No health bar? You call this stunningly beautiful NPC sickly?

Mu Zhixi found this inexplicable exchange utterly boring.

She led the dragon girl across the fountain and headed straight for the huge carved stone wall on the side of the courtyard.

The stone wall is over ten meters high, and its surface is covered with densely packed silver-gray characters. In the very center is a mechanism lock made of nine interlocking gears, which turn on their own every few seconds.

As the gears rotate, the text on the entire stone wall will change position accordingly.

Ji Xinghui quickly adjusted her mindset and took the initiative to catch up.

Since the probe has failed, we should immediately change our strategy and proactively provide valuable intelligence.

In bizarre games, people who are too concerned with saving face usually don't live long.

"I just checked the air in the atrium. The alchemist has mixed a slow-acting alchemical toxin into the ventilation system."

Ji Xinghui explained clearly, "The first hour will only make people feel tired, after two hours it will start to erode the spirit, and after three hours the body and soul will be metallized at the same time."

"The rule of hide-and-seek is that the game won't end as long as the 'hide-and-seek' hasn't found everyone."

"But if we can't get into the underground control room within the time limit and shut down the puppet's energy and toxin cycle, even if we find an absolutely safe hiding place, we're just waiting to die."

Gu Wenzhou also walked to the stone wall, and the old ghost's voice rang in his mind, "He's right, something's wrong with this thing."

"How so?"

"These gears are not ordinary mechanisms. Each layer corresponds to a star orbit change. The nine-layer structure is interconnected, and turning any one of them will change the arrangement of the other eight layers."

After observing for a moment, Gu Wenzhou summarized and shared the old man's guess: "The text on the wall seems to be part of the unlocking conditions. They correspond to the trajectory of ancient stars. If we want to solve it by exhaustive search, the number of permutations and combinations would be at least in the tens of thousands."

Ji Xinghui glanced at him in surprise. "Not bad, and the number of mistakes should be limited."

The two players, known for their strategic thinking, unusually refrained from direct confrontation, as the puzzle was indeed tricky and none of the players present dared to make any rash moves.

Those who survive to reach high-star dungeons are certainly not all fools. They chose to follow Mu Zhixi because they had already collected enough factual evidence, rather than simply being intimidated by a few impressive words.

Faced with an unknown mechanism, no one would dare to touch it carelessly.

Only Mu Zhixi stood in front of the stone wall, falling into a long silence. It wasn't because the lock was complicated, but because she recognized the so-called ancient characters on the wall.

Not only do we know each other, we're practically inseparable.

This is a set of characters she created herself when she was bored in her previous life.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't even qualify as a language.

To add a touch of mystery to the world she created, she designed thirty-seven basic characters, one hundred and twenty complex structures, and a set of seemingly extremely complicated grammatical rules.

To give the calligraphy a sophisticated feel, she incorporated elements such as star trails, wings, pupils, and moon phases into her strokes.

As a result, she gave up in less than three months because it was too difficult to write.

Later, she casually tucked this text into her background setting book, noting it as: "[The language of the ancient gods of the early era, which only gods and their followers can read.]"

Unexpectedly, after the fake was made real, it actually became a language.

Mu Zhixi's feelings were somewhat complicated for a moment.

She avoided the characters that were merely distractions as the gears turned, pieced together the truly coherent text, and then she saw the first sentence.

[It's unlocked.]

Mu Zhixi: "..."

She checked again and confirmed that it was indeed unlocked.

The nine gears, star trails, and punishments for mistakes outside are all just for show; what's written on the door is the real way to open it.

This design style looks so familiar, it's full of the wicked fun she had when she created hidden Easter eggs in her past life.

Mu Zhixi continued reading and found a line of very faint additional text following the sentence "unlocked".

Enjoy your game, my dear sister.

Mu Zhixi: "???"

Sister, who is she?

She never wrote this sentence when she created this set of texts in her previous life; at least, she had no recollection of ever writing it.

This was not something an alchemist could add on their own, because the text used a special honorific structure that she had never revealed before, and theoretically, only she, the creator of this script, could understand it.

Is this another instance of someone taking matters into their own hands and adding to the setting after creating something fake?

Or perhaps it was left by the guy who used to throw stars into the real world and is now inexplicably ignoring her.

Mu Zhixi remained silent for a little longer than usual.

Neither Ji Xinghui nor Gu Wenzhou urged her; they both observed her intently.

Unfortunately, Bai Yu covered his eyes, and his overly refined and indifferent face still showed no change what could be called emotion.

She simply stood there quietly, her long golden hair falling down beside her pale face. Sunlight streamed through the dome, casting a soft glow on her already jade-like skin.

This posture doesn't resemble someone solving a puzzle; rather, it's like a deity from a distant era suddenly spotting a forgotten trace of the past in the dust.

Ji Xinghui noticed that Mu Zhixi's fingertips paused for a moment in mid-air.

That's all; he wasn't foolish enough to interpret it as hesitation.

On the contrary, this suggests that the writing on the wall is likely related to her. Perhaps those ancient symbols, which they considered unsolvable puzzles, were simply a message from an old friend from a distant past to her.

"Is that so?" Mu Zhixi shook her head. To everyone's ears, the beauty's words seemed noticeably more lively.

Mu Zhixi didn't say what she understood, nor did she intend to explain, mainly because she herself didn't understand it.

The next second—"Click."

A soft sound echoed through the courtyard, and Ji Xinghui's pupils contracted slightly as he subconsciously looked towards the stone wall.

The gears that made everyone feel like they were facing a formidable enemy retracted inward layer by layer, revealing an ordinary metal push plate behind them.

The beauty seemed to have anticipated this scene, and placed her hand on it, giving it a gentle push.

"Rumble~" The huge carved stone wall slowly slid open to both sides, revealing a deep staircase leading underground.

The audience was silent.

Ji Xinghui stared at the push plate for several seconds.

Then he suddenly realized that it wasn't a lock at all.

Gu Wenzhou also realized, "Those gears, star trails, and punishment mechanisms are all illusions. The real answer has always been written on the wall."

The problem was that no one present recognized the writing.

They could identify it as some kind of ancient language, but they couldn't understand its most basic meaning. Even if they found a player specializing in ancient scripts, they might not be able to complete the translation within three hours.

This door, perhaps from the very beginning, was only intended to be opened to a certain being.

Gu Wenzhou looked at Mu Zhixi's back and said, "It wasn't Your Majesty who broke through this barrier; it was the person who built this barrier who never intended to keep her outside."

Ji Xinghui did not refute it, because compared to her casually solving the unsolvable mechanism, this conclusion was obviously more reasonable and more frightening.

The ancient inscriptions on the wall, the true method of opening hidden beneath the complex structure, and Mu Zhixi's decisive action all form a complete chain of evidence.

Cheng Xiaocheng seemed to understand only part of what she was saying, but that didn't stop her from quickly grasping the key points.

"I understand!"

She clapped her hands, her eyes shining brightly. "Isn't this just Sister Ran going home? Of course, she doesn't need a key when she goes home!"

Gu Wenzhou: "..."

Although it's too straightforward, it doesn't seem to have any problems.

So, after all that research into the paradoxical lock, the real answer was that they accidentally stumbled into the heavenly realm?

No, the important thing is that only Miss Number One can understand the writing on the door!

[Didn't you notice she paused for a moment just now? There's probably other content written on that wall, in a script that even top-ranked players can't decipher. How did she understand it at a glance?]

[Number 11's deduction is reasonable, but chilling upon closer inspection. Why would the underground core area of ​​the Seven Star Dungeon use a script that only Miss Number One can understand?]

Is it possible that this instance, which is an instance for us, is merely a relic left behind by some former subordinate for her?

[That pause Miss Number One made just now really gave me the feeling of seeing the handwriting of an old friend in the ruins.]