Chapter 566: The Players' Preparations
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 566: The Players' Preparations
While the concept of "Soul Mimicry" was somewhat unrealistic, if one never dared to conceive it, how could it ever be realized?
The concept of the soul was inextricably linked to dreams—a fact I had already grasped and identified as the key breakthrough for my current predicament.
It was difficult for the Fool’s Dream race to exist independently in reality based solely on their own consciousness; once they left their physical shells, they would inevitably return to the dreamscape. To fix this, their very life essence needed to be reshaped.
Since I couldn't transform them into soul-based lifeforms in a single leap, I would take it step by step. The first step was "Soul Mimicry"—at the very least, it would allow them to enter my Sea of Consciousness with the help of the Enlightenment Meditation Art.
Of course, if the ability of Soul Mimicry could be derived from the Great Wisdom Enlightenment Art, its applications would extend far beyond the Fool’s Dream race.
But it was still too early to dwell on that.
Withdrawing from the Sea of Consciousness, I took a moment to settle my emotions.
My energy levels were still quite high. Although I had spent the entire day reading, I wasn't particularly tired. Looking for something to do, I activated the information deduction of my Qi Observation Art to see if there had been any shifts in the local Luck.
The Qi Observation Art allowed me to observe the flow of Luck and the direction of the Script. Under the interference of the World Consciousness and the Script, Luck usually followed a traceable path—this was the fundamental premise for the spell's deductions.
However, the methods players used to manipulate Luck were never so easy to predict. To put it in more metaphysical terms, these guys didn't play by the rules; they were the so-called "variables."
But now, with just a cursory glance, I realized something was wrong.
This was... the Children of Destiny were showing signs of decline, and the variables were on the verge of completing their harvest of this Luck!
I sat up abruptly. How long had it been since I last performed a deduction? How had the situation spiraled like this?
Was this auction going to be a major turning point?
They were planning to catch everyone in one fell swoop and harvest it all... but did those players truly have that kind of strength?
I found it hard to understand and even harder to believe.
Unless they had some hidden trump card, or perhaps they knew they couldn't win in a direct confrontation and were relying on pre-prepared measures—like that nuclear bomb they had planted before.
If they set one off here, it would be a total wipeout.
However, that possibility seemed slim...
Regardless, I should go kill a player first to figure out exactly what was going on.
After all, the dead held no secrets from the Ley Line Identification Art.
Even though those players didn't truly own those bodies, and their memories wouldn't return to the Ley Lines upon death, I could still gather any information they had previously leaked. I could analyze what they had done and why. This was far more reliable than mere guesswork or unrealistic theorizing.
Without further hesitation, I pulled up the integrated map of Ley Line information.
I had already identified two players at this auction. Their movements were clearly visible under the scrutiny of the Ley Line data, so I didn't even need to break a sweat.
After pushing open my door and leaving the room, I noticed that the hotel's surveillance was quite extensive. If those players wanted to do anything, they would have to bypass these cameras.
Curious, I headed toward the less conspicuous emergency stairwell instead of taking the elevator.
As I opted for the stairs, I noticed something unusual near the stairwell's surveillance camera.
"Is this... Transcendent Pixels?"
I reached out toward the camera and gave a light tug, pulling down a cluster of matter that was nearly invisible to the naked eye.
It seemed to have environmental cloaking capabilities.
Even my Ley Line Identification Art struggled to pull clear data from it; there were very few information matches.
This was likely the power controlled by those players. I didn't let go, instead checking the surrounding information—such as the camera it was interfering with—to deduce its purpose.
Based on my deductions, if it was targeting the surveillance, then... it was most likely faking the footage.
This was essentially a physical hack of the surveillance system, designed to keep the security personnel from noticing anything amiss.
If the stairwell cameras were "blacked out," then these stairs became a safe passage for the players to move between floors.
After all, in a high-rise building like this, stairs were almost decorative, especially emergency stairs that saw very little foot traffic. Even the staff had their own service elevators.
I toyed with the "Transcendent Pixel" in my hand. This was likely a transcendent effect constructed within a power system centered on [Transcendent Knowledge].
Though I appeared to be merely playing with it, I was actually using my own methods and power to test the nature of this energy, using the Ley Line Identification Art to collect data from these tests.
Transcendent Pixels were indeed a manifestation of power derived from [Transcendent Knowledge]. Even as mere pixels, their magical properties were terrifying, inheriting the "permanent existence" trait of a Great Spellbook's effects.
This meant that while a pixel could be broken—meaning the block could be decomposed—completely erasing it required power on the level of a Great Spellbook. Ordinary methods would require a massive expenditure of resources to counter it.
This led to a frightening reality: "items" generated from Transcendent Pixels possessed terrifying physical properties.
As long as the pixels weren't utterly annihilated, the most damage they could take was the disintegration of the gaps between blocks. Once scattered, these pixel blocks could simply reform.
However... I hadn't seen this trait manifested in the ordinary players. Perhaps... when this power was spread across so many players, it became spread too thin.
Therefore... if they truly wanted to achieve something, they only needed to concentrate their power on a single task, and the force they could wield would likely become incredibly formidable.
Having reached this conclusion, I didn't hesitate any longer and headed to the lower levels of the hotel.
Now that I had a general understanding of the transcendent energy fluctuations of these pixels, I updated the Ley Line Identification Art with a special tag for this power.
But when I synchronized this with the Ley Line distribution map of the entire hotel, I was stunned... The entire hotel was riddled with these Transcendent Pixel fluctuations!
Ley Line information didn't lie... It seemed those players hadn't been idle at all over the past two days.
Furthermore, I saw massive concentrations of these energy fluctuations in specific areas of the hotel. If I marked each pixel the size of the one I just tested as a red dot, these areas were so densely packed they looked purple!
After careful differentiation, I realized these locations were mostly the hotel's storerooms, warehouses, and the independent power distribution rooms on each floor.
There were also some small meeting rooms that hadn't been used in a long time, and abandoned offices being used as storage...
"What are they trying to do?" I muttered, frowning.
They couldn't possibly be planting bombs to blow the whole hotel sky-high, could they?
Regardless, the truth would come to light once I took a look.
I checked the player I had marked. He was wandering through the hotel, his route partially overlapping with the red-zoned areas. He was likely inspecting the installations.
"I'll come kill you in a bit," I sighed softly.
To avoid alerting them, I stepped out of the stairwell and headed toward the nearest marked area.
When I arrived, it was clear that this was not a place guests were meant to be.
I sensed the surroundings, bypassed a few scattered staff members and cameras, and easily reached the location. No wonder the players chose this spot; it was incredibly easy to slip into.
Pushing the door open gently, I entered a room that looked like a staff utility closet. The space was quite large, and judging by the dust on the floor, no one had been here for a while.
It was surprising that a hotel so glamorous on the outside would have such poorly planned functional zones on the inside, leaving areas like this abandoned.
"Strange, nothing seems out of the ordinary..." In the pitch-black room, I flipped on the light and scanned the area, eventually spotting footprints in the dust.
"There it is..."
Following the footprints, I locked onto a direction. To the naked eye, there truly seemed to be nothing there, but with my Spirit Vision and Ley Line Identification Art, how could such a trick hide from me?
I reached out and touched a film-like substance in the air. It seemed to be a pseudo-visual 3D image composed of pixels.
Once I peeled back this "veil," the players' preparations were laid bare before me.
It was a... pixel creation that took up nearly an entire wall?
No, the pixels didn't seem to be the main body. The main body was encased within the pixels, and the surrounding pixels... looked more like a form of energy erosion.
I picked up a pixel block near my foot, and a small pit appeared in the floor. The composition of these pixels seemed to be the very material of the floor itself. This was... Matter Assimilation!
I quickly cross-referenced the architectural imaging from the Ley Line data and updated the current information...
I realized this erosion was gradually replacing the hotel's structure.
I brushed aside the pixels, revealing the core causing the erosion in this small area, but I found I couldn't remove it.
If I used brute force, I probably could, but it would inevitably cause a significant disturbance—it wasn't worth it.
And even if I could clear this one area, how would I clear the entire hotel?
I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.
I suddenly realized I had made a mistake. This hotel didn't belong to me; why was I instinctively worrying on their behalf?
Were the players a threat to the Main World?
Perhaps, because they could cause horrific harm to society.
But most things in this world could be categorized into two types: "None of your business" and "None of my business."
I pondered my motivation. What had driven me to leave the soft bed of my suite, dodge the staff, and come all the way here just to find this massive headache?
Was it curiosity about the unknown? Was it the amusement of being at a higher level of cognition yet choosing to enter the fray to watch the chaos up close? Or was it something else?
It seemed to be a bit of everything.
Now that a corner of the truth had been revealed, I didn't have much patience left to play along with them.
The simplest solution was... to kill a player. That should give me the general gist of their layout.
I looked at the wandering player marked on the Ley Line map. Heh, you'll do.
Having made my decision, I headed straight for that location. Instinctively, the Book in the Box appeared in my hand.
* * *
Meanwhile.
The player with the appearance of a middle-aged man, wandering between floors, suddenly received a message.
"What? Dammit... didn't you say that Calamity Witch has been behaving herself for the past two days? How did she suddenly discover our setup?"
"I don't know. She had no warning, her movements were targeted. She already dismantled an interference module we placed on the stairwell camera and is now heading straight for one of our utility room setups."
The voice of another player, responsible for data and visual monitoring, crackled in his ear.
"Then what do we do? Don't you guys have a contingency plan for her?"
"We do... wait, that girl..."
"What now? Speak up!" the middle-aged man snapped.
"She didn't destroy the setup. She might have left for some other reason. Regardless, prepare for the worst. If she tells the hotel management, we're in deep trouble."
"By the way, how much longer do we have to stall? The auction is about to start, and the protagonists are mostly all here. There's no need to wait for the small fry who haven't arrived yet, right?"
"Do you think launching an operation like this is easy? We need the Terminal of Myriad Worlds to cooperate. To that end, the Game Architects issued emergency maintenance notices for several other game worlds just to divert terminal resources to ensure this mission's success. Can't you guys just stall a little longer?"
"Tch—if you're so capable, why don't you do it? You're just sitting in a suite doing nothing. Must be nice."
"It's a clear division of labor. I have the technical skills you don't, so I get the easy life... Wait! No! Something's wrong!"
"What is it now? Stop jumping at shadows and tell me!"
"The Calamity Witch's direction is wrong. She's heading right for you!"
"Wait, seriously? Could it be a coincidence?" the middle-aged player asked.
"Get out of there, now! Change floors and see."
Receiving the warning, he didn't dare delay. He ducked around a corner and into the elevator lobby to change floors.
Inside the elevator, the cramped space was silent save for the faint hum of the machinery. Only his pounding heart betrayed his nervousness.
"Which floor did you press? She stopped at the eighth floor. She's heading for the elevators!"
"The 8th... wait, what?"
"Change floors! Fast! Fast!"
The player frantically hit a different button. Now he was certain—he was being hunted!
"Dammit... she's moving again. You're being tracked in real-time! You idiot! Did she notice you when you ran into her earlier?"
"How should I know! I only caught a glimpse of her back then, and she didn't even look at me!"
"Quickly check yourself for any marking spells she might have left on you! And... don't come to my floor! If you're going to die, don't take me with you. I'm going to warn the others."
"Hey! Hey! What am I supposed to do next? I put so much effort into this plan, and you're just going to abandon me?"
"We acknowledge your value. Just stall the Calamity Witch for now. Stay alive! Remember the contingency plan I mentioned for special situations? Wait for my command! If you can, head for the roof."
"Hey! Hey! Dammit, he cut the feed? How long am I supposed to stall her? I've only got one life! This middle-aged body is full of health problems, how the hell am I supposed to stall her?"