Chapter 331
“Tsk, this makes me uneasy.”
Stepping on the glittering ladder, Wang Lu could not help but lament as he looked back at the light of the exit.
After passing through the maze of the second pass, the team proceeded to the third pass. In this road of champions trial, between each pass, there was a long shining ladder. Wang Lu initially had suspected that the Holy Light Religion people wouldn’t have been able to hold themselves back from interfering, however, even until the end, they didn’t meet that expected interference. It was as if Holy Light Religion ignored Wang Lu’s achievement in going through the two passes.
Although without people interfering meant that his strategy became smoother in its implementation, Wang Lu always felt a bit uneasy.
And at this time, his teammate with the most amazing eyesight, Liu Li, has seen the end of the scenery and happily said, “I see the stone gate. There’s a text written on it! It’s the ancient language of Western Continent. It should read as… military strategy?”
Wang Lu was surprised. “You actually know the ancient language of Western Continent?”
Liu Li foolishly laughed and said, “A few days ago, Aya gave me a dictionary of the ancient language. I have memorized them all!”
“Good, your brain power is indeed the strongest.” Wang Lu commented and at the same time saw the scenery at the end of the path. Ahead of them was a gray stone gate, and indeed, there was a simple and unsophisticated handwriting of the words ‘military strategy’.
“Military strategy… Does that mean the main point of the test is to show the military strategy?”
While saying that, Wang Lu stepped on the last step of the ladder, and then formally stepped on the area in front of the stone gate. As soon as his voice fell, a dull sounding voice rang in front of them.
“That’s right, the main point of this pass is to test your military strategy.”
With that, a wave-like ripple appeared on the surface of the stone gate.
Wang Lu smiled. “Did you also lose the king’s treasure and was punished here to guard the gate?”
That stone gate said, “Me? I lost a bet to the Golden King, and since I can’t pay the gambling bet, I can only come here to accept the punishment.”
Although this stone gate has a dull sound, his character was more lively than the first stone gate, very much a talker.
“I once was a tribal leader, commander of a powerful army that conquered a large piece of territory through numerous victories. Because of these victories, I also won the title of military god. But then came Golden King, whose kingdom and army was far superior than that of mine. I know that I’m not his opponent in a head-on battle, so I made a bet with him. We would have a decisive battle using an army of the same size. If I win, his army would not cross my border forever. If I lose, I would surrender on the spot and be at his mercy. Relying on my ability to command the army, I was sure that I would win if the size of the army of the Golden King was as the same as me… Unfortunately, at the end of the war, I regretfully lost to him and had to surrender. At that time, I heard that Golden King was cruel and heartless, so I thought I would end up dead. But then he said that, as a bastard, my military ability is really rare, so it would be a waste to just kill me. Upon hearing this, I felt that I was given a hope of survival, so I hurriedly expressed my wish to serve him, be his weapon to conquer his enemy. In any case, although I can’t beat Golden King, I can still win against other people. But then Golden King sneered and said that if I could find an enemy worthy of him to subjugate, I could work for him. But, at that time, I knew that my tribe was the only one on the continent who had not surrendered to him.”
Upon hearing this, other people didn’t have much reaction. But, Aya actually asked in surprise, “The last tribe conquered by the Golden King, you’re the barbarian military god Tannu!”
“Oh, I can’t believe someone actually remembers my name!” The stone gate Tannu was very happy. “Hahaha, sure enough, the longer you live, the easier for you to encounter surprises. When I said I was willing to offer him my skill, Golden King said there was no more opponent on the continent worthy to be subjugated by him, so no matter how high my ability was, it was still useless. Therefore, he put me in his Treasure House to guard the pass for him. Although it is a punishment, but by letting me take the shape of a stone gate so that I don’t die for thousands of years, I think it’s more like a reward from the Golden King, hahaha!”
“Well then, let’s get back to the main topic.” Tannu stopped smiling and seriously said, “This pass will test your military strategy ability. To pass this test, you must defeat the opponent by commanding the army that will be provided to you by me. Very simple, right?”
Wang Lu asked, “Very simple? Aren’t you the one who would be our opponent?”
Tannu laughed and said, “Of course it’s me, otherwise, who else? But don’t worry, I’m not a bully here. The army that I will bring is not many, just 400 golden guardians, 30 golden warlocks, and 8 regiment commanders. And me.”
“Then how many is our army?”
“That depends on you,” Tannu said. Then the surface of the stone gate rippled, which then presented a form.
Wang Lu identified the form as a handwriting and somewhat said in surprise, “Golden Guardian, 10 logistic points; Golden Warlock, 20 logistic points; Regiment commander, 50 logistic points. In addition, there are archers, chariots, cavalries, each with different logistic points… Do you want to assign us logistic points and let us set our own army according to this?”
Tannu said, “Correct. The core of the army is logistic and supplies. Strong logistic capacity can support huge military operation.”
Wang Lu nodded. “This design is reasonable. In simple terms, this is similar to a population limit. You have 400 Golden Guardians, 30 Warlocks, and 8 Regiment Commanders, which amount to 5000 logistic points? So how much do we have?”
Tannu said, “It’s also up to you. Here, look.”
With that, a stone table rose in front of the stone gate. On it, there was a board with many small squares, two tokens and a few dices.
Wang Lu took a careful look and saw that there were winding squares, one square connected to each other to form a ring. Different digits were written in most of the squares, some were painted with a single color. In addition to the token pieces and dices, there were several stacks of cards, as well as some exquisitely small building models. Upon seeing these, Wang Lu’s complexion could not help but greatly change. “This, this is…”
Tannu smiled. “When I was still alive, this is a very popular game in the whole continent. It’s called operation simulation game!”
“Simulation your ass, this is obviously a monopoly!” Wang Lu pointed at the board. “Aren’t you supposed to buy land, collect tax, and defeat the opponent through various events and props?”
Tannu was pleasantly surprised. “Unexpectedly, a foreigner from eastern place actually know this game!”
“… Forget it. I’ll just take it as a beautiful coincidence. The world is big, so there is bound to be several pain in the ass people who ended up designing such a game. In short, you want me to play monopoly with you and my logistic points will be decided by the end settlement points?”
Tannu said, “Correct. Therefore, the number of logistic points depend on yourself. Of course, I will not be a bully, so even if you end up losing everything in this operation simulation game, I will still give you at least 5000 logistic points to ensure parity with my army. And on that basis, if you have the ability to win 20000 points within 100 rounds, then you can have ten times as many as my strength. But I doubt that you can do it! Pro tip, you have to defend yourself as hard as you can! Protect your 5000 points capital without losing it! Hahaha!”
Apparently, this former tribal military god has a very high confidence in his ability to play the game.
“Interesting, you even dare to show off your game ability in front of me.” Wang Lu laughed and then walked towards the stone table. “Since you’re bent on seeking death, then I’ll give it to you.”
—
Two hours later.
“How-how is this possible!”
The voice of the stone gate Tannu that was filled with shock reverberated in that narrow space.
On the board, Wang Lu’s red selection had occupied more than ninety percent of the area, while Tannu’s blue was stuck in a corner, surrounded by the red. Just now, with the roll of the dices, his piece landed on the red square, thus his last line of hope disappeared.
Wang Lu gently sighed and then rose up, and sprinkled the chips symbolizing the money on the board.
“It’s game over on the ninety-third round, and I have successfully obtained 25000 points. Humph, unexpectedly, you, this barbarian military god, are quite tenacious. You actually hold on until the very last.”
“This-this is impossible.” Tannu’s voice trembled as he was still in the state of disbelief. As the guardian of this pass, he had been lonely for thousands of years. His only amusement was playing this game with few other gatekeepers! Ten thousand years period was enough to hone his skill on this game, however, with the passage of time, more and more gatekeepers died, thus he was unable to display his brilliant skill in this game, feeling extremely lonely.
More than eighty years ago, he accidentally met with a group of challengers from outside. At that time, Tannu was wild with joy. Therefore, he generously gave them ten attempts. Actually, he just wanted to play a few more games. However, the best result of those challengers was to keep their five thousand original points! Then, by virtue of the same army strength and a richer and more reasonable class combination, they narrowly defeated Tannu.
Therefore, Tannu never thought that he would lose, or even lose miserably! If he had not been a stone gate at this time, perhaps his head would blow on the spot! Luckily, he got no head.
“What method did you use?”
Wang Lu laughed. “The board game is yours, the tokens are yours, the dices are also yours, so what method can I use??” With that, he pointed at the board game and asked a question, “How do you describe my skill in this game?”
Tannu very reluctantly said, “… Far better than me.”
Wang Lu said, “Then logically, there are only two possibilities. First, I was too strong that in this game, my skill has already reached the divine realm, and no one can defeat me. The second is, I’m not that strong, it’s you who are too weak.”
“I’m too weak?” Tannu immediately felt that he was being despised at. “Don’t go too far!”
“Don’t go too far? It’s actually not that often I play a game similar to your operation simulation. My interest in that game is not too strong, so I’m not good at it at all. Moreover, there are a lot of different rules between your game and the one that I played years ago, so I need time to adapt. Even so, I still managed to overwhelmingly defeat you. Is that really because I’m too strong? Speaking of which, where exactly did your confidence in playing this game come from?”
Tannu somewhat dejectedly said, “Before you, I haven’t been defeated for ten thousand years.”
“Then there are two possibilities. First, you are too strong; second, your opponents are too weak. If you objectively think about it, who were those that accompanied you playing this game all these years? Were those masters of this game collected by Golden King from all over the continent? Or a group of ordinary people who were not interested in this game but through soft and hard tactic forced by you to play? Oh, and were the last team who came here good at playing this game?”
“But I’ve been here for more than ten thousand years!”
Wang Lu sighed. “If you put two men in a cell, even in one hundred thousand years, they won’t be able to conceive any child. So obviously, time is not everything. Moreover, by playing with a group of people with mediocre skill, the more you play, the more your skill will worsen. Your main skill is the military god, not playing a board game. If you put too much energy into something that is not your forte, you would be like the Knight King who made a fool of herself by obsessing in the dark art of cuisine.”
The Knight King who was obsessed in the dark art of cuisine angrily called out, “Hey!”