VRMMORPG: The Other World Online

In the dungeon of the Clock Tower, in a room highlighted by Red Flames in wooden torches, a woman clad in Red and white Martial Arts Robe and a intricately designed White mask stared at the piece of Petal in her hand intently.

Cheng Xiu started to search her bag deeper to find more.

"What is that?" San Zhe asked her.

Cheng Xiu handed it to him and then shook the contents of the bag onto the floor.

San Zhe blinked at the velvety texture that he felt and looked down. It was a red rose petal.

"Where did you get this?"

"In the bag."

San Zhe looked at her. "Is this it? Are we supposed to search for this?"

"I don't know, but it is good to give it a try."

"What are we supposed to do with it exactly?" San Zhe asked her.

Cheng Xiu blinked and then turned to Yaksha. "Do you know? If not, can you guess?"

Yaksha stared at the Rose petal for a moment. "Perhaps there are more in the other bags. We can try to find them all."

Cheng Xiu nodded. "That is a logical solution."

The three people went back to searching. It took some more time before they found 20 flower petals.

"Twenty Flames, twenty alcohols and twenty flower petals," Cheng Xiu muttered. "What could it mean?"

San Zhe connected the ends of the petals and tried to recreate the flower it was before with the use of a talisman but there was no effect. "It would seem that this item can't be reused…but there might be another thing that we are not taking into consideration."

Cheng Xiu and San Zhe shared a glance and then turned to the sacks of items that they had found.

"You are thinking too simply," Yaksha said to them.

Cheng Xiu sighed. "Is it what I think it is?"

Yaksha smiled. "What do you think it is?"

"That…are these things supposed to be used together?" she asked.

Yaksha laughed. "There is more than one ways of clearing dungeons."

"But what would happen if we approach this mission the way the Nest was intended."

"It could be dangerous…or it could be very benificial…or even both."

"That was a very ambiguous answer," Cheng Xiu deadpanned.

"I am sorry that you think so."

"What are you two talking about?" San Zhe finally could not hold back and asked.

Cheng Xiu sighed. "That there must be some kind of ritual or spell that we have to do to make the memories erasing spell to be deactivated."

San Zhe stared at her for a moment. Use these items to create a ritual?

"How do we do that?" San Zhe asked, "The only person in our group who might have some luck at Spell casting is Lord Yaksha. What would have happened if we had no one who knew that kind of stuff then? Isn't this beginner's Dungeon a bit too Beginner unfriendly?"

Cheng Xiu gave his words some thought and grimaced. "Maybe there is not even a need for you to be or have a witch. Maybe these things are enough for us to break the spell."

"Is it that simple?" San Zhe asked her in surprise.

"How is it simple? Everything needs a power source…where do you think that the power to create that kind of a ritual will come from when the person who activates the ritual is not a witch?"

San Zhe stared. "Um…"

Yaksha looked at the various torches that surrounded them.

San Zhe saw his action and seemed to have realised a horrible truth. "The Torches! They can be used as a source, the way that the Rat counsellor used before!"

Cheng Xiu nodded. "Exactly. And you know what that means?"

"Killing of innocent NPCs," San Zhe said with a sigh. "Well…we all knew that the Clock Tower dungeons were cruel to the monsters as well. It is just a bit of pity I guess."

Cheng Xiu shook her head. "No. This is more than that. The queens are unnecessarily cruel to her subjects. Almost like she is not doing this to raise the dungeon itself but rather to achieve a personal vendetta. Besides, we can't let the ritual to take place just because it is the obvious solution. We have to make sure that it will indeed stop the spell and not enhance it."

The two men thought over her words and nodded. That did make sense.

"So…what now? I feel like we are overthinking these things though," San Zhe said to her.

"Not overthinking," Yaksha said to him, "But rather thinking in terms of farsightedness."

And that made the two Qiless look at him in confusion.

"Most dungeon games are like chain quests. According to the general setting and the assigned algorithm, each of the player's actions have consequences to the game around them…but these consequences are in levels. You kill a Zombie here at level 1 and meet another Zombie of Level 1 that evolved into level 2 and so on, means that there are not only Level 1 to infinite Zombies but also that many of them have the capability to evolve. The game then reveals a cure, how to procure the cure etc. If you fail the missions you get a certain ending and if you fail you get another….with me so far?"

The two nodded.

"What Little Sela is talking about is not in terms of Level 1 to 5 though…she is talking about the consequences of her actions as though this is a high level mission. And it is. We might stop or trigger hidden conditions that will either help the NPCs to climb faster or slow them down."

The two looked at him with a gaze full of admiration.

"That makes so much sense," San Zhe said in a daze.

So…to do it or not?" San Zhe asked.

Yaksha shrugged.

The other two looked at him with a deadpanned expression. If your final answer was going to be a shrug why did you bother giving the great explanation? Wasn't that just a waste of time?

"Find a book or scrolls or something that can give us information," Cheng Xiu concluded. "Look of anything that mentions blood sacrifices, torches, Red Flames, weird assortment of clothes and accessories and rose petals. Collect them all if there is more than one."

San Zhe nodded and immediately started to sweep through the contents in the twenty bags again, trying to find the few scrolls that he had thown away after he had thought that they were useless.

Cheng Xiu followed after him.

Yaksha stared at the two people for a long time before he joined them as well.

Soon they collected around ten scrolls with the key words.

Cheng Xiu and Yaksha scanned through the materials and figured out which ones were more important.

Seeing their fast moving actions and their almost silent communications, San Zhe sat to the side and just stared.

He knew, intellectually, that Cheng Xiu was a S Ranked genius…but that did not help smooth the slight jealousy that rose in his heart. He could kind of understand Gu Shu in that moment. When you have a friend who has shown to be the 'ideal genius,' it was a bit hard. The insecurities that it could bring and the jealousy that you would feel at their success. Though, Gu Shu's self-centered attitude did make him realise that perhaps she might not have an insecurity but rather a privileged vaunt of view.

If you had an S Rank genius as your best friend and they would not see you get wronged and would always be loyal to you…would you start to think that you were great yourself and that was the only reason that the person was good to you?

San Zhe shivered at that thought. That was a dangerous mentality to have. Though self-confidence was good, it would be bad if you take someone's loyalty and kindness for granted because of it.

And Gu Shu had the signs. Her expecting Cheng Xiu to just forgive her for not even making a call to check on her because of a boy issue showed that she did not value Cheng Xiu's friendship the way that Cheng Xiu valued hers. Perhaps that would change with his own presence though…

His eyes went to Yaksha.

The greatest players of all time in the Other World. He knew that there would always be great people in the game and that the elites of the game would and must be extremely talented people but the way that Yaksha was able to communicate with Cheng Xiu and analyse things with her made San Zhe realise that Lord Yaksha was an S ranked blessed himself. He was very surprised at that. If that was the case, and if Lord Yaksha was only a few years older…then why was there no news about any man of their age having the S ranked potential? What was going on?

"So that is how it is," Cheng Xiu whispered in the end after Yaksha had finished explaining his understanding of the ritual details.

San Zhe looked over curiously.

***

Cheng Xiu and Yaksha talks.

San Zhe: Wow! They are such experts. Let me praise them to earth and heaven.

***

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