Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2925: Chapter 2926: Five Obstacles

Laplace did not respond, but continued: "I have seen many scenes of plane fusion and have traded some mirror memories related to plane fusion from the Ancient Ruins of Tooth Fairy, among which there are some from the Wizards’ Realm."

Can the Ancient Ruins of Tooth Fairy trade mirror memories? Angel was taken aback but did not ask about it.

Laplace: "I know that Wizards divide plane fusion into three stages."

"The third stage, which you call the ’Moment of Plunder.’ Using big fish eating small fish logic, in fact, you are coordinating with the big fish to sweep through the pond where the small fish reside, ultimately making the small pond an appendage of the big pond."

"Although this situation sounds cruel, the world of the small fish will ultimately become a subordinate world of the big fish world."

"Therefore, when you sweep through the small fish’s pond, you seldom do so ruthlessly. After all, integrating a barren world into the Wizards’ Realm is somewhat pointless."

Angel nodded as he had heard about this before.

The Wizards’ Realm actually has an agreement regarding plane fusion: Resources can be swept through, but try not to harm ordinary intelligent life.

This point is even adhered to by the Extreme Sect.

These intelligent lives may have been the Alien Clan a moment ago, but once the two worlds fuse, they become people of the Wizards’ Realm. After a few generations of inheritance, the imprint of the Wizards’ Realm is deeply etched into them.

Not being the Alien Clan naturally avoids the Extreme Sect’s wrath.

Furthermore, killing ordinary intelligent life does not yield much benefit, except for Wizards conducting extreme human research; most would spare these ordinary intelligent lives.

As for those powerful beings from the opposing world... Even before the Moment of Plunder, the World Will would have already conducted a wave of purge against them. If any Wizards encounter stragglers afterward, they will kill them if needed.

Certainly, they would not go out of their way to target them.

Even though they may possess treasures, do Wizards care about those little treasures? The Moment of Plunder definitely aims to seize resources that are more beneficial to Wizards.

Therefore, overall, the world that integrates with the Wizards’ Realm can largely preserve its original appearance.

Just like the Tidal World, an Elemental Life world, after merging with the Wizards’ Realm, it still maintains the appearance of Elemental Life... Of course, Feng’s interventions also played a part.

However, even without mentioning the Tidal World, other subordinate worlds within the Wizards’ Realm, such as the Fairy Tale World, still have the inheritance of ancient intelligent life on the surface, with civilization not severed; deeper within, there exist powerful Transcendent beings who managed to escape during fusion, and some even True Knowledge Wizards dare not provoke.

This shows the Wizards’ Realm has been very considerate towards subordinate worlds.

Laplace lowered his eyes: "However, not all plane fusions follow the Wizards’ Realm approach. Some high-energy worlds hold very aggressive positions; as the big fish in the big fish eating small fish logic, they do not care about the small pond’s fish fry, and even wish to completely destroy the opposing world’s civilization, leaving it utterly barren... But with the protection of the World Will, though civilization may shatter, there are always some Indigenous People who can survive."

"But if it’s not big fish eating small fish logic, but big fish clashing with big fish, then the situation is completely different."

"The memory scene I saw from the Sea Eye is such a situation." Laplace: "In this case, the third stage of plane fusion in the Wizards’ terms—the Moment of Plunder—actually starts at the beginning of the fusion."

"From the very start, the two sides connect spatially and begin to clash. Not only the people, armies, kingdoms, or even entire civilizations of each world, all are attacking each other."

"And this time will last a very long time; from the scenes I witnessed, these two worlds clashed for over a century... This is clearly different from other plane fusions."

"In the end, one side will inevitably be completely eradicated."

"The vanquished will utterly perish, from civilization to species, none spared, turning into a barren world."

"And the language Luigi used before is from the species completely erased."

Angel, hearing this, understood.

Even though Laplace, through the memory from the Sea of Void Mirror, acquired some usage of this language, its source had completely vanished.

This is a language entirely extinct, also an utterly useless language. Therefore, Laplace called it: a nonexistent language.

No, perhaps this nonexistent language has one point of use.

That is when Luigi performs with this language, he laments to the universe, to the distant Celestial God, proving this language once existed.

And precisely because of this language’s uniqueness and nonexistence, when he "speaks with the Celestial God," he appears so distant and... sorrowful.

After listening to Laplace’s explanation, Angel remained silent for a long time. When the black curtain of the Miniature Garden was about to fall, he finally asked: "Is such a plane fusion really just an isolated case?"

Laplace shook his head: "I don’t know."

Angel murmured softly: "There must be rules, norms, and deep-seated logic to plane fusion. Since one example has appeared, perhaps there are more similar cases occurring where we cannot witness."

Laplace lightly said: "Perhaps, but these things aren’t worth your or my attention, as they are meaningless. Perhaps only those who are life beyond Miracle will notice or care about them."

Angel pondered momentarily: "What about the victor? The victor destroys the opposing world; what do they gain?"

Laplace: "Victor? Do you think there truly is a victor under such clashing conditions? The so-called victor has already exhausted their foundation, and the world is equally barren. The final outcome... If it doesn’t merge with another great world, it will also face obliteration. Which it would be, I don’t know."

"By the way, although I don’t know what the remaining world is called, I know that the tallest tower of this world, serving as the energy center, stood until the end, and this tower is called the Moon Chariot. If you embark on a journey through the Void in the future, in a distant world see a tower called Moon Chariot... or ruins of a tower, that means this world was lucky, merged with a great world, and was saved."

As for not encountering it... Then consider that this world, too, like the rising and falling mirrored spaces within the Mirror Domain, met its demise.

Angel said softly: "Moon Chariot, huh? I’ll remember it."

After a pause, Angel softly said: "Luigi’s performance this time is very special; if there’s an opportunity, I hope to make this performance into a Shadow Box..."

Laplace said coolly: "Suit yourself."

Laplace did not mind it being spread; after all, it did not involve her. Moreover, Luigi is a Bard who loves performing; if his performance can be seen by more people, he would certainly be pleased.

As their voices fell, the glass scene curtain also descended.

The third track ended, and soon it will move into the fourth track—the acrobatics track.

Angel actually had a few more questions, but now the host had already started introducing the general situation of the beast taming track.

Perhaps because Luigi performed exceptionally well on the third track, the host introduced the beast taming track in more detail than the other tracks and even offered some personal advice.

According to the host’s introduction, the beast taming track belongs to the companion race track.

The so-called companion race track is where challengers and beasts participate together, and the challenger must reach the endpoint at almost the same time as the beast, with a time difference not exceeding two seconds.

The beast here is provided by the Sunshine Circus. The host didn’t specify what kind of beast it would be, but he hinted: it’s not random.

The entire track consists of five obstacles: Sea Stone Pillars, Swamp Fire Rings, Gravity Space, Aerial Zipline, and High-Altitude Trapeze. After these five obstacles, there’s a sprint area, which is 500 meters long with no traps in between, purely used for the final sprint.

Upon hearing the rules of the beast taming track, everyone’s expressions turned somber.

Previously, it was one track at a time, but now the fourth track includes all the content of the previous ones? And they have to accompany a beast?!

The difficulty has increased significantly more than just a little!

Everyone couldn’t help but look at Glaipnir. They weren’t sure about the condition of the track’s obstacles, but with Glaipnir’s current physical state, could he really get through?

While everyone was feeling uneasy, the host suddenly said, "Here are a few suggestions for the next challenger; whether to take them or not is up to you."

Everyone’s ears perked up immediately.

Undoubtedly, the host’s advice should be taken to heart because the host is almost certainly the Dream Creator of this Special Dreamland. If they don’t listen to the Dream Creator’s advice, who else would they listen to?

"This time, the track doesn’t have a time limit, so there’s no need to rush. Challengers can, like the previous Red-tailed Frog challenger, have ample time to bring a visual feast to the audience."

This suggestion went in one ear and out the other for most people. Visual feast... they would rather focus on clearing the track.

"This time there are many obstacles, and each looks difficult, but the real challenge is the final sprint area. How to control the beast and make it reach the endpoint at the same time as you is the most difficult part. Remember, all the previous obstacles are in service of the final sprint area."

This aspect wasn’t initially considered by everyone, but hearing the host say it made them understand.

The reason why "all previous obstacles are in service of the final sprint area" is, simply put, all the first five obstacles are for "synchronization."

By going through various obstacles, the challenger and the beast get synchronized and build rapport to achieve the goal of "taming."

The final sprint area, therefore, is a test of whether the challenger has successfully tamed the beast through the first five obstacles. If taming is successful, controlling the beast’s speed to stride into the track with you isn’t a problem.

This is also why the host would say that all the preceding parts are mere clouds compared to the final sprint area’s importance.

"One last suggestion: if you’ve successfully tamed the beast, there are certain difficult obstacles that you don’t necessarily have to cross yourself."

The suggestion implies that the beast can replace the challenger in passing some high-difficulty obstacles?

But the prerequisite for all of this is: successful taming of the beast.

With the host’s words done, the black curtain covering the scenery outside slowly lifted.

The fourth track finally appeared in front of everyone.

Seeing this track left everyone somewhat surprised.

Because this track completely defies the physics commonly known to mortals.

The first obstacle, "Sea Stone Pillars," feature the forbidden Silver Ocean, although now it lacks the phantom dolphins, replaced by towering stone pillars.

Stone pillars densely populate the ocean, appearing like a myriad of stars when viewed from above.

The first obstacle is to step onto the stone pillars and reach the other side of the coast.

Because the pillars are closely packed, as long as the right route is chosen, the difficulty isn’t high.

This obstacle generally resembles the plum blossom stakes that Angel saw on the holographic tablet.

The second obstacle, upon reaching the opposite shore, leads into the dense forest swamp. This time there’s no need for a skateboard to slide because there are also pillars in the swamp! In other words, challengers and the beast still walk on pillars, just transitioning from the Silver Ocean to the swamp land.

Above the swamp, however, are hovering fire rings, and although it’s puzzling why these don’t cause explosions, making them float already defies ordinary sense, so it’s no matter that they don’t explode here.

These rings resemble the circus fire rings, vertical, some single, and others two or three overlapping, with the longest being five rings stacked together.

The fire rings seem meant for the beast, while challengers don’t need to pass through them, meaning, this stage isn’t too challenging if one remains steady.

The third obstacle is Gravity Space, with the runway on the wall in a spiral shape, requiring control over body mass to spiral up to the highest point.

This one is a bit challenging, necessitating a fast initial speed and overall body control during the process.

Upon reaching the highest point and traversing a section of a floating stone bridge, one arrives at the fourth obstacle, the aerial zipline, much like the first track of the Rabbit Girl, but with no time limit and no Knife Mountain below this time.

Following the zipline is the fifth obstacle: two high-altitude trapezes suspended in the air, similar to those found in circus acrobatics. This requires some body control and balancing, but judging by appearance, it doesn’t seem too difficult.

These five obstacles, when visually assessed, don’t seem overly strenuous, being controlled within a certain difficulty level.

Angel believes that if Glaipnir were to go through independently, given enough time, there’s a reasonable possibility of passing through all five obstacles... even the most challenging Gravity Space, where leveraging the advantage of the whip might help Glaipnir succeed.

But doing this alongside a beast increases the difficulty significantly.

Most challenging of all, the endpoint must be crossed simultaneously with the beast, making it even more demanding.

Angel pondered if... perhaps Glaipnir should simply kill the beast and drag its corpse through the course?