Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 799: Didn’t Ai-chan plagiarize?
【Chaos opens up, everything is created, infinite and infinite light interweave, thus constructing a miraculous world. However, the emotions of living beings are varied, and the forms of the world are infinitely derived. Will the world you see and the future she pursues have the same destination? If not, the straight road diverges here, and the extension of ideas is like branches, leading hundreds of thousands of ideals to different directions. When everyone insists on his own path and everyone is firm in his own beliefs, the conflict between enlightenment and enlightenment may be inevitable. Now that things have come to this, what should we do? 】

【The only way to decide the winner is through a duel.】

【Do you want to imitate the gladiators in the ancient Colosseum and compete with swords and martial arts? That's too rude. Do you want to follow the traditional aristocratic etiquette and throw out white gloves to add footnotes to the interweaving of swords and muskets? It's just a battle of wills. Beliefs, ideals, times, future, and each other's consciousness... If you want to entrust everything to this duel, then you can only bet your soul and go back to the era of chaos, and show your beliefs and glory to your opponent with the purest essence. 】

【Come on, enthusiastic duelists, the magnificent stage is ready for you. The lights of the entire city will focus on you. Every pair of eyes will pursue the ideal direction, and cheer and applaud for every heart-stirring confrontation! At this moment, right here, in this most ancient and chaotic arena since the creation of all things, perform your duel without regrets for all the creatures since the creation of the world! 】

[Welcome to: Chaos Arena—Lunwitting City Bridge Indosis]

Rumbling--

The huge bridge cast from concrete and steel broke in the middle and slowly rose up, stirring up the water of the River Tywell like a raging wave, almost submerging both sides of the river. The steamboat cruising on the river was pushed away like a leaf in the waves, and the airship hovering in the night sky had to raise its altitude to avoid the rising bridge, disappearing into the clouds. Click! With the crisp sound of gears biting, the rising bridge was fixed after reaching the maximum height, facing each other on the left and right, like the two arms of a giant looking at each other from a distance, and the wide surface of the River Tywell in the middle was the duel venue reserved for the two sides. Beams of light came down from nowhere, and strong and dazzling incandescent light gathered here from all directions, as if all the lights of the entire city were gathered here. Lunweiting was plunged into darkness, and only here was as bright as day. One could almost see a huge shadow flashing in the gradually calming river, as if a giant beast from another world was lurking under the water, waiting for the duel to begin.

All obstacles have been removed, and all the audience have been invited to sit in distant seats. They have no ability to intervene except to watch. Everything is ready, so the next step is to welcome the two duelists to the stage.

On the top of the broken bridge on the left, the broken bridge surface extends into a dark rock platform. A tall and calm figure slowly walks out of the light. The incandescent light fades layer by layer like a gorgeous dress, gradually outlining the girl with black hair and black dress. She has an ordinary but impressive face, and a slightly upturned smile at the corners of her mouth, always with a kind and friendly temperament. She is looking at the surrounding scene with interest, and seems to be very curious about the environment she is in.

At the top of the broken bridge on the right, the broken bridge deck also extended out, but formed a group of erratic gray mist that seemed to be changing shape. Some of these mists gathered together like faded ink blocks, and then piled up and rose like waves, quickly condensing into the outline of a human figure, and depicting an elegant and delicate silhouette of a girl. The next moment, the girl raised her hand and snapped her fingers lightly, and thousands of ink blocks instantly flew away, revealing a gray-haired girl wearing a gorgeous dress and elegant appearance. She stood on this group of mist that could not stand no matter how she looked at it, and also looked at the surrounding environment curiously. In addition to curiosity, there was also a hint of doubt.

Tiantis narrowed his eyes slightly, and Gloria saw a hint of danger in them. She knew that her two attempts to spy on the witch society had caused the leader of the society to be wary, but she didn't care. On the contrary, she smiled friendly, as if to say that she didn't have any bad intentions and just did it for fun.

Such a threat still exists even after her reincarnation and when the royal power has not yet fully recovered. Not to mention other things, the fact that the other party sneaked into the society and stole a lot of confidential information is enough to be listed as the most serious leak of information since the establishment of the Witch Society. Even when Solomon defected or the Sleepless Eye Vanos took away some members, the losses caused to the society were not as great as this time. Moreover, there were no clues at all after the investigation, and no suspects were found.

……

At the same time, a bright silver moon slowly rose from the reflection of the river, straight up to the middle of the sky, right in the middle of the two broken bridges, keeping an equal distance from both sides, as if you could touch it with your hand, but it seemed that you could not touch it no matter how hard you tried. Outside the universe and the stars, an awakened ancient will was paying attention to this duel of ideals and beliefs. He was also infected by this emotion, and couldn't help but stretch out the invisible pen that had recorded the opening of chaos and the creation of all things, dipped a little of the bright moonlight as ink, and wrote a row of passionate and flamboyant words on the surface of the silver moon like flames -

The Third Princess did not seem surprised. She smiled and shook her head: "I don't have that ability, Miss Alice."

This threat is not reflected in the power. The "Holy Spirit" of the Goddess of Creation is not known for its power, but if she wants, the damage she can cause is probably no less than a complete constructed mecha. At the beginning, the Goddess of Creation was protected by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it secretly grew up without the knowledge of the Witch Association, so that it finally reached a point where it could not be contained by secular governments. It took Tiantis and the seven witches to personally take action, and sacrifice more than a dozen philosophers and countless soldiers to eradicate it.

"The Duelist of Chaos: Duelist of Chaos".

"Eh, the Kingdom of the Mind?" Although she couldn't see anyone, Alice's voice suddenly rang in Gloria's ears, with great curiosity: "It sounds very powerful, Gloria, can you control other people's thoughts?"

The same was true tonight. If Timeis had not accepted Professor Heinrich's invitation and accidentally prevented the invaders from sneaking into the secret study, a lot of information including the actual plan would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, creating more obstacles for the association's great cause.

"That's true, but her ability is much more powerful than manipulating minds, and much more dangerous." The voice of Tiantis came from the broken bridge platform across the river. Even at such a long distance, the leader of the Witch Society seemed to be able to hear the conversation between the two. She fixed her eyes on Gloria from afar, and the curve of her lips was intriguing.

If we can't win over such a huge threat, we can only...

She had just been talking to Linger, Alice and the others, and had not said a word to the Third Princess. The other party seemed to have deliberately reduced her presence, but Tiantis had never ignored her. After all, what happened tonight was caused by her. In addition, there was another more important reason: she was a huge threat to the Witch Society.

But if Tiantis believed it, she would change her name to Alice.

"It's more powerful than controlling thoughts?" Alice's impatient voice came from the Third Princess' mind: "What is it? Tell me quickly, Gloria. We are now on the same boat. Since we are companions, we should trust each other, right?"

Don't casually compare your companions to grasshoppers. Gloria complained in her heart, then smiled and declined Alice's proposal: "Forget it, Miss Alice, now is not the time to say such things, let's get through the current predicament first."

She seemed to have been deliberately hiding things about herself, from not wanting to touch the cassette in the beginning, concealing her identity as the third princess, to avoiding Alice's questions now... Combined with a series of strange things that happened after meeting the girl, Lingge, who also participated in the game as a ghost, has noticed something, but did not say his guess, because Gloria's reason was indeed very legitimate, and right now, nothing was more important than winning the game.

As soon as the game was mentioned, Alice's attention was quickly diverted. She said carelessly, "It's a piece of cake. As long as you listen to the instructions of a genius player like me, you will win the duel! If you don't believe me, let me help you calculate: me, Lingge, Xiaoxia, Ovira, Rolena, Nevi'er, and Leticia... You have seven ghosts behind you! Do you know how terrifying it is to have seven ghosts behind you in a card game?"

Listening to her confident tone, Ling Ge and his companions could almost imagine her patting her chest to make a promise. Gloria didn't understand what the seven spirits behind her meant, but she felt that they were very powerful, so she nodded as if she understood: "Okay, then I'll leave it to you all - but what does the card game mean?"

It was time for Alice to teach the newbies about the game, which she hated the most. Every time, she felt that it was a waste of time. Couldn't she just start killing? However, card games were different from other types of games. The rules were the most important. If Gloria didn't understand the rules first, even with the help of the spirit, the hope of winning the game would still be very slim.

Fortunately, when Alice made the "Duelers of Chaos World" cartridge, she was already a very experienced independent game producer. Therefore, she cleverly set the content related to the game rules as the underlying architecture of the cartridge. As long as the player starts the cartridge, he will automatically obtain this part of the knowledge without her having to explain it.

"So," she said, "the rules of dueling should have appeared in your mind. Think about it carefully. It's not complicated."

Miss Gloria followed her instructions, slowly closed her eyes and concentrated. Sure enough, several rules emerged in her mind one by one, telling her what a duel is, how to duel, the basic elements of a duel, the criteria for winning, etc. Although she said it was not complicated, it was actually a bit complicated. Even someone as smart as the Third Princess of the kingdom would need some time to remember and understand these rules.

Fortunately, her opponent did not urge her, because she was actually trying to understand the duel rules that suddenly appeared in her mind. However, Tiantis had a deep understanding of the knowledge of the earth world, so she accepted this aspect faster than Gloria. When the latter was still thinking about the difference between normal summons and special summons, she slowly opened her eyes with a complicated look: "Card duel, this is really an interesting way of fighting, and it is... fair."

"That's right!" Alice shouted, "This is the game cartridge I developed specifically to deal with you and those witches. So, you're starting to get scared now that you can't crush us with your strength?"

Ever since Linger made that request, Alice has been thinking about what kind of game can close the absolute gap in strength and give them the power to fight against the witch? And this "Dueler in Chaos World" cartridge is her answer. Battle flag games require the type of soldiers, strategy games require resources, action games require physical fitness and reaction ability... They are definitely not as good as the witch in these aspects. Only chess and card games require luck, operation, understanding of the deck, and application of rules. Although there is still no way to completely close the gap, at least it has brought the two sides to a relatively fair level.

Alice doesn't like board games very much, they are too boring... I mean too educational. Although this cartridge was specially developed for witches, the genius player will not give up its playability and fun, so she chose the latter between the two, and partially referred to a popular collectible card game in the world of Earth for the rules.

A one-on-one duel, fair and square, no krypton gold, no krypton life, and even because it is a stand-alone game, it will not be maliciously nerfed by some stupid companies. Is there any fairer duel in the world than this?

Tiantis seemed to think so, so she didn't get angry after being provoked by Alice, but chuckled: "Afraid? No, I never thought so, Miss Alice, I'm just looking forward to it. The first time I experience game magic, I have to fight in such an interesting way to decide the winner. It's a bit like the gladiator fights in the ancient Ain Robedia Empire, but not so cruel; it's a bit like the noble duels that follow the classical tradition, but without so many red tape; its rules emphasize fairness everywhere, but winning actually depends on a bit of luck; if it was born just to decide the winner, I wouldn't give it such a high evaluation, but in fact we can still experience some fun from it... This is really interesting. Who can think of this method? Maybe he is a genius?"

Ah this.

So, you also understand games?

Alice felt a little embarrassed (pretending) after being highly recognized and praised by her enemy. She laughed and said, "Actually, I'm not as good as you say..."

"But there is a flaw," Tiandis frowned slightly, "I don't know if it's an illusion, but the rules of this game are very similar to another card game I've heard of on Earth. It's better to say that they are exactly the same..."

"You're talking nonsense!!!"

As an independent game producer with a conscience and integrity, Ai-chan refuted this ridiculous statement without hesitation: "Obviously only part of it is similar, and it is said to be a reference, not plagiarism!"

"How can the things about genius players and genius players be called plagiarism?"

“Nonsense!!!”

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)