji; he was normal. Like a pool of clean water without any impurities, n.o.body was able to discern any useful information about him.
He didn"t falter in the slightest even though a fierce woman was staring at him and managed to hold his sloven demeanor and a warm smile on his face. When he talked, his voice was very soothing to the ear and somehow effeminate, "Oh, I"m sorry did I scare you? Don"t worry; I"m just pa.s.sing by."
As he spoke, he pointed his finger at the mirror behind Lin Sanjiu, seemingly giving Lin Sanjiu a hint that he was going through the mirror and that she was blocking his path.
"Should I ask him for some information?"
Biting her lower lip, Lin Sanjiu didn"t make any sound. After having a good time of tousling with herself in her mind, she moved aside.
Perhaps she was just paranoid, but her gut feeling told her that if there was a person she should never pry for more information, that person had to be the young lad in front of her.
Right now, the mirror was very near to Lin Sanjiu. If the intruder was somebody with trust issues, he might have asked her to move away a little bit more, but the young lad wasn"t. With a bright, beaming smile, he nodded politely to Lin Sanjiu and walked toward the mirror, confidently.
This was the kind of confidence that flowed naturally from a perennial winner.
"He must be pretty full of himself," thought Lin Sanjiu.
In the mirror, a portly version of that young lad walked in the opposite direction toward him. Very soon, they met each other.
The room inside the mirror chamber wasn"t large. When the young lad pa.s.sed by Lin Sanjiu, he stopped, turning his head to face Lin Sanjiu and said, "Since destiny has brought us together, why don"t we do fate a favor and exchange names? I"m Ji Shanqing, and you?"
It was the kind of normal request that n.o.body would say no to. After pondering for a while in her heart, she then replied, "I"m Lin San—"
Much to her surprise, she couldn"t utter the word "Jiu," from her mouth regardless of how hard she tried. The word just stuck in her throat refused to come out as if something bad would happen if the word ever slipped from her lips. The young lad was a bit blown away. Apparently, he couldn"t understand why a girl like her would take on a name like "Lin San." Despite that, he maintained his civility and responded, nodding in the process, "Well, nice to meet you. And, good luck!"
Then, Ji Shanqing touched the mirror and vanished.
"Oh, he"s gone."
"You"re Lin San?" Mrs. Manas popped out as soon as the young lad disappeared into the mirror, "May I ask when Miss Lin San changed her name?"
"Oh please," Lin Sanjiu was caught in between laughter and tears, "Do you still remember the [Scrooge McDuck Power]? Anyway, I haven"t the faintest idea how it happened, but the word "exchange" seems to have triggered the effect 1, the one about I"ll be getting a discount on any trade. Thanks to the effect, I couldn"t even spell out my name completely. What a joke."
Mrs. Manas couldn"t hold herself and burst into a peal of laughter. She even choked on her saliva—as if she really had some—and coughed twice.
"Judging from how happy you are," Lin Sanjiu let out a breath, "I can a.s.sume that the experiment went pretty well?"
"Well, I won"t say it"s bad, but the result is favorable to us." Mrs. Manas calmed herself down and moved on, "I didn"t expect it to be so successful on our first trial, to be frank. Anyway, the whole process of atomization has been successfully recorded."
"So what should I do next?"
"Nothing; you don"t have to do anything at this moment," said Mrs. Manas confidently, "Right now, let me a.n.a.lyze the data. I"ll extract the changes and process of the atomization and reconstruction processes. Next, you may use your consciousness to stimulate the process. Of course, you can"t stimulate the atomization process, but I think it"s enough if you at least could learn how to control the mutation caused by the "Neuhume" genome."
"Okey-dokey," replied Lin Sanjiu halfheartedly since the task wasn"t truly tough, and she was quite confident with herself in controlling the "Neuhume" genome.
As if she"d sensed a change of att.i.tude in Lin Sanjiu, Mrs. Manas continued, with a stern tone, "But first, you have to put away your skeletal wings. The mirror chamber is too small for them, and we"ll be in trouble if they accidentally crush any mirrors here," She wasn"t happy with her, so she tried to talk even more seriously to knock the thing into Lin Sanjiu"s head, "I believe that at this point you should see the light why Horse-Face wanted you to break the mirror, no? Try to think about it; each of these mirrors is a particle reconfiguration transmitter, and they can be activated simply by touching them. This means that if you want to break them, you have to touch them, so here comes the question: What would happen to you when the atomization took place as the mirror shattered into pieces? Have you ever consider your chance of surviving? Even if, for G.o.d"s sake, you have survived the atomization process, what would you be at that time? Would you be still considered a human?"
Lin Sanjiu folded her wings even tighter after listening to what Mrs. Manas had said.
When Lin Sanjiu finally realized that a mirror controlled her fate of staying a human or turning into meat pulp, all her hair stood on end.
"Better that Horse-Face prays to G.o.d that he will not meet me again," Lin Sanjiu cussed under her breath, "Otherwise, I swear the next time I see him, I"ll crush him through the mirror."
Back to the story, aside from putting her wings away, she still had to look for the mirror chamber that holds the grand prize.
She was clueless as to where to find the grand prize, and all she knew was that the grand prize resided in one of the mirror chambers. If she continued to roam through the mirror chamber without proper planning, she thought after a year; she might still be here, running like a headless chicken locating the grand prize.
"I can"t employ the [Higher-Consciousness Mimicry] now, can I?" Lin Sanjiu asked. Although she knew full well that it was impossible, in her heart, she was hoping for a green light from Mrs. Manas.
"Are you kidding? Of course, you can"t! After one time mimicking Nüwa, your consciousness and vitality are dropped to zero. Put aside other things, what would you do if you were in your weakest state and something bad happened? So, no. Never you think about it." Mrs. Manas refuted.
"Guess I have to depend on my pathetic tiny brain to think of a way, then." Lin Sanjiu sighed as her eyes swept across her surroundings.
Similar to the previous three mirror chambers, she couldn"t tell the exact shape of this particular mirror chamber. Aside from the three mirrors overhead and the two under her feet, there were sixteen other mirrors that formed the walls.
When she first time came across the diamond building, she found that the building wasn"t quite a perfectly crafted diamond. Rather, it was more like a zagged, shapeless, and twisted ball.
"So I can a.s.sume that the mirror chambers inside the building were built according to the irregular ball?" Her brows knitted together tightly as she seemed to have caught something useful.
She lifted her eyes and studied the mirror which Ji Shanqing used to leave just now.
The young lad pointed to the mirror behind Lin Sanjiu the second he arrived in this mirror chamber, and he hadn"t in the least considered going through any of the other mirrors. Wasn"t that just weird? With the knowledge that you would turn into what you had gone through, a healthy man would"ve thought twice before choosing the one he favored the most, right?
Not to mention that somebody was standing in his way to the mirror he had chosen. However, Ji Shanqing did the unthinkable; he didn"t change to another mirror and instead braved through the possibility of getting into a fight by asking Lin Sanjiu to move aside.
Why would he go as far as that? Unless he had a solid reason that he must go through this mirror.
Lin Sanjiu"s gaze jumped back and forth in between the "exit" Ji Shanqing had chosen and the mirror that he came from. Suddenly, she realized that the two mirrors weren"t quite facing each other directly. Nevertheless, that mirror Ji Shanqing went through was the only mirror that could be counted as the opposite of the mirror where he came in.
"Could it be!"
Suddenly, the scales fell from Lin Sanjiu"s eyes, but she didn"t have enough time to think about it. A female voice resounded in the silent mirror chamber, startling her.
"10,9,8,7,6..."
"d.a.m.n it, the countdown!"
The time was running out fast, and she didn"t have enough time to do her marking with her blood. Hence, she attempted a different tack. She crouched down and punched the mirror under her feet. When she saw the crack on the mirror, she hastily charged toward the mirror that Ji Shanqing had gone through.
It was only a blink of an eye, and she fell out from the mirror on the other side. This time, she had turned into a stumpy and plumpy ball.
Glancing at the mirror chamber from a new eye level, the mirror chamber appeared to be larger, but she knew it was just her eyes playing tricks on her mind, and she could only attribute this misconception to her new height. As she had shrunk to nearly half of her original height, she needed an extra few seconds to get herself used to see from a lower level.
After she had enough taking in the structure of this mirror chamber, she strode, without any hesitation, toward the mirror opposite of her. As she walked, she didn"t forget to put on her shoes.
She already had a good grasp of Ji Shanqing"s method. It could even say that she thought in the same way as Ji Shanqing.
Although all the mirror chambers had different shapes, their structures were limited by the area and s.p.a.ce of the "container" outside. Hence, they could only line in the shape of a sphere, albeit it might not be perfectly round.
At the same time, being "sucked" into the inner region from outside insinuated that the first mirror chamber, which was the starting point, must be near the outer wall of the building while the first mirror she came in should be pointing directly at the center of the diamond building.
At this time, all she needed to do was to figure out which of the mirrors had the largest angle with the "entrance mirror." Then, by following the angle, she would find the first "corner." When she found the first corner, that meant that she had located the mirror that had the highest possibilities of aligning on the same side as the "entrance mirror."
However, there was a deadly flaw in this method, and she couldn"t apply the same method after she entered the second mirror chamber. Although tracing the "edge" was the golden rule of this method, if she was no longer walking by the edge, it meant that she had lost her only guideline and the consequence was that she would definitely lose her way in the mirror chamber.
When Lin Sanjiu finally returned to the mirror room she first entered, she knew that she had walked around the diamond building already. Indeed, this method was a bit tedious its was the best method she knew in existence if she wanted to find out more about the diamond building.
Regardless of the consequences, she should go through the mirror opposite of the "exit mirror" starting from the second mirror chamber.
Back then, she didn"t think that much when she first entered, and she basically randomly picked any mirror based on her gut feeling. By right, she shouldn"t be able to return to the first mirror chamber anymore, and she shouldn"t know about the angle theory; however, the fortune G.o.ddess hadn"t abandoned her and smiled upon her because she met Ji Shanqing.
Clearly, the androgynous young lad was utilizing this method to proceed further into the diamond building, so all she needed to do was retrace his route, and she would definitely found her way back to the edge.
Then, once she arrived there, she would be on her own.
Since the shape of the mirror chamber was asymmetrical, it was tough to find the mirror that sat perfectly opposite of the "exit mirror." There were times where she had to take out her [Female Bondage Rope] to measure and figure out the correct angle. At this point, Lin Sanjiu felt relieved that the person who had lost his or her dog leash had refused to buy her bondage rope.
After she had bitten her finger a few times, she suddenly had realized something.
"Why don"t I use the knife!" Lin Sanjiu suspected that the idea of using the knife to do her marking never came across her mind was that her brain had been occupied by the maze-like mirror chamber, "Jesus, I almost run out of blood…"
After she drew a crooked "13" on a mirror, she marched toward the mirror opposite her.
After familiar darkness had engulfed her, she was stunned when she opened her eyes.
Ji Shanqing"s exquisite yet androgynous face swam into her sight. He no longer had the amiable expression and his face was clouded with anxiety and worry.
"Seems like both of us are using the same method, huh," He understood everything the moment he saw Lin Sanjiu. Then, he sighed, "We"re both wrong. The path ends here and we can"t proceed any further. Look at it yourself."
This was a mirror chamber built in an isosceles shape, and Lin Sanjiu came out from the bottom of this triangular shaped mirror.