: Island of Devil’s Maw (24)
“Hmph… Your name precedes you…” The Spirit of Mimicry chuckled coldly as he replied, “…Feng Bujue.”
“Ha ha… You flatter me…” Brother Jue accepted the praise with a smile.
“Why are you wasting time with this thing?” Atobe cut in. “Furthermore… it was Uncle Worthless who exposed it, right?! What you did was merely to add on a few words!”
“Hmm… Now that you mention it, I am a bit curious myself. Brother Worthless, how did you manage to see through its disguise?” Feng Bujue turned his head to address Uncle Worthless. “Even though I have noticed some strange behaviour about this version of Pegasus but before you moved forward to strangle his neck, I really did not imagine we would be in the presence of a fake Pegasus.”
“Actually, it was almost the same for me. At first, I only thought this Pegasus was acting a bit too strangely but I never did suspect that he was a fake.” When Uncle Worthless explained, his hand that strangled the Spirit of Mimicry’s neck did not loosen for one bit. “Until… this thing assumed the pose for Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken.”
“What?” Feng Bujue was startled when he heard that. A series of images was pulled from his memory. Two seconds later, it dawned on him. And the man said with clairvoyance. “Oh… The pose was not right.”
“Ha? It was because of something like that?” Atobe continued in surprise.
“Yes, it was exactly because of that reason.” Uncle Worthless continued. “During the Tournament of the Best, I have seen more than my fair share of Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken. The actual posture Pegasus assumed when he used the skill was slightly different from the pose assumed by this Spirit of Mimicry… The real Pegasus, no matter the circumstance, whenever he wants to use that skill, he would always have his left hand above his right and the left hand will be raised above the top of his hand…”
“Hmm, and the angle of his two legs being bent. It was the right leg that would be at the back and the left leg would be more obviously bent.” Feng Bujue added in terms of explanation.
“Furthermore… it was more than the issue with the posture.” As Uncle Worthless continued, the eyes underneath the sunglasses refocused on the face of the Spirit of Mimicry. “Pegasus’ Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken is a unique skill. Even if you search through the entire game, you will not find a second person who would able to copy its spirit.”
…
“Hey, hey… isn’t it just a skill? As long as someone has it equipped, it should not matter who is using it, right?” Atobe did not sound like he believed this.
“Of course, it does matter… And you call yourself a professional player. You did not even notice a detail like this?” Feng Bujue shook his head lightly with a sigh as he patted Atobe on his shoulder and he continued to explain, “Most of the attack skill inside Thriller Paradise did not have an actual damage counter… this is an obvious hidden setting.” He paused before continuing, “Skill that might look the same would have different effect when used by different person. Even if you have two players with the same level, same mastery and equipment use the same skill, the damage output would be different.”
“Actually, even if it is the same person… the damage output will be different depending on the circumstance that they are in.” Uncle Worthless added. “The smallest action, the adjustment in their breathing, or even just a mental adjustment will affect the final result. Much less the negative influence on the physique and when one is injured.”
“Oh… so there exists something like that.” Atobe had heavily benefited this time. Even if he died the next second, he would have gained something from this scenario. He did not waste the time he had queued for this scenario.
“it might appear that Pegasus only know how to use one skill and the tactic that he employs is simple and direct.” Uncle Worthless continued to say, “But in reality… the devil is in the details. His Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken can be considered one of the most powerful ultimate in the game. The man’s mastery of this skill has reached the level of godliness. From the damage of level D to level A, the damage that he can output can be adjusted depending on the man’s intention.”
“No wonder… when I was fighting this guy, I had a feeling his punches were getting stronger and stronger…” Ambitionist pushed on his glasses and said contemplatively to himself. “So you will be able to do something like this after you have used a skill for so many times?”
“Actually you do not need to place so much store by it… We will not able to copy what the man is able to do anyway.” Uncle Worthless’ gaze changed slightly. “Everyone has their own unique ability… in terms of talent, Pegasus might not be that gifted, in terms of intelligence, he is definitely not as clever as the few of you. From the perspective of a professional player, he is definitely not a genius player because all he ever depended on is his hard work, his instinct and that bit of luck.” He laughed. “But somehow he managed to snatch the first place at the Tournament for the Best and effectively defeated all of us in ranking. Hah… that is something that no one else is able to copy.”
“Hold on a second!” The Spirit of Mimicry chose this moment to scream and interrupt (Even with the strangehold on his neck, it was able to speak freely, the state where it appeared like its breath was being cut off was merely a part of its disguise). “Since the moment you people landed on this island, I have been quietly following and observing all of your behaviour and mannerism. If you speak of posture… the pose that I assumed was hundred percent similar to the one Pegasus himself assumed in the Mocking Forest! Where is the difference. My left arm is above my right and the right leg is slightly…”
“The angle of the body’s movement and the trajectory of the limbs’ movement were not the same at all.” Feng Bujue interrupted. “It is just like two gymnasts doing the same set of routine, if you look closely enough, even an outsider who has no experience in the field will be able to tell the difference.” He shrugged. “Of course… Even I failed to see through your disguise.” He pointed at Uncle Worthless. “it was him… who managed to expose you for who you really were at the first notice and initiated an offensive strategy immediately. I was merely riding on his coattail. If anything, you have been defeated by Uncle Worthless ability to make decision in a short moment and his extremely sharp eye.” That was not a lie. If not for Uncle Worthless’ firm decision, the Spirit of Mimicry would not be exposed so soon. Even for Brother Jue and Ambitionist, they would need to collect more clues or encounter some other events, before they could have the chance to see through the spirit’s disguise.
“Fine… at this point, I can only accept this result that is handed to me.” The Soul of Mimicry appeared to have surrendered. “You guys have done well. This is the first time… my disguise is exposed within such a short amount of time.” It paused for a moment, “Now, can you please put me down so we can talk?”
“That depends.” Uncle Worthless said darkly. At the same time, the force on his stranglehold tightened further.
“Do not worry, I will not resist or attack. Honestly, I do not I will be able to win you all in a fight anyway.” The Spirit of Mimicry admitted easily.
“Then, what if you decide to run away?” Brother Jue asked.
“Hmph… If I do want to run away, I would have left already and none of you will be able to stop me.” The Spirit of Mimicry turned to speak to Brother Jue. “You have met my kindred before so you should know about our special ability.”
Brother Jue gave it some thought and then asked probingly, “Aldan?”
“Yes, that’s the one.” The spirit of Mimicry replied. “Even though our special power are slightly different, but I am capable of something as simple as teleportation.” Feng Bujue did not say anything else. He took half a step forward and tossed a look at Uncle Worthless. Uncle Worthless nodded and then released his grip instantly. Once the Spirit of Mimicry fell to the ground, it rubbed its neck and pretended to catch its breath as it asked. “Well then… How about a deal, travellers from another world?”
Feng Bujue cut right to the chase. “Speak, what do you want?”
The Spirit of Mimicry replied with a laugh. “Hue Hue, I only have two requests…” its eyes scanned the players’ faces. “One, I wish to have a treasure from you…” At this point, the system very kindly provided an extra explanation by announcing in the players’ ears, (the treasure in question has to be an object above the excellent quality and it is something that is obtained in this scenario), “Anything works, as long as it is something that possesses magical power.”
Its first request for not exactly for itself but was to help The Sealing Hand recover to its original state. The Spirit of Mimicry required a magical object from a ‘different world’ to come the spell that would be used to save its comrade.
“And… for the second request…” The Spirit of Mimicry continued, “I wish to listen to a ghost story. Anyone of you could be the story teller but it will have to be scary enough.” And this request was merely to satisfy its own desire…
When he heard that, Uncle Worthless instantly turned to his three other teammates and said calmly, “We should just kill it.”
“Hey!” The Spirit of Mimicry shouted out loud.
“No need to rush.” Feng Bujue said, “We should listen for it to finish first…” He paused for a second. “… Then we can perhaps decide to kill I t.”
As an NPC, the amount of pressure the Soul of Mimicry was under was enormous but it understood that it was its responsibility to finish all the dialogue. “Hm hmph… As long as you can satisfy my request, naturally I will provide you with the necessary compensation. There are three things that I can do for you but you can only choose one of them as a reward…” At this point, it paused for a moment before resuming, “These three things are respectively… One, give you Pegasus’ location and help you open the path that will lead you further down to the next level; two, directly transport the four of you to the bottom of this shrine, before the altar; three, teleport Pegasus instantly to this place.” When it was done, it grinned wickedly. “of course, you can reject my deal freely. In that case, I will leave instantly and well, I am sure you can look after yourself on your own at this place…”
“Hmm… we need to discuss among ourselves before we come to any decision.” Ambitionist replied.
“Go ahead.” The soul of mimicry extended its hand and made a gesture that said ‘please’. Feng Bujue was not worried that thing would escape. He instantly waved his hand for his teammates to gather. Therefore, the group came to his side of the stone room and started to have a low discussion among themselves.
“I feel like this is a conspiracy behind this somehow…” Atobe was the first to voice his opinion. “Since the thing already said it could teleport away at any time, then why did it stop to talk condition with us? Wouldn’t it be easier for it to just disappear and teleport away?”
“No, actually I think what it is doing is very reasonable.” Feng Bujue denied the suspicion. “I have indeed met a spirit from the same race as this one, even though the two had slightly different appearance but undeniably they are the same kind of lifeform.” He explained. “The one that I encountered earlier did know how to teleport and more than that, it can teleport while carrying another person. And the key thing is… that other fella has a penchant to listen to ghost story as well.”
Ambitionist added, “From how I see it… it is not that complicated. To put it plainly, we are faced with a plot choice. After Brother Worthless exposed this NPC’s disguise, the plot event has been triggered.” He paused slightly for a second before adding, “Actually the trade that it offered is quite fair. As long as we hand over an excellent quality item and tell a story that technically does not cost us anything, we should be able to get one of the three rewards.”
“I also agree that we should go for the deal.” Uncle Worthless concurred. “But the problem becomes… which of the reward shall we choose?”
“How about the first?” Atobe added quickly, “If we pick the second one, doesn’t that mean we would leave Pegasus behind? And for the third choice… even though we can meet up with Pegasus immediately but we would have ended up at where we started.”
“Wrong.” Suddenly Brother Jue used a confident tone to announce this ‘wrong’.
“Hah?” The Ambitionist next to him was the first to get confused. “How is that wrong? Atobe’s analysis is quite logical and reasonable.”
“Is it?” Feng Bujue said. “Then I want to ask… after you have found out about Pegasus’ location, what will you do with that information?”
“Of course, we will go and fetch him.” Atobe replied.
“Do you know the map of this shrine? Or you recognize the routes within this shrine?”
“Erm…”
Feng Bujue used two questions to stump the man but he was not yet done. “Even if you really do have the entire map for the shrine, how can you guarantee that Pegasus will stay at one point and wait for us to go and fetch him?”
“Wait a minute…” Atobe countered. “Then how can you be sure that Pegasus is inside this shrine at this moment? Perhaps he is stranded at other part of this island…”
“Impossible.” Feng Bujue cut him off. “If he is not within the shrine at this moment, wouldn’t the system have already announced that he has been eliminated by now?”
“Erm… Something is not right!” Atobe said again, “The five of us entered the shrine together. When we moved through the door, Pegasus was not the first in the group nor was he the last. He has not left our line of sight, so when would the Spirit of Mimicry have the chance to replace him?”
“That is because he has already been replaced when we were outside the shrine.” Feng Bujue answered calmly.
“Then why did you say earlier that he has to be inside the shrine at this moment?” Atobe was already confused.
“if you think deeper about it, you will be able to see it… there is only one chance when the switch could have happened…” Feng Bujue explained. “It was when the four of you were turned into shadows on the ground and when I have not returned to join the rest of the team. That was the only window of opening.” He glanced at the Spirit of mimicry at the opposite end of the stone room. “It must have cooperated with the Sealing Hand to achieve the switch during that time.” He paused before continuing. “The method is actually very simple. The Sealing Hand first released Pegasus from the seal and then the Spirit of Mimicry would instantly capture Pegasus and teleported him away to place him somewhere inside this shrine. Then it would teleport back and use its transformation power to mimic one of the shadows on the ground…”
At this point, Brother Jue scoffed coldly. “Hmph… now that I think about this, this group of guardians is much smarter than I give them credit for… They have already considered the possibility that the Sealing Hand might lose to me, however low that possibility may be. And they have prepared accordingly to deal with that contingency…”
Now, Ambitionist asked, “So what you are saying is… we should choose the third reward?”
“If I am not wrong, I have a feeling the third choice is a dead end….” Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes. “No, to be more precise, it will lead to a group wipe… After we select it, the chance of the five of us dying while trapped in this stone room is very high.”
“So… the second choice is the best one?” Uncle Worthless asked.
“Of course.” Feng Bujue said in a matter of fact tone. “Do you still remember what happened when we completed the first main mission?” before he waited for his teammates to answer, he continued, “The moment we reached our destination, the time limit on the players was removed instantly and the mission was viewed as ‘completed’. And the next mission would have to wait for the timer for the previous mission to finish and then allow for a period of buffering before it can be triggered.
“In other words… by choosing the second choice, the four of us will immediately complete the imminent main mission and the threat of the time limit that currently looms over us will be taken away. Even if the countdown ended, and neither of us is at the altar, we will not face the danger of elimination because our mission would have ‘already been completed’. Under that premise, we only need to assign one person to wait at the altar and the others can go around and explore the shrine to look for Pegasus without any worry.
“The worst outcome of that scenario would be… we still fail to find him after 2 hours and he is unable to reach the altar on his own. If that really happens, we will only lose one member, the rest of us can still retrace our steps back to the altar at the bottom of the shrine and continue with the quest.”
Feng Bujue finished all that in one go, but he was not close to being done. He changed his breath and resumed. “In comparison, it will appear so unreasonable for us to pick the first reward, doesn’t it? Both options place us in the position of finding a possibly moving target in an unknown environment, in that case, why not choose the premise that would have ensured our own safety first?
“Other than that, we must not forget to see this problem from Pegasus’ perspective. He would have entered this Shrine of Faith earlier than we did but the timing he received the announcement for the initiation of the second main quest would be the same as we did. When he received the new quest, and took a look at the team tab, he would come to this easy conclusion—the four of us have safely reached the Shrine of Faith and none of us have been eliminated. At that moment, no matter where he was, he would immediately start to move downwards because he understood that instead of finding his teammates aimlessly in this labyrinthine place, why not meet up with us at the destination? Matter of fact… perhaps he is already close to the altar at this moment.
“If we have chosen the third reward… even if we did not cause a team wipe, we would have wasted Pegasus’ effort. And then it would lead back to what Atobe had mentioned earlier, we would have ended back in the awkward situation of ‘the five of us being stuck inside an enclosed room’.”
After what Feng Bujue had delivered, it could be said that his teammates were given an epiphany. After a few more discussions among themselves, the four soon came to a consensus. They swiftly returned to the Spirit of Mimicry and surrounded the spirit like a group of ruffians harassing a poor woman…
“We have already finished our discussion, we will choose the second reward that you’d offer.” Feng Bujue was the one who said.
“Oh?” The Spirit of Mimicry’s tone belied some surprise, but it soon took on a sarcastic tone instead, “Hmph… so you have ultimately chosen to abandon your teammate, bunch of heartless goons.”
“The treasure that you want.” Feng Bujue ignored the jab and took out Mario’s Wrench from his inventory. He handed it over to the Spirit of Mimicry. “Take it.”
This wrench that had been used by Brother Jue as his main close quarter combat weapon was finally going to leave his side. As his level and ability continued to improve, this weapon had started to lose its effectiveness. In terms of close quarter combat, Feng Bujue now could deliver higher damage with his bare fists. On top of that, he had the ultimate weapon in the perfect quality weapon, Defense-Break Cleaver.
In terms of usability, a WJQ-308 Military Shovel would fulfil all the uses of any tool, and that naturally included the functionality of a wrench as well. Furthermore, when the new version updated. Mario’s Wrench had become a bound equipment, so it could not be sold at the Auction House even if Feng Bujue wanted to.
Brother Jue was already prepared to have this equipment leave the stage and the pages. The only hesitation that he had left was due to sentimental value that was attached to this wrench (This was the first excellent quality equipment that he had drawn from the extra reward). But this appeared to be the perfect timing. Instead of feeding this weapon to the Magical Disintegrator, why not use it here as a contribution to the team.
“Hmph… Then I shall take it. Thank you.” The Spirit of Mimicry accepted the wrench, proceeded to slide it into its chest and stored it inside its body.
“And now… please enjoy my ghost story.” Feng Bujue continued to say.
…
“It was an early summer night, six high school students ventured into the mountain at the back of their school. The group consisted of all males, their names were respectively: Lee Bin, Jia Ming, Hu Sheng, Zhao Guan, Wang Xiaowen and Wang Xiaowu.
“The day was the third day after the end of the final exam. Even though everything was an unknown before the final result was announced, it did not get into the way of the wild party that they were going to have for the rest of the month. And the party that they had prepared for that night was… to have barbeque party, using all of their textbook as fuel to create a bonfire.
“Perhaps that might sound preposterous to you but for them, this was the best idea that they had ever come up with. The six had already decided on this plan on the second day after the final. They chose the mountain at the back of the mountain as their meeting spot and decided to meet up at nine 9 pm.