Three Towers Game

Chapter 420 The Pen Master's Pen

Surviving here earns you a score of 60, but if you answer the questions well enough, you might earn even more points.

Wen Xishu had already begun writing furiously, but before that, he did have several plans in mind.

For example: inner thoughts description.

The idea that she was captured by the fiery Reed was just like a pair of star-crossed lovers, one of them bursting with intense jealousy and wanting to control the other.

Yes, those flames weren't real flames, but rather the flames of jealousy and desire within Rhett, symbolizing his inner fervor and passion.

Writing it this way will most likely solidify his friendship with Red.

However, considering that writing it in such a way would be too homoerotic, and that what he wrote would come true, his friendship might end up in Chengdu, he decisively rejected the idea.

Wen Xishu quickly came up with another writing style: deconstructionism, using deconstructionism to deconstruct the relationships between characters.

This is an oil painting titled "Trust." It employs strong symbolism. The figure of Red in the painting is not himself, but a symbol of 'manipulated anger,' and the black brand on his neck is a visual symbol of 'external will.'

Flames occupy 70% of the image, but these are not realistic flames; rather, they foreshadow the destructive energy of "emotional breakdown." The "I" in the center of the image is not the real Wen Xishu, but an artistic representation of an "innocent victim."

The true theme of the painting is not fratricide, but a righteous soul fighting a life-or-death struggle against some kind of external mental manipulation.

The painter's brushstrokes show a slight hesitation at the corner of Red's eye, hinting at his inner struggle.

But the moment Wen Xishu put pen to paper, he considered a possibility: the Reid in the painting was not the real person, and the "I" in the painting was not the real Wen Xishu.

These two sentences, if written out, are likely to be rejected by the rules and judged as false descriptions.

After all, the angry figure in the painting is undoubtedly Red, and the victim in the painting is undoubtedly himself.

Therefore, it must be restored.

Therefore, Wen Xishu provided the final solution for the first painting.

"The Wenxi Tree in the painting is invaded by an evil spirit. At this moment, Red is given a powerful force by the great master of the brush. He bursts out in anger, like the god of fire descending. He grabs the Wenxi Tree by the throat, and a huge flame overflows from his body. But those flames are sacred and bright. They are the justice in Red's heart."

The evil spirit tried to invade Red as well, and Red's expression became distorted, with black marks appearing around his neck, but to no avail.

Under the influence of this enormous sacred flame, the evil spirit finally could not withstand it, and a wisp of black smoke was exhaled from Wen Xishu's mouth, just as a priest, facing a person possessed by an evil spirit, used absolute holiness to complete the exorcism.

The painting is titled "Trust," which means that Wen Xishu never resisted throughout the process, always trusting Reid and believing that Reid could help him.

Put pen to paper.

In that instant, a dark shadow on the blackboard shot towards Wen Xishu like an arrow.

Wen Xishu was startled and instinctively tried to dodge, but he quickly realized that he didn't need to.

This is being fulfilled.

The moment you put pen to paper, what you write becomes a real event.

At that moment, Reed also saw an evil spirit bending down on the Wenxi Tree.

[Your partner is quite the opportunist, congratulations, Reed. I will grant you a power you don't possess. From now on, your flames will include not only the physical flames that burn everything, but also a repelling holy flame capable of defending against mental attacks. Ah, I didn't want to do this, but he did write these things down reasonably, and they do indeed conform to the rules of wishing, not exceeding my capabilities, nor conflicting with the methods I left behind.]

In Bizhen, the pen master is omnipotent.

He himself must accept the rules he sets.

Wen Xishu had also considered that Reid would unleash his fury and destroy all the monsters in Bizhen with powerful flames.

However, writing it this way may trigger certain defense mechanisms.

Just like some authors will add patches at the beginning to prevent being reported, if I were the author, I would definitely add some patches before granting author privileges to the test takers to prevent their papers from being too flowery.

It won't threaten the foundation of the town.

This is also why Wen Xishu's writing is relatively conservative.

At this moment, Wen Xishu was being choked by Reid, and the invasion of evil spirits caused many negative emotions to arise in Wen Xishu's heart.

However, the warm flames soon brought him back to his senses, and the evil spirit, using his body, let out a shrill cry.

In the end, everything went just as he had described, and Red banished the evil spirit.

As the flames subsided, the "classmates" around Red began to groan in pain; clearly, they too belonged to the "evil spirits."

However, the teacher, whose silhouette was formed by the shadows of the words, seemed unconcerned about these things.

Reed said in surprise:
"Holy crap, I've mastered a new ability! My flames can even exorcise demons! Bro, you've passed this first painting, right?"

Wen Xishu nodded:

"Go Reed, try to take this skill out of Pen Town."

Reid was overjoyed. If his flames still had such power to resist mental invasion, his status in Lion City would be elevated even further.

All of this was thanks to Wen Xishu. Reid increasingly felt that such a person shouldn't be in Wind City; he should be in Lion City.

He will likely become Lord Leon's bodyguard.

Reid didn't say much, after all, Wen Xishu still had two hurdles to overcome.

Wen Xishu has now proven one thing—

You can use the pen of the pen master to increase your trump cards.

The pen master is the god of Pen Town.

His attention returned to the second painting, the most dangerous one.

There are two difficulties.

First, you fill your exam paper with all sorts of ways you'll die... Once you actually write them down, they'll come true.

Secondly, one's own shadow will become a thorn, piercing through oneself.

However, Wen Xishu soon realized something.

Why is the setting a library?

Yes, the second image depicts an infinitely extending library with no visible boundaries.

Do these libraries really exist?

Even within the Three Towers Corporation, the enormous library was not so boundless.

Wen Xishu had a clue in his mind.

He started with a description of the environment.

"Everyone has a library in their heart, which is boundless and contains all the things that a person has experienced in their life."

"This is the most vulnerable part of a person's heart. Once someone invades this place, they can plant certain ideas here."

"It's like a dream thief going to a safe deep inside a dream and leaving a tampered suicide note."

At this point, Wen Xishu paused briefly, waited a few seconds, and found no problems.

No restrictions were triggered, and there was no notification that my description violated any rules.

He knew that the library was already completed.

In the author's view, this environment is reasonably constructed.

The advantage of location is already in our hands.

So Wen Xishu continued writing:
"Even mental intrusion cannot easily reach this place, but the possibility of being invaded still exists. For example, one could invade oneself."

"So at this moment, there is an intruder sitting in the library, but he looks exactly like Wen Xishu. That is Wen Xishu. To be precise, that is Wen Xishu's inner weakness. That is his inner defense mechanism that makes him give up and fear difficulties when faced with setbacks."

"The dangers of Pen Town brought this mechanism to life, and it came to the library. Because it is itself, it cannot be identified as an outsider."

"He is frantically writing about all sorts of real ways to die, and he will put it somewhere in the library so that the real Wen Xishu will have a momentary cognitive dissonance and write down his own ways of dying on the exam paper."

"But just as the author of the pen granted Reid the power to resist the flames of evil spirits, he would also grant the adventurer Wen Xishu a means of doing so. In this test, Wen Xishu gained a powerful sense of danger and was able to save himself in the weakest points of his consciousness and mental defenses." "He created a shadow, a loyal defender of the library. As the intruder frantically wrote down various deaths, it was already locked onto by the loyal shadow. In the end, it was pierced by the shadow, and the library's crisis quietly dissipated."

"Of course, this also prevents Wen Xishu from ever having the thought of ending his own life. When he tries to break the cycle and end his adventure with death, this behavior will be rejected by the shadow. Eventually, the shadow will shatter this thought, and Wen Xishu will be forever trapped in the cycle of survival, never to die."

Put pen to paper.

This time, nothing happened in the classroom.

But Wen Xishu heard a prompt in his mind.

[Alright, alright, to resist the invasion of the Outer Gods, I gave almost the same answer as you. So, I'll bestow this ability upon you. Congratulations, you've gained the ability to guard the realm of memories. Now, when you are mentally invaded, you'll have an automatic defense mechanism that the intruder is unaware of.]

But you have to survive to get these things out of here.

Wen Xishu breathed a sigh of relief. This time, the Wen Xishu in the painting was no longer Wen Xishu, but it was still Wen Xishu, which meant that Wen Xishu was not judged to have violated the rules.

After all, a scene change always needs a reasonable reason.

He knew that the second painting was already finished.

Next is the third painting.

The third painting – Oblivion. Image:
Wen Xishu stood alone in a void, his body gradually becoming transparent. At his feet lay scattered pens and the last question he had written down—

"who am I?"

Because Wen Xishu had already gained the ability to resist memory tampering and intrusion in the second painting—

This means that Wen Xishu is unable to create any other scenes at this moment.

His description of the second painting blocked some paths for his third painting.

This caused Wen Xishu to experience a slight writer's block for a short while.

Wen Xishu wondered if this was a question the author himself wanted to know?
Once you become the author of all the stories, yet find yourself trapped within them, will you begin to ponder certain questions?

who am I?
Wen Xishu began to think about something.

He felt it was time to connect everything that had come before.

"A heartwarming and healing story... has turned into a bizarre and evil one."

"He can write books on all kinds of topics. He's practically... practically a time traveler, a plagiarist."

“This is clearly a haunted tower, but somehow, people like Reid from Lion City, people from some prison, even the Dragon Xia people from the underground fortress, and the Xiong Su people from Project Sky Dome can all gather here.”

Wen Xishu remembered the very first call to duty.

"I'm hiding in the tower, too afraid to leave. Even the King of Hell can't find me."

And that piece of information found in the gourmet's study—

I tried it, and it's true, that pen... has been imbued with a strange power. But when I tried having other people write on it, it didn't exhibit its power.

Only I, with that pen, could create such a house. I wrote that fearsome character, Hannibal. I gave him a vampire butler.

These clues began to connect.

Wen Xishu thought of a certain possibility.

"The one who creates...legends."

The essence of legends is simply stories, but these stories have been passed down because they were created by the most skilled storytellers of that era.

In Wenxi Tree's world, almost everyone accepts the status of Hogwarts in Western magic.

As a result, in addition to the main story, there are various spin-off series. The more works of this kind there are, the deeper the foundation of this story becomes.

Just as people believe that the world of Lord of the Rings exists, with elves, dwarves, and a human king... this has led to many games and films.

Wen Xishu had no doubt that these things would one day become legends.

But the source of all these things is stories.

Therefore, it can almost be said that the bestselling authors are able to construct worlds that people are willing to identify with and immerse themselves in.

And the power of the tower seems to make the legend a reality.

This is what Aries has been searching for: she collects various legends and seeks out the bearers of those legends.

But what if the legendary creators of this world still exist?

The pen mentioned earlier is perhaps only wielded by the most bestselling authors.

Perhaps this person has realized his own power, and that is why he hides in the tower, afraid to leave, lest he be found.

He made all the heartwarming stories eerie, so that these eerie things could protect him, and so that these things could be completely transformed.

But at the same time, he is also screening adventurers.

He may yearn to break free from some kind of destiny.

Thinking of this, Wen Xishu decided to go all out. He decided to write all these things down, including his understanding of the Three Pagodas and his analysis of the author.

“I have written countless stories and built many worlds. I am the bestselling author in the world. I have succeeded, but I never thought that when the apocalypse came, those worlds might actually come to pass. I have also become a kind of… tool.”

“I am that pen, the pen that the gods tried to use to construct legends.”

“I was afraid, because I could not become the master of the world because of this. On the contrary, my power was being targeted by people who were capable of destroying me, and I knew what that meant.”

“I had to hide in the pen-town I created. I made the pen-town unrecognizable so that I could be protected from being found. I hid myself in a place of obsession that the gods could not find, but I was trapped inside as a result.”

"In the eyes of countless adventurers, what they see is the real world..."

"But all I see is emptiness within countless cracks in the world. I've been hiding here for a very, very long time, and I don't know how much longer will pass. Suddenly, I can't remember who I am. Am I an adventurer, or the master of this town?"

"I want to give adventurers a hint; I guide them to death, and I also guide them to me..."

"Perhaps in the end, I hope I can leave this place."

Put pen to paper.

At this moment, Wen Xishu truly wrote as if he were the author, and his descriptions indeed matched the scene, questioning himself in the void about who he was.

However, he did not mention his own name throughout the entire conversation, only referring to himself as "I".

I am who I am.

However, a first-person description might evoke certain associations in the author.

Sure enough, Wen Xishu suddenly heard a new voice in his mind.

That was a sigh.

[Ugh... I hate people like you who, when doing reading comprehension, have a mind a million times more complex than the author themselves when writing the original text.]

Indeed, Wen Xishu is that kind of person.

Perhaps many authors write a description of an environment without any emotional connection whatsoever; it's just something that suddenly came to mind. It has nothing to do with their childhood, their past, or their feelings.

But the combination of words themselves creates a desire to interpret them. You can't simply ignore the possibility of generating that kind of thought just because the author didn't have it at the time.

In that case, the three-dimensional beauty of words will never be appreciated.

Of course, Wen Xishu didn't think he was over-interpreting things; these were the clues he had come up with when they were put together.

Reid's heart raced. He watched Wen Xishu put down his pen and asked cautiously:

"Bro, did you pass?"

Wen Xishu neither nodded nor shook his head:
"Next, we either clear the customs early or get our boxed lunches early."

(End of this chapter)