Supremacy Games

'Sorry, I thought it was the right term.' Pualani apologized.

'I still believe that it is correct.' Felix frowned his eyebrows and said, 'Maybe it was faulty since they see it differently in their time?'

'Should we try another term?' Malak asked worriedly, 'I don't know if we are going to activate a trap if we failed multiple times.'

'I think it's best that you guys retreat so you can have time to react in case I activated a trap.' Felix advised.

They nodded their heads and walked tens of meters away from him until they reached the limit of the synchronization between him and Malak.

Now that he was all alone, Felix sat in a mediation position in mid-air and rested his chin on his palm, pondering deeply on the puzzle again. 'Dreams will be reached only if someone did what? Seek should have been the plausible answer. Or should I use another synonym? This will broaden the list of answers immensely.'

'I doubt that the owner of such a magnificent pyramid would require the exact synonym of the term.' Felix scratched his chin, 'I can feel that something is wrong here. Like I am missing a piece of the puzzle.'

Felix always felt that it was a bit weird to have three gates with three riddles. Two of them were traps and the last one hosted the herbal garden.

It just didn't make sense because the one who made those traps and riddles clearly wanted someone intelligent to get access to his stuff.

Maybe, he wanted to pass down his research data to a worthy person who appreciates them but no one managed to find the ruins until everything got decomposed.

If he thought like this, it meant that it was impossible for the three gates to operate on luck like this.

Anyone who solved the three riddles gets a 33% chance to open the real gate and obtain its riches.

Even worse, if someone was able to resist illusions or such, then he actually had 100% to get inside the real garden.

What's the point of the riddles and intelligence tests if it was going to be like this?

'It doesn't make sense at all.'

'Maybe, you are just overthinking it?' Asna shrugged her shoulders.

'Well, let's test it out.' Felix asked, 'Spell strive, worked hard, desired for me in hieroglyphics. I want to test them all.'

'You sure?'

'Yes.' Felix nodded his head and said, 'I doubt that the pirates were that lucky to land exactly on the correct term in their first shot. Since I saw them looting the garden with happy grins, it only meant that they didn't die after failing multiple times.'

His reasoning was good but he knew that it wasn't 100% how it went.

Still, he was willing to take the risk because there was literally no way for his squad to leave this pyramid without advancing forward. 

After Asna spelled those words for him, Felix practiced a bit and began uttering them one by one but giving 30 seconds of intervention between them.

However, no matter how he uttered them or repeated them, the gate refused to budge.

'Told you that this is not the right method to opening it.' Felix confirmed his previous theory by his failures.

'Now what?' Asna snickered, 'There is literally no lead to opening it up.'

Asna was correct. The riddle on the gate was the only method to open it. It was tested and proven correct.

By not focusing on it, it would be the same as walking in the dark.

'You are wrong.' Felix shook his head, 'There is a lead hidden somewhere, I just need to find it and use it to crack the real riddle at hand.'

'Do you, I guess.' Asna yawned in boredom and stopped bothering him.

Felix began searching for clues by rereading the three riddles first, thinking that he might find the real riddle of the gate if he combined their words.

Alas, he spent a couple of minutes, matching this with that yet still didn't come out with an actual solid riddle or a clue in that case.

Not discouraged yet, Felix started looking for the letters of the riddles, believing that if he matched the first letter of each word, he might create a bunch of words then connect them into an answer or a riddle.

Obviously, Asna was the one doing so since he needed to get the answer or the riddle with the hieroglyphics language.

The thought was good but the results were not.

This put him right back at the start.

'Does this means that my approach is wro?'

'Sir Felix! I have just received a report from Samir!' Malak suddenly interrupted him, 'He told us that he got rid of four pirates' spaceships, leaving only 5 on the planet. But, one of them is currently heading in the hole's direction...He estimated that they would fly above the hole in less than 10 minutes!'

'Ten minutes? Why does luck always side with f*cking scum?!' Felix cursed, knowing that it should have been taken those pirates at least two hours to locate the hole!

At this point, not even 15 minutes went by, making him certain that those spaceships were only flying in their direction due to luck!

'Malak, order Momo to try and find the exit from the ventilation system quickly.' Felix hardened his expression, 'We can't use the path that I was preparing since it is in the 3rd treasury and we don't have that much time to go for it.'

'Consider it done.'

'Good, I will be leaving now so I can use my abilities to enhance my thinking process.' Felix said while breaking into light particles, 'I will let you when I will be back.'

The sight of Felix disappearing scared the shit out of everyone as he was their only hope of getting out of here alive.

Thankfully, Malak explained the situation to them and made sure that they don't panic.

People always do stupid shit when they panic.

Meanwhile, Felix was currently sitting in his UVR's room while having electricity course through him.

He was using his lighting quick reflexes to fasten his thought process.

There was a massive improvement from before as he was starting to eliminate one failed solution after the other in less than ten seconds.

He kept doing so until he started recalling the previously solved riddles and their solutions.

To reach the herbal garden, Felix realized that he had solved 6 riddles without adding the last three.

Six riddles mean six answers. In other meaning, Six words!

Enough to make another riddle!

'We have Truth, Knowledge, Moon, Sun, from, and you.' Felix thought carefully about those words and realized that they weren't enough to make a plausible sentence.

The last preposition and pronoun were obtained from the golden gate that he opened to leave the 1st treasury.

But they weren't enough. He needed more!

There was only one place to get more...The three other riddles!

'Will, travel, and seek.' Felix's eyes started to brighten up slowly after spotting an actual connection between all of those words.

Without wasting time, he merged them into a sentence that totally made sense!

"Will you travel from the moon to the sun to seek truth and knowledge?"

He uttered the question that he found more plausible than other sentences that could be created from it.

Asna was slightly astonished after hearing it, 'So, the key to open the gate is to answer this question that needed to be extracted from those riddles. That's quite devious.'

Felix could only marvel at that researcher planning to create an exquisite test that only those smart enough to think outside of the box could solve.

From the very start, Felix got led by the idea that solving a riddle would open the gate. He did it not only once but twice and thrice!

So, it was to be expected that his mind would be fixated on solving that single riddle in the middle of the golden gate instead of thinking outside of the box.

The fact that one could get unlimited attempts just made it even more worse!

After all, if there was a limit, one should be bound to think carefully and also seek other peculiar answers.

But when given unlimited attempts and that type of puzzle, he would keep wasting his time guessing a term after another!

Meanwhile, the real answer was far from it!

'I refuse to believe that those scums had solved this riddle without wasting days on it.' Felix cursed at the heavily edited documentary that made sure to show them in their best state.

But, he knew that it wasn't time to bother with this.

'Malak, bring me in.'

...

The moment Felix manifested above the squad, they all gave him hopeful looks like they were eying their lord and savior.

'Don't give me those looks.' Felix's eyelids twitched as he hovered towards the gate.

Upon seeing so, the squad scrambled to chase after him.

'Did you solve it boss?' Erik asked bluntly what was in everyone's minds.

'Let's find out.'

Felix smiled faintly and uttered a single word in hieroglyphics...Yes!

Just like a spell was cast, the hieroglyphics on the gate began rearranging themselves under the dumbfounded looks of everyone.

The moment they stopped, the hieroglyphics shone brightly and then followed by the rumbling noises of the gate getting pushed to the wall!

Felix didn't bother to glance inside as his mind was affixed on the previous magical arrangement of hieroglyphics.

'How is that possible and what did those hieroglyphics mean?' Curious, Felix fired off two questions.

'Don't know about the first one but the meaning of the newly created sentence is that knowledge is eternal while riches are fleeting.'

'What did he mean by it?' Felix thought about it for a second before he was interrupted by the gleaming light of the glass that was encasing the heavenly herbal garden.

Although it was the exact version of the two illusions, Felix knew that it was the real thing.

After all, he saw the pirates looting a herbal garden. If the other two were fake, this one was legit!

'Ladies and gentlemen.' Felix extended his hand towards it and said with a pleased smile, 'Go help yourself with one of the oldest herbal gardens in the universe!'

It was time for everyone to be rewarded!