Xiu summoned the nightmare and rode off with Du Ze. The nightmare neighed, lifted its hooves and ran towards the statue’s location.
When they arrived at the statue, nearly everyone was already there. As Du Ze dismounted from the back of the nightmare, his legs gave way and he almost tripped and fell. Due to the undead magic that Xiu cast on him, he cannot feel pain but his hands and feet are very limp and soft.
Xiu held Du Ze in his arms, letting Du Ze lean on him. Because of the Lich’s death aura, no one dared to ask the gloomy Lich what was wrong with Du Ze. Xiu’s dark eyes scanned the entire place. When he saw the clearly intoxicated first Mage God holding a jug of wine, the soul flames in Xiu’s eyes shook slightly.
“Young man, we meet again. Little Honey told me what happened, hic, earlier.” Antonio shook his jug and sigh with an unknown emotion: “I did not think you would be willing to save these little bastards …”
The words of the first Mage God seemed to contain other meanings. Xiu’s pale face was gloomy under the dim light. Antonio and Xiu looked at each other; the bleary eyes locked on the dark eyes. “They gave you their tickets, didn’t they?”
Xiu did not avoid Antonio’s eyes. He slowly nodded: “Yes.”
The atmosphere suddenly became quite serious. Antonio was still looking at Xiu in the eyes while the gold mercenary team stood in the center, glancing back and forth with bewilderment at the two. In the middle of this volatile situation, Antonio suddenly drank a few mouthfuls of wine and sighed heavily: “Then there’s no way.”
The first Mage God stretched out his hand. Muir and the others were on guard but when they saw a black flame appear on Antonio’s palm, they relaxed.
“Take this old man with you, too.”
Du Ze watched as Xiu silently received Antonio’s ticket, then glanced at the gold mercenary team and was enlightened.
Moe Lord: The plan succeeded.
With Antonio’s help they didn’t need to search the books for the answers or steal other people’s checkpoints. Antonio was like a living encyclopedia; it seemed as though there were no questions that he couldn’t answer. A group of people were powerleveled by the first Mage God and easily reached the last checkpoint. This time it was not a sphinx statue that greeted them, but rather a real sphinx. The beast was standing on the path but behind him was a void. It had the face of a beautiful woman. When it saw Du Ze and the others, it shook its wings and changed its posture so that it was sitting down.
“This is the last question and you only have one chance to answer.” The beast with the lion’s body and a human face said: “What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?”
Du Ze almost fell down in surprise. The last question was this simple! Who hasn’t heard of that famous Greek myth? Everyone knows that the answer is “man.”
“I’ve never heard of this kind of spirit beast …” Rachel sighed: “I’m too ignorant.”
“I think we need a detailed spirit beast encyclopedia now,” Enoch said gloomily.
Honey pulled on Antonio’s robe. “Does grandpa know what that is?”
“Little Honey, grandpa doesn’t know everything.” Antonio reluctantly opened the jug, drank a mouthful and sank into meditation.
Seeing everyone’s reaction, the silly, cute reader realized that he was not on Earth. If one didn’t know the answer beforehand, the riddle is really difficult. When he first heard this question, he couldn’t answer it at all.
****! He has not had the benefit of spoilers for a long time!
“The answer is man.”
Everyone looked at Du Ze. The black-haired young man, was pressing on his headphones and his expressionless face was strangely calm.
“I think the answer is human.”
“You made the right choice.”
The monster with a lion’s body and a human face showed them a beautiful smile then burst into a golden powder which formed a long road into the void. Most of the people present did not know how to react but Enoch scratched head and asked Du Ze curiously: “Hey! Dude, how did you come up with the answer?”
Seeing that Xiu was also looking at him, Du Ze wanted to explain but as he was about to speak, he stopped and broke into a cold sweat – he seems to have underestimated the problem.
The sphinx said he “made the right choice” rather than “your answer is correct.” The riddle referred to birth, maturity, and old age. On Earth, the only answer to this question is “man” but this is a different world where the beastkin, elf, and gnome are all possible answers to this question. The answer to the riddle is therefore no longer unique so you need to pick the one that is the most satisfying to the sphinx …?
When he saw that the cold-faced Du Ze did not answer, Enoch just shrugged. He ran in front of the group, as was his habit, and told everyone to hurry up.
“Let’s go, let’s go. I think it’s time to get out of this shithole. This thief’s hunch is always accurate!”
Because in front of us is the BOSS, young man.
The path created by the golden powder was slowly dissipating. Thus, Du Ze and the others were again pushed onwards by the Tower of God. Du Ze was still thinking of that problem while he walked on the golden road. He’s lucky that he selected the best answer, what would be the result if you chose another race as the answer?
— He isn’t one of us; his heart will certainly be different.
That was when Du Ze finally realized that this was the human race’s trial.
There were numerous clues: the story of Edward, the way the tower climbers fought each other, the setting of a library, the sphinx that symbolizes wisdom and knowledge, and, most obviously, the final riddle, they all pointed to the race whose characteristics could be summarized by this sentence:
[The Humans gave away their tolerance, received learning.]
The golden road’s terminus was a medium-sized reading room. A man with long brown hair sat in a comfortable chair reading a book. Beside him was a long, slender wooden staff; the crystal ball at its top was emitting a soft light.
“There are three things in this world that others cannot steal. One is to the food that is already in one’s stomach after eating it, second is is the book in one’s brain that one has read, third is the dream hidden in one’s heart.” With some regret, the man closed the book and looked at them. “But my dream has been stripped away from me.”
The man did not look old but his manner and the way he was reading made him look like he had experienced many vicissitudes.
“Welcome to the Temple of Wisdom, I am Soth, Lord Ruler of the gods of the human race.”
****! It really was the trial of the human race. Du Ze looked at the god sitting on his chair who seemed to have no intention of fighting them. Based on the previous checkpoints, the BOSS fight should be a test of riddles and knowledge?
Translator’s Note:
Ahahahahaha! Here we have the aftermath of the previous “harmonious health education” activity. Poor Du Ze’s body is completely limp now and the others (except for Ariel) obviously know what they those two were up to but they were too intimidated by the Lich to even joke about it. I bet if Xiu was in gnome form the others would be like: *wink wink* *nudge nudge* “Oh, I see you two were busy *cough* …. doing a lot of …. *wink* research.”
I notice not a lot of people left comments on the last chapter at the Ainushi website. Leave a comment here if you like. What did you think of the Lich Xiu X Du Ze scene? Good? Bad? Disappointing? Awesome? Would you like a popsicle?
