Ke Mi screamed as if her lungs were bursting and her eyes began to glow red. She punched her zither a few times and subsequently the side of the truck. At this point, her hand instinctively moved to play the zither, which caused both Mr Hot and Ms Cold to gradually fall under her control with each pluck of the zither.
“Wow, I have never seen this particular scene actually play out before. This is the first time someone has triggered this scene.” Jin watched on closely as Ke Mi went into a fit of rage. He knew that all of the rage was scripted in the Dungeon Maker but he still felt it was exceedingly realistic. The scripts were based on the choices that Jin had selected. The Dungeon Maker would use the scenes to script appropriate actions for the monsters to take.
Jin was not too worried about how Ke Mi was reacting. She was not acting either as she was really in pain during the process of this particular dungeon. Jin remembered that the System had told him that all these were just copies of the real monsters. Anything positive or negative they learnt from this particular instance would merely be summarised as experience for them. Once, he was so worried that he went to their home instance to ask how they were.
Despite his care, the monsters thought that Jin was overreacting since everything was fine. Eventually, he found out that the System did not ‘export’ the whole experience to the monsters. It merely played it back to them, much like watching a first person movie, so that the monsters could learn what had gone wrong or what could be improved. Jin could only sigh at the marvels of the System. If only the System was capable of rewind time so that Jin could make multiple choices and pick the best one among them. However, life did not work that way and he could only accept the choice he had made and move forth.
“Princess, this is bad.” Ku Wai did not bother with the wheelchair anymore and immediately carried her to safety. But was there really a safe place around them? They were in the middle of a clearing that was deep in the jungle. The ancient treant was in control of the environment and there was no one other than themselves.
“So the rest of the Enlightened troupe was blood contracted by the Treant too?” Yang Ling was confused by the sudden turn of events. “So why did the Treant make the Sand Witch attack the troupe? To confuse us?” Yang Ling could not help but question the weirdness of this particular instance. Everything was done to confuse them.
“If you think about the dungeon instance name… Don’t you think it makes some sense?” Ku Wai, who was usually a muscle-head, tried to voice out his own comprehension of this particular dungeon.
“What do you mean?” Yang Ling could not wrap her head around it as Ku Wai dodged a fire blast attack from Mr Hot. She then saw that the wyrm ants were carrying Ke Mi on their back while climbing out of the crashed lorry.
“That Treant is the conductor, the lead, or something like that. The rest of the musical troupe are all playing their roles to drag us into the scene. We were being played by them all along.” Ku Wai used his battered shield claw to block an ice shard but it broke upon impact.
“So you are saying that we were just playing to their tune?” Yang Ling questioned as Ku Wai raced through the thickets.
“Mmhm. This jungle is their theatre, we are their audience, and this situation was all set up as part of the play. We assumed we were going to see a proper play when we ourselves were actually the unwilling actors.” Ku Wai said.
“What a terrible play this is.” Yang Ling shook her head and started to grasp onto what Ku Wai was trying to say. Suddenly, roots appeared in front of them, causing them to be trapped.
Not only that, they were being grabbed by Shu and were brought back to the clearing. The roots were merciless as the cultivators were dragged back against the ground, causing cuts and wounds to ravage their bodies. Ku Wai was able to tough it out but not Yang Ling due to her loss of cultivation.
However, being an ex-cultivator, Yang Ling was still able to endure the pain as they were being dragged back. Upon the clearing, they saw that Sandy, Ke Mi, Mr Hot and Ms Cold were all waiting for them.
“That was not nice of you to just run away. We have barely begun!” Shu said as he subsequently wrapped the entire clearing in a barrier of vines and roots, making it nearly impossible for the duo to escape again. He later let go of them a distance off the ground, letting them plummet. Ku Wai though, now free from the grasp of Shu, spun in mid air to save Yang Ling before she landed flat on the ground.
“It’s okay, Ku Wai. I can still handle myself.” She smiled at the worried Ku Wai and stared at Shu. “If you want a fight, we will give you one. Besides, I am dying to experience some action with my new gadget.” Yang Ling figured there was no other way other than fighting it out with the Treant and the other mind controlled monsters.
“Are you sure princess? Did you not say that it’s still in the prototype stage?” Ku Wai worriedly stared at her.
“That was why we looked for Jin, right? Jin! I know you are looking at us through this dungeon. Do you want to know why I want a dungeon? I will show it to you. Not many know the existence of this. In fact, you are the among the first to know about it. That is how much I am willing to trust you so that we can have a partnership!” Yang Ling shouted as she took out a suitcase from her storage ring.
To fully utilise the powers of storage, Yang Ling had kept a storage suitcase in her storage ring, mainly because her storage ring did not have the capacity to contain the items that were in that particular storage suitcase.
“Very well, I want to see what you have. It better live up to what you have hyped it up to be! I am going to allow you to prepare to your fullest before we start our fight, purely for entertainment purposes!” Shu lauded at Yang Ling’s efforts to fight against them.
Yang Ling looked at Ku Wai with a serious gaze and he nodded his head. “This princess is too stubborn for her own good. Hmm, but I did swear that I would do anything for her… no matter what.” Ku Wai placed his palm on the storage suitcase and the digital lock on the suitcase unlocked with a sophisticated click.
Inside the suitcase was an exoskeleton… though that was overstating it by quite a lot. It was essentially just a metal chest frame with piston-laden harnesses. Yang Ling had aptly named it Gearbox, which was printed on the frame. Ku Wai wore it upon his shoulders and the harnesses tightened immediately the moment it detected Ku Wai’s body. The exoskeleton frame was meant to increase the capabilities of a human by detecting the movement of the user’s muscles and then amplify those movements.
Each punch could potentially become two times deadlier as the frame was able to amplify the speed and strength of the user. The frame was made of a highly durable metal, although it was still inferior to Jin’s Bam and Boo by a long shot. That said, it was still able to endure attacks and damage like the shield claw that Ku Wai had used before it was broken.
Ku Wai did not only equip the Gearbox frame but also attached one of its accessories, the Titan Fists, as Ku Wai had dubbed them. The metallic gauntlets were installed into the frame and he slammed his Titan Fists together.
In terms of power, they were definitely more powerful than a standard Power Fist like the one Xue Ping used and when equipped with the Gearbox frame, their speed and ferocity would be enhanced, allowing Ku Wai to break through power levels of Grade 6 despite only being a Grade 5 cultivator, which was an amazing feat, since no weapons had ever been able to do that, with the exception of certain Epic or Legend levels of inscription, but they were all owned by mysterious beings and lost to the mundane world.
“This prototype had made by the Royal Zodiac Tiger Sect’s Military Armament Research Facility using the blueprint and schematics supplied by yours truly.” Yang Ling spoke proudly as Ku Wai banged his fists together once more, ready to fight.
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