CHAPTER 606: CHAPTER 528: HALF-LIFE

There’s no time to think why a town with technology stuck in the 20th century would have such advanced war machines like stone gargoyles.

The players filed into the shop, and the cowboy-hat-wearing owner slammed the door shut, flipping the light switch to provide illumination.

This middle-aged man, appearing under the Information Integration Glasses as "Robinson," had a translucent form similar to the jump rope girl, but he seemed to possess higher mobility, able to turn on the lights.

Mian Yue surveyed the shop, its shelves filled with an array of goods: candies, snacks, tobacco, alcohol, cold beverages, mechanical lubricant, household items, and even ice cream in the cooler.

The attention of Li Cheng and the others was focused on Reyes—he was hit in the chest by the beam fired from a stone gargoyle during the previous battle.

Though the skin-tight tattoo provided a Kevlar-fiber-like bulletproof effect preventing penetration, the impact spread throughout his entire chest and abdomen, ribs breaking excessively, and after coughing up ink and a small amount of gold powder, he fell unconscious.

"Get him up."

Wanli Sealed Blade wiped the sweat from his forehead, took out a bottle of Life Potion, and roughly poured it into Reyes’s mouth. A strange thing happened: Reyes’s surface wounds rapidly healed, his eyes opened slowly, but his gaze was murky and devoid of consciousness.

Wanli Sealed Blade pondered for a moment, waved his fingers in front of Reyes’s eyes, and even tried playing suggestive photos on his phone, yet failed to awaken him.

"Damn, Brother Blade, you’re so trendy, even into suggestive bloggers?" Li Cheng raised an eyebrow, "I bet you still use QuickPlayer to watch Teacher Bu○lan."

"I’m not that old!" Brother Xiao Dao rolled his eyes, then tried pouring various potions into Reyes’s mouth.

Li Cheng also inserted a USB into the back of Reyes’s neck using an Assembly Puppet, attempting to run a hard drive repair program, but there was still no response.

"Stop trying, he’s already dead."

The cowboy-hat-wearing Robinson took another toothpick from his shirt pocket to chew on, saying indifferently, "So, are you Will’s friends?"

"I am, they are not."

Li Cheng quickly responded, given the unclear world view, especially the relationship between the so-called Will and Robinson, it was wiser to diversify the investment.

He asked, "Have you seen where Will is? And what do you mean by saying my friend is dead?"

Robinson casually replied, "Didn’t Will go to the City Hall castle to continue tinkering with some invention?"

The players exchanged brief glances, the castle had only one living being, the astronaut, so that was his name.

Robinson said matter-of-factly, "As for your friend, a living person who stops breathing for ten seconds will die, and he stopped his breath for thirty seconds; of course, he’s dead."

Claudia couldn’t help but ask, "In this world, are there no cases of revival after respiratory arrest?"

"What are you talking about? Everyone knows that if breathing stops for more than thirty seconds, even if revived, they’ll only be a vegetable."

Robinson looked at Claudia with puzzlement, "Those stone gargoyles are Will’s inventions; just don’t blindly approach the castle, and there won’t be danger.

You can stay for a while but should be on your way unless you want to buy something."

"Got any matcha ice cream?" Wanli Sealed Blade had already anticipated this part, immediately pulled out his wallet, taking out a large amount of currency.

The world view of the Script Task was varied; to navigate smoothly, players prepared various currencies: copper coins, broken silver, drachma silver coins, marks, rubles, Gold Yuan, food tickets, US dollars,

almost bringing along the stone mill currency used by the indigenous people of Yap Island.

"I’m already dead, what’s the point of giving me money. How about this, you run an errand to the church for me and bring back a pair of new lungs I reserved long ago but never picked up."

Robinson thought of something and pointed at the Hundred Feet in the fish tank, "Also, leave a person here to fix up the place, patch the roof, repair the outer wall, and so on."

The players exchanged glances, good heavens, reserving new lungs, is this a church or a Myanmar North scam area?

Facing the dubious NPC in life form, it’s often better to go along with the flow. Wanli Sealed Blade said smoothly, "No problem helping you run to the church for lungs, but are you sure about having him help? Ahem, my brother here isn’t very handy."

Hundred Feet is not just handy, he’s only feet, no hands.

"What are you talking about, he’s perfectly normal?" Robinson blinked in confusion, unable to distinguish between the non-human and human detail from an NPC’s perspective, nor sense the abnormalities of the Transcendents.

"Then it’s settled." Wanli Sealed Blade, expression unchanged, leaned close to the door, peering out through the lock hole, as the stone gargoyles circled in the air before returning to the castle to perch again on the tower spires, motionless.

"Leave it to me, it’s not a problem. Hurry to the church."

Hundred Feet used Telekinesis to shake the air, winking at Mushroom King and Mian Yue, indicating clearly that he would stay in the shop to gather intelligence from Robinson, could communicate remotely if there was danger, using the Otherworld player’s communication method.

"Let’s set off then. Oh, one last thing."

Brother Xiao Dao stared into the shop owner’s eyes, probing, "Why do we feel increasingly tired in this area?"

This question seemed to trigger a switch, Robinson’s expression turned cold, he straightened up, hid his face in the shadow of the shelves, calmly saying, "It’s not you becoming tired, but the universe’s end-time approaching.

The silence becomes universal, all returns to, balance."

He said, drawing his face out from the shadow, switched to another toothpick, no longer responding to any player inquiries.

"..."

With many doubts in mind, the players left Hundred Feet and the vegetative Reyes in the shop, quickly stepping onto the street.

Gray Rain, Tombstone, Griffin located in another area of the Land of Beautiful Dreams. Hundred Feet and Reyes stayed in the shop, leaving only Li Cheng, Xiao Dao, Claudia, Mushroom King, and Mian Yue, the five Transcendents.

"Summarize current intelligence, Pifu your mission item Astronaut, and Mushroom King’s mission item Ice Axe, both final destinations are here. If nothing unexpected happens, my mission item, the Four-dimensional Box, very possibly needs to be used in the Land of Beautiful Dreams. The whole incident carries a sense of pre-arrangement."

Wanli Sealed Blade, leading the way, quickly said, "The core of all this lies with the astronaut Will..."

"It’s tritium." Li Cheng suddenly stopped, quickly lifted his head, "It’s tritium."

"What?" Claudia didn’t catch on, Li Cheng snapped his fingers, detached the action camera again, rolling back the footage to the beginning of the mission when the human players encountered the Bronze Gate.

"Remember the Bronze Gate password was Fibonacci sequence, even if they’re aliens, as long as they understand math, they can unlock the password by rotating the Compass."

Li Cheng spoke rapidly, "At that time, above the password Compass were three illustrations, radiating fifty varied rays from a point outward;

a blue dot with a circle following behind, the circle having one red and two green, altogether three dots inside;

a rectangular coordinate system, first quadrant featuring a declining oblique curve, though lacking specific coordinates;

it was then we didn’t understand these three images, right? Just until now, the stone gargoyle statues using the Alpha Python’s metal, their beam attacks, nuclear fusion engines, are all identical. The material for nuclear fusion engines is helium-3."

Wanli Sealed Blade’s eyes widened, "You’re saying..."

"The second illustration speaks of tritium, hydrogen’s radioactive isotope with one proton, two neutrons in its nucleus, surrounded by one electron."

The third illustration, charting the curve in the coordinate system, refers to tritium undergoing β decay generating helium-3, with a half-life of 12.43 years.

As for helium-3, it’s the raw material for nuclear fusion."

Li Cheng said impassively, "It is also, both the energy source for the Alpha Python and stone gargoyles.

In other words, the Alpha Mechanical Python wasn’t drawn by any of our players, its target all along, was the astronaut Will."