Chapter 1385 - One of the Greatest Minds

Puzzles, riddles, mysteries, and other mental challenges were rather normal throughout the multiverse and could often be found within both manmade and natural dungeons alike. Nevermore naturally had several of them as well, which helped the average person prepare to face them.

The solutions to these challenges would often take a while and sometimes require a bit of sacrifice, as it was difficult to confirm whether a theory was correct without testing it first. In scenarios where testing wasn’t possible, the challenge was often easier, or at least didn’t come with too harsh a punishment should one present the wrong solution.

The puzzle presented within the Gate of Abundance was one that allowed for testing, but in this scenario, that didn’t necessarily make it any easier. An initial interpretation of the large mural indicated that to pass through the archway portals at the far end of the hall, one had to walk through while carrying a statue, with the statue having to “make whole” the other statue above the archway.

What exactly this meant was clearly the crux of this particular challenge. It was already common knowledge that the golden statues that every Administrator who entered the Gate of Abundance carried were unique, or at least there were enough variants that the Altmar Empire had no information about two people possessing identical ones.

“Any initial assessment?” another member of the empire asked, making Ishadrin shake his head.

“No, but I believe the other runes above the arch are key. Notice how they are clearly in the same script as what’s on the mural. I predict we’ll have to find corresponding texts, though in what way they need to correspond is still to be solved,” the elf said, continuing to study the statues at the archways.

They all had the same eight arms, carrying different objects, weapons, or golden flowers. Clearly, the golden flowers were significant, as nearly all the statues featured at least one, though there were some exceptions. His allies looked to him with trust, as Ishadrin had always been considered one of the greatest at solving puzzles like this, and admittedly, it was one of his hobbies as a dungeon architect who often designed dungeons with complex challenges.

Right as he was in deep thought, he found himself surprised by a group approaching the many archway portals. They were from the United Tribes, and after a brief discussion, one of them flew forward, holding a statue in his arms.

It cannot be that simple, Ishadrin thought, seeing the golden statue carried by the beastkin. It was one directly corresponding to the archway he was trying to enter, and the elf simply couldn’t imagine a puzzle where one only had to match statues.

Everyone looked on as the first Administrator entered a portal. The second the beastkin made contact with it, he disappeared, and at the same time, the shimmering wall of energy that had been colorless before turned a deep orange.

For a moment, Ishadrin considered whether it truly could have been that simple. The beastkin had clearly been transported somewhere, but the elf didn’t want to reach any conclusions quite yet. Not with the group of beastkin still standing there, yet to make any moves.

He and the others from the Altmar Empire weren’t the only ones watching what they would do next with interest, either. Everyone wanted to know their next move; if they rushed into the archway portals like their ally, it would more or less confirm that all one had to do was match statues.

However, after about a dozen more seconds, they hadn’t made any moves, and the shimmering orange wall of energy at the archway portal slowly started turning colorless once more as the beastkin had grave looks on their faces.

“Dead. Well, eliminated is perhaps a more accurate term, given we’re in a simulation,” a female high elf beside him said, shaking her head. Her karmic mark was a near-infallible method to confirm life or death, and he could only assume she’d placed it on the beastkin before he’d entered the portal.

“Yet he wasn’t eliminated immediately,” Ishadrin noted. “Indicating it isn’t instant death should one go wrong. Perhaps instead, one is forced into a difficult combat scenario or other challenge that the pinnacle elites can still overcome.”

“I would recommend that we aim to solve the puzzle and not gamble,” another elf chuckled. “Hopefully, others will gamble for us, generating at least some intelligence for us to postulate upon.”

“One could only hope, however, I fear others will not be so reckless after witnessing what...” Ishadrin started to say as he trailed off upon noticing a group approaching. So did the other elves, making them all hurry off to the side, so as not to get too close, lest they provoke the ire of this group.

“Is that...?” Ishadrin asked telepathically, not wanting to risk anyone overhearing them after seeing the two humans walking ahead of their group.

“The Chosen of the Malefic Viper, and the Chosen of Aeon Clok,” another elf confirmed what they already knew. “Along with the Chosen of the Boundless Hydra, the Unique Lifeform now known as the Golden Forest King, Wintermaul, the Sylphian Hawk favored by Stormild... and finally, I believe the third human is a Judge from the Court of Shadows. From the same home planet as the two Chosen of Primordials. As for the rest of the elementals, all I know is that some of them come from Wintermaul’s Nevermore party, or are other relatively noteworthy followers of elemental gods.”

Ignoring the final human, this group consisted of individuals towards the top of the Altmar Empire’s list of individuals to avoid a conflict with. Granted, the worm was mostly there, as the creature had been deemed too time- and resource-intensive to deal with, but the others were simply too risky to engage. Especially seeing as four of them were all clearly close allies, having all been part of the same Nevermore party, an experience that often formed lifelong bonds.

One could only speculate why Wintermaul was with this group. It was likely related to the Sylphian Hawk, given her elemental-like nature that the Altmar Empire still didn’t fully grasp. Then again, they also didn’t at all grasp the Chosen of the Malefic One’s abilities as a Harbinger of Primeval Origins.

All the Administrators present in the hall knew to give ample way and avoid getting the attention of this group, who were all approaching the end of the hall, likely to investigate the archway portals and the statues there.

Seeing this, Ishadrin did have to hold back a smile. Admittedly, he was far from as powerful as these individuals, but unfortunately for them, their power wouldn’t be an advantage in this stage of the event. A puzzle like this was a group equalizer, and often one that so-called geniuses struggled with, as while they were geniuses of combat and their prospective professions, that didn’t mean they were skilled in scenarios like this.

Ishadrin kept watching as they all stopped not too far away from the large wall of archway portals. The Chosen of the Malefic Viper stood with a statue in his hand and studied it before looking up at the many archway portals, likely trying to make sense of it all. The surrounding Administrators in his group were silent as he stood there, perhaps contemplating how to get through this stage themselves now that they couldn’t simply fight or kill their way to the next area.

That’s when, suddenly, the Chosen of the Malefic Viper did something odd. He flew up to one of the archway portals roughly in the middle of the wall, making Ishadrin take a deep breath as he expected the human to enter. The statue he was holding was vastly different from the one he was approaching, making one wonder why he’d chosen to fly to this particular archway.

He stood there for a few moments before motioning down towards his group. The third human of the group, the Judge from the Court of Shadows, instantly flew up and landed on the small platform in front of the archway portal, where he stood alongside the Chosen for a moment. The two exchanged a few words, as Ishadrin finally realized what was happening.

They had decided to sacrifice the Judge to test out some kind of theory. Perhaps they’d even paid him, as the Court of Shadows was easily moved by currency; at least the Judge didn’t look reluctant as he took the statue from the Chosen. After giving a final nod to the group below, he walked towards the portal, making Ishadrin shake his head.

Honestly, was it really surprising that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper would sacrifice others from his own homeworld simply to test some minor theory? It really shouldn’t be, seeing who his Patron was, and all Ishadrin could do was feel a tinge of sympathy for the human that had just been casually sacrificed for-

Golden.

Ishadrin’s eyes opened wide as the portal the Judge entered through turned golden, and a second later, the statue above the archway moved. The items in its hands turned into golden energy, making the runes on the archway light up, while the eight hands were pressed together as if in prayer, and finally, the statue’s head also slightly lowered itself.

Even without having it explicitly spelled out, everyone could see that the Judge had clearly entered through the real archway portal. Ishadrin couldn’t comprehend how the Chosen had done it. Had they already solved the puzzle? Was it a fluke? Pure luck? No, perhaps they were all under some basic misunderstanding...

Evidently, others were having similar thoughts, as several Administrators flew toward the archways, each going for archways that held different items than their statues. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for why people headed for the portals they did, besides the fact that none of them had identical statues above them.

Seven Administrators reached their portals a few seconds later, and everyone watched with bated breath as every single portal that had been entered turned red, and to his side, Ishadrin saw the ranger frown and shake her head.

“Instant death,” she muttered, Ishadrin feeling a shiver run down his spine. It appeared that entering a portal with a matching statue at least provided a means of survival, while every other scenario, except entering the right portal, would result in elimination from the simulation.

He also spotted a beastkin flying for the golden portal left by the Judge, expecting the fool to be evaporated or something like that, but instead, he merely appeared to encounter an impassable wall, signifying that the golden portals were closed off. Which made sense, given that their corresponding statue was gone.

Ishadrin and every other Administrator turned their attention to the Chosen of the Malefic Viper again as the human had taken out a new statue and stared at the wall of archways for a few moments before suddenly flying to a new portal. The Unique Lifeform flew up and took the statue from the Chosen before flying through the portal, which once more turned golden as the statue also moved.

By now, it was confirmed that the group with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper had solved the puzzle, though no matter how much Ishadrin tried to find the pattern, he simply couldn’t. Instead, he felt a newfound level of respect as he realized that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper was perhaps far more intelligent than anyone had ever given him credit for... which, again, didn’t it make sense? He was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, after all, one of the greatest minds of the multiverse, and it appeared his Chosen didn’t fall short of his brilliance.

--

Yeah, that feels right, Jake nodded as he stood in front of the portal that didn’t give him an abject sense of doom whenever he considered entering it. He looked at the archway of runes, the statue holding different items, and all the other clues that quite frankly meant fuck-all to him.

Instead of thinking about useless things, Jake motioned for the Sword Saint to join him and enter this portal. Not for any particular reason, he just reckoned the old man wouldn’t like to be left waiting last, and as his fellow Chosen, it was only respectful to let him go early.

The Sword Saint appeared beside him soon after, staring at the archway, the same as Jake had before, shaking his head. “This may sound arrogant, but I’m fairly confident I could find the solution rather quickly, especially now that you have shown us a few correct examples.”

“I don’t doubt you could,” Jake shrugged. “But why bother when you don’t have to? Unless you believe there is an even more correct solution, or that you need to have understood this stage to pass the next, or something like that.”

“Maybe I’m just worried that you’re taking this opportunity to eliminate your competition?” the Sword Saint said with a chuckle. “Would be a brilliant stratagem to make me enter a wrong gate, instantly eliminating me from the Central Domain.”

“If I wanted to eliminate you, I’d do it with an arrow to the temple,” Jake said. “Though, of course, I could just be lying, and I have actually taken inspiration from my Patron and become a real schemer in recent days.”

“Entirely possible,” the Sword Saint said as he took the statue Jake had been holding out for him to grab. “In that case, I will only have myself to blame for falling victim to your brilliant scheme.”

With those words, the Sword Saint stepped into the portal, entirely fooled by Jake’s brilliant strategy of allowing him to enter the next stage so that they could have a duel in a proper setting later on. Jake was truly an evil schemer, comparable to the Malefic Viper himself.

Anyway, with three people successfully on to the next stage courtesy of Jake’s gut feelings, he wasn’t blind to the attention he’d gathered. All the other Administrators were clearly trying to find out how Jake had solved the puzzle, unaware of just how bullshit his Bloodline was in scenarios like this.

Honestly, it was really lucky that the wrong portals led to instant death, as if they didn’t, he wasn’t sure his danger sense would have warned him about entering them. If all going through the wrong portal did was slow one down or something like that, he doubted his intuition would have told him the right way. Or maybe it would have, as in Nevermore, his intuition had allowed him to navigate Minaga’s Labyrinth, nearly entirely relying on his instincts.

When he considered going through a portal with a matching statue, the feeling he got was different from that with the right portal, but it was entirely possible that it was only because he now knew entering it would be “wrong” after seeing that beastkin Administrator try before.

To hide the fact that Jake was deciding entirely based on instincts, he purposefully took a little while between identifying each archway portal while making it look as if the archway runes and all that stuff made any sense to him. As he was acting like he was solving the next gateway based on the statue he was holding, the others decided to fly up to join him, including Wintermaul and his fellow elementals.

Sylphie, who was sitting on top of a now horse-sized Sandy, continued to keep a fair distance from the frost elemental, who fortunately seemed to have enough sense to focus on the task at hand.

“I will not begin to act as if I understand how you solved the puzzle so swiftly, but would you be open to a proposal of assisting me and my kin?” the elemental asked respectfully.

For the Record, Wintermaul also merely thought Jake was a super genius who had solved the puzzle in an instant, and there was no reason to correct him.

Jake did consider rejecting, mainly because he wasn’t a fan of the elemental, but ultimately, he decided to at least be a little smart in this instance and nodded. “Fine, I can help you. But you’ll owe me one.”

Wintermaul looked a bit hesitant for a moment before nodding. “Very well. I shall be in your debt, but only in matters related to the World of the Exalted Prima.”

“That’s fine,” Jake nodded. “Now take out your statues, and I’ll find the right portals for you.”

The Viper had continually reiterated that having other powerful entities owe you favors was one of the most useful things one could have, and while Jake wasn’t sure Wintermaul would ever be of use to him within this system event, it didn’t take much investment to help him.

After Jake was done helping out all the elementals, he also gave Sandy and Sylphie a hand, a bit sad they were splitting up again so soon, but alas, that’s just how this event worked.

When Sylphie was through as the last person, Jake took out one of his own statues, preparing to move on ahead. There were more he recognized throughout the hall, but honestly, he didn’t want to delay himself further by helping out others.

What he hadn’t expected was what would happen when Sylphie was gone, and he was alone. Nearly a dozen Administrators from different factions made their way towards him as several telepathic messages arrived at once, all with the same sentiment.

“Chosen of the Malefic One, if you’d help us, we-“

“On behalf of the Altmar Empire, I-“

“Despite our previous unfortunate encounters, the Holy Church is-“

“We would be honored if-“

Unfortunately for all of them, Jake had also accidentally stumbled upon the archway portal that didn’t make him feel like he was going to die if he entered it, and before any of the many Administrators could reach him or get an answer, Jake disappeared, moving on to the next area within the Palace of Abundance.