The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 501: Breaking the Habitual Thinking Pattern!

“It’s still lacking.”

Watching this scene, the corners of Annan’s mouth raised silently.

Suuankou still has not noticed what the “Sporeggar Mill” nightmare foreshadows.

This may also be a flaw from the player’s perspective.

They still need more experience and training.

They only think about how to overcome the dungeon’s level, not how the dungeon level came about.

The nightmare was the projection of history and the manifestation of obsession.

Those nightmares were almost “real-time,” indicating that the deceased’s obsession was the event itself. The more abstract the nightmare, the more it indicated that the other party was not clear about the nature of his obsession, nor could he tell what he was concerned about.

It was even more so with the children’s nature.

This nightmare filled with childlike innocence must have some sort of mysterious metaphor.

It was not entirely clear why a distorted nightmare came about after a child’s death. However, Annan thought of Elle, whom he had met a while ago, and the ball that Elle gave birth to. He had a hunch that the current nightmare was not a particularly incomprehensible situation.

It was most likely that a deity was involved.

After tracing the details of this nightmare, Annan noticed something difficult to realize from the perspective of a “player”.

For example, the exit point of this dungeon instance.

That egg-faced Cheshire Cat in a gentleman figure once said, “There’s no going back from here” and “It doesn’t matter where you go”.

That was actually a hint.

If the dungeon challenger chose to turn around in the road fork, he could leave this dungeon instance.

That was because it was actually not three paths available to the dungeon challenger, but four paths.

Players’ impression bias made them ignore the “path where they came from” as they encountered the egg-faced figure, which was also the path already under their feet. They would think that if they went back the same way, they would only go back to the Maze Forest.

But, if the players chose to go back when they encountered the egg-faced figure, they could log out of the dungeon instance.

—This logout point was what Suuankou realized.

But at that time, he did not actually want to exit.

According to Annan’s analysis, Suuankou should have been thinking, “since the messenger came from behind once, why can’t there be a second time for a messenger to appear?”

In other words, “If you go back, will there be a second messenger”, or “Can the dead messenger sequence be refreshed?”

If that was possible, it indicated that the “candy house” was indeed the path to the correct solution. So Suuankou had to pass the candy house no matter how much experience he had.

In the end, he did not expect that not only did he not meet the second messenger when he turned back this time. On the contrary, he had been following this road on and on, and there was no end to it. When Suuankou subconsciously turned around, he was kicked out of the nightmare.

This incident was a valid reference to make further inferences.

It meant that in this “reticent” nightmare, any words that could be heard were most likely to be some kind of clues.

The destinations of these three roads should be the same.

That was why the egg-faced gentleman said, “Go wherever you like”.

But these three paths were still different.

For example, Jiu Er arrived at the mill twice through the “magic forest” level. It was also considered the easiest level among the three dungeon challengers currently.

There were many strange-shaped mushrooms in the forest. Of course, there were some poisonous mushrooms. The dungeon challenger had to pick up any three mushrooms to make a pot of mushroom soup, and he could reach the mill.

The proportion of poisonous mushrooms was not high.

Jiu Er was not from the Wild Fungus Province, but she just chose based on her intuition and had not been poisoned. Even on the second time, a “Quick Mushroom” buff was granted to her, which temporarily increased her Agility by 5 points.

If Annan guessed correctly, these three roads would affect only the initial “items”. In other words, it was the initial state when entering “Sporeggar Mill”.

In other words, the Magic Forest was not about “overcoming it without getting poisoned”. Instead, it was about “receiving positive buffs”.

Then, other levels must also carry the same importance.

For example, the candy house.

The messenger would only pick the candy house, and the house was guaranteed to be there when the messenger was alive. Moreover, the candy house’s first and second levels were “more efficient to overcome after having a companion”. The fourth and fifth levels were levels where “the dungeon challenger would die if he had a companion”.

That meant the answer to the candy house was “companion”.

So Annan deduced that bringing the “messenger” to Sporeggar Mill itself was a reward granted by the candy house route!

But how could the players get through the levels with the messenger accompanying them?

If the two move forward together, they would be unable to stop when they reach the level of the torrent without a handrail; they would be thrown into the weight-sensitive room simultaneously, and then the ceiling would fall and smash them into a pulp.

However, what if one of them chose to stay for a while during the second level – the heating room?

In fact, the heating room was the only level that was not fatal.

There was the trap on the first level, the sugar pot on the third level, the ceiling on the fourth level, and the bottomless abyss on the fifth level. However, only the heating room on the second level inflicted continuous damage.

They must have been in a hurry when they got the keys and left. They scrambled to leave the heating room without thinking that the correct solution was “having one of them not leaving”.

One person had to leave first, strip off their equipment, enter the torrent and rush directly into the weight-sensing room. With that done, he could pass through the weight induction room as quickly as possible.

The other person could enter the third level when they reached their limit. When he reached the fourth level, the other person had already reached the fifth level. The weight-sensing room would not be triggered when the two people were not in the same room simultaneously.

All in all, the trap capitalized on habitual thinking patterns.

This was the typical approach of an escape game.

After passing the third and fourth levels, which could “only be overcome when the duo separate”, the person left behind would surely die if the person who left first could not wait.

The “single-plank bridge” would collapse five seconds after being stepped on.

The time set was fixed, and the duration was mind-boggling.

The single-plank bridge was only about two or three meters long. So in terms of the length of the single-plank bridge, five seconds were more than enough.

Suuankou believed this was a rule established to prevent players from “climbing on the single-plank bridge and moving bit by bit slowly”.

However, it was actually because the “five seconds” were designated for [two people].

After all, a brother and sister duo had entered the “candy house” together in the original fairy tale.

“So, what is this room?” Annan narrowed his eyes slightly.

He watched Suuankou arrive from the end of the road into a tall, rough, and even somewhat abstract “house”.

The house was like a kindergartener’s doodling.

There were square windows and an angular roof. The warm-colored walls that could still be kept clean in the forest, and the red wooden door without any decoration.

Suuankou stepped forward cautiously.

He pushed the door lightly and found that the door was not closed tightly. After a gentle push, he opened the door directly.

Annan stumbled into deep thoughts after watching this scene.

Speaking of which, what’s the story of the three little bears again?