Player Reload

"Five hundred, five hundred Level 40..."

In the car leaving the city, Don Juan was muttering under his breath like a possessed woman counting her fingers.

According to the conditions agreed upon by the Matrix, Execution Committee, and players, the players are dispatched to investigate the cause of the earthquake,

whether the investigation succeeds or not, the Execution Committee will pay Tiberium Crystals corresponding to the number of players, allowing players to ascend to the Upper Realm and receive the second stage reward of the "Song of Kings".

But now, it’s not about the rewards; everyone’s heads are filled with that terrifying number, 500.

"We know the situation is serious, can you stop repeating it?"

Said Mei Wenyi, squeezed in the corner with resignation—a SUV originally used by everyone had been replaced by an armored vehicle sponsored by the Civil Engineering Castle, covered with woven metal nets and various amulets, reportedly able to shield against Spiritual Body attacks.

"You don’t understand."

Don Juan shook his head, speaking solemnly: "Some Level 40 players, without any prefixes or limitations, possess strength equivalent to large-scale nuclear bombs.

Capable of easily destroying an entire city like knocking down a sandcastle.

Moreover, adding the speed, foresight, endurance, survival, or simply the ability to cling to life at Level 40, even if a nuclear weapon were detonated right beside them, it might not be able to kill them.

Five hundred Level 40 players could plow through the surface of the planet."

The compartment was silent for a moment, Divine Era Rain asked softly, "Could it be that the Matrix is mistaken? It’s not the Killing Field players’ presence but the native gods of the land?"

"The probability is low."

Maxwell shook his head, saying, "For high-level Transcendents to reach Supreme, three elements are needed.

Continuously completing punishment difficulty tasks without dying;

Having a large Pocket Space of their own;

A complete, diverse, complementary, and self-cultivating strength system;

Pocket Space, Domain, Divine Country—these three things are sometimes the same, and sometimes not equal.

The Matrix is a meticulous person; if he says it’s a Level 40 Divine Country, then it must be the Killing Field players, not native gods."

"Maxwell is right."

Gray Rain, still seated in the front passenger seat playing with his phone, said without turning his head: "There is a subtle difference between Divine Country and Domain, specifically reflected in the flow of spiritual energy and spatial structure.

I suggest you read the January issue of ’Supernatural’ journal and the paper ’Cross-Plane Linkage of Divine Country Ether Diagram and Geometric Configuration: First Observation Results of ETAF-Sync Analyzer’,

published by the Constantine XI team of the Evil Science Alliance. ETAF-Sync refers to the External Plane Topology-Ether Field Sync Analyzer."

"..."

Maxwell and others were astounded, Gouchen also froze on the spot.

In casual forum posts and impressions from several others, Pifu’s nanotechnology magic pet was known to have a cultural level synchronized with middle schoolers,

requiring a calculator even for basic addition and subtraction below a hundred at the Star-casting Anvil accounting.

When did he become so intelligent?

Hmm...actually, Gray Rain didn’t need to use his brain; all he had to do was wear the ’Crown of All Machines’ and give a command, computers and phones would automatically search for information.

When necessary, he could even exercise subjective initiative, writing hacker programs himself to hack into the Pentagon and Special Service Bureau to steal secrets.

During the casual chat, the armored vehicle left the castle, passing through an abandoned tunnel-shaped space rift, reaching the next space.

Rumble—

The wheels ran over puddled water by the roadside and slowly came to a halt. Everyone clearly saw the city skyline formed by skyscrapers through the car windows.

"Tokyo,"

Maxwell’s brow furrowed slightly, "To be exact, Tokyo during the bubble economy period."

There was no sunlight or moonlight in the sky, replaced by flickering neon lights in the deserted city.

The street was parked with numerous Toyota Crown taxis, interspersed with Ferrari F40, Nissan GT-R, and Lamborghini Countach sports cars,

and on both sides, the commercial streets housed brand new shops from Chanel, Fendi, Ferragamo, and Gucci.

Outside the cinemas, posters for ’Akira’, ’My Neighbor Totoro’, and ’Grave of the Fireflies’ were plastered.

"..."

Divine Era Rain pushed open the car door and stepped down, squinting her eyes as she surveyed the surroundings.

Born after the millennium, she felt nothing towards the extravagant bubble economy era, but rather hated how the older generation’s indulgent consumption dragged society into the economic stagnation abyss.

"Tokyo Tower shouldn’t be there."

She pointed towards the distant high tower, "The location is wrong."

Dylan, seated in the back row, spoke timely: "This is the ’Folded City’ area, the entire space composed of Japan Tokyo from 1988.

It’s divided into 1.34 million square kilometers into 294 squares, with squares moving back and forth like a level seven magic cube..."

Before the words fell, the ground under everyone’s feet began vibrating violently.

Gravity subtly changed, and cars parked on the road without the handbrake slowly slid along,

Hundred-meter-tall buildings, due to greater angular velocity, cut through the air at high speed, emitting a chiming wind noise.

Boom!

The vibration stopped, and sure enough, the distant city skyline switched changes. Yet the light between the buildings wonderfully remained bright, not extinguished due to broken electrical wires.

Dylan also got off the vehicle, dispatched by Zhu Xiansong to assist Otherworld travelers. Since it was a cooperation, Li Cheng helped him along with other members of an expedition team in machine dog form to regain their human bodies.

(When Li Cheng took out human organs from the low-temperature portable organ transport box, all other players silently watched with eyes expressing "The Star-casting Anvil is indeed a Myanmar Black Shop")

"The quickest way to find out the reason for the recent earthquakes is to directly ask the Feather People and Snake-man Tribe. They entered the Broken Land earlier than the Execution Committee and have unique technology trees."

Dylan explained, "To get to the Snake-man Territory, using the Folded City is the quickest path.

You only need to wait 24 hours—the Folded City rotates every 3 minutes, and in a maximum of 24 hours all blocks will be restored to their original positions, then it falls into a 5-hour standstill.

During the standstill, we can pass through the city and go to the Snake-man Tribe through the rift located on the other end in Chiba Prefecture."

Three minutes passed, and the surface began to vibrate again, but this time it was not the block underfoot, but rather an entire street district approximately seven kilometers away, rotating to the right.

Including the drone that Maxwell had sent out, it too rotated with the surrounding space, falling out of signal range.

"The rotation is of the surface buildings, along with the space above them. In other words, even if we’re flying over in a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter, we’d still be carried along in the rotation."

Maxwell closed his eyes in thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, "24 hours is too long; changes occur over time. I suggest we force our way through directly."

"That’s not realistic, is it?"

Gouchen hesitated, "First, you don’t know where the block in Chiba Prefecture is,

Second, the Folded City is a six-faced Magic Cube structure, with blocks constantly changing. Even if you run as far as possible within 3 minutes, one rotation would return you to the original point, or even farther from the goal."

"The key issue lies within the crux of the problem."

With full confidence, Maxwell raised his right hand, and the electromagnetic module in the palm of his glove buzzed, driving the dragonfly drone to penetrate the window of the roadside audio-visual bookstore,

and among the shelves of albums by Akina Nakamori and Miyuki Nakajima, he found a map of Tokyo and brought it out.

He spread out the map, tore it into strips, folded them, and assembled them into the shape of a seven-level Magic Cube, then said, "According to Dylan’s account, and Zhu Youdong’s notes,

the Folded City rotates each district once every 3 minutes, and restores to their original positions in a maximum of 24 hours.

If viewed as a six-faced seven-level Magic Cube, it needs about 480 rotations to restore the cube.

The basic principles of a three-level Magic Cube are quite similar: restore the first layer’s edge blocks → first layer’s corner blocks → middle layer’s edge blocks → third layer’s edge blocks → third layer’s corner blocks.

From levels four to seven, through the reduction method, first handle the center blocks, merge the edge blocks, then simplify to three-level. Use the three-level Magic Cube recovery method for quick restoration.

rotations happen to match the estimated step range using the reduction method.

Thus, merely capturing nearby blocks and comparing them to the map, after seven to eight rounds, the Magic Cube shape of Tokyo’s map can be pieced together.

Further estimating at which stage the Magic Cube restoration stands, moving forward, prediction of how the Magic Cube will rotate—I have this calculation power.

13,400 square kilometers, divided by 294, approximately 45 square kilometers with a side length of 6,700 meters. Three minutes is enough for us to run multiple squares away.

Thus, no need to wait 24 hours in place, within topmost an hour, we will quickly cross between squares, reaching Chiba Prefecture."

The scene fell into a brief silence, Dylan widened his eyes and exclaimed, "This... this... you’re truly a genius!"

Clap clap clap.

Don Juan, Mei Wenyi and others applauded sincerely, "Worthy of being the brains of the Prometheus Strategy Group."

"No, no, no."

Maxwell waved his hand, with a hard-to-hide smile at the corner of his mouth.

Despite being praised all his life, receiving compliments from a Level 30 Extraordinary Strongman, he couldn’t help but feel excited — perhaps only at this time does he show feelings that match his biological age.

"Hmm? Pifu?"

Maxwell snapped back to reality, only to see Pifu and Gray Rain whispering discreetly in a corner at some point.

"What are you two doing?"

"We have an emergency and need to leave for a while."

Li Cheng tossed over the car key, shrugged, "You guys go first, anyway the final destination has already been confirmed to be Chiba Prefecture, we will catch up later and find you."

"...Huh?"

Maxwell and Gouchen exchanged glances, not to mention the group of Level 40 manipulators behind Four Realms Mountain, nor is the bottom level Broken Land of Four Realms Mountain a safe place,

There are plenty of anomalies at the same level as the Hephaestus Tree-man, filled with malice towards intelligent life.

Don Juan chose his words, hesitantly asked, "May I ask what you two are going to do?"

Li Cheng looked serious, "Egg-changing season."

Gray Rain nodded, "Biological period."

"Forgot to turn off the gas at home."

"Going to collect clothes since it’s raining."

"A good friend asked me to conquer the sand together."

"High-priced delivery must be signed in person."

Li Cheng and Gray Rain, one after another offered excuses, torn to the point they mentioned helping Sister Wang’s neighbor’s son fill out college applications.

"Stop, stop."

Don Juan gestured in annoyance, firstly this isn’t a team cooperative task, there’s no responsibility or obligation among us,

Secondly, to be honest, none of them could rival Pifu.

"In that case, see you at the Snake-man Tribe settlement?"

"Yes, see you then."

Li Cheng waved his hand, and with Gray Rain, boarded the Edge Fighter, skimming the ground as they departed from the place.

As large chunks of land rotated simultaneously, the distance immediately stretched apart, Li Cheng opened the automated warehouse, gravely asking the Great Swarm, "Are you sure?"

"No mistake, my lord."

The electronic eyes of the Mechanical Swarm flickered red, "I smell it, the scent of a fellow Divine Abomination Follower.

That’s my sister, Zongsi."