Volume 2 Chapter 11: Entering the Imperial Mausoleum (2)
In the next three days, the profiteer and I were busy with this and that. The profiteer was responsible for making the most thorough logistical preparations, while I was mainly collecting information. However, I did get something valuable. I found an article titled "Three Explorations into the Emperor's Mausoleum" on an online game forum. It introduced the author's experience of entering the Emperor's Mausoleum three times during the internal test. Although there was no map drawn, it gave a relatively detailed introduction to the correct direction of the maze, the distribution of monsters inside, and the characteristics of various traps. I studied this valuable information over and over again, and also sent it to Lonely and others so that everyone could have a preliminary understanding of the Emperor's Mausoleum.
On Thursday night, I contacted all the friends who were going to the Emperor's Mausoleum and told them to rest the next day and have enough energy when the action started at night. Zhou Zhenghuan really worked hard and had already reached level 29 and a half. As a result, I didn't go to bed as usual that night. I stayed up all night with him and pushed him to level 30. Wanxing also said that she was almost at level 33, so she only needed to practice for another morning on Friday, so that she could rest in the afternoon and accumulate energy. Haha, the last few people on the leaderboard are level 32 now. It seems that Wanxing has a chance to make the list!
On Friday morning, I didn't go to level up, but made the final preparations before the action with the profiteer, striving for perfection. After logging off and having lunch at noon, I had a good sleep...
At 7:00 pm, the agreed time has arrived! Everyone arrived on time. Hehe, our team is not very large, but we are very strong!
I, Bloody Sky, am ranked first in the fantasy level and a level 39 knight.
Hacker (Awei), level 34 Taoist priest, ranked 56th on the list.
Qianqian Wanxing, level 33 thief, ranked 99th on the list.
Lonely Watcher, level 32 Warrior; Fishing in the Snow, level 32 Swordsman; Fatty, level 32 Dark Mage; Fish Lover, level 32 Priest; Blue Crystal, level 31 Magician; Thousand Mountain Bird, level 31 Archer; Stone Feather, level 31 Warlock; Bad Son, level 31 Demon Kunpeng Bird; Bu San, level 32 Caster; Zhou Zhenghuan, level 30 Pharmacist. Haha, it seems that everyone has worked very hard these days! Otherwise, we would never level up so fast.
Surprisingly, Liu Badao leveled up very quickly and reached level 25! This speed was no less than mine at the time, and he was also qualified to participate in the operation!
It has been 22 days since Fantasy was launched, and eight batches of accounts have been released, with nearly 150 million players. However, the average level of all players is no more than 25, and those above level 30 are rare. I believe that it would be difficult for even a large Internet cafe or a professional player alliance to organize a team with an average level of 32.
Now that everyone is here, let’s set out towards our dreams!
With great vigor and confidence, we crossed the Yalu River... Oh, that's right, we crossed the Liuhua River...
The Emperor's Mausoleum is located at the foot of Jishan Mountain, more than 80 kilometers east of Shenghua City. From a distance, it is just a big mound of earth protruding from the ground. When we walked to the front of the tomb, we found that there was a small garden here. A road that can accommodate five horses running side by side leads directly to the tomb gate. On both sides of the road are hundreds of animal statues of dragons, phoenixes, turtles, unicorns, lions, tigers, elephants, leopards, etc. All of them are carved from a whole piece of white marble, more than three meters high, and look majestic, majestic, and extremely spectacular. Unfortunately, we were in a hurry to complete the task, and it was almost dark when we arrived at the Emperor's Mausoleum, so we were not in the mood to appreciate it.
At the end of the road, there is a pair of sky-supporting steles, with two finely carved golden dragons coiled around them, as if guarding the mausoleum. Behind the steles is the tomb door, which is made of fine iron and painted in vermilion, with 72 copper nails on it. It is so heavy that it takes a lot of effort to enter.
Well, based on the internal test experience, this door can be broken if 10 high-attack warriors above level 50 hack at it for more than an hour; or if a senior mechanic made a catapult or siege cannon and fired a hundred or eighty shots at it, it would be almost broken. But if we plan to use brute force to attack it, I'm afraid it will take until tomorrow morning, right?
But we came prepared, how could I not think of this? During the internal test, by coincidence, a player who was very fond of studying the I Ching Bagua and Heluo studies in real life came to the Emperor's Mausoleum and saw that the copper nails on the door were not arranged neatly in the order of eight vertical and nine horizontal, but rather looked like an ancient star map. After careful deduction, it was found that it contained the innate Yi numbers and the corresponding movement of the stars. As long as the copper nails were knocked in a certain order, the mechanism could be triggered and the tomb door would open automatically. However, this order is not fixed, but changes constantly according to time. Only through very complex formula calculations can the trick be found. Fortunately, this point was also mentioned in the article "Three Explorations into the Emperor's Mausoleum". The author had to attack hard the first two times. After hearing about this, he specifically found the master of metaphysics to ask for advice, figured out the calculation method, and followed the law for the third time. Sure enough, the tomb door was easily opened. I must say that I am very grateful to the author, who selflessly contributed his experience, including detailed calculation formulas.
Since the action time has been set in advance, I have naturally calculated the order of knocking on the doors based on the formula. The only thing to worry about is that the game company must know that thousands of people have discovered this cheating method during the internal test. Will they cancel this setting, or change the calculation formula?
As it was already dark, the copper nails on the door were not clear, so I asked everyone to light torches to illuminate the tomb door . Just as I was about to go forward and knock on the nails, a voice suddenly came over: "Great! There's someone! I finally found someone!"
Oh my god, what does this mean?
Turning back, a figure ran out from the woods on the side of the road. Huh? So short? And holding a big axe? Ha, that must be a dwarf warrior!
The man panted over to us, and sure enough, he was a dwarf with a big red beard, but he didn't look very old (beard is a characteristic of dwarves, dwarves at the age of 10 will start to grow beards! Female players cannot choose dwarves). He was panting with fatigue, haha, probably because his agility was too low and he couldn't run.
“Ha…ha…I finally see someone…”
Okay, man, we are human, but you don't have to get so excited. Haven't you seen other players in the game?
"Hello! My name is Ask the Heart, Not the Road, and I'm a dwarf warrior!" He straightened his chest and introduced himself with an effort, looking very proud.
"Hello, brother, what do you want from us?"
"Well, this..." The dwarf stammered, "I'm lost, but I can't use the scroll to return to the city. I've been wandering in the wild for two days and haven't met anyone. I just saw a fire over here, so I came over to take a look. I want to ask which direction is the city?"
Everyone fainted... There is such a person? Although you can't use the return scroll if you go beyond 50 kilometers of the city, how could you not pay attention to the direction after running so far? Besides, the fantasy is very realistic. It is easy to judge the approximate direction based on the water flow, sunrise, night stars, etc. If he can get lost in the fantasy, then he must be a directionally challenged person in reality! Well, he got the wrong name. He must often need to ask for directions.
“Ahem… ahem…” I managed to hold back my laughter and said, “Brother, don’t you know that this is the Emperor’s Mausoleum? If you keep walking west from here, you can return to Shenghua City. In fact, if you bring a return scroll, you can use it after you walk more than 30 kilometers.”
"Ah! Is that so, brother, thank you so much."
The dwarf thanked us politely, said goodbye, and returned to the city. But... why did he walk towards Jishan, that is, the east?
"Hey! Hey! Brother Wenxin, you're going the wrong way! It's west, this direction!"
The dwarf turned back with a sad face and said depressedly: "Oh... It's over, I can't get back to the city, I... I never know the direction! I have to walk more than 30 kilometers, I don't know where I will end up!"
Sweating profusely... Could he be the reincarnation of some legendary heavenly master?
After a moment of silence, I said, "If you want to go back to the city, there are two ways. One is to find a monster to kill you, and then you can naturally respawn in the city, but you will lose some experience and some equipment."
The dwarf looked lovingly at the big axe in his hand that was emitting a faint golden light, then shook his head firmly.
"Then you can only find someone to take you back... But we have something to do here, and we don't have time to take you now. What we have to do may take a long time, and we might even die. You see..."
"Oh, brother, what are you going to do? Otherwise, I will go with you, maybe I can help a little, and you can take me back to the city after I'm done, okay?"
Haha, actually, I said that because I wanted to get him to join the operation. Just by looking at the dark gold axe in his hand, I knew that he was definitely a good hand in close combat. Now that he took the initiative to ask to join, it couldn't be better. I got a mercenary for free!
After I told Wenxinbuwenlu about our mission, he was very interested and promised that he would have enough time to complete the trip to the imperial mausoleum with us. After learning that we could establish a gang after completing the mission, he excitedly asked me if I could accept him into the gang. Haha, of course I agreed. It was a good sign. Before the gang was established, I already had a younger brother!
With the addition of Wenxin, everyone was even happier. He was a level 32 dwarf warrior, and the type that went for the blood bull route. His physique was increased a lot, and with the dwarf's racial correction, his blood and defense were not much different from mine, a level 39 knight who had drunk monkey wine!
Well, a lot of time has been wasted. We have to open the door quickly. Otherwise, if the time is missed, the order of knocking on the door will have to be recalculated.
I walked over and hammered the copper nails in the order I had planned… No response? Did I do it wrong? I hammered again, but it still didn’t work. Check the time. Haven’t I missed it yet?
It's broken, the company must have changed the settings.
Although this situation is depressing, it is also expected. There is no other way, let's go and chop! However, except for me, the level is relatively low, and I don't know when to chop.
Just as I was about to start, I suddenly had an idea. Logically, the company would not cancel this setting. It is a very interesting element and a test for players. Otherwise, there would be no need to add this design to the beta version. It's just that since some players have discovered the secret and announced it, this setting has lost its meaning. However, as long as the calculation formula is changed, it can still be a good design.
But if the formula is changed randomly, then basically no one will be able to find it out. Besides, this involves the deduction of the principles of Yi and the numbers of the hexagrams, which is a very professional subject and cannot be made up at random.
So the formula itself should not have changed much... maybe some parameter condition has changed? If we can find this condition, can we still deduce the correct way to open the door?
I shared my idea with everyone, and everyone thought it made sense. After all, it was too troublesome to break into the door by force. Not only would it waste time, but it would also result in damage to equipment... So everyone started racking their brains, hoping to find the key.
However, there was no clue to this problem. Everyone pondered for nearly half an hour and came up with several ideas, but they were all rejected. They were all meaningless conditions!
Lonely was impatient, and got angry. He said angrily: "Damn it, forget about it, let's just do it! We've wasted so much time. If we had started earlier, we could have cut a hole in the door!"
Blue Crystal suddenly clapped her hands and said, "Ha! Time! I understand, the key is time! Thanks to my husband for reminding me!"
Everyone didn't understand for a moment, but the bad boy applauded and said, "That's right, it must be the time! The formula in the internal beta test is calculated based on the Gregorian calendar, right? In the public beta test, when you first log into the game, the voice-over said 'It is now the first day of the first month of the first year of Fantasy', so the time parameter in this formula should be entered in the Fantasy calendar!"
Everyone suddenly realized and nodded in approval. Indeed, this possibility was too great!
Unfortunately, there is no calculator in Fantasy, so I had to use a gun as a pen and the ground as paper to calculate immediately. Actually, there is nothing else to do, just replace June 22, 2045 AD in the original formula with January 22, 0001 in Fantasy. It's just that the formula is complicated and it takes a long time to calculate.
After more than ten minutes, I finally got the data. I rushed to the door impatiently, took a deep breath, raised my hand and knocked. Heaven and earth, all the gods, please bless us. If I am wrong again, we will have to chop down the door and do hard labor!
Huh... My prayers worked. After a rumbling sound, the tomb door automatically opened to both sides, and the emperor's mausoleum was open to us!
A group of 15 people walked one after another and entered the mysterious emperor's tomb.
