Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The coordinates of the participant and the BOSSes were visible to competitors, but as the participant, Lin Huang was unable to see them. He could track neither the Sword Servants’ coordinates nor his own location.
According to the new rules, the map of the Trial was now accessible to all competitors——the participant’s coordinates would be displayed in gold whereas the BOSS’ coordinates would be in red.
However, Lin Huang could not even access his map, let alone check the coordinates. This function was clearly not available to him at all.
He suspected that this might be Great Heaven deliberately raising the difficulty level of his Trial to avoid him defeating all the Sword Servants and finishing the Trial too early. This was perhaps also to make sure that he was not using the Sword Servants to shake off other competitors.
Seeing that he had no luck with the map, his only choice was to have an honest discussion with Warlord to find out how best to track down the Sword Servants.
“This Trial space is extremely restrictive toward Divine Telekinesis. The upper limit of one’s Divine Telekinesis range is merely 1,000 meters. Under the restrictions, in any normal situation, you’d be able to monitor the entire trial space without being noticed as long as you send your surveillance bugs off into the sky to a minimum altitude of 1,000 meters. However, the problem now is that this trial space does not have a sky. The maximum gap between each building is around ten meters or so. It’ll be too easy for your surveillance bugs to be discovered by Sword Servants who have strong senses.”
“Previously, as long as you’ve discovered that your surveillance bugs have gone dead, it’s easy to determine a nearby Sword Servant’s position. It wouldn’t matter if the surveillance bug was exposed and destroyed as well. However, it’s different now. Sword Servants can move about freely, so even if a surveillance bug is destroyed, you wouldn’t be able to detect the Sword Servant’s location anymore. That’s why we have to consider using other detection methods.
“So far I’ve thought of two ways to avoid being detected by a Sword Servant. The first is by using long-range detection, which can directly detect living things within the range of 1,000 meters and even more. Exceeding the Trial space’s restricted Divine Telekinesis detection range in this manner wouldn’t be detected by others. The other option, on the other hand, is much more secretive than the surveillance bug, and the best thing about it is that it can conceal Divine Telekinesis. With that, even when it enters the Divine Telekinesis range of a Sword Servant, they wouldn’t be able to sense it either.
“Now it’s up to you to decide which method to go with unless you have other suggestions.” Lin Huang glanced at Warlord. He was simply laying out his options, but the final decision was still up to Warlord.
“It’s extremely difficult to completely conceal Divine Telekinesis. After all, these Sword Servants were once heavenly god-level powerhouses. Their Divine Telekinesis senses are almost true god-level, but my current concealment method can at most deceive a Virtual God rank-9,” Warlock responded, straightaway rejecting the second option.
“As for long-range detection methods, I actually have some ideas. There are many obstacles in this Trial space that can easily interfere with most detection methods. The best option I can think of at the moment is a type of aura-detecting robot. Their sensing radius goes up to tens of thousands of meters and won’t be hindered by buildings or objects. However, there’s just one disadvantage of this robot’s detection. It can only sense the strength of one’s aura but is unable to directly sense the target. Since Sword Servants can move freely now, it’ll be hard to determine if the sensed target is a Sword Servant or a competitor.”
After listening to Warlord’s comments, Lin Huang thought for a moment before coming up with another idea.
“How about this—since the robot can only sense the strength of one’s aura, you can use your own feelings as a guide to filter them through. You can mark out those that you feel are deadly and dangerous, and you can just ignore those that only have a certain degree of threat.”
The reason behind Lin Huang’s suggestion was that Warlord’s current combat power was at Virtual God rank-8, so going against a Virtual God rank-9 would be no problem at all. However, if he was to encounter a powerhouse from the God Territory’s Virtual God leaderboard, his powers would be no match for them at all. If he had to make note of every competitor of a higher threat level—which would be everyone from the God Territory, the Great Heaven Territory, and all the Sword Servants—the total number of these three groups would already surpass 300.
Lin Huang did not want to waste any time on the competitors because most of them were too weak in his opinion, so he would not learn anything from them even if he dueled them.
If Warlord increased and further enhanced his sensing conditions, he would be able to filter out the competitors. Although there might be a possibility of eliminating some relatively weak Sword Servants, it would not be a bad thing for Lin Huang.
After all, there were only three days left in the trial and the Sword Servants were now mobile. Lin Huang felt that it was most unlikely for him to be able to kill all the remaining Sword Servants.
He had to deal with the powerful Sword Servants first because they put up a better fight, which increased his learning efficiency when dueling with them. Moreover, if time was not on his side, he could simply give up on challenging the weaker Sword Servants. Even if he still had extra time after killing all the powerful Sword Servants, he could then have Warlord expand his filtering conditions and select again so he could go another round.
Warlord immediately understood Lin Huang’s underlying plan.
“Alright then, I’ll screen out the higher threats first, and that should leave us with 104 Sword Servants. I’ll filter another 60 from there, then we should be able to leave all the competitors out so we won’t waste time. Once we’re done with the first 60, I’ll expand the filtering conditions, run through another round of screening, and you can start your second round of challenges.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Lin Huang said with a satisfied nod.
Having obtained Lin Huang’s approval, Warlord released his small robots without hesitation.
The small robots, the size of mosquitoes, flapped their wings and flew away in all directions.
Lin Huang also noticed that the small robots had radar-like heads and they had no features like a normal living creature would have.
“It will take some time to set up these aura-detecting robots. What should we do for the time being? Should we stay away from the other competitors?” Warlord asked.
“No, let’s just find a place and wait. We can’t say no to someone who volunteers themselves as a gift for us to obtain points.” With that, Lin Huang swept his surroundings using Divine Telekinesis and quickly settled on a five-story building.
He leaped into the air and rushed straight toward the five-story building.
Seeing this, Warlord followed suit.
Lin Huang landed steadily with both feet on the top of the five-story building. He looked around before finally settling in a corner, lying down comfortably with his legs crossed.
Soon after he lay down, Lin Huang closed his eyes.
He was not sleeping, but merely closing his eyes to continue absorbing the Sword Dao he had obtained during this period.
With no other choice, Warlord sat down in the other corner, quietly guarding Lin Huang while tracking the small robots.
A few minutes passed but Lin Huang showed no sign of movement.
All the other competitors soon realized that the participant had been stationary for several minutes.
“Is Xie Lin baiting us now? How arrogant!”
“Xie Lin hasn’t moved for five minutes now. No matter how self-confident he is, he can’t possibly think that he can stand alone against several hundred others! Maybe he’s been discovered by someone and is fighting now.”
“Xie Lin’s location is not far from me right now. I don’t care if it’s a trap or something, if I don’t seize this opportunity, I might not have another chance in the future! I’ll go over and have a look, then decide if I want to be involved after I size up the situation!”
…
Lin Huang’s stop attracted the attention of many competitors. Those who were not too far away from him left straightaway and hurried in his direction for fear of missing something important.
